Wolf Fray

Unfurling A Struggle

2012-02-21T00:29:00.000-08:00

Ron Koppelberger

Unfurling A Struggle
The mountain pass was strewn with the ancient stones of ghosts, in a clear remembrance of youth, vigor and sure constructs of forever; a forgotten dream of eternity, the outline of an ethereal footpath, decreed by the slow progression of tumble-down houses and ancient dwellings. The ruins bespoke of life, love and a hope for the morrow; they were a nascent moment of breath pledged pure and pristine and yet, here it lay in ruin and severed lineage.
He paused undaunted by the fear that threatened to swallow him, the great behemoth demon that had lain waste to the affairs of an entire town. He searched the rubble for bones, for clues, for the test of unfurled struggle. What fate had the denizens of Mountain Common met, a landslide, great geysers of mud, volcanoes and ash, what had brought the ghosts to their current specter.
He loosed the stone and mortar of a corner block. The building had been a public veranda, a place of worship and gathering. The stone slid away revealing an assortment of ancient possessions. A ruby and silver broach, was it ancient, it looked newer than the surrounding ruin. He touched the jewel and sighed , what dream he thought. The space of a few seconds passed and he saw the shadows commingle in the distant twilight, huge abeyances of dark silhouette.
Reaching into the open space revealed by the stone he touched the items secreted there. Forty years and a day, the items were brought to this place, stored away, hidden from use; by an abiding need to curtail the fates he knew, he realized the seal remained steadfast, a distant traveler to the stony mount, to the ruins of Mountain Common. The explorer had left the tokens of the future in order to bind the past, the possible fare of current futures. The objects had been placed in the stone corner as a bond, “I give this token in prayer and as a promise for our future.” he said aloud.
There were other items in the secret crevice, some old, some ancient, progressions meant to deter the shadows of desolation, the great gibbering madness of demons and destruction.
He slipped off his silver Rolex and the diamond ring binding his marriage, he was married to the task now, by the god’s and light, by the love of life and the dreams of a sunrise forever bright.
Later he would forget the moment of abiding taboo for the promise of an almost perfect future, nevertheless the fates remembered.

Primal Smoke

2012-02-21T00:27:00.001-08:00

Ron Koppelberger

Primal Smoke
Waves of fog rolled across the sea of wheat, saffron in rows of undulating harmony, except for the fog. The sky was a thick cloud, impenetrable by the mists that churned and roiled above Rankin Whiskeys head. “Damn, it’s as thick as pea soup.” he said aloud to the empty field of white. Rankin pulled out a pocket watch, his grandfathers embossed with the scratches and tarnished lines of an ancient piece. It was 2:37 p.m. and there was no sign of the sun or the rich cobalt horizon.
In the distance a flock of crows screamed and squawked, faraway and forlorn with the rolling tide of white. Rankin turned and moved back retracing his steps to the front porch. Somewhere in the distance an owl hooted and Fern alsomes dogs barked, “Probably Nothin.” he said aloud to himself, “Probably Nothin.”. The tethers of a cautious farmer bound him to the front porch, he could have sworn he had heard something else, something long forgotten and alone with the fog. Maybe he was just being superstitious, “Probably nothing.” he said again in a whisper.
He had sensed that something was off balance in the yard but he wasn’t sure what. The moan, what about the moan, he had heard a moaning sound coming from the edge of the yard nearest the field. Standing on the worn wooden planks of the front porch he squinted into the fog toward the sound, there it was again, a moan, he knew it was someone moaning. Rankin rubbed his chin feeling the stubble against the tips of his fingers. There it was again, a moan. “Who’s there?” he shouted into the dense fog. The mists parted for an instant and Rankin saw a flash of red and blue. What’s that he thought, it had looked like the bloody face of a man, dressed in blue coveralls.
He thought back for a moment to the curse, it couldn’t be. The curse had been Cross Corners answer to all of the strange happenings that go with any small town. The Curse, they had blamed Leonora Hapscans pregnancy on the curse and a myriad of other incidents that had gone without explanation in Cross Corners. There it was again, his face in the fog bright red and torn to reveal bone and muscle. Was he seeing things? Was this the curse come to life. He heard the moan again then silence, an eternity of silence and waiting. “show yourself ghost!” he knew it was just a ghost, it had to be.
About two years earlier two men from Castings International had come into town. They had been unwelcome visitors and the town had challenged them to get their asses out of the Cross, but they had persisted wanting to buy up the fields of wheat that made up the terrain of Cross Corners.
Evan Wigstan had said that they were trespassing on his property when he shot them both dead and no one in town had questioned it, but things started happening after that. The local sheriff had been killed in a multiple car pile up a week later and Angel Contern had hung himself the following Tuesday. The local bar and grill burned down two months later and the next years crop had been a bust for the first time in seventy years. The credited all of these things to a curse poor old Evan and his hot temper.
There it was again, a moaning sound then heavy plodding footsteps through the yard. “What do ya want?” he shouted into the thick fog. The answer came back in the form of a gravely rasp.
“We want yer property Rankin, we want yer property and what belongs to us is for us to take!” The figure in blue overalls moved into view.
Rankin gasped, his face was a leaking series of torn flesh, bleeding and leaking the graveyards rot. The front of his overalls were stained a bright red and maroon, trails of intestine lay in tangled heaps about his feet. “We Want what is ours Rankin and we aim to take it by force if need be!” Rankin inhaled a deep breath of air, sour and full of decay. “We aim to take what rightfully belongs to us!” The other man moved into view and Rankin screamed. His face had been blown almost completely away and a tiny spurt of blood spayed from what was left of his jawbone as he pointed at Rankin, “What is our, what is ours Rankin!” sounded more like “aaaahhhhaaat ith ourrssssss.” as his shattered jaw moved at an angle.
Rankin stepped back and fumbled for the doorknob, “Yer only ghosts, yer only ghosts!” he said as panic began to overwhelm him. The door fell open behind him and he stumbled backward into the house, “Yer only ghosts!”
The two men moved up onto the porch after Rankin, “What is ours Rankin, What is ours Rankin!” Rankin slammed the door shut in the first mans face. Looking down to the edge of the door he saw a small knot of intestine closed in the door frame. “Oh Jesus god!” he gasped. The door smashed inward and the two stumbled in grabbing Rankin by the hair and hauling him out into the rows of wheat.
The next day they found Rankin on a pole in the midst of his wheat, waves of saffron and clear blue skies calling out gods name. He had been tied to the pole and his eyes were missing, as if he had seen something too terrible to convey. The coroner for Cross corners noted the blood on Rankings cloths as an unusual happenstance. Other than his eyes he was free of wounds. They had tested the blood at the labs in town and it had come back as belonging to something that had been dead a long time.
Ultimately they gave credit to the curse and the ghosts that seemed to haunt Cross Corners.

