Jeff Mach's Blog, page 5

Snorri, Her Axe, and Her Husband

Once there was a Dwarf named Snorri who was very unusual.

When other Dwarves were engaged in healthily digging ever-deeper towards the promised Center of All Things, growing paler and paler but spending eighty per cent of their waking hours down in the mines, Snorri sometimes went to the surface. AND she spent something more like seventy per cent of her waking hours in the mines.It was unusual, but, of course, her compatriots honored her right to behave as she would, and if she were truly willing to reduce the likelihood that her hand would be the first to hold some never-seen gem, some long-lost artifact, some fragment of map or mine-lore… well, such was her right, and her loss, frankly.Now, Snorri had the usual number of axes for a Dwarf of about a hundred, which was five. She had her little baby teething axe; her first axe for her first day of splitting Kobold skulls in the mine; her family axe for doing chores and fighting her brother; her graduation axe, which was a pick on one side (a bit of a hint from her family, that one)… and of course, her every-day axe, which was a lovely, lovely thing indeed.You never really know the real heft of an axe until it’s been blooded. Snorri could actually speak a bit of Orc (yet another of her peculiarities; usually only ambassadors and traders learned anything beyond, “DEATH FROM BELOW!” in most dialects of Orcish. Snorri had some good Orc friends from a reasonably neutral tribe. Nevertheless, she’d split a few Orcish skulls in her young adulthood, and the axe proved to be everything we hope our axes might be: well-balanced, sharp and ready to hold an edge, shiny but not flashy, firmly connected to the long, heavy handle.It was a fine axe.Now, Snorri also had a husband. We presume that he looked a certain way and did certain things, but we didn’t pay attention. Did we mention that the axe was two-sided? The other side was a a smooth stone, counterbalancing the blade. It also had a lovely leather strap which allowed one to carry it easily. The husband…was…handsome? He was probably handsome.The husband often cooked meals for Snorri, and cleaned the cave, and worked the mines alongside her. She was said to be very fond of him. On their anniversary, she even considered staying home instead of heading out to split Hob-Goblin skulls. She didn’t, of course, but she considered it.

Snorri was a bad person. Don’t be like Snorri.

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The Under-Sea

In lands above, we Dwarves do well
With sweat and labor of our hands
Our need for gold we often quell
With restless travel thorough the lands.

Yet in this we troubled
And for this, some sometimes mock
We’ll travel distances twice doubled
To avoid the merest loch

Say uplandlings, “What’s the matter?
Are you all afraid to bathe?
Or worried your clothes would scatter
From the ill weave of their lathe?”

And laugh, we laugh it off, sure.
What sane thing other to do?
Better, better keep their minds pure
Of the Sea of Durrinù.

The Sea, the Sea the Sea the Sea,
The Sea, color of fear
The water is pure,
But all is shadow as you draw near

A sea of ink, a sea of ink
A sea of ink, you’re sure
As if the spasmic splash and dying sink
Of some Kraken impure.

Yet:

Dip your hand inside the water,
(If your hand you somewise hate
In the poisedly clear water
Born of dark tectonic plate

It’s cold. Bring up a handful
Of water; so clear, so dip
And understand, full
(If no fish your hand doth clip)

The water’s pure, so the dark
The dark you sea
Is the darkness the darkness
Of the deep underground Sea.

For ’twas the Dwarves who found it,
Who found the sea of Durrinù.
(And may the Dark confound it,
For that’s all we can do:)

(A dark as Dark, a Darkling Dark,
An ebon alter slab
Pure shadow is simple and stark,
Blackness as sharp as a stab.

The Sea is endlessly strange,
And what dwells far within
Out of mind’s farthest range,
In the vortex’s howling din

What lives in the waters far below,
What in the waters dies,
Is something Dwarves almost know
And their Shamans fear and despise.

And this is why, when surface-drawn
Dwarves will be near no lake or stream,
When surface light becomes dawn,
No matter how safe the water might seem,

All Dwarven kin these waters shun
And from bottles bathe or drink
Though surface waters won’t hurt them
Their thoughts might slowly sink…

__

“It’s a little-known fact, but Unicorns are something like 20% paint, and their horns are stolen exclusively from endangered species.”
― Jeff Mach, There and Never, Ever Back Again

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The post The Under-Sea appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

Some Lesser-Known Hobbit Meals

The standard Hobbit meals, we are told, are Breakfast, Second Breakfast , Elevenses, Luncheon, Afternoon Tea, Dinner, and Supper.

