Jeff Mach's Blog, page 6

Even More Little Poems

My Time Machine is broken again
It only takes me to Otherwhen
When I clearly set it for Neverwhere
(At times when I am never there.)

__

Pigs don’t supply pork for pork and beans
They know the secrets of Soylent Greens…

___

I stubbed my toe on the cabin’s first level
And ran into the Jersey Devil
It consumed both my feet
So I felt quite incomplete
And could no longer dance at the revel.

__

Your destination
Is a hallucination.
It’s no twist,
You just don’t exist.

__

Let’s drink a toast
To liquified toast!
Melted with butter
And your now-late host.

__

We would all mourn their untimely passin’s
But they did piss off the Guild of Assassins
So their deaths aren’t exactly unexpected
(Their tombstones conspicuously un-erected.)

__

Let none forget the Guild of Thieves,
The Guild in whom no-one believes.
Why is that? I think I’ll call it:
They’ll disappear your witness…and your wallet.

___

They say a TARDIS is bigger
On the inside than on the out
As for my Mobius TARDIS,
I’m probably just a lout.

__

Dogs are perky,
Cats are sly,
Beholders blink
And then you die.

__

 

 

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. I also tweet a lot over @darklordjournal.

I write books. You should read them!

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

More Little Poems

Once you’ve kissed a Megaladon,
You’re not likely to be moving on;
They lack lips, so the smooching isn’t great,
But they open wide on the very first date.

 

I know a Dentist who loved his work
(The laughing gas was a lovely perk.)
He liked to scream, and he liked to rant,
Until he was eaten by a plant.

 

Vampire, Vampire, toothsome spirit
I’ve got all this blood;
Why not disappear it?
Vampire, Vampire, thirsty ghoul
Now I’ll become you
(That’s the rule.)

__

The Emperor of All Creation
Shook his head in twitterpation.
“Everything,” he said, “awaits my command,”
“and it’s everything, ALL!… that I don’t understand.”

__

The Seekers found the ancient Vault,
In the ancient frozen Caves
Where ancient Demons and Devils
Held fairly popular raves.

__

Once upon a midnight cheerful
While I pondered, crazed and fearful,
Over “The Necronomicon Coloring Book”
As I pondered, nearly insane
There came a golden cosmic rain
My soul blinked out of existence and my pineal gland shook.

__

The Great Computer thundered once,
“I shall not grant your wish!
My infinite mind is busy
Playing an infinite game of ‘Go Fish’.”

__

An army of ten thousand Dwarves
And ten thousand angry Elves
All started making out
With each other and themselves.

The Orcs they sneered and laughed
(Damn their blackened souls!)
As they got back to their main work:
Busily smooching Trolls.

__

All my money and my time is spent
In the full-time pursuit of wooing an Ent.
She’s bigger than I, but I give no figs
We’ll get married and raise a whole bunch of twigs.

___

Some say the World will end in fire,
Others say in ice,
The ones who say “Banana pudding”
are exceptionally lucky guessers.

___

He amused himself
And his cheerful captors
By singing sweet songs
And breeding raptors.

 

 

__

“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 More Little Poems appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

Three Dwarven Poems

The Dwarven King in no Palace lives,
Has no soft bed for sleep.
The Dwarven King in no Fortress lives,
No stony cliff’s-edge Keep.

The Dwarven King lives in a hole,
Of naught but simple stone
Sometimes with a thousand attendants,
Sometimes all alone.

Forging, forging, forging, forging,
From the fruits of their excavation
Building the Castle best of all:
The joy of smelting Creation.

__

Dragon, Dragon, Treasure-keeper,
Whence thy treasure gleaming?
“Taken from the Dwarves, from burning Dwarves,
From Dwarves whose homes are steaming.

“They took it all from Mother Earth,
And were of that sin too proud.
Now the treasure’s blessed in fire and blood,
And a cleansing ember shroud.”

“Dwarven King, Dwarven King
Born to hammer’s sound
Ten generations spent
Strictly underground.”

“Yet here you pour out of your mines;
What strange times are these?”
“Ten generations matter naught;
We have long memories.”

“For all we’ve pulled from deepening Earth,
Naught has cured the stain
Our best treasure’s on the other side
Of soon-wrought Dragon’sbane.”

There from the Dragon’s aerie,
Vast opening in stone
There’s not a puff of smoke at all.
The Dragon’s dead, blood and bone.

__

There once was a Dwarf whose sharp axes
Were in keeping with old Dwarven praxis
Each iteration
Meant Orc decapitation
(That’s what the purpose of Dwarven attacks is.)

__

The Dwarf-King and the Elven King
A game of poker played
And millennia of resentment
Had little chance to fade.

For the Dwarf-King cheated just a bit
Only to sadly find
The Elf-King cheated twice
By reading his whole mind.

So over cards they came to blows,
Long before the coming of Men
The Elves won’t soon forgive the Dwarves
For winning Lothlórien.

__

“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 Three Dwarven Poems appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

Aboleth

 

I must inform you, with watery regrets:
Aboleth make terrible pets.
And they’re sure to treat you awfully
Unless you’re Lovecraft (“H. P.”)