As He Prayed

2012-02-21T00:26:00.000-08:00

As He Prayed

Ron Koppelberger

App 1900 Words

Stone Rare stood on the precipice. The moon base was deserted and the only signs of life were the silent rush of air that filled the dome overhead and the screams of the undead population. The edge of the open vista standing before him was long and pointed to the distant sun, a twilight in moon phase. The raised Dias glowed a bright fiery red and the tendrils of light that spread out from around the platform stretched into the dust and open plaza below.
He looked down into the valley and prayed, there were tattered remnants of what had once been human shambling and shuffling across the dusty plaza walk. They moaned and moved closer, he was safe for now yet alone in his human mortality, except for the virus.
Stone continued to pray as the plaza filled with the damaged remains of what had been the moon bases population, destroyed, leaking blood and viscera, eyes sunken and purposeful to the allegiance of need, wont, wild fury and desire. They craved the human experience, the flesh of what was not dead, what stayed close to the bosom of god. Perhaps it was because they were cursed by the virus or maybe they were in the silent grasp of a more powerful force, something dark and evil.
Stone turned from the platform and made his way back into the complex, he had his Rambler, a laser gun, powerful and ready for the undead meandering the depths of the station. His face wore days of stubble and he rubbed his check, chapped and sore from the dry air in the station, the humidifiers weren’t working right. He prayed again, a miracle was what he needed.
Pushing open the door to lavatory A he went to the wash basin and splashed some warm water onto his face, something moved in the last bathroom stall. He looked close to the floor and saw a pair of ankles, pants around them next to the porcelain base of the toilet. Two hands, flesh mottled and reddish crept down and pulled the waistband of the pants up. He looked into the mirror again, his eyes were lined weary and old, he felt old. The stall door banged open and a man shuffled out with some effort. He was bluish and his lips were bulled taunt in a snarl. He could tell the man had been one of the bases technicians, he had died recently.
Stone moved backward and away from the man, he was slow and unable to manipulate his shamble into a run. As the lavatory door shut tightly behind him he looked into the dim light of the hallway toward the rows of security lockers.
The goal was to find the main lab, locked and behind a security veil, then with an antidote, what he hoped was, the antidote in hand, he would make his way to the launch station where the small craft waited for flights to earth. He knew there was a chance they had gone home infected, the virus active and waiting for the unsuspecting population of the planet. The cure he thought with a touch of hope, a brief moment of approaching sunshine. He knew they had a vaccine, the problem was the lab techs had all died and behind locked vaults.
He went to the lockers in the long hall and tried a few. Locked and several hanging open with the remnants of what had been a normal existence. A sound from the darkness of the shadowy hallway, the sound of approaching bodies, and screams, there were a crowd of them, bloodied torn and decaying in the confines of the moon base. Stone paused for a moment, turning toward them, he fired a few shots from the Rambler toward the ceiling panels overhead. The tiles collapsed to the floor in a heap of tangled framework and plastic tile. It would slow them down.
He moved back down the hall and turned left toward the science labs, lockers lined this part of the base as well. For a moment he considered the virus and how it had come to be, what had they been aiming for. Fields popped into his mind. Fields had been the last living person he had talked to. One minute he had been sleeping and the next he was yelling and thrashing with angry need. Stone had placed a single shot to Fields head and finally he had ceased to move. He had cried and mourned the loss because he knew he was alone with the undead.
The shadows stretched in fuzzy rows confined mostly by the steel doors to the labs. Stone thought for a moment, the coming winter, cold lonely and dead yet shambling, aching for the warmth of new blood…food, all they wanted was a taste, a taste left for the undead and here he was pulsing with life and, he considered, the will to survive, the will to get home and away from the nightmare. Stone pulled out the key card and moved closer to the locked doors of the science lab. There was a narrow metal gash in the left hand side of the door, carefully he pushed the card into the slot. He prayed, would it work; near the end of the hall plopping wet and methodical, a leaky faucet, the sound of a water balloon making contact with a hard surface. The figure was standing then falling face forward, up and down inches at a time with each fall. Its legs were broken and the shambling gate was more like a lunge as the dead man fell over and over again.
The door hummed and opened for stone, his prayers had been answered. Slipping inside he pressed a green button on the wall and the door slid shut.
The lab was empty except for the rows of metal cages and test tubes lining the counter; there was an observation room lined with red smeared glass and behind a half dozen peering faces, licking at the glass, tapping for weak spots , he turned away from the taboo to the far side of the room, Salvation. The refrigeration unit was working, he could see the yellow flashing light above the door. Stone moved to the refrigeration unit and pulled open the heavy double doors. Inside were an array of plastic bottles and syringes filled with the vaccine. What a tragedy, they had never had the time to use it.
Stone grabbed one of the syringes, the liquid inside was clear and pure looking. Rolling up his sleeve he inserted the needle into his arm and injected the clear substance labeled X-243 into his arm. His arm tingled from the injection as he sighed with relief. There were several portable freezer packs on the shelf and he loaded them up with the syringes. Strapping them across his shoulders he made his way back to the entrance.
Stone grabbed the Rambler from his waistband and prepared to shoot his way back down the long dark corridor. He pressed the green button again and the door slid open with a whoosh. The hall smelled terrible, all decay and coppery as he let the shadows close in around him again. The crowd at the end of the hall was bigger now and they were screaming as they bumped into one another, otherwise they hadn’t made it as far as the science labs.
He had to make it to the docking bay, one floor down from him. Maybe he could avoid the crowd. He turned left into the darkness as he headed for the stairwell at the end of the hall.
He was burning the breach between what was real, what was nightmare and what had become real as he stepped across the torn and broken remains of several lab workers, for a moment he had spotted movement, there wasn’t much left of them the others had eaten them nearly to the bone yet tiny groans came from one of them, in that moment he cursed the scientists and what they had done, he had to make it back to earth. He knew there was a chance the others had been infected, they needed the vaccine and he needed to be away from this god forsaken hell.
Yanking at the green metal door near the end of the hall he peered into the darkness of the stairwell, Silence and the distant echo of the stations air control units. He stepped in and felt his way to the rail near the stairs. Cautiously he made his way down the two flights of stairs to the launch deck.
Light crept in from the corners of the door and he tugged at the handle. The door moved a couple of inches outward as it bumped up against something. Looking through the crack in the door he spotted the problem, there was a body directly in front of the door. He pushed harder and the body sat up and screamed wildly. Stone pulled out the Rambler and poked it through the door at the thrashing figure. He fired a few quick bursts and the dead man lay still.
A nascent moment of breath stole over him and he felt energized, he would make it, to earth, with the cure. He hoped for the morrow with a passionate intensity, the struggle would be worth it, he had to make it. Another pulse of energy overwhelmed him and he pushed the door open wide to the space port and the loading dock.
He paused for a moment to pick something up out of the floor, a broach, silver and ancient etchings, it opened and a picture of a young eager couple stared out at him. He closed the broach clasp and placed the jewel in his pocket.
There were three ships at dock and another three that had managed to escape. Stone walked up the boarding ramp into one of the ships. He closed the ramp behind him and made his way to the control area. Purveyors of revolution and space travel had never foreseen this situation. He rolled open the port doors and looked through the bay window into the cool dark confines of space. There were a few dozen bodies spinning lazy circles around the entrance, weightless and unseeing. He fired the main engine and the rocket roared to life. The coordinates would be preset for earth all he had to do was launch.
The child in him was thrilled with the legend in myth, space travel and home away from the awful horror of the moon base, “Do you own what belongs to the heart of desire and eternal rest, scarlet tears and the love of another day for tomorrow will be with the help of our breath.” he said aloud as the rocket launched into space for earth.
The starlit sky called the heavens and the hope that Stone felt was overwhelming, but what if. They had gone on infected, what if the vaccine had never made it to earth, what if? He looked forward to the approaching earth and a shiver of fear ran down the length of his body. A new frontier, he had to hope and he did have two freezer packs filled with the vaccine. “What lay before the temple in seasons of chance and change, an alm and a prayer for mankind, a prayer for mankind.