Really?

No Second Luncheon? No Midnight Snack?

Tolkien, you clearly don’t know your Hobbits.

In point of fact, Hobbits have only one meal.

Panhobbitaea.

One gigantic meal encompassing all–

Wait, this is a terrible idea. I think I’ll just go to bed.

 yours truly, 

  Jeff Mach

 

p.s. (I don’t ACTUALLY think this is a terrible idea. I might finish writing it. I’m just really tired right now. You Have Been Warned.)

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Leviathan (Lightly)

Leviathan,
Leviathan,
Knock all you want;
I won’t let you in.

Eyes the size of city-states,
Without friends or loves or mates.
Singular and yet complete,
Unloved, unseen, unheard, with arms replete.

Accuse it of gigantism
(Or underwater onanism)
In depths unseen by any eyes,
From which may It never, ever rise,

(Like Cthulhu it lies, dreaming, dead;
You could fit a city on its head.

(Like Dagon, cold and swimming,
With no hair in need of triming.

(Like the monster of Loch Ness,
Though 137 times larger,
I guess.)

Leviathan, Leviathan,
Please leave me alone
And just eat my kin.

The post Leviathan (Lightly) appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

Dwarven Chest Song

We chest our mines with boughs of wood
With what we cannot carve from stone
The wood supports our mines
As the flesh is held by bone

Would that bone could be stone
And mines never cave
But we work with what we have
And we save what we can save.

Wood and bone, wood and bone,
Wood and bone inside
Fragile and animal,
Deeply applied

Bone and wood, bone and wood,
Bone and wood underall
Without these humble supports
Everything would fall.

The bulwarks hold the mine,
And our hearts hold ourselves
Save Technology for Humans
And Magic for Elves

We use both, in subtle craft,
And give both embrace
But only our hearts
Are the strength of our race.

Wood and bone, wood and bone,
Wood and bone inside
Fragile and animal,
Deeply applied

Bone and wood, bone and wood,
Bone and wood underall
Without these humble supports
Everything would fall.

The post Dwarven Chest Song appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

Dwarven Halls

In halls of stone, in halls of stone,
Our picks our quills, the Mine our tome,
With our own work, we build our World,
From rock and stone, we build our home.

In halls of stone, through layered rock,
We live whole lives needing no Sun
There’s gold which gleams, and fire of forge
The light of Day? No, we need none.

They say we Dwarves from surface came
For so we must, for so we must
They say we Dwarves the Sun disdained
And in its shine, we did not trust.

But know this well, but know this well,
And in your mind this knowledge lock:
We from no surface came; we’re from instead
Stone and rock, stone and rock.

From the Stone, we take our strength
For the Stone endures
You can carve it and shape it,
But the Stone is never yours.

From the Rock, we take our hearts,
Steady and strong, and yet as well
Dig down deep, to deepest rock
And strange things indeed do deep down dwell.

Through deep rock, we tunnel well
And there is meaning to our moil
Our lives we carve, as well as rock,
With the spirit of our toil.

In halls of stone, in halls of stone,
We build the World we make our own.

__

“It’s a little-known fact, but Unicorns are something like 20% paint, and their horns are stolen exclusively from endangered species.”
― Jeff Mach, There and Never, Ever Back Again

You could go here to join my mailing list.

You could find more of my books and other work here on Amazon.

 

 

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Ancient Alien Pickup Lines

 

Your weirdly-empty and oddly hieroglyph-less, intimidatingly Cyclopean, Sphinx-guarded enormous energy source masquerading as a burial pyramid in the midst of this World’s strange and pitiless desert…or mine? Or maybe the Lemurians? Who even knows?“No WAY! You were ALSO Nikola Tesla in a former life?”“No WAY! You were ALSO Pharaoh Khufu in a former life? Were you the one who accidentally appeared to the Olmecs in a circlet of flame and smoke and and started that whole Aztec cannibalism thing?”“…better head than Easter Island.”“…wetter than Atlantis. You know, afterwards.”“I think that the human race really needed to make a 55′-tall statue of someone who looks vaguely like me in order to thank me for sharing with them the secrets of archaeology and income tax.”“And then we decided to make them bilaterally symmetrical, just in case any of the nice, normal, tomato-shaped inhabitants of the rest of the Universe ever come and visit. It’ll be HILARIOUS.”I’ve got this 30,000-pound block of carefully-dressed stone. Want to have sex on it and then leave it in the middle of the desert to confuse people for the next few thousand years?“Why don’t we re-arrange the alphabet, put Alpha and Omega together, blow up this planet, and try again somewhere else?”

