The Coyote

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.

The Slightest Peek

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)

Amazon.com

The Bachelor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Duck (surreal)

She Parts the Umbra (Surreal)

A Dark WSpirit in my House (surreal)

My other Websites (Ron Koppelberger)

Here is a list of my other websites.
Farthermostdream.blogspot.com
ethrealsouls.blogspot.com
ronnie.weebly.com
swamplit.weebly.com
ravenswont.blogspot.com
mirageinblame.blogspot.com


Enjoy

Bristles and Terror (Vampires and Vengence, a tale of blood, viscera and sweet asylum)

Ron Koppelberger

Bristles and Terror

She touched the bristles of the straw broom, her fingertips came away smeared crimson and gray with the dust of a struggle. Small beaded teardrops fell to the wooden floor from the blood stained broom, spattering in tiny blossoms, finely petaled blooms in blushing sinful retreat. She was tapered in rags, burlap hems and heavy cotton sash. Gentle ringlets in golden corn silk haloed her bloody checks, a beauty defined in delicate degrees of warmth.
She returned the broom to an upright sweep and worked the swaying rhythm of mutual discouragement. Pools of cooling blood streaked the floor as she swept away the foolishness of death. The bodies of Frank and Leona Jenkins lay in disarray near the cottage hearth. She had conferred with the shadows in quiet repentance when the couple had invited her into the cottage. She had been searching for food, hands expecting the warmth of another living creature; the door , latched tight in its unbiased remark, its lofty logic, had surrendered its contents as a middle aged man, large silken, worn well in wealth and status. He had opened the door and offered her his hand. She hadn’t perceived him as villainous, nevertheless the truth had borne witness to his evil intent.
She had crossed the threshold quietly thanking the man. He had avoided her gaze as he bolted the door behind her. “You’re ours now babe and we’re gonna have the best time sweetie.” he whispered, “ Purity and grins, grins and ash, grins and ash.” the woman chanted menacingly. His betrayal complete, he grabbed her arm and chuckled, a bit of spittle touched her check. “Grins and ash, save us a kiss for the miss.” the man’s wife laughed.
Her arm hurt where he was holding her and an anger engulfed her in desolate union. She favored her pointed fangs as she grabbed the mans head, pushing it forward and to the left. Her teeth dug deep and he screamed,” Aaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeee.” His blood pumped and he fell unconscious, then dead. The woman came at her with a metal poker from the hearth, “ What have you done, what have you done?” she screamed in a rictus of bare teeth and clenched jawbone. The woman flew backward and into the hearth, smashing her head and rolling into the ash pile.
Scrutinizing the smears of blood she mouthed a quiet, innocent prayer for the wont of a vagabond vampire, a desperate enchantress and an unwary vampire in search of haven, in search of respite near bristles and terror, near night and the passion of an endless dream.

The Tears of a Butterfly

In The Midst

Ron Koppelberger

In The Midst

He gamboled in the mystery of wicked mystery and mediums of relative harmony, a realm, poor and a reflection of the remedy turned by smoke. He tapered the circle of powder to a shallow enticement of pledge, the promised dream and the blood of what he begged. A texture of his humanity and the difference between mists and veils of flow, by creations will and the trappings of what magic interprets, the alliance of what forever gave in degrees of wont.
He braced his hand and witnessed his agreement in blood and tight debts of profound wine, he bled at the insistence of the knife, the precision of the metal edge against yielding flesh. The powder begged the surgeon and drank in the substance of sacrifice. He saw Eden and paradise in nimbus illumination and tabloos of enduring saffron. The agent of boundaries that ransom the wheel of endless time and frayed truth; he cheated the drab walls and the order of garnished human existence for the rapt attentions of the harvest. It was a pursuit if fulfilling yowls and he sniffed his surroundings tasting the order of the grain. His paw throbbed in clockwork with the rhythm of his beating heart. He assumed allure in blossoms of desired shape, shadow and howling affected custom.
The wolf had ascended and gratified the milk of innermost reflection. Saffron and wheat, golden, primal, pure. He guzzled the breath of clean air and moved west to the favor of god and destiny, the destiny of a cause and a moment given only to those who guard the promise of heavens unleashed. The wolf would find his charge and the way of the land, the fortune of what wants the dawn and the eternal cycle of man and, perhaps angels, even so….disguised as wolves.