Anthologies Featuring Stories by Ron Koppelberger, Available to buy or soon available at Barnes and Nobel, Amazon.com, Static Movement, Pill Hill Press, Books a Million!!!!!

2012-02-14T01:59:00.000-08:00

The Chase

2012-02-11T00:06:00.003-08:00

Ron Koppelberger

The Chase
He was running and the blood pouring from beneath his left foot squished in rhythm to his tennis shoes pounding the pavement. The 300 pound demon ran after him with the intentions of a grim whisper, all blood and wrath. He had conjured the pot bellied behemoth from the darkest depths of hell, “All gone to the wind and chance, bring him forth and let him dance!” he had said in sibilant tones of expectation.
Now he was running from the grotesque figure of the winged demon, it was purplish red and covered in leaking leasions; it’s eyes he thought, those damn eyes, it had gold colored corneas and bright red accents surrounding the whites of it‘s eyes, it’s appearance was horrible, arcane and madness.
Hull Descry pulled the quick switchblade length from his breast pocket and turned to fight. It came, shaking and screaming in grunts and hums. Hull paused for a moment ducking the first swipe of it’s large glutinous arm. Jab then pull back, jab then pull back, he stabbed at the demons arm and mid section. The blade left red trails in the demons flesh otherwise it was undeterred by the slash of the blade. Blood sprayed in an uneven arc from beneath it’s arm spattering Hull with a thick viscous warmth.
Hull ran again wondering what he would do to deter the beast. The first rays of a morning sun lit the dense underbrush he was running through with spears of shadowy half-light. The woods were darkly thick nevertheless the edge of a giant orange sun filtered up against the gray horizon with the hope of a desperate man and the wont of a demon on the hunt.
Hull paused again as the underbrush crashed and broke with the sound of the approaching demon. Got to stop him he thought with an urgent passion, got to stop him. The thick mat of brush parted and the bleeding figure of the demon fell into the small space Hull was occupying. Picking up a large tree branch he swung in full tilt at the demons head. Crash and a slippery crunching sound issued from the monsters head as Hull made contact with the aberration. The monster blinked his eyes a few times and a thick yellow jell poured in around it’s eyes from the open wound on it’s head. “ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!” it screamed through clenched teeth. Hull stood his ground and began chanting as he hoped for a reprieve.
“All in all, by the gods of the underworld end this pursuit and slay this demon scourge……….by the gods of the underworld slay this demon scourge!” He yelled into the early dawn chill.
The demon roared and grabbed at Hull. Hull pulled the knife from his pocket and swung, and swung, and swung. The gouts of blood that sprayed from the demon covered the ground and the aged crumbling leaves scattered there. Hulls tennis shoes became thick with the substance and dried leaves clung to his feet in sticky clumps. Still he swung and screamed “Be gone demon, be gone demon!” The creature grabbed for the knife and lost most of it’s fingers, plop, plop, the third and index finger fell to the ground, plop the thumb fell and Hull kept swinging. The scene was an ancient taboo, beast vs. Man, demon vs. Conjuror, life vs. Death. Hull chopped and screamed and the demon raged and raged. Hull fell to the ground swinging at the naked creatures ankles as he hoped to stagger it. The flesh parted with ease as the creature sagged to the ground unable to stand with it’s tendons severed.
“Be gone demon, be gone demon!” Hull screamed again at the thrashing figure of the beast. It rolled amongst the leaves as it began to smolder with the fires of perdition, thick black smoke roiled up from the ground where it’s blood poured and it’s flesh smoked in the gray light of a newly approaching dawn. Hull fell to his knees as the creature began to dissolve into the woodland floor, defining the chase as over and won by the likes of a human. Hull sighed and coughed a few times over the acrid smoke pouring up from the remnants of the demon.
The sky bled orange and the first rays of warmth lit the space in the woods between the demon and Hull, it wore on till the sky was a bright ruddy apex of light and new promise. Hull knew he had barely escaped with his life and that knowledge gave him hope, hope for a new day and a new way to live. He knew the beast and it had gone south, gone way south with the phantasms of a dreadful nightmare. The ground shook for a moment and a giant crack appeared in the ground next to hull who was kneeling in supplication to the gods that had rescued him from the demon. The crack crumbled open swallowing the rest of the demons figure and then something strange. The spots where the demons blood had pooled became beaded with new moisture and the pools of vicious liquid ran in runnels to the soil, into the soil almost as if a magnet were drawing the blood inward to the depths of hell.
In the end the only thing left of the demon was it’s odor and a few drops of blood on Hulls switchblade, they even dissipated until gone. The blood on his knife evaporated and the noxious odor disappeared only to be replaced by the scent of lilacs in bloom, lilacs and dandelion greens. Hull smiled for a moment and rubbed his eyes, it was over and he had survived the transgression, his transgression against god maybe. Once again he thanked the heavens for his health and stood making his way back to the land of the living and the comforts of what was important to most. The chase forgotten he prepared for his next adventure, TV and a cold beer.

The Coyote and Changling Congregations

2012-01-20T22:46:00.001-08:00

Ron Koppelberger

The Coyote and Changeling Congregations
An enchantress in fine-spun webs of paradise, she pressed the wheel on the Bic lighter, “Burn witch burn!” she whispered. The piles of sticks and leaves smoldered for a moment before the first tongues of flame appeared. “Burn by the bond of blood and sky, burn!” she chanted as she fingered the inverted pentacle hanging around her slender neck.

