The embossed words:
Strike me once I bleed
Strike me twice I die
and thrice
you choose…
Can you imagine the cover art to your next book?
I have- I even have the back picked out.
The front is the smiling faces of Liberian children and the back is a the back of a sand filled canoe paddling away (also Liberian).
What makes a good cover? I think if your cover can draw the reader or listener in then it’s done its job.
(Poetry inspired by the High Sea)
( horror mystery you choose)
(self-help or murder mystery )
The WordPress Daily Challenge this week is Cover Art. imagine which of your images you would like to see gracing the cover of a book, an album, or a magazine.
This was way too much fun!
And here are some creative covers. Who knows you might find a cover designer for your next book!
While you pen in ink
I am writing this down in blood
dipping my quill in life spent
that’s still steamy
from the day’s killing
I am not a writer of fiction
these words are fact
I write what I see
a building full of people
the doors are chained from the outside
the henchmen smile
they love the sound of terror
gasoline and fire such a beautiful sight
one of the black garbed men taunts
flinging the red tongues
the flames lick higher and higher
extinguishing life, hope, dreams
the joke is on you
with each life you dispel
the darkness on the outside
claims what was good on the inside
the wraith will have no home
nothing to claim
flames will consume his soul
…And we just sit back while innocent people who live life quietly are being targeted losing their homes, herded like cattle and killed.
unscrew the light bulb
cram my feelings til they blaze
can’t tell until I’m limp
you are truly crazed
clamp down the wire cutters
frenzied barbed wire dance
wrap careless about my heart
are you looking for your chance?
turn the car’s ignition
let fumes suck away the air
I died so long ago
no one ever cared
***
“Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity”
T.S. Eliot
“Any poet, if he is to survive beyond his 25th year, must alter; he must seek new literary influences; he will have different emotions to express.”
T.S.Elliot
How have you altered your writing over the years??? Or is it time for a change?
![A2Z-BADGE-000 [2014]](https://moondustwriter.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/a2z-badge-000-2014-e1395944035611.jpg?w=685){kind=icon}
What will you find beneath your tree this Christmas?
Romance?
or…
a wonderland of snow
gifts elegantly circled with red satin bows
8 knives for carving
1 rope for climbing
perhaps…
a lifeless form
beneath the fresh-cut Christmas Tree
Read my “festive” poem “Beneath the Christmas Tree” over at Pen of the Damned.
Slain
by your sharp edged heart
well aimed piercing
dart
*
Dripping
off the edge of my page
blood flows free at this
stage
*
Alone
none to hold back the pain
too late to catch bloody
rain
*
Undone
mere ashes in your hands
fiend, my death so long
planned
Art and Photograph “Undone” © L. Moon 2013
She had tried desperately to make the call for help. What sick bastard had cut the phone receiver off and placed a skull face on duct tape?
I found her hanging onto the cord. She was all dolled up on her way to something special.
I was alarmed by the time of day the murder occurred. New Cago crime usually started when the moon rose. This young woman was killed before dusk.
What was to become of the city? Its people?
“Lily,” I shouted.
“They need you darling,” I heard her sweet voice in the breeze.
“Yes, I know.”
**
This week’s prompt for Friday Fictioneers (hosted by the delightfully inspirational Rochelle) was supplied by Danny Bowman. Looks like budget cuts are in full swing.
This is another 100 word offering being added to a growing series of stories all set in NewCago. There are many loose strings, unanswered questions about this metropolitan society that is sinking into the mire. Sam seems to be the only one to keep the bad doings at bay but how much longer???
Week 9 in Newcago serial Gathering Bodies
Week 8 in Newcago serial No place to hide
Week 7 in Newcago serial They were Pink
Week 6 In Newcago Serial You poison filled wasps
Week 5 in Newcago Serial The Doom Cycle
Week 4 in Newcago Serial Helpless
Week 3 in Newcago Serial When the Lights Go On
week 2 in Newcago Serial Can’t Kill The Thirst
Week 1 in Newcago Serial Secret Weapon
Another night banging around in the trashcans of Newcago, I needed a drink. A tall one and a Cheesesteak at Tony’s would do nicely.
I noticed the dame – she was a looker. I couldn’t get a read on the guy beneath the brim.
“Yeah, the regular,” I nodded. Sally and I go back to days when drinks came from the hose in the horse’s mouth.
I couldn’t help but hear dollface gagging. I rushed to stop her fall. Too late – white stuff was bubbling from her mouth, her eyes glazed over.
Something besides the guy under the shadowy brim was missin- a large sparkler around her wrist.
“Baby, Newcago is not like life on the farm…
…Playing is for keeps.”
A new week for writing flash fiction over at Friday Fictioneers with a host of fiction writers. As you can see the picture prompt may mean you’ll find a bit of hay stuck between the pages but please go over and check out some of the excellent writers. Thanks to Rochelle for keeping us thirsty for more…
If you’d like to read the first of this flash fiction serial set in the sleepy town (cough, cough) of Newcago have a gander.