The Flower Queen

Ron Koppelberger

The Flower Queen

Norman Theat greeted the flower queen with applause, nods and winks, mysterious ramblings in passionate excuse for speech; finally he flexed his brawn for her consideration. She trifled her frill lace kerchief for an instant,
It fell to the floor and Norman grinned in response.
“ The poooovaaaateee of my sash is in your hands my love.” she said in a seductive passion of helplessness.
Norman pointed to the kerchief and said,
“ May I assist you in your need?”
“ Assist indeed maaaa love.” she cooed. Norman swept his arm back and bowed to the fallen sash. The lace and silk were warm against the tips of his fingers. He sighed and heights of Eden filled his thoughts. A satisfying coquette in rhythm with his heart. To steeples and tumult, to forges in harmony with sated desires, he thought. He bowed and a gentle surge of foresight, a premonition in ash and blood filled his mind. A penny for a drop of sustenance. The torn bluster of dire deeds and fangs in full bloom, unsatisfied, scarlet in charm and shadow, in hazards of blood, wary in rose petal desire. She touched the nape of his neck and hummed. “Sire in mortal confines of passion, in forevermore a taste as sweet as the sugars that fill the realm of sleep, sweet unattested sleep my daaahhhhaaaling.” She moaned in a soft sibilant whisper.
He shook and moved in slow motion, trembling by will of survival and determined love, the love of his life and rules of balance. The flower queen sighed and kissed the top of Normans scalp, tickling the skin beneath his hair with her fangs.
“ The same in ever sweet Norman.” she whispered as she took the sash from his hand.
Norman inhaled, smelling a coppery perfume of lilac and something akin to oily smoke. The flower queen left him a moment later as she wandered into the anxious maw of the dinner party. Norman thanked Christ for his life, nevertheless, he stared after her beauty with guilty desire and suicidal wont, his mind cloudy by the mists of an unknown charge and a chance meeting with the flower queen.

Sick to Sunrise

Ron Koppelberger

Sick to Sunrise

The discovery of sunrise in the shadows of the dark conclave was a miracle and an inspiring reason to continue living. The priest, Father Wily, was ill; he found it difficult to function in day to day degrees of service, nevertheless he found faith and strength in the promise of each dawn and every twilight-tide passage.
Rays of sunshine shone through the dust moted atmosphere of the ancient cathedral. Tempered and penitent he prayed near the alter of the saint, just a tiny fragment of bone lay within the alter but it was enough to manifest a miracle. Father Wily prayed and the burnished surface glowed in a mosaic of tempest dawn and stained glass light. The crucifix held the power of a healing divinity, Father Wily touched it and began to shiver in convulsive force. Falling to the granite floor his back arched and he screamed. Images of fire and the skies full of acrid smoke from an enormous conflagration filled his consciousness. He gasped then went limp. The vision faded into an endless sea of saffron gold, the fire gone in an instant. He found peace in that image; the warmth of an angel in embrace overwhelmed him and he saw wheat fields in bloom. Near the horizon lay an azure sky, eternal and in rainbow plumes of mist.
Awakening he tested his frailty, and discovered that he was no longer ill. The evidence of his experience was clutched ion the palm of his hand. He sat up and stared at the sprig of wheat in his palm. Inhaling, he breathed in the promise of a new beginning and a destiny inscribed in flame and Fight.

The Darkness Near Areial

Ron Koppelberger

The Darkness Near Aerial

Consigned to the conditional, rare circumstance, Aerial found himself in a barren expanse of mud, fallen leaves from the late fall season and the deep inky darkness that sleep and the advent of death reveals. He wrapped his arms around his shoulders and sighed cool puffs of dank air. But what for the dream, he had aspirations, intended futures in drama, were they written in sand? What would Amy do without him? Sweet, sure in poise and beauty, sweet Amy, his love, his breath in frigid airs of disarray.
The sorcery had gone in divergent paths of darkness; here all darkness and shadow, there bleeding a sliver of scarlet light, to move ahead, toward the crimson horizon, the impossible crack of light. He stepped into the shadows from shadows, from silhouettes in darkness unto deeper darkness; the sorcery and dear Amy, the love of his life. How had he done it, how had he brought the black caste of infinity to the land?