***
The yellow streak had flashed near the outer edge of the Sorghum field, a brief flash of eyes and yellow fur. “Damn Coyote!” the reverend had cursed.
The shadows outside the tiny two bedroom cottage were the depth of ebony glass and indigo stain. The light from the front porch cast a delirious silhouette against the edge of the wavering stalks of Sorghum. The reverend grabbed a 22. Cal rifle from its perch near the fireplace as he moved toward the front door. “Damn coyote!” he said again.
The reverend crossed himself and went out onto the wood slated path leading to the edge of the yard. Lifting his arms he took aim at the silhouette of what he believed to be a coyote. The rifle fired a sharp popping report as fire lit the end of the barrel. “Got Ya!” he said excitedly.

***
The woman spoke, “For crimes against the tribe, burn witch burn, for crimes against the… “ the scarlet haired beauty intoned, “ …tribe, burn witch burn, like the chafe in the field burn for your crime!” the reverend fought his bonds, tethered in tight knots to the stake. He watched as the flames overpowered the pile of kindling, as the heat reddened his cheeks.

***
The coyote lay dead near the edge of the field , “Got ya!” he said again as he walked over to the dead animal. A rush of summer wind excited the reverends thinning hair and the dominion of the Sorghum in waves of perfumed supplication. The coyote lay still, restrained in death by the 22. Slug.
The reverend wrinkled his brow and closed his fist in reflexive oneness with the passions of understood boundaries and the caste of the farmer.

***
The fire advanced in slow defeating waves of heat. “Burn witch, burn!” the woman sang, “For yer crimes against god and man!” the small crowd led by the insane enthusiasm of the woman moved in slow troding circles around the reverend , “Burn!” they chanted. The reverend thought About the calm balance between the lives of the entitled favor and those who found the will to move forward. He had inspired congregations and the seed of a generation with his sermons. “By the light of distant survival, give me the strength lord!” he whispered to himself.

***
The coyote had changed, it had gone from yellow cur, fur and fangs to the limp figure of a young boy. “By god!” he gasped, “How?” He would have sworn the shape was a coyote. He picked the boy up, the spring of youth, and carried him to the tall sway of an ancient oak. Placing the boy gently on the cool earth he prayed.

***
He prayed as the flames neared his feet and as the small crowd began to howl in wild screeches and whooping barks, as they grew fangs and fur, padding in concentric loping circles around the flames. He prayed for rescue.

***
They had appeared from the vague shadows of the sorghum field and they had bound him. “Witch,” they had yelled “Witch!” as they lead him away to the clearing in the neighboring wood. “Burn him,” the woman had screamed to the others, “Burn him!”
They continued to howl, half coyote half human, nostrils flared in anger. The reverend inhaled a lungful of smoke and coughed. “Please god….” he moaned in desperation. The way of angels and monsters permeated the air as they mourned the child with the life of the man and the pinnacle of an angry tribe. They danced and cursed the man, finally returning to the wilds of their secret existence.
The reverend felt the first tongues of flame against his patent leather soles. “Save me… “ he whispered to the empty clearing and the darkness of a shadowy horizon. ‘Save me!” The sky rumbled and in an instant the source of life, life for the seed, the blossom of a sated harvest rained down smothering the flames and drenching the dry earth with mercy.
The reverend was rescued from his perch on the stake the following day by local police. They questioned the reverend and in the end he lied, owing the creatures the life of a young boy.

Dead Circle

2012-01-20T22:44:00.001-08:00

Ron Koppelberger

Dead Circle
Wavering strands of green and yellow seaweed reached from around the edges of the stone circle. The stones were a greenish hue with tiny bits of bright red coral covering the deep recesses between each section of the circle. Distant from the thriving port city of St. Nathan the stones were a dark portal to another time, a time when ancient sailing vessels and pirates scouted the waters off the coast. The designs inscribed upon the surface of the stones were an arcane message to the wont of those who might find the need to open unbidden secrets, to the wont of searchers and treasure hunters alike.
Nate Dove swam in slow lazy circles around the circle of inscribed granite; his scuba tank had forty-five minutes left in it and he wanted to mark the spot for future explorations. He had searched for the massive granite circle most of his life, the portal for dark dreamers and the gods of ash and blood. Nate touched the surface of one of the stones, it was warm to the touch and beneath the surface a hum, a vibration, like a heartbeat throbbing with the pulse of the ocean and all the clandestined whispers of another age. A shadowy embrace enveloped him as he pressed his hand against the inscriptions and he was transported to another time, another place closer to the eye of creation.
Images flashed before his eyes, great gushing torrents of lava and towering mountains of ash. In the vision he saw distant vistas near the coastline and old remnants of fire. A group of men on the beach line, they were cooking fish over an open flame, “Food for the angels.” one of them said. The other man grunted and looked to the sea, “The stones will tell the beast to march.” as Nate dreamed of the men his eyes saw and the knowledge they presented to him was a silhouette in terror, the beast the men spoke of stood from the ocean beds on two gigantic legs, as tall as a skyscraper. He saw the men on the beach run and scream in terror as an enormous wave swallowed the tiny campfire and the beach line.
Nate shook his head is slow nods as he stared at the stones that formed the circle; it was dead it had to be he thought, a dead circle, dead creatures of old he prayed.
The stones began to glow a pale red luminescence as he pried at a loose rock near the center of the circle. In that moment Nate saw the bodies, old having died years and years ago the men had perished at the hands of the monster. What had brought the monster to the surface, what had driven it to kill the men; the visions weren’t answering his questions.
A deep rumbling sound came in waves beneath the surface of the ocean, deep within the ocean currents. Nate Dove pried at the stone in the center of the circle until it came loose. Tiny tendrils of silt and sand clouded the recess beneath the stone for a moment, then a flitter of gold. Nate reached down into the cavity and pulled out a long rope of gold with a medallion attached to it. Wiping the surface of the medallion clean he studied it with an eager appreciation.
The opening in the circle began to glow red with a pulsing strobe-like rhythm and then a bright red liquid smoke began to pour from the opening in the gahnite. Nate tried to back away and found that he couldn’t move, his oxygen tank had five minutes left in it and he began to panic flailing wildly as he tried to escape the pull of the stones.
In a final attempt to break free he placed the necklace back into the opening and replaced the stone. The pulsing increased and the circle began to crumble revealing plumes of crimson smoke. Nate screamed inside his mask and yanked free from the magnetic pull of the stones. Swimming upward he got to the edge of the speedboat and climbed in.
Nate jerked the mask from his face and cranked the engine speeding in the opposite direction of the roiling waters. From a distance Nate looked backward and saw a giant shadow that climbed across the sun and threw him into its cool silhouette.
Nate considered the dream for a moment as he headed up the coast away from the approaching hand of fate. They had known and soon St. Nathan would know that the circle was indeed alive and the fates had a surprise in store for them.

