Speculative Fiction Centre

1. NULLIFICATION

My heart thunders. Eyes--hating, burning-- have found my soul to be a cache of complexity. The carbon-copy men encroach with common sneers despising everything they used to be. I scream in the storm of their contempt. You're so special, you're so talented, You make us small, You burn too bright! You have no permit to exist; tell us what gives you the right-- to a genetic advantage? The law of the land is equality. You're too much this, and too much that. Less is more, we all agree. They drag me down the maw of science for re-sequencing. The switch is thrown Matter becomes energy, my quantum state attains flux; I am rewritten. Who am I, I ask them, My mind wiped away. Never mind they answer run along and play. lose yourself in the distance, in the silence, in so many shades of gray. I am everyone everywhere, and nobody special.


2. OUTCAST SPIRIT

Cool Green gather to my will; wind-song stir the singing leaf. Branches white with earth-born might shield this child from red-eyed grief. Burning moon--weep silver tears, fill Elvin hands with quickened fire. Purify all desecration; let this heart become your pyre Cold moon fire, bright as life warm earth-strength deep as time, merge in me, a common flame need compels you to combine ignite me with this simple rhyme wheel of time--stars of chance Awaken now within the dance-- release your hold upon this shore That destined winds may sweep me through the threshold of an unseen door-- Fair Avalon, I cannot linger where beauty can never fade, for love's pain here, is eternal I cannot abide your gentle chains. I exile my expectations and doom myself to iron's thrall. I'll walk the human world once more where dying leaves know how to fall.


3. SCARY THOUGHT

Suspended in mortal clay enclosed by frailty within this vault of time, A shadow stirs behind my eyes; something new ascends within my changeling mind. My face haunts the dreamscapes of the night-- mine and yet a stranger's. The shape of all I may yet be calls me toward dread sacrifice. Dare I lose all I am, abandoning the shallow end of the sea? There is no telling what my dreams may make of me: scary thought.

4. STAR BIRD

Past this shroud of atmosphere beyond Jupiter and Mars, Beyond the reach of human eye, and the light fall of common stars, In a region old as the universe where cinders once were suns, A final star is flickering out; Life feeds death and is reborn. Plasmatic storms, gravitational sheers, a super-nova forms swords of light. And from the heart of shattered space, the star-bird flies across the vault of night. A thread of glory with incandescent wings-- She spears unerringly for a virgin galaxy where the feeding may resume; a circle drawn on infinity.

5. STRANGE ENCOUNTER

Coursing past the undertow of darkling places far within-- I chanced upon a hovering face leering with a baleful cheer growing thin-- This pale painted oracle, freshly fled some astral plane-- offered only silent mirth drifting near for reasons unexplained-- My heart shuddered in its cage as shadow winds voiced my fear-- A surge of terror stilled all thought I closed my eyes as the shade swelled near-- Gathering all the frayed and tattered threads of my courage-- I sought the wraith a second time upon that lightless stage-- But the spectral clown was gone seeking elsewhere Un-damning praise-- Shedding shape and substance in the flush of the dawn's first faint rays-- Though questions lingered hauntingly lonely stars out of reach out of hand-- I could not stop to settle them nor would I stir so far from home again--

6. SURREALITY

Planes of possibility stretch into infinity windswept, forlorn, beneath a tawny sky. Stone pillars break the monotony; carved faces stare with blind eyes. One of them reminds me of someone I used to be. Another shows me a face I've yet to wear. I pause between extremes. am I cresting an entropic wave or drawn by chains of destiny. Part of me wonders if it matters. the rest of me insists that it must or what's the point of having dreams.

7. SURRENDER

Frail, the autumn stem breaks in a frigid wind. Released, the leaves, in burning tones, spiral earthward upon our heads. Frosted pumpkins, piled high, wait by a scarecrow ever brave. Barren branches claw the sky, as the sun retires to an unmarked grave. Harboring her waning strength, the Earth withers in solitude. The life she craves cannot stay; it must be planted before death intrudes. So another season may return from the seeds of sacrifice; she forfeits the game accepting the desecration of time's passage as hope's dread price.