 

__

“It’s a little-known fact, but Unicorns are something like 20% paint, and their horns are stolen exclusively from endangered species.”
― Jeff Mach, There and Never, Ever Back Again

You could go here to join my mailing list.

You could find more of my books and other work here on Amazon.

 

 

The post Ancient Alien Pickup Lines appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

Even More More Little Poems

We’re sorry about these poemettes
We write them with many regrets
We’d write something real,
But then we might feel,
And if that happens…off are all bets!

___

My time machine is broken, then;
It only takes me to Otherwhen
(Or maybe that’s just because
I asked it to take me to Neverwas.)

___

There once was a sentient pig
Who grew most magically big
He preferred sows
Who were the size of cows
(Though for him, they cared not a fig.)

__

The Midgard Serpent, I am told
Engirdles the entire World
But ask the Kraken (if you dare)
Just where its tail is curled.

__

The Infinite End of All Things
Grew an inconvenient pair of wings
And escaped from their pen
Flew to Earth, and then…
Well, just don’t answer when The End rings.

__

Squeeze the stress ball ’til it bursts,
You’re doing it a favor
The stress ball stresses until it hurts;
Death’s a relaxing savor.

__

I once dated a superhero
She had the power to change poems
So that they no longer rhymed
And were extremely complimentary towards her,
because she was awesome and she deserved it,
damn her.

 

__

“It’s a little-known fact, but Unicorns are something like 20% paint, and their horns are stolen exclusively from endangered species.”
― Jeff Mach, There and Never, Ever Back Again

You could go here to join my mailing list.

You could find more of my books and other work here on Amazon.

The post Even More More Little Poems appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

Even More Little Poems

We’re sorry about these poemettes
We write them with many regrets
We’d write something real,
But then we might feel,
And if that happens…off are all bets!

___

My time machine is broken, then;
It only takes me to Otherwhen
(Or maybe that’s just because
I asked it to take me to Neverwas.)

___

There once was a sentient pig
Who grew most magically big
He preferred sows
Who were the size of cows
(Though for him, they cared not a fig.)

__

The Midgard Serpent, I am told
Engirdles the entire World
But ask the Kraken (if you dare)
Just where its tail is curled.

__

The Infinite End of All Things
Grew an inconvenient pair of wings
And escaped from their pen
Flew to Earth, and then…
Well, just don’t answer when The End rings.

__

Squeeze the stress ball ’til it bursts,
You’re doing it a favor
The stress ball stresses until it hurts;
Death’s a relaxing savor.

__

I once dated a superhero
She had the power to change poems
So that they no longer rhymed
And were extremely complimentary towards her,
because she was awesome and she deserved it,
damn her.

 

__

“It’s a little-known fact, but Unicorns are something like 20% paint, and their horns are stolen exclusively from endangered species.”
― Jeff Mach, There and Never, Ever Back Again

You could go here to join my mailing list.

You could find more of my books and other work here on Amazon.

The post Even More Little Poems appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

And I Was Tired

Once upon a time, there was a monster who devoured every story which began with “Once upon a time”.

Starting with the reader.

Starting with the ears.

__

But elsewhere in the Kingdom, while the Narrator was off having a good time, the King and the Other King were having an argument.

“I say the World will end in fire!” said one.

“No, in ice!” said the other.

The Court Wizard settled the dispute by frying them both with lightning.

___

The Narrator said to the Wizard, “If we have no reader, do we even exist?”

The Wizard could have smitten him with lightning, or smooched him, but instead said, “Let’s go see the court philosopher!”

__

The Reader still didn’t exist.

Or, specifically, the reader HAD existed and was now smoky remains.

(That’s you. Sorry.)

___

“So,” said the Wizard. “You’re wondering if we exist if we have no reader.”

“Yes.”

“No,” said the Wizard.

 

THE END.

__

“It’s a little-known fact, but Unicorns are something like 20% paint, and their horns are stolen exclusively from endangered species.”
― Jeff Mach, There and Never, Ever Back Again

You could go here to join my mailing list.

You could find more of my books and other work here on Amazon.

The post And I Was Tired appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.