Beating the Wings

2012-01-20T22:43:00.001-08:00

Ron Koppelberger

Beating the Wings
Lucky found the world in a tin can and a calm eye for the ladies. Divine construction he thought she is divine. Lucky ran his hand through the length of his silver stained hair as he tugged at the clothespin in his third knuckle. The secret to the universe he thought, she could hold the secret to great ecstasies and long days of passionate shadow. Glass Darkly turned her silhouetted eyes toward Lucky and screeched, “Caw, Caw!”. The rest of the Rainshower bar ignored her but lucky stared in fascination as she spit out a gob of what looked like jelly. Lucky rubbed the palm of his hand across his torn leather pants and sighed, “If only.” he said aloud.
Gaunt horizons and the diligent desire of fate filled luckiest mind with the promise of wedded perfection and children wrought by the winds of a perfect communion, he had twilight in his orange colored eyes speckled by fire and black flecks of midnight hue…contact lenses reflecting the silent rage and the mad wont of a thousand spent dreams, she had to be the one.
Amongst the castaway beer cans and food wrappers littering the floor of the Rainshower was a plastic rose, perhaps it had fallen there from the chateau of a passing princess or maybe just the arrangement adorning the maze of booths in the rain shower, he didn’t care, it was there for him…and her.
Lucky picked the plastic rose off of the floor and smelled it with wonder in his eyes as Glass cooed to the ceiling, “Caw, Caw!” She sang in gentle rhythms to the evening perch and the promise of a new day. Glass smeared her red lipstick in a blurry line across her chin as she looked at Lucky. “Caw, Caw!” she whispered to the empty space between them. Her perfume wrapped around his head and filled his senses with the need of a thousand dreams, she was his call, his swaying daisy in night-tide hearts and sweet drinks of molasses tea.
Seeking the shelter of luckies arms Glass moved closer to him and embraced him gently around the neck, clasping her hands behind him and pulling him close. “Caw, caw she sang as her yellow eyes and painted fingernails found purchase. “Caw, Caw,” she sang quietly into his ear as he shook with a myriad of desires in anticipating asylums of yesterday, today and the moment, the moment given wings of passion by strange acquaintance and wild array by broken shards of love and the whisper of a legend, borne of fire and sparks in the blood of what has the reverent purpose of fate. She wrapped her long moccasined legs around his ankles and the chain around her waist jangled in tune to their embrace. It was, she was more than he could have hoped for, she was perfection. “Caw, Caw!” she said again as the magic of a gray static turned her to the wind and the black wings of a sacred raven. She changed before his eyes and he held her there in cool airs of appreciation as he discovered her and her dancing light. She opened her beak in his lap and sang one last time before flying toward the open door of the Rainshower, “Caw, Caw!” In an instant she was gone and he left feeling touched and fulfilled by the wont of a grand gasp.
Later as he sat there staring at nothing he would realize the impossible, the perfect fantasy gone by the freedom of grand design. She had been all blood and roses, all blood and roses.

Books featuring stories by Ron Koppelberger also available to buy at Barnes and nobel.com, Amazon.com and Books a Million.com.

2012-01-07T23:42:00.000-08:00

The Coyote

2011-12-30T00:36:00.001-08:00

Ron Koppelberger

The Slightest Peek

2011-12-30T00:35:00.001-08:00

Ron Koppelberger

The Slightest Peek
She had left her father standing by the “Bearded Woman” and the “Snake Boy.” Her curiosity had gotten the better of her, the sign read, “Clowns and Magic Smiles!”. She stared at the curtain behind the caged display, it was red and yellow with black polka dots. What’s on the other side of that darn curtain she thought impatiently.
The seams of the closed curtain parted just a bit revealing a faint blue light. She moved to the center of the glass and the edge of the trembling curtain. Cupping her hands beside her face and against the window the little girl stared fervently into the recess and the blue light.
The room was small, a bed in the center and a chair with a mirror in front of it lay against the far side of the room. There was movement from the corner of the room, just to the left. The tinkling of carnival music filled the air around her and she looked eagerly toward the shifting shadows. Arrangements of roses and daisies sat on the dressing table and there was a red wig balanced on a slim gold mount. A figure paused near the hem of the curtain for a moment then the face. The little girl let out a blood curdling scream and stepped backward on shaky legs nearly peeing herself.
The face was shiny and round like a balloon, white grease paint bordered the full round face of the clown. His eyes, like fire, red and neon, glowing like bright red rubies and his nose was long like a carrot drooping below his chin, but the worst was his smile. It was huge and ominous, the teeth were jagged points and the inside of his mouth shown a gray sickly pallor. He smiled and it was then that she realized the grease paint was the actual color of his skin, white chapped and old like a full moon.
She stood there in shock staring at the clown, he stuck his tongue out at her and two pointed coils unraveled from between his lips. She screamed again and he laughed his laughter sounding like a thousand maniacal chuckles. He grinned again and pointed a long gnarled finger at her. The air was charged with an electric current and the smell of cinnamon filled her nose with the desires of an ancient monster, she shivered and said, “Noooooooooooooo!” through clenched teeth. He quit grinning then and a look of hatred filled his face. “Noooooooooooooo!” she said again as he slammed his head against the glass. She stepped back again as the glass cracked and a smear of blood appeared where his forehead had hit the glass. She turned from him an instant later looking for her father at the Snake Boys cage. He screamed behind her and she ran as fast as her legs would carry her directly into her fathers arms.
They walked away from the clown hand in hand. “Here you go honey.” her father said as he handed her a puff of cotton candy.
“Thanks Daddy.” she grinned the clown forgotten and the nightmare behind her.

Several of my Anthologies (Available at Amazon.com)

2011-12-04T21:25:00.001-08:00

Amazon.com

The Bachelor

2011-11-17T06:17:00.001-08:00

Ron Koppelberger

The Bachelor
Rendered in pleasant ignoble pastures of escape, the bachelor yielded the temptation to cleave to sensual creams and flaxen flowers, to rubies in rose rush and eyes of emerald allure. He gripped the counter and growled, “Must not regress, MUST NOT REGRESS!” He crossed his legs and pounded his bosom, “ARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAA!” he screamed. Labors of love and scented bouquets in amazing coquet danced like sweet savory transport and dream before his bulging eyes.
“Oh succulent mistress, seductions of mascara and rose tincture, tempt me in chaste realms of restraint!” He repeated in frayed consciousness and desire, the mazy mists circled him with passionate possessions of promise. Cut to an end, a postponed fate, a snug umbra and womb, an alien rapture, he conjured the int6rinsic art of blazon tethers and strange confines as he separated the curtains, an entertaining masquerade, a drama in horizons of azure and ash, the ash of a smoldering ruin and a dismal abandonment, he was in summons to the ships dilemma. A broken transport the refuge of astronauts and pilgrims searching the new vistas. The ship was beyond repair, smashed and scattered destroyed by design, perhaps by gods design.
The brood stood outside the small vagabond shelter, milling about in the grainy dust of a barren planet, they numbered in the thousands.
He dreamed and dared a glance, beauty and hell, frail yield in the from of a maw. A crowd of women in waiting suspicions of pregnant desire, and yet…….their teeth, beneath the full pouting lips, desolate sandpaper flesh….it looked so soft…….breathing smoke and were those flames coming from their mouths…….it couldn’t! “Oh God!” he moaned. They waited with open arms in vast chains of claim to his seed to his heirs.
They sang the song of sirens and hydras in cobwebs of mystery and illusion, the witches of the rift between earth and far distant planets.
The bachelor sighed and opened the door to slavery.