8. SWAMPED

Moss-draped boles uphold a dimming sky, blooming vines thread the grass, and a decaying log shelters the passion of dragonflies. Frogs croak, leaping, splashing desperate to escape the wading cranes and swimming snakes. life feeds upon itself in an orgy of excess. And in the lost soggy heart of the wilderness, I see a cabin. Chimney smoke spirals into the eventide and I hear the metallic plinking of a rabid banjo, warring with the mockingbirds. I draw my harmonica from hiding preparing to enter the fray.

9. THE LAST DEFENDER

I see a storm-play of blue, and violet, orange and gold--as eventide slides into twilight's gray. I close my helmet to hide white scars from the eyes of stars that mock my immortality I am Kodewor, an ancient shade, keeping tireless station upon a shadow-steeped keep. Fleshless, I haunt An ivy-wrapped tower since the hour of death, I've known no sleep. My spectral hands grip a sword in moonlight A two-edged illusion of wind-tossed debris. Autumns later, unshriven, I await the harvest, my soul still stained, I'm damned forever to bleed. My face, a laughing skull, cannot lose its humor as time parades her seasons quickly past my perch. Duty endures the marching of boredom, the stinging banter of faithless winds about their frantic search. Some have peace and some have regret. Some have hope in shrouds of night-- Though I have naught but desolation, I shall guard it well with honor bright.

10. THE PRISONERS

One dark and stormy night... The wind led me across a tossing field. The cricket-scraping stilled as I passed, a stranger beneath a blue-shadowed moon. The silver orb's glamour fell upon a ring of oak. Their limbs interlocked, The gentle giants swayed, straining against the ensnaring earth-- clawing the cold stars for purchase. Promethean prisoners, planted for unnamed crimes, they could not withdraw bound feet, So I danced for them, forgiving their envy of my small fleeting life.

11. THE RAINS OF WINTER

The rains of winter descend in coiling sheets. Barren branches claw an overcast sky. I creep along deliberately while the crowd scurries to escape the downpour. Are they wiser than I? My heart is purified by angel tears. I accept the comfortable companionship of mournful winds, splashing through puddles, soothing my mind with storm-tossed shades of violet and blues. Other souls may wrap themselves in despondency, but I choose to be alive at all times.

12. THE SCREAMING TIME

The cold is radiant in lightless fragments of wounded space Where darkness is a weight unbearable to the natural mind-- there, the Old Ones linger, one thought beyond Chaos, at the splintered edge of the star-strewn abyss we call universe. In slumber, they feed on thin webs of nightmare, dreaming away the eons, drifting in a daze of swelling hunger. Soon, one by one, they shall remember the bright blue ball once prized for its life-rich continents Its fertile shrieking life... They shall remember the flavor of fear, the terrified chatter, of dying, broken things, There within their ichors-filled coils. They shall remember feasting on quivering fresh flesh, draining the electric echoes of pain-- They shall awaken-- The Old Ones will set burning, stabbing eyes on the star-wheels, and return to thin the human herds. When naptime is over, the screaming time will come...

13. THE TURNING TIDE

We need the slash-- of power chords, the liberation of a harsh, fierce light. Darkness wraps us in false equality. Alive-- in the kinetic heat of escape, we must no longer give life to shadows. We must exile gray-tones embracing the distillation of unequal opposites. Diametric polarities must abhor the compromise of common ground. You and I We and them us and you in and out round and round in a circle in the sand drawn by well-meaning hands... We are enslaved by borders! I CELEBRATE the turning tide. It shall free us of all definition. Then we will only be OTHER--reborn in a kinder dream.

14. THE UNSEEN HOST

In the glooming, Sun fire bleeds into the shadows of the glen. The crickets sing, the fireflies flicker, where golden tares tease the wind. And dancing o'er the blooming ways Silver winged fey abound. They laugh and dart in endless play feral children in gossamer gowns. They clear the brush and flush all mortals from the realm of the Sidhe. The sons of men with cold iron, wither dreams others weave. These ancient Lords from leaf-bound towers, these timeless masters of a sylvan sea, court the night winds of the wild, lost in private revelry.