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There I was all dressed and ready like our Christmas turkey. “What am I doing?’ I screamed through my skin.
“I will be here with you.” My grandmother’s cheerful voice seemed louder than usual. I looked toward the watch and there stood a younger version of herself and her mother by her side.
“You won’t do this alone,” the ghostly southern tones were so rich. I wanted to hug them both, but there wasn’t time, “The cloak, put it on now. I feel his presence drawing near.”
I put the cloak on. The funny thing was I knew they could both see me. How would it keep the other one from seeing me. “He doesn’t have eyes of love,” I heard her whisper.
“Give me my gun. I will shoot him,” I wasn’t sure if this fit with our plan, but how could I argue with a ghost?
I heard a sniffing that chilled me to the bone.
“I smell your perfume, Crystalle, I remember it so well.” There was a slithering kind of motion that flowed around us. I wanted to get the dagger and start slicing at something, somehow I managed to stand statue still.
“I see you have brought your daughter. A nice family reunion. Crystalle, I have come to offer you life. You can live a human existence,” I felt a sick grin on his face.
“You forgot to mention the one condition attached. I must remain with you as your lover. Ha, what a gift. Sir, you give me a curse,” she was smart, for an old gal, I chuckled silently.
My grandmother opened the pocket watch, a beautiful music played.
“Our waltz,” Crystalle put up her hands.
He took her in his arms. I wanted to shout at him to stay away, but her told me she was in control.
They waltzed in large sweeping circles. What had been a meadow transformed into a dance floor. My grandmother kept walking with the timepiece. I followed silently. Then I knew. “They are waltzing toward the river.” The music created a timeless trance for this dance of death.
My great-grandmother appeared to stumble. He looked alarmed for her well-being. For that one moment, his face looked kind, loving. She had no concern for him, as she placed her hand against his chest and pulled the trigger of her mother’s derringer.
Both women motioned for me to do the rest quickly. I placed the puzzle in my grandmother’s open hand. With the cloak still on, I plunged the knife into his chest. His skin pulled my knife away from my hands. My grandmother frantically swirled the tiny balls about in the game. My dagger was released. I cut and cut. Finally, I plunged my hand into his chest, grabbed at his heart, and disconnected the last of the blood vessels with the knife.
The faces of both women were transformed. Where there had been an edge of despair and cursed destiny there was peace and joy. They grabbed my hands and we danced in a circle for what seemed like hours.
“It is time,” the older woman said to her daughter.
“One moment with her alone, mama,” my grandmother’s eyes pleaded, “The timepiece is yours my granddaughter. I will no longer visit you each year. My task to save the family is done,” I saw her tears through my own rivulet of tears.
“I miss you so grandmother,” I said like a small child.
“Listen for our voices in the Christmas Carols you are so fond of. They will join your own,” my grandmother pressed the watch into my hands and something else.
“Goodbye, dearest great- granddaughter bravery will be yours always.”
I walked with them to the river, the heart in my hands. Before my great grandmother descended, she took the heart. As she touched the water, it began to froth and glow. “We commit this evil to the depths and ask that our curse be removed.”
A deep, watery voice authoritatively said, “Your request is granted.”
The ladies looked at each other, then at me, smiling as they sank beneath the silvery water.
I realized that I still had my cloak on when I passed a dairyman who failed to see me.
Later that morning, two items burned in my pocket: the watch and the other item my grandmother had lovingly given to me. I smiled when I realized what it was…
She had spoken her dying wish into that delicate symbol of timelessness. As I cradled it, I hoped to hear her voice. I did…
It came each Christmas Eve just at the moment she died; I would hear a small chime and then her voice. Then the next morning we would awake to presents under the tree and another dead family member. I began to fear the cold touch of the gold pocket watch that glowed when I opened it. I tried to refrain the next Christmas Eve, but the pull of it and her were too strong.
I started asking questions, it seemed no one alive knew the answer.
… and the time ticked forward to another Christmas Eve. There were beautiful initials, C. B., engraved on the gold case. They were not my grandmother’s. Her mother’s? I wondered…
Then I found it. A box of pictures. They were daguerreotypes of women mostly, but a few men as well. One picture stood out. The woman was beautiful! I recognized the writing on the back; it said “My grandmother – Crystalle Beaurent 1870.”
“It’s my great-grandmother’s watch” I exhaled.
She was born in 1845 based on a baby picture. She would have been a southern belle during the civil war. “What a belle she must have been,” I mused. Then there was a wedding picture “Mother and Father April 1870.” I realized the tiny numbers in the watch case indicated their wedding day. One thing I do recall my grandmother sayin, “They got in a wagon and rode as far away from Georgia as they could.”
“Why grandmother? Why?I started having nightmares. “The picture must have set them off.” I rationalized. There was a beautiful young woman, and a man in black. I could never see his face, but I could see claws where hands should have been. My grandmother came to me in a dream; I asked her. “That man was a devil. He wanted her, if he couldn’t then he vowed no man would. She and papa tried to run away, but the demons from her past could not release her to a new life. Mama drowned on Christmas Eve when I was but four. No one knew what happened,” I heard a sob.
