Miceala Shocklee's Blog, page 10

Miceala’s Mother’s Day Selections

WARNING:Contains shameless plugs for my publications.

Lovely readers, Mother’s Day is in just three days!!! Or at least it is in the States… not sure about when/if y’all across the pond have this particular bought of Hallmark sales spikes. But seeing how a fair number of youare in the U.S. (though shout out to whomever’s reading me in Norway, seriously, you rock) and you’ve presumably got some maternal figure or other in your life and, if you’re, ahem, like me, have yet to figure out what exac...

Three Types of Hell

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Three Types of Hell

- A Short Story -

My life is a confusing brand of hell. They’re not all so hard, you know. Some people at least get toknow why they’re doomed to an eternity of being burnt about the toes. You’ve got the straight-forward malice types, the murderers, the robbers (sans raisons), the loose liars and the psychopaths. You know, the people who didn’t give a damn about others and so heaped up a whole lot of damnation for themselves. Their souls started burning even before thei...

A Small Little List of Small Little Things

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Lovely readers, it’s been a rough few weeks. That, ahem,may have been reflected in the tone of my writing. Not that doom and depression and dark lands with dark creatures don’t feature in it even when I’m full of sunshine and sparkle. Or whatever. But today, today’s been a good day in a long stretch of very bad days. No saying what tomorrow will be, but today, today has been better than the running average. And so I thought I’d share, just a small little list of small little things that...

Against the Reader

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The public is a cruel beast. Fickle and finicky. They will fight for a hashtag today that they won’t even remember trending this time next week. It’s a short-term gratification like that, when you serve up an endless hors d’oeuvres array of choked-down phrases and coughed-up inanities. You can only fit so much lasting grit in a hundred and forty characters.

The public is a wild beast. Running here and there, grazing from whatever pasture happens to have seeded the greenest virility. Swee...

Magick

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Magic

I want a world where there are dragons.

I want a world with traveling circuses at night.

I want a world with flying carpets, mermaids, selkies -

where colds, flu, and heartache can be magicked away

with nothing more complicated than some herbs in a pot

and the right words, already written down in a book for you.

In this world of pragmatism,

it’s too hard to knowthe right words to say.

I want a world with beasts and beauties

requiring no photoshop to recognize,

where illusion makes you think...

Flame

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Flame

Love should not be a burning flame

for a flame can be blown out;

one wind misplaced, a breath astray -

and then no more but doubt.

You watch the smoldering wick burn down

to nothing more than ash,

and you wonder and wonder again and again

if this lighting was too rash.

You got too close; the flame too hot

for you to stand there long.

But you had hoped, again and again,

that this candle would prove strong.

Love should not be a burning flame

for a candle dies when the wax runs out,

and you’re left...

Villains

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Villains

One day Little Red met Little Snow White
and the two began to fight.
The Wolf to the Queen an apple threw,
winked and said “A bite for two.”
——
The Evil Stepmother wrote the Sea Witch
and asked how to end a leftover bitch.
The Sea Witch said to take her voice,
force her to grovel, give her no choice.
——
And all the while Maleficent watched
while crafting a rose unfortunately notched.
She left it for a beast to prick and wait
till an Ivory Tower could learn not to hate.
——
All curls and eyes, B...

Joy

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I hear that it’s a holiday – a holy day – today. I hear it’s called Easter.

I don’t know what that word conjures up for you, when you hear it. A Midwestern-bred Catholic who decided to expand to the larger term of “Christian” in her early college years and now claims no grand ability to judge the Ultimate Truths of the universe, calling herself no one dogmatic label but saying she is open to learning, to questioning, to experiencing, and to revising ideas – the word “Easter” conjures up...

Fish and Lavender

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The apartment smelled of fish and lavender. It was an odd combination, but then again that’s what the apartment was too, an odd throw-together of temporary and permanent lodgers, the floors and shelves strewn with things of people who did and didn’t yet live there. A large enough place to have in so short a time become both a prison and a refuge. A three-bedroom townhouse full of free lodgers who could not escape themselves.

Fish and lavender, depending which breath you took.

The oldest g...

Work-From-Home

Oh dear Poe and Dickinson, I don’t know how you did it.

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Work-From-Home

I am going crazy

sitting inside this house.

They call it freelance

but I call it shut-in,

this endless typing of nonsense

onto a dead screen like it’s a friend

because it’s the only thing I’ve got

to talk to,

all day,

all the time.

I will tell you my stories,

dear static of electrons and gigabytes.

I will tell you all these things

inside my head,

poured endlessly

into the wasteland of a blank word document.

That’s all you are, after a...