Ned Hayes's Blog, page 140

"​Edward’s father had given him that Moorish armour black as...

"​Edward’s father had given him that Moorish armour black as ebony, telling him it would make him fearsome to others. It is a strange thing, but in time the black mask he wore to mask his fear became his outer attitude. On the grounds of Crécy, garbed in black, he won his spurs. And I imagine my son replete with honor in the lists, his own blue eyes glimmering like frost within a lionhearted helm."
— from the novel Sinful Folk

"Read until the line between reality and make believe blurs, read until you’re lost in another world,..."

“Read until the line between reality and make believe blurs, read until you’re lost in another world, read until you’re dreaming, just read.”

- (via lostinfictionbooks)

"Reading was not a fallback position for her but an ideal state of being."

““Reading was not a fallback position for her but an ideal state of being.””

- Laura Lippman; What the Dead Know (via wordpainting)

"Life is energy, and energy is creativity. And even when we as individuals pass on, the energy is..."

““Life is energy, and energy is creativity. And even when we as individuals pass on, the energy is retained in the work of art, locked in it and awaiting release if only someone will take the time and the care to unlock it.””

- Joyce Carol Oates (via theparisreview)

"The knight still waits silent. He stands and pulls his sword in...

"The knight still waits silent. He stands and pulls his sword in scabbard from the wrapped saddlebags. He dismounts. The snowflakes swirl as he moves, like sand in an underwater stream. A pale green gaze, like a leaf caught under frost."
— from the novel Sinful Folk

”The sound of a distant ocean covers me with surf, that tide...

”The sound of a distant ocean covers me with surf, that tide that bears me back eternally into the past… The day before he died, my mother did something inexplicable. She took me out in our little fishing boat, out on the open water of the sea. The thrum and hiss of surf upon the shore behind us, the breaking rhythm never ceasing. She squinted against the bright sunlight, making sure of our isolation.”  

— from the novel Sinful Folk

Photo

The fog swirls around us, and now I feel so very far...

The fog swirls around us, and now I feel so very far from Court and from my lands of Ashcroft. Against my skin, I can feel the lines of my rich clothes. Yet still, I sense that inside I am no better than these wretches. I can still feel the scars on my skin from my long winter journey. There are scars on me made from weapons and from fists, from fear and hunger as well.

….

As I tread the moonlit cobblestones, I find my way through the maze. Finally, I turn the last corner, and there ahead of me, they wait. I have found the place marked on the map. The Garden of my people. Leyrestowe.

I close my eyes here in supplication. I remember my mother’s face. She whispered to me, she begged for an oath from a child: “Promise me this. You remember the words I taught you on the water. It is Kaddish. Promise that you will say Kaddish for me.”

She held her hand out, grasped me tight.

“But you must wait to say them. You will go where there are other Jews, find them in London – you must find ten of them. Together, you must say Kaddish for me. It will save me, in the afterlife, these words will lift my soul to heaven.”

They are in front of me. My people have gathered here, the last remanent, altogether, in the Jew’s Garden at Cripplegate.

I lift my eyes to the distant moon that shines over our earthly sphere. I stare around at the field in front of me, the seven-branched candlelabraum etched over the archway, the dark gray stones ranked together in rows, the brambles that have overgrown this secret shadowed place.

— from the novel Sinful Folk.

PHOTO: 

cold stones in a frosty cemetery by bennybulb on Flickr.

"I love reading another reader’s list of favorites. Even when I find I do not share their tastes or..."

“I love reading another reader’s list of favorites. Even when I find I do not share their tastes or predilections, I am provoked to compare, contrast, and contradict. It is a most healthy exercise, and one altogether fruitful.”

-

T. S. Eliot (via bookoasis)

A truer statement has never been stated. And R., I think this basically sums up our literary relationship.

(via eenliteraireleven)

that’s why i tagged you!

(via pearlsandasweaterset)

“A bird calls, distant and wounded. The woods are still as...

“A bird calls, distant and wounded. The woods are still as death. Quick steam huffs in and out of Geoff’s open mouth. We gather wood and help Tom build his fire. As I pick up spare twigs and dried bracken, I wonder how far our sounds penetrate into the black forest, and how far our shouts echo along the White Road. Anyone approaching along the road could find us here.
Supper is roasted pork we brought from the village, and warmed snow. After we have licked our fingers clean, we edge closer to the fire, heads cocked toward the whispering wind as it brushes the treetops. Night birds warble, and small creatures rustle in the snow.
Tom continues, the cider giving him a pompous certainty.
They say if you creep along the right valley in the dead o’ night, ’round the dark o’ the moon, you’ll hear them witches a-singin’ an’ a-chantin’.”
Yet this time when he speaks, there is something in his tone that gives us pause. There are some who believe to speak of a thing is to summon it into the world, and Tom speaks with such conviction. We become so quiet that the loudest noise is the sizzle of burning tree sap.
The darkness around us presses down, as if to listen. The music of the wind rises and falls with the swirls of the snow, the creaking of the sea of branches in the darkness above us.”
— from the novel SINFUL FOLK

 

PHOTO: wonderous-world: The road to nowhere by Dan Jurak