“Damned scalawag,” I woke up to a woman’s southern drawl, and the scene of a man’s face being blown off with a purse size derringer. A young woman was dragged off by two men into the shadows as the lifeblood of a woman in mourning was spilt.
It was always the same dream. But tonight, on Christmas Eves Eve, the dream was different. Dancers spun around the floor room, women were dressed in their finest silks, it was Christmas Eve – a long time ago. A hand gently pulled on my own. I stood in a blue satin dress, my ringleted hair was bound in a ribbon, a young man was offering his hand for a dance. “But I don’t know how,” I said in my mind. Yet, there I was spinning on the dance floor with the others. Then he was gone, I heard gunshot far off, I covered my ears as I crouched in a corner with fear. The cook found me and told me “there, there honey chile. Your daddy would never allow you or your mama to be hurt.” She placed a small mince meat tart in my hands. “Merry Christmas precus chile.” I closed my eyes and stroked the gold case but nothing happened. “It has to be a nightmare,” I said with little confidence in my situation. I heard her scream “Damned Scalawag!”
“You are not going to take her,” I shook my fist at the two men dragging her off. She was beautiful. I grabbed a club and swung at the head of one man who slumped to the ground. The other let go of her and went after me. She was smart though and caused him to get stuck in a bramble. I raised the club, but she urged me to put it down.
“He will get you – both of you!” the man sneered.
“I don’t think so,” I said tauntingly in his face, “I’m not from around here. ”
“Neither is he. He will find you. You took his prize from him. You cannot run far enough away.”
“Ha,” I challenged those evil eyes, “We shall see about that!”
When I awoke, it was Christmas Eve, but things were different. I didn’t know why, I could just feel it. I opened the watch and went to wind it. I heard my great-grandmother’s voice, “You must protect yourself. He is coming for you tonight. He could not get me so he has promised to hurt you. Please hide and protect yourself.”
“What?” but the voice was gone as was the life in the pocket watch “What am I to do? It’s Christmas Eve and someone is coming to kill me or …” and then I knew, “He will capture me and replace what he had lost.”
There was only one I could think of. ” I must go to my older brother.” He would think I was crazy, but he would help me. He thought it was a game. “Yes it will be a game; a hunt to be exact. How am I to hide from a specter from the past?”
“Great- grandfather’s cloak and dagger,” he exclaimed quite confidently. “Grandfather told me a story in confidence. “If ever there is a time, your sister is in danger; the only thing that will protect her is this… If you don’t succeed in protecting her, this family will be no more. Your great-grandmother would have died before she had your grandmamma.”
I wondered then if my younger brother or sister had been given anything by our grandparents.
“Just this” my sister said as though she were still a small child. It was one of those old-fashioned puzzles where you have to roll the balls into the holes. There was no message with it.
“I want what he gave me back though,” my younger brother said possessively. It was a lady’s derringer. I had seen it blow off the face of a man in another era.
I set all the items on a table: the watch, the cloak, the dagger, the gun, the puzzle. I warmed the gold on the pocket watch. It opened by itself and the sweet voice of my grandmother greeted each of us.” It was my grandmother’s failing to aim at his face rather than at the heart. You must aim her gun at his heart.”
“What about the puzzle and the cloak and the dagger?”
“Put the cloak on grand-daughter; it will protect you. The dagger must cut his heart out after he has fallen. The puzzle will mesmerize him as you cut his heart. ”
“Are we all to take part?” my brother asked.
“No! The one who saved my mother is the only one who can defeat the beast. Once he has fallen, the heart must be taken to the place where he pushed my mother into the rushing stream. Her spirit will do the rest.”
***
Part Two will be posted on Christmas Eve
Learning to live by the indwelling life of Christ.
Gud skaper noko nytt ved sitt Ord og sin Ande, vi kan ta imot det i tru og få oppleve at han gjer sitt verk med oss. Hans skaparkraft verkar konstuktivt i våre liv og skaper noko som er verdifullt for oss. Naturkreftene verkar nedebrytande, i fylgje entropilova, men Gud er Ånd og det som er født av hans Ande består. Jesu frelsesverk er fullbrakt og fullkome. Han er den siste Adam, som er ifrå himmelen og som for oss har vorte ei livgjevande ånd. Han gjev oss den Heilage Ande frå himmelen av berre nåde. Han gjev oss det evige livet.
Looking ahead, without looking back (too often)
Thanks for following a cowgirl on her crazy life journey.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. - Edgar Allan Poe
Hoping to make the world more beautiful
Books by author Diana Coombes
With previous posting of "Our World" on Blogger
my humanity in written form
Experiments in Creative Writing, and more ....
Poetry by Mich
FOR READERS AND ASPIRING WRITERS
Everyday musings ....Life as I see it.......my space, my reflections and thoughts !!
From Board Books to Clean YA
Cherishing the Past while Celebrating the Present
FROM ONE PARENT TO ANOTHER
Living life with dissociative identity disorder and complex ptsd
penned in moon dust 