They are a trifle Dagonatic
If not outright doggone dramatic
And like the twisting wand next to that felled Witch,
They do come off as just a bit eldritch.

It’s not that they’re entirely Mouth;
Just that every other part goes South.
It’s hard to think of conversation
When the face is an orifice Abomination.

If you’re aware of the Aboleth,
I hope you smoke a lot of Meth
Since they’re basically teeth with a touch of mouth,
You’ll find your sanity quickly goes South.

Even Nessie, even the Meg
Might find itself taken down a peg
By this Monster of the watery deep
(Which troubles me when I try to sleep.)

Aboleths are Ancient Evils
(And nevermind if they ain’t Medievals)
They’re keepers of a darkling Lore
Which is seldom heard on landed shore.

Before the coming of the Gods,
Anyone could risk the odds
Of trawling for Aboleth undersea
And risking their psychic savagery.

You ought to fear the Aboleth
Its mind is black, its attack is death,
What they lack in morals (or body hair)
They make up for with monstrousness
and lack of air.

 

__

“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 Aboleth appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

7 Unmakings

7. Seven Serpents (in Myth, they’ll be called Dragons, but these are not mythical flying beasts, not Dinosaurs; these are the long twisty fingers of Leviathan, the individual heads of Hydrae. Seven serpents spun sideways and upwards and ’round each other, tormenting the clouds.

6. Six great Clouds, whose like the Human race would never be forced to know again, assembled, taking years, darkening all below, darkening even the brightest golden sunlight, full of little storms. Little storms until you look at the Clouds and realize they’re not small, at all, except compared to the Clouds.

5. Five thunders rock the great Clouds, ripping holes in Sky and Rock in equal measure. They hate the Lightning, but it’s not the Lightning which matters, we hope, we hope, until it strikes the Ocean (the World is mostly Ocean, we ought not be surprised) and the Things of the Deep are unamused.

4. Four corners has the great Pyramid shape which is Leviathan, and fortunately, it takes more than enough electricity to reshape a continent to wake something as large as Leviathan. That would take, that would take…

3. Three Words. Three Words spoken by the Stone, three Words and no more.

2. Twice did the land rumble, and subside, rumble and subside.

One, one, one and only One is the Thing which from the waters rises, its pyramidal shape nevertheless supporting a neck so vast that Its head nears the upper reaches of atmosphere (but does it breathe?) One World, One Idea, One End for all and everyone, Amen

 

_____

“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 7 Unmakings appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

Abominable Yeti & Friends

Awakened Shrub

The Awakened Shrub, the Manual states
Is a Shrub that some crazed Wizard creates
The Wizard lets the plant leave the ground
And move itself, and emit sound.

(Do sleeping shrubs, by logical extension
Experience a logical declension?
Is there relatively dormant state?
Or do they run ’round seeking a mate?)

Now if I were that shrub, I’d need a mender
‘Cause the first thing I’d do is find a blender
And five minutes after entering life’s movie
I’d see if life was better as a smoothie.

 

Abominable Yeti

The Yeti’s career
Is full of pauses
They spend three months of the year
As mall Santa Clauses.

The Black Dragon

The Black Dragon’s evil
Disgusts and befouls me
But I admit the acid
Is better than Owlsley.

Natal Nonsense

Some babies are brought
By messengers storkish,
And if they’re green,
We know that they’re Orcish.

The post Abominable Yeti & Friends appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

We Villainpunks

We Villainpunks, we did it all.

We’re the reason your favorite show was cancelled. No, no, we’re not. We’re just kidding.

We’re the reason your favorite show was cancelled AND THEN BROUGHT BACK, ONLY REALLY BAD, and then it got GOOD, and THEN, THEN, then then then THEN, it was cancelled.

We’re the ones behind the Klondlebleemer murders.

No, really.

We mean it.

We–

The Klondlebleemer murders?

The Klondlebleemer murders?

Well, they were bad. We did them. Honest.

Whatever they were. We’re not sure. But we heard, on the Internet, that we’d done it. And (as everyone points out) if it’s on the Internet, it must be true, as long as the people who say it are voting for the people you like.

We’re monstrous. We can’t keep track of our crimes. We’ve been accused of so many that we’re excited; this surely means were going to find or (even better) invent or (obviously best) steal a time machine sometime in the future so we can do so many things all at once.

Or the Internet is wrong, but THAT, that’s ridiculous, and we’re sorry we even mentioned it.

We’re looking for blame here, is what we’re saying. Blame us! Blame us! We did it!

We’re not even masochists.

We don’t even LIKE it.
We’re THAT weird.
We’re just Villains because we’re Villains.

We’ve met Heroes.
We tried being Heroes.
Heroes do more damage AND have to all think fairly alike. That’s what “lawful good” is all about.

We’re happier with ‘unlawful chaos’.

Join us!
They say we have more fun for a simple reason: It’s true, oh, it’s true.

_____

“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 We Villainpunks appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

Azathoth Redux

Azathoth spans the Universe;
Azathoth is the Universe;
there is no Universe,
but there is Azathoth.

