Jeff Mach's Blog, page 8

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

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.

 

 

The post Dwarven Halls appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

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.

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.