A Blessed Blossom

2011-11-17T06:16:00.001-08:00

Ron Koppelberger

A Blessed Blossom
The naturalness of the gentle blossom was in fine-spun magic with the seasons of both ash and harvest. A bloom in blushing chagrin with the accounts of angels and saints, full in sleep and boundaries of frayed glory. There was a perplexing innocence in the beginnings of reflection and birth, bearth and gusty meandering sanctity.
It came in sad sorrow of shadow and shade, a departure from love and animate intimacy. It was a cold proposition in favor of demons and blackened berserkers, the season in rebuke, the time of parched acquiescence and discreet dark diversion. It was the bane of passerby, the wane desire of soliloquies in bone dust, rattle and gossiping devils.
The flower cringed and withered in lieu of passion and sated cycles and in the miracle that defines the amaranth it found purchase in a new day as the specter of loves lost and declared diabolic dissolved into the soils of perdition, passing without further fanfare. A bloom in crowns of possession, a soul in search of harvest hearth, the amaranth of dark confessions.

Bears and Amber

2011-11-17T06:15:00.001-08:00

Ron Koppelberger

Bears and Amber
He consumed the savory bee wrought toil of honeycomb and syrup in great gulping gasps, adamant in his swallowing cadence. “GGGGGGGRRRRRRRROOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRR!” the bear grumbled and rumbled in sticky sensations of satisfaction and belly full fashion.
The zodiac sparkled heavenward and the wind coursed through his dark ebony assay of fur in refined miasmic mists, the perfume of bears and wild beasts in frenzied fuming hunger, wild in tandem with a rare rose and the drizzle of pine sap drifted in the lazy tendriled currents.
The baby cooed and the bear nuzzled its tender flesh, just a bit of honey and the chewed remnant of a briar hare, the baby suckled and ate. Laughing the baby touched the mother bear with outstretched fingers, tiny wrinkled and pink.
The bear drizzled a bit of honey from it’s maw and amber droplets of honey sang in dewdrop nourishment as the tiny child cooed a lyric cry of survival and adaptation. The lyric of bears and man, babes and wild claims of springtime miracle and as our elders say the mystery of the baby perfect in wild and tame, in bond and instinct, the mistress sings,

“Vanguard in reflection
Souls in perfection,
A tidy boarder breached
The lord in angels we beseech,
The lyric tale of babes and beasts,
Mans amend to the festival and the feast,
He portends the light in the wood
And the glow in what could,
The first burning passion in human force
And divergent shades of summer course,
The cleft between will and untamed lands of harvest mill,
Asserting the covenant between bear and babe,
Mystery and rave,
In ancient sums of harmony and song,
In rest of days eternally long.”
*And the babe was named chance for the wont of mans unease with the world.

Sleeping Yolk

2011-11-17T06:13:00.001-08:00

Ron Koppelberger

Sleeping Yolk
The times were in fine, crumbling dusty leafs of interposed faded ink. A bit of scarlet and a touch of indigo in English script, the photographs, hidden unbidden secrets of wise dialogue and ancient duty lay old and tattered as the remains of another world.
He shifted in lazy contemplation of the aged texts and alternately he thanked god for the distraction. There were unbroken words in bold underline, they proclaimed a time gone by, a result in lieu of love, peace and harmony. No sated homespun blessings hidden there he thought. He was in secret safety, the Supine Papery would never follow him into the gossip of the ancient town, an umbra foe his breed. He3 sighed and considered the undead Supine’s, the ancient texts made no mention of the Papery yet several proclamations held fast; one headline read,
“MILITARY SEVES DECLARATION OF WAR” and another read,
“VIRALS IN OUR FOOD AND WATER, PRESIDENT DECLARES IT TO BE HARMLESS!” and yet another read simply, “MILLIONS DIE!” He ruffled the pages and coughed as dust plumed into his lungs. The Supine Papery had been the resultant counterclaim to mans dominance on earth. He thought for awhile the made a bed in the crumbling news.
For prosperous futility and the folly of man, his grandfather had said of the Papery.
For the present there was sleep and oblivious yolks of burden lashed by the hand of fate. He slept and the evening moved forward.

Island 429.1

2011-11-17T06:12:00.001-08:00

Ron Koppelberger

Island 429.1
She enchanted the lyric with her endless sashay and when she was done something fluttered near the brim of his hat. She secreted the sweet natured gambol of soul and substance with tender recollections and fate. She yielded the evening sky and as nightingales flow so did the tide of moonlight and indigo ebb.
He sat listening to the chirp of a million crickets and the grunting, rooting pigs as the night took shape around him. An island of desolation the fates seemed to say and yet he was in good company with the song of moon and shadow, sun and wild adventure.
The boat lay in splinters near the sandy shore of island 429.1, an uninhabited secret and his salvation. He tended the few scraps he had salvaged, wood planks and palm scrub in rapt interest with the coals of a new evening hue, bright flaring silhouette and crackling embers of orange. The blissful array of ceremony was a picture that defined sailor and a sated rescue from the dragon of the roaring surf. He culled the broken clam shells and his belly was full of abundant muscle. He thought on his fate for a moment and he realized that the sovereignty of a man’s spirit lay in rocky shores of unknown reception, in truce with survival.
The sudden rush of wild boars and feral pigs surprised Pluto South. He had heard them rooting and crashing in cause and romping possessive rule. Pluto edged away from the smokey flames of asylum to the waters edge as another dozen or so of the pigs meandered toward the campfire. They ran back and forth grunting as something much larger tramped closer to the sandy beach. The ocean sloshed at his heals and he grabbed a rum barrel from the wreckage of the boat. He eased into the surf using the barrel as a ballast. Floating on the half full barrel of rum he watched as the beach bristled with the bodies of dozens of the tusked pigs.
Pluto watched as a monster crashed through the underbrush of the deserted isle. It stood nearly fifteen foot tall and was the length of five or six horses. Its tusks were great graduated lengths of bore ivory, deadly and worried by naught.
It trampled the flames of his tiny fire and screamed an echoing rendition of war at deaths doorstep. The fire puffed out in tendrils of smoke and shadowy silhouette. The giant pig seemed to dance in victory.
Swimming along the shore he wondered what other secrets island 429.1 held.