Spiraling, spinning,
twisting the Universe around himself,
twisting himself around the Universe,
no Midgard Serpent ever so vast,
or so poisonous.

The Midgard Serpent,
Earth-engirdling,
tiny, puny.

wrap yourself around a world?
All Worlds wrap themselves around Azathoth.

Leviathan,
described in books you can read
while retaining what you believe is sanity.

Azathoth, the Nothing in Everything,
the Emptiness at the heart of plenty,
the famine of mind,
the drought of soul,
ten thousand disasters,

and that’s just the beta or gamma,
far from the core of the thing,
that’s just what words can encapsulate,
that’s what we can almost comprehend;

If we see vast Azathoth
as something we might capture in a thought,
describe in Human tongue,
we can deceive ourselves that Azathoth is not real.

Azathoth the Eternal,
Azathoth the Endless,
Azathoth the Consumnate End,
the Consumnation,

sightless, eternal,
Azathoth knows there is a simple gate
to perception:

take all
assimilate totality
be everything

and then
all that is not Azathoth,
is not,
and need never be known.

Azathoth, Azathoth,
remove our uncertainty,
our fear,
our Human terror,

give us
you,
you,
you,

and let us be free
of us.

_____

“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 Azathoth Redux appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

Brownie (Dungeons and Dragons Monster, Not The Food)

I felt a bit like a rube or a townie
The first time someone told me about a ‘Brownie’.
I’m familiar Gnomes and Hobbits and Ents
But when you say “Brownie”, I don’t think what you meant.

In the Underdark, they’ve the courtesy
To adopt a weird name, or three.
They’re not the brownies you buy at Wegmens;
These are a kind of sverfeneglyn.

They’re tiny, friendly, Lawful Good mites;
They’re related (also!) to pixies and sprites.
They’re terribly short, if I recall;
None of them play pro basketball.

They’re generally lawfully good
Which irritates me rather more than it should;
The Dark Lord won’t give them significant lovin’
She prefers her brownies in an oven.

(Do we mean the creatures, or bakery treats?
Either, as long as they’re made of meat.)
You could be beef, you may be saurian;
The Dark Lord’s aggressively carnivorian.

Brownie meat is chocolate sweet
And the cooking is simple and neat.
(But if you want food to go with corn on the cob, it
Would behoove you to start eating Hobbit.)

_____

“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 Brownie (Dungeons and Dragons Monster, Not The Food) appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

Dragons of (Relative) Eden

Once upon a time, there lived a fairytale kingdom run by gigantic Dragons.

The Dragons lived peaceful lives, waking up in the mid-evening, stretching out in a leisurely fashion, taking off from Cyanide Island and flying over the vast ocean looking for fishing boats to devour. (Oh, sure, you could devour all manner of boat, really, schooners, yachts…but fishing boats had all that bonus sashimi, you know.) Until, one day, they realized they had a problem.

You see, a short time ago…a hundred years? Two hundred? When your lifespan is five hundred thousand years and you know you’ll eventually take a big gulp of air (or whatever it is Dragons breathe) and set off, flying, for a new planetary system, you don’t always pay much attention to trivialities. But a short time ago (surely not more than three centuries)—they realized that the monkeys were becoming problematic.

They were conducting a great deal of tribal warfare. The Dragons approved of this, since, while they didn’t have tribes, they knew that if they DID have tribes, and if they were a lot more stupid, they’d be fighting all the time. And since the monkeys had both the idiot thing and the bonus extra I-don’t-trust-you-because-you-might-not-trust-me thing going, the Dragons considered them to be perfectly sensible, for morons.

The Dragons did notice that the Humans were behaving in appropriately idiotic ways, but they were also having quite a lot more progeny than the Dragons. (To be fair, of course, have you ever tried suppling baby formula for a being eleven feet long and covered in claws?) They realized that the Humans, if left unchecked, would take over the World.

This seemed, to the Dragons, like a fantastic bargain.

They hired a few Bards (and wasn’t it refreshing to chat with them for more than just the couple of minutes it takes to cover them in the appropriate sauce?) to spread word of the many ills facing the world. It had an environment, art, culture, ideas, natural disasters, human economic systems…all of which weren’t maximally helpful to Dragons.

That’s not what they told the Bards, of course. They just substituted the word “Human” for “Dragon”. The Bards ate it up, because what would their audiences want more than to have the adrenaline thrill of horrifying (but electrifying) Darkness, encroaching?

Honestly, the humans loved it.

They ate it up!

It was fascinating, and they spent the next few centuries building industrialization and factories and so forth. Many sentient beings believed they were causing the destruction of the Earth.

The Dragons looked closely at the World from their alternative-dimensional home. And they began to see that it was full of just fascinating problems.

“Do you think we should go and fix all the problems,” said the Head Dragon to the Not Quite Head Dragon, “Or burn and eat them first?”

“I think we should fix all their problems,” said the Dragon.

They’re on their way now, friends. Don’t give up hope.

By the way.

I’m sure they can’t possibly think that our problems are ourselves. Certainment non.

_____

“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 Dragons of (Relative) Eden appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.