“Carry me to the gates

Of Shemar, he had said, by a

Tear drop of blood and the spit

Of a dead man he had sung.”

The sky had receded to form a blanket of ebony cotton, an apex reaching upward in distant rungs, by Jacobs Ladder and Jacks bean stalk, up and away. How would he return the sun or find it again?
The sorcery had done the deed. He was distraught, shriveled by the sorcery. Aerial pushed toward the orange beacon in the distant sky and prayed, burying the sorcery and a piece of himself in the cool mud that squished between his toes. Taboos and visions of dark laughter, “bury the sorcery.” he said aloud to the sprigs of ragweed and leagues of lichens, moss and sodden earth.
His arms flailed forward as he reached into the pitch-black misunderstanding, the awareness of a reconciled sorcery, the betrothal of night eternal and depths of confusion. Aerial moved forward and finally the velvet veil lifted revealing an unfinished landscape, tinged by yellow sunshine and lined in fading inks. Unfinished, a prospect of future dreams, unfinished. Aerial stepped forward to meet Amy and the dawn of a new day, with love and heartfelt character, the chaos gone, dreams in place of the darkness and empty vials of liquid hell, behind , forever forgotten, for his Amy, for his sanity and the sake of mankind.

The Highest Dry

Ron Koppelberger

The Highest Dry

A resonant scream echoed near the base of the hill. “Heed my call oh ye who would have my soul fer yer supper!” Forcefully, the man moved upward picking his way through the stones and boulders scattered along the path.
Several days passed and the man found himself halfway there, the valley lay far below and the sea stretched away endlessly toward the horizon. He rested and listened, a voice sang in grumbles, “If yer passing my realm, yer to be my slave in blood, I’ll drain yer spirit and break yer bones, by the depth of the secret pond you’ll bath in my eyes and shadow!”
The mans expression was stone and determination he would charge the demon and climb the pinnacle at the apex of the hill.
The monster cooed, “ Yer to be here forever human, forever and a day, forever!” The man moved forward and up toward the summit. Once at the peak he surveyed the secret pond that lay in the uppermost crest of the hill.
The monster sat on its haunches, on a precipice near the center of the pond. “Come to me!” it hissed blood bubbling from its fanged maw.
The man rested and broke bread near the waters edge. “ There’s a destiny fer ye to follow.” The beast coaxed. ‘ Come to the ledge, swim over here the water is cool and life giving!” The man ignored the creatures request.
“ I’ll throw the bones of my enemy into the pond.” the man said as he dumped a sack full of bones into the small lake. The creature stood on the upraised island near the center. “Yer to fulfill the prophecy with the drink, drink of the well, drink of the water, drink of the lake man!” The man paused for a moment and turned away leaving. “I’ll not humor your command beast, for you are surrounded by the bones of those who have lost, the water is tainted by that blood!”
The creature watched the man leave, its burden eternal and it’s fate the highest dry. The temptation to drink the water forever in its consciousness. Unable to drink or cross the pond the beast accepted its fate as it waited for the well to run dry.