Secret Trains

2011-11-07T00:00:00.001-08:00

Ron Koppelberger

Secret Trains
It was entirely dappled with the crimson droplets , the box, the damn crate. Will Sky stood near the end coach at the rear of the Evening Bullet; the train sang the ever moaning rails with grunts and pounding rhythm, with complaining progress, she had been making the route for a lifetime.
The mystery of the cargo that the dark train carried was an empty, vague illusion draped in shadow and passion, vague like the motes of dust that infer a distance, age and an old character. Will touched the red beaded spray covering the heavy oaken crate, “ What the hell is this?” he wondered.
Will felt older like the tinctured blood of a rusty machine, oil, blood and oil, moving at a snails pace. Oil, human……yet what had happened to this curious rider, the owner of the blood. A Murder had perhaps taken place, who knows he thought.
The train moved closer to its conclusion through darkness and wild advances.
The box ballooned and swelled before Wills tired eyes, unveiled, laid bare it throbbed and proposed secret enormity and a dark hazy mist. Will watched as the nails holding the framework of the box popped free, one by one. Blood poured in streams from the edges and seams of the box. Like some dark magic the box fell open and terrors and surreal dreams prevailed in a cloying mix of blood and oil. Was he an innocent passenger on a midnight train to oblivion, a desperate rider, “Oh god, what is it, Oh god!”
Unclad the doppelganger stared naked beneath an ashen gray sheet covered in oil. What was this…….it had his face……it was him! How, he thought, this can’t be…..“I’m me not this thing!” he gasped aloud.
Exactly like him the sheeted man stood and showed him the wounds on his hands, deep, deadly, final. Will trembled in fear split between curiosity and phantasmic unreality. The doppleganger sang an old song and collapsed to the floor of the box in a heap of gray cloth, oily rags and smoke. Afterward Will looked at his hands and sighed, he must have had something evil to eat he thought wondering about the hallucination.
* Later there was a fire on the night train. Someone had stored oily rags too close to a lantern and the entire car had gone up in flames. Will had run to the front of the car and pounded on the locked door separating the cars. There was a small window between the cars and Will smashed it with his bare hands cutting him severely and mortally wounding hi,.
Thus the cycle moved forward as did the train to futures told in blood and smoke, each car a different story, Wills only one of many. All told by portent and fortune, the Evening Bullet moved ahead on the tracks and for some it was just a way home, for others an endless cycle of revolution, turns given an end to an end to an end………

A Picnic Betrothal

2011-11-06T23:59:00.000-08:00

Ron Koppelberger

A Picnic Betrothal
Gamble Awe studied the humble embrace of green grass and wild forest daisies. The Picnic basket weighed heavy in his right hand. “Sweet eras of youth and gentle dreams of beauty.” he sang aloud.
Setting the basket down he surveyed the small clearing in the dense forest. The scent of fried chicken and the promise of chilled Burgundy excited his grumbling and gauntly defined stomach. Gambol opened the wicker basket and pulled out a crisp blue sheet checked and faded from use. After laying it across the grassy leaf strewn slope and shadowy clearing in the path he sighed and whispered, “For only a moment the view coming to a lovers request, an aged wish for a companion dream.”
Gambol sat on the sheet his aching arthritic legs consenting to the rest. The chicken was sealed in a green plastic bowl and the Burgundy in a small thermos; unscrewing the lid he let the fragrance flow into the air.
The creature hid in the thistle and Palm scrub, watching, she relaxed and hummed releasing her instinctive balance, a fawning desire to restore the man, to fulfill his wish and her need to remain secret. He ate and sipped at the perfumed drink. She sniffed the air with slender tend riled coils and silky fluttering wings, great mosaics in hues of scarlet and gray. She rustled the bushes around her and shivered as she edged closer to the man.
Gambol took a bite of chicken and froze. He sensed something in the thicket near the far side of the clearing. He quickly emptied the thermos and his head swam in heady mists. Peering into the woods with aged blurry eyes he said, “Show yourself, I can hear you!” He considered the possibility that a bear or a curious Raccoon had made the noises.
The brush shook and parted; he screamed, “Oh my God………what!”
She moved to the man and touched him softly, he fell and slept. She coiled a long tendril into his hand and pulled him upright. He was frail she thought as she restored him, lines of age disappearing and strength, she returned his strength.
When she was finished she opened her great motley wings and flew to the tree tops away from the man. She had revealed herself to him, he would search for her and the idealist in her hoped for communion with the man, nevertheless she took the memory from him. He would remember roses and sunshine instead.

New Poetry

2011-10-29T03:00:00.000-07:00

Ron Koppelberger

Alabaster Brocades
Seasons of cool reverie’, a crystal rouse in snows
Of sure care and wandering dreams of ice,
By bare source, the fluttering confluence of snows
And gentle rain, a heavenly sprinkle of what’s born
Unto the cold soils of sleeping spring and the wont of
A distant sun, the gleaming character of blessings
In delicate desires of rare revolution and proclaimed
Essences in alabaster brocades, cotton wisps of beginnings
In chill, conscious moments of expectation.

Ron Koppelberger
Unto the Mists
Complete in causes and sentinel professed
Perseverance, a surprising hunger for the wont
Of aspirations in cinders alight and an amazing recurrent guild,
An evolving revolution in staid stance and
Duel turns of flow, defied by the same surety
Of pure innocence and need,
The shifting indulgence of ancient
Release, unto the mists.

Ron Koppelberger
Tendriled Mist
The scorn of willful wretches and vagabond
Adventurers in passing need, in ripe seed and
Whole breakwater push, pulls and tempest cull,
A rare want in sweet dewy evanescence and
Desires of tendriled mist,
An invocation in bound attested passion, the sustenance of
                                                              Ravaging tempered heaven.

Ron Koppelberger
Dawn’s gambol
Secret blush and vague confessions of perpetual reverie’,
The triumph in ebony waters of silt and backwash wear,
Cloudy futures in mythical yearning and desires of cause,
The intimate, sworn choice of wolves and suggested
Nonchalance, a silhouette in honey-tongued substances
And raging payable fate, the view, in righteous fountains
And sensed satisfactions of passion, a warm bead of foresworn freedom sewn unto the word of saints, by angels in congregate wills, by the dream beyond the gates of glass exile, beyond the purchase of fires in scarlet arcade, an awed Eden in vesture of sated grace, by dauntless blood in emanating ghosts of wild fury, an unyielding devotion in dawn’s gambol.

Ron Koppelberger
Lovers in Shadow
A Belief, Pondered in wise arts of affection, by chanting temptation and unconscious elation, a reassuring obsession, clandestined
In mistress allure, in ascending chance, desperate by
Occasions of ecstasy and brilliant rare gauze, in breaths
Of beloved shadow, the trust of passionate fire, the measure of
Twilight venture and clever character, temperance together
With the abandon of lovers in
                                                                              Shadow.