Sweetwater Seasons

Ron Koppelberger

Sweetwater Seasons

Katherine Sunday twisted and turned the handle as the gray bucket dipped lower and lower into the well. She was clothed and sorted by the fortunes of the Sunday legacy, lace edges and tresses of flame. She cast a narrow shadow against the twilight horizon and if one were to trespass on the taboo of orange gild and beautiful silhouette, the twilight might have sighed in exasperation and sweetwater taboo.
Katherine completed the turn of the leaver with a silent consent to the asylum of fresh sated thirst and desert abandon. The rolling plains unfurled a distance beyond the spring and tiny grass mud hewn cottage. A cry for the service of rain and great geysers of moisture, a cry for the cool seed of tender rose bloom and lush jungle sash, in contrasting desires the plains ached for change and sweet water currents.
Katherine rolled up the taunt length of rope in slow easy turns and whispering anticipation. The taste of what’s real and worn by the evanescent temper of angels and racing will, in slow degrees of chance, a fated pull at the rope and the sustenance of life. The will to Eden and sand to verdant vistas, to tall pine and wild dandelion blossom all in the gray metal conveyer of nourishment, of clear, cool love for the land and mankind, water in wishes and wonder. She touched the metal banded bucket and smiled in tender alliance with the gift of life, the sweetwater miracle. Katherine waited in pause and prayer, “Thank-God,” she prayed as she dipped the tip of her finger into the bucket, “Thank-God.” The rare wine the sweet virginal fact. The bead of well water fell from the tip of her finger
And dust, desert dust sighed and breathed in explosions of wont, a need in dry riverbeds made fast and rushing. The desert assured the reception, the shape of release unbound. She delivered the birth of a garden as the water spread to the distant horizons and the secret soils beneath. A vista of suspiring tangled choice, Sweetwater wilds and the tide in ebb with the heartbeat of desert passion, the mossy measure of time, the blood of eager saints in raging desires and rushing birth. Just a touch, a drop of water borne by the tears of a maiden in silent sweetwater seasons.

The Prisim

Ron Koppelberger

The Prism

The suffering interval, woven moments and measures of refined passage indulged the solemn weary impression of whole dust, desert tempest, designed by arid evolutions of wandering heat.
The prism was close present and ethereal in its custom. He honored the diamond shaped prism with a gob of spit. Dirt and dust rolled from its smooth surface as the spittle slid across its dull luster leaving tendrils of sparkling crystal. He seized the jewel and screamed. Clear as day and the steam broiling sands, he saw and screamed. The ballet was perfect and the ballast was in rhythm with the fluorescent fold, the mushroom cloud of dust and ash. He screamed and fell back, “God help me!!!!!………OH god!” he screamed. Intuitions of sacred sacrament were visible in the smokey array, fulfilling the fashion of a distant nightmare and an oath to move forward to the moment of silent desolation. “Oh god!” he gasped. Breathing in all consuming assumptions of blood and destiny he moaned, “Oh god…..the blood.” he whispered and collapsed in a heap of sweat and tears, “The blood……the blood!”
The prism rolled from his grasp into the tide of sand and time. He knew and he knew. The fight was his, he had a covenant now…..in blood and season. He refined his thoughts for a moment, holding, holding the fray, the guild of saffron deliverance and Eden’s promise. He had the indelible fortune and the lead in the drama, he comprehended clearly, like the jewel…….he would begin his journey with the setting sun, by cover of night and the silhouette of a ravens wings.

The Enigma

Ron Koppelberger

The Enigma

Consecrated opium winds and amplified fields of sensual grace danced before his tired eyes. A disconcerting fear ornamented his hunger for the solution to the enigma. A lionized encounter with the shadowy secrets of conviction and oblique convention, the doorway to greater things and bidden by the curious, called and moved him to the center of mystery.
He streaked the rough hewn surface of his beard, he hadn’t shaved in a week. Revolutions of wilderness wash and wild temptation to go south, to the nether realms of the unknown rubbed like sandpaper against the surface of his brain. The pen of believable hopes and suppressed desires deposited their task in his lap and the enigma remained an enigma. Mystery upon mystery and secret upon dark secret, a symbol of life and the signifier of death, the cruciform was an ambiguous challenge.
He dusted off the bits of dried clay that clung to the stone tablet and traced his finger across the secret script. Blind in distinctions of history, the possibilities plagued his every waking moment and shapes in shadow played near the corners of his weary eyes. The evasive passage was a delirium of contradiction. The stone seemed to vibrate as he slowly unraveled the secret. “ A breath of life and never-ending eternity….” it had read.
He looked at his hands for a moment, unlined and youthful as they had been for one hundred and twenty years. It had been that long he realized with a touch of nostalgia. The secret had been revealed to him years ago, the enigma in stone, he thanked the gods.
Sipping at his cold black coffee he considered the bitter sweet sustenance and its wont for a palette, its desire for the dawn and its nascent beginning, the start of a new day.

New Poetry

Ron Koppelberger

Shadowy Flight

Attained in chance and sanction, ravaged by

Rare satisfactions of backward trespass and

Entrance, precise, given in blows

Of distant walnut noise, cracking

In savory delight and shadowy flight.

A twilight nod, uneasy and in

Lilly-white amaranths

Of stone.

Ron Koppelberger

Temples of yesteryear

The patience and embryonic perfection of love’s in tender

Assurance and passion’s undusted glow, an

Intimate kiss, akin to silken sashay and wild

Temples of yesteryear, the heart of obsessive romance

Tempered by the sweet syrup of emeralds

In flittering innocence and innate desire, a satisfying

Affliction in the endurance of eternal

                                                                 Bliss and suns in revolution.

Ron Koppelberger

Endless Flight

Swallowed up in nectars of sweet sugar and flittering flow,

By the azure skies and the flight of sparrows in betrothal

To the winds, a dollop of destiny, desired by the eternal temper

Of belief and sure chaste weddings, rebuked by the tides of terrain

And tears, by songs in willful exquisite anew and

Endless flight.

Ron Koppelberger

Sated Heaven

Rains and grinning skulls in cadent ash,

Blown,flittering,churned in glowing embers of benumbing

Magic birth, the shallow aura of life and beasts,

Of passion’s attention and measures of affected desire,

A delicate vision of dreamy spoiled youth

And misty tendriled love, stirred and tended by the

                                                                Flames of a sated heaven.

Ron Koppelberger

In Spaces of Adult Wonder

Marveling, done in a childs distant dream,

By full bellies in sated contentions of green pea soup and

Exuberant parfaits’’ in besides, in all the reward for dirty

Socks and smudged checks in rain shower delights and the

Entirety of bidden snails and puppies breath, the seconds in spaces

Of adult wonder defined by sleepy heads and tomorrow’s

                                                                               Pass.

Unborn Fare

Ron Koppelberger

Unborn Fare

There, in gray agreements of cloudy mist, the sharp-edged desire

To flourish in secret sunglow and daytime moonshine,

The celebrated parish allure of ascendancy, beyond the veils of

Beaten soils and worn seams, beyond the Smokey haze of

Lazy complacency and hazy whiskey wells, in mind

And neither hot nor cold reflections, a coveted flock

Flying in tall warbling songs of silence, by kind destinations

Of symmetry and balanced life, the soaring puff of unbound spirit,

Realms of sustained release allayed by a moment of hidden romance,

By the seconds in unborn fare.

The Wolves Harvest

Ron Koppelberger

The Wolves Harvest

Fortune expressed the passion and praise. He fixed the earth and the cool rain with a bidden eye. The sun shone through the drizzle in customs of satisfying will, gray clouds and remarkable columns of brilliance provided shelter and warmth amongst the moted rays of light and shadow. The invention of his choice would amaze the rabble the onlookers who found themselves in the presence of a curious demeanor.
His source was determined by the sweet nectar of daisy blossoms and honeycomb. He sipped at the mixture of sugary tea and chaste blossom ascension with the greatest of understanding, an instant of predetermined portrayal, an instant of depth, width and height. The saffron glow agreed with the gentle rain as beads of liquid slid across his skin and the tall glass of tea. He surrendered to the moment and growled in contented bliss.
The fur bristled across his body and his skeleton conformed.
The silver wolf hung loosely about his taunt neck as he padded through his meandering evolution toward wild fields of wheat and saffron. The sun shone again through the mists and again and again as he found the distant horizon, the yielded sacrifice of substance for soul, as a wolf, the man in search of secret freedoms and love borne only by the passion of wild eyes and ancient passage unto the metamorphosis between long nights and days spent expecting the reward, the wolf at moons call, the faraway lands of golden wheat where men trod with the will to find freedom.