Ron Koppelberger
Shadowy Embrace
A wretch in the throes of divine
Passion and the vagabond desires of frayed
Edges, tattered rays of sunshine,
Enchanted by the love of still promise,
Princess dew drops and the nectar of remanded silhouettes
In shadowy embrace, a depth of surrender
To the tears of a gentle
                                                                              Storm.

The Merchant of Cold

2011-10-15T22:45:00.001-07:00

Ron Koppelberger

The Merchant of Cold
Farther and in wandering post the expecting, everlasting ally prevailed, in beloved summons and demeanor. A fame of employ and perfection, a quick resolve sanctioned by rages of easy arrival, he pardoned the rays of frozen bound delivery for the scattering of wheat grain, in snow and atop ice.
Bidden by fresh spring passage and in notice of rebirth, the merchant of snows pondered by the lines of destiny, the wonder of will, the will to seed frozen soils with the inheritance, the blessings that secret gardens turn.
He chanced the sprinkling of saffron seed in baptisms of cold and desolation and the soft division between god and seasons of fate. It was a ventured creation in seas of nothing but ice and cold earth, silhouettes of province shaped in poverty. They would find purpose, seed consented to the merchant of cold and keep. The ice would bow to the miracle of sunshine and rebirth, the rebirth of a dream in amber and glowing hope, for the wont of those who would come to pass. The day wore long nevertheless the cold yielded the secret harvest and the future of mankind.

Certain Brand

2011-10-15T22:44:00.001-07:00

Ron Koppelberger

Certain Brand
The parched conclusion was adrift in seas of sand and sagebrush. He concurred with the likeness of balanced twilight and dawn mist. The tumble of destiny had placed him in the temper of distant horizons, refuge, a mix of native tightfisted cinder defined by the flame of embers and closed handed ash, straw and harvest energies of dreamy aspiration.
The sands flitered away from him in waves of cool dry air and the moths danced in sparks of burning passion. He growled and appraised the vast desert shadow, he claimed breaths of wolf like yield as the gray ends of braided fur secreted his flesh in wishes of canine wonder.
The hands of fate spoke in symbols of change and in change he indulged primal instinct, the way of man and beast. His eyes fluttered and amber suns filled them with luminescence and direction.
The slender neck of the brandy bottle sloshed in forward motion to the attention of rhythm and wolf grumbles. A droplet of delighted will and the drama of an ethereal teardrop, an extravagant prelude to haunt and hunts, to desert rays of scarlet struggle and hungry rare fulfillment dared to be his divine inspiration. It was a declaration of freedom, a guarantee of eternal saffron and garden blossom, he engaged the sunrise and found the frayed tether of the other, the wolf in angel attire, in uncommon fortune, “Moreover to the edge of evolution and cities that grace the wonder of heaven, a purpose in whispers of secret.” he intoned as he headed for the tender heart of Eden.
A shadow satisfied by the dark wolf and by the dream that would bring him closer, in endless accord with the bones and dust of a great granite circle, stones, the alter, scarlet unbidden stones. He would reveal the promise begat to him by the fates, his will, his destiny. To find the angel and the wont of his generation, by blood and wine and for the need of his kind.
Somewhere in the distant horizon the angel waited for the dark wolf in the passage of the storm and the desert blooms, a breath of patience and the prayers of one who has the seal.

Spit

2011-10-15T22:43:00.001-07:00

Ron Koppelberger

Spit
The pace of the reverie was bridled by the why and wherefores of the cur. The moan was barely emphasized in winter worlds of presumption. He retreated from the wrapper of vigilant mystery to the quiet rampage of discovery. Tread in spoils of backwoods darkness, a shakedown in suspicions of existence. Guiltlessly he thrashed in silence. A script waged by static and white sound.
He meditated and searched for the inborn scruples of spit, a difficult bone. He wrest with the ancient drama in a curs destiny, the cycle of limitless bond between dog and wolf. He thought, shoved and pushed at the unlatched vault, the blessings of intrinsic dust and ensuing agents of change. The glass was a blank admission of unrevealed consciousness, a charm in assent, a reflection in tamed consent, imitated by a metamorphosis, the mirror assumed the cur and the cur, guileless with dreams and portent assumed the breed of amended companions.
He savored the respite as his mange disappeared and the wounds closed in favor of exclaimed fury passion and order. The cur bothered the bone and howled with resolute charm. The freedom of rare springs in seasons of sultry balance defined the substance of the curs poise and destiny ensued in arranged saffron bloom.

The Birth

2011-10-15T22:42:00.001-07:00

Ron Koppelberger

The Birth
She shone in candent glories of rouge blush and glimmering amber eyed intensity. Her arms lay clenched against the bleach white arrangement of sheets in a gasp of course, the course of pregnant design, the journey of betrothals in ferocious disposition defined, a rhythm in breaths of panting, whispering reoccurrence.
She held the bond and the lashings of cerulean dreams and scarlet angst in the complaining belly of servile devotion to the inheritance. The humble wonder of design and immortal discovery gave birth to the secret.
The nurses and the birth mother were visible, heads rising and muted in silent acquiescence as they worked between her splayed legs. She groaned and the birth mother acknowledged with a careful tug, the baby fought free and she gasped again in consuming relief. The birth mother handed the baby to the nurse and left the room. Squalls and tears, the fresh cool air and luminescence greeted the child in degrees of sensation. She held her arms out and fashioned a cradle for her new wonder, the sweet delicacy of newborn decree. The nurse handed the baby boy to her in the silken cloth of a moonlight sash. The child cooed and the birthmark near the back of his neck glowed min crimson exclamation. She laughed and cried in joy when the tiny bundle suckled at her finger. She smiled, two tiny fangs probed at her finger tip in playful union with an instinct that was primal and beyond explanation.
In the penance of a contrite avatar the gnarled visitor secreted himself near the entrance to the unbidden passion of mother and child, the union of hold and bond; he waited near the large double doors. The doors proclaimed restricted admittance, and in reading those signs he recognized the irony in his mission. The child cooed and the evening grew shaded and deep with the notion of wombs and new beginnings.

Cloudy Ghostly

2011-10-15T22:41:00.001-07:00

Ron Koppelberger

Cloudy Ghostly
The pressure of motion and stealthy absolutes rolled in waves of cloudy dander. He stared at the clouds and they sifted in whimsy of vision in his view, of subconscious dreams. A season for gentle loves and a season for delirious desire, spring in bloom and fall cocoons of nascent envelopment. He wondered and flew in unself abandon. He soared with a hawk flying high in yield to the wont of unseen currents, oceans of conjured betrothal to the heavens and in beauty to the moment, an instant of asylum for his sweet dandelion.
Baby dandelion in blush and dander from the heavens and honest sanctity, in importance the youth of curious loves and sated transfixed absolution. He lay staring from warm saffron savannahs to cloudy rolling skies of umbrage and hope for the world, hope for love and hope for the curious dandelion.