The Reckless Wolf

Ron Koppelberger

The Reckless Wolf

An honest importance, an intimate arrangement with the rubber mask. He tasted the bitter gambol in divisions of smokey breath and the chemical powder that coated the interior surface of the mask. A taste of alum, the mask was a graceful projection of werewolf fear, fangs and yellow eyes.
He followed the corridor to the back ally in tense rendezvous with fate, he pulled the convenience store door open, it read employees only. The flow of events became a kaleidoscope of screams and inhalations that galleries of everyday circumstance defined as intense.
He pointed the gun at the clerk and gamboled a grunt, “Empty the register!” he threw a black silk bag seamed by thick string at the clerk. Unforced, native sunshine defined the countenance of a smiling middle aged woman; suddenly her smile faltered and she screamed and spit in terror. Homespun glory filled his mind and he found creation, god in that moment. The woman screamed and the door clanged as a gulping ghost in white flew through the door. Wrenching the bag from the grasping clutch of the clerk he ran, exalting the spirit of the mask. He ran and sang the rhapsody of a newly proclaimed spirit in secret. Again, he ran.
The fortune of gilded dreams and absurd intuition arranged a rent in the rift of time. A warp in the conflict, discernable by the rare care of fate. Vaulting through the metal door he found his way whooping, “YEEEEEHHHHAAAAAWWWW!” as he ran into the back ally. The sanity of passage and the secret, the wolf in silhouette, the image of blaring sirens, enigmas and signs of happenstance, all told him to soar, to run wild in free spirit, in search of the day.
He saw the man at the mouth of the ally and in a rush he nearly tripped over him. Manners of fast faith argued the fate of destiny intertwined as he threw off the mask and ran into the brawny arms of a police officer.
The wolf mask lay near the man in the shadows. He grinned and moved forward to Vista Rose, the cemetery that used his care. Concealed in the palm of his hand, a sprig of wheat as pure as the shining sun. He would visit the graveyard in the thrall of hope. He prayed for a miracle as he donned the rubber wolf mask and moved forward again, to the limits of life, to the limits of freedom and the day that the lines of fate would converge to form the bond…..between man and the soul of a wolf……he thought, the police and the robber, were they told in a breath or was the sprig of wheat the answer to the mystery.

Scraps

Ron Koppelberger

Scraps

The tawny walled confession, passion, passion in sensuous sympathies of substance and reason exampled the warmth, in extremes of sweet blessed asylum. The coverings were primal, fury and tempered by release from the bond of woven stitch. A scrap for the sum, a scrap for the honest roll of waves and carefree abandon unto the instinct of primitive attire. Raves and fair battlegrounds in sheepskin and the blossoms of asylum full in wash, full proof of the decor and the sentiment defining courage.
The hallucinations were an opiate silk and the honey oozed from every pore of his body, in thrall of wheat and amber sunglow the tides sang sheepskin blessings of shelter. He was in clandestine array with the scraps of sheepskin , sheepskin that adorned his walls in rejoicing breaths of life and discourse unto the will of a man, a touch of heaven. In discourse of blossoms , marigolds, roses and dandelions in fearless sworn allegiance to the rift, the fury and the sharp toothed allure of chronic bounding adaptation…..wolves and men by the advance of wheels and machineries of evolution like a great rainbow weld gone to the wont of bonded instinct. Tales of brothers in savage pleasures of rhy whiskey and sheep stuffing, he loved in this and prayed and his prey approved of his passion. Imbibed by the wild dream of wolf unto the need of mere men, free affections and journeys of awe, by this he extended his consciousness to the twilight tide advance as he ran without fear toward the hand of god.

The Dark Wolf

Ron Koppelberger

The Dark Wolf

The distance between yesterday and today was a decade of sacred hours and anesthetic. The anesthetic was a satisfaction that the urges were encased by cement and iron and the hours spent in quiet contemplation of the illness, the malady, the bother of need and sanguine aching force.
Astor Scow sat solid in his tethered moment of captivity. He was enveloped by the bond of prison existence. He drank in the thoughtfulness of half-starved desires. Nevertheless, he yielded to the asylum of metal bars, the dissension from the row, the hungry certain caress of time passed. He sighed, the blood fresh in his mind, the carnage, the cringing seizure of a later vagabond occurrence; in violence and equally measured themes of sin he had killed. Asphalt and barbed wire ran the length of the yard. The croaking roar of a siren descrying its irritation in songs of freedom to Astor.
He had chewed the fat with divisions of death, sated slaked in blood and rage. He had killed, for need and desires of testimony to the wont that coursed through his arteries. He had killed for mad passions of power and efficient evolutions of unbroken transfer, the transfer of fountains and the spirit of necessity. He had killed in guise of eternal secret and picket fence fantasy, in flourishes of love and ever alert reverence, in reverence of the drive toward expediency, torn, engaged, unwearied by the push of wont. The distracted wholes of feeding wolves and nihilistic men he thought in a certain contemplation. He had killed the length and breadth of homeward bound berths in wolf rule and in faithful prayer.
The siren continued and the cell door slid open with a clanging of gears and steal sliders. Tentatively, Astor explored the exterior of the cell. The resonant whoop of prison clamber filled the halls and maze of cells. Astor, undisturbed and full of purpose, moved through the open gate near the end of the cell block. Fundamental transformations began to overwhelm his senses as he traveled through another gate, closer to the outside world of freedom and chance, the chance of a lifetime.
Darkness filled the exit near the visitors booth . No guards and a myriad of screaming inmates. Astor moved through the exit at a lope then a trotting caution then a galloping run, his paws fresh furred and clenching reflexively. Sanguine wolf sashays of freedom tinctured his escape. He saw the silhouette of another wolf for a moment, unbidden, near fields of saffron and wheat, near god’s touch. The vision faded and scorched pathways of scared earth lay before him, his destiny.
In the grace of a winter reckoning Astor looked to the arid desert sands and agreements of dusty cactus bloom as he found his purpose.

Seizing The Moment

Ron Koppelberger

Seizing the Moment

The movie was a raging tangle of relationships, specifically the relationship between machetes and pliant flesh. Saxon Crisp dug his hand into the yellow and burnt umber colored tub of popcorn. The giant Cola had cost him four dollars and the corn five. Crisp mumbled something unintelligible and bits of popcorn tumbled from his lips. A dark stain of cold moisture from the icy Cola stained his wranglers with the secret moviegoers stigma. Saxon watched as the masked maniac cut and slashed his way through several screaming teens,
“ Yaaaaaaggggggghhhhhhhaaaaaaa.” he said through bits of corn. The nocturnal spirit sang and Crisp pounded the arm of the plastic and metal seat. “ AAAArrrrrrrrrggggghhhhaaaaqa”, darkness filled his eyes for a moment as scarlet rivers flew in cascades of beaded mist in giant projected offerings of wild abandon. “OOOhhhhhhaaaaahhhhhaaaaa,” he sighed as the Cola spilled to the floor in a sugary ice cube spray. “OOOhhhhhaaaaahhhhhaaaaa,” he moaned. His arms flailed and a shower of popcorn flew in all directions. “ AAAArrrrrraaaaaaaggggggghhhhhhaaaaa,” he screamed as he stood and striped off his shirt. Crisp screamed at the top of his lungs and dug tiny ten fingered trenches into his chest. Unbound he ran to the fr5ont of the theater screaming and whooping like a man in the shadow of an urge, an urge to ignore the withering wills of stoic reproach, calm reserve and jaded poise. “ AAAArrrraaaaaggggghhhhhaaaaa,” he screamed as the wolf took hold, dreaming him to sylvan express and wild extreme. Saxon padded up the aisle and into the maw of human breed as the theater resounded with screams of terror and shock borne of decreed fangs and fear. Saxon Crisp seized the moment and howled in silhouette to the applause of evening-tide shadows and the wan face of a dappled moon.

Mismatched Blood

Ron Koppelberger

Mismatched Blood

Fury and overfed wraths of beckoning mayhem whiskered the wolfs slumber with the temper of bitter cream, curds in sour blood, the flesh of a dazed chafe and mazy portent. The wolf dreamed and in firebrand agitation, forward unto mismatched blood, a type of fury and unbidden allure in fuzzy goosebumps and ecstasy, all bliss and desire.
He dreamed of her, snarls and growls, howls and grumble-rumble convocations in yellow eyed consent. Fine-spun futures in flame and ash, in cinders and burning accent, he dreamed and in that dream he found release, release unto the elder gods of freedom and hunting passions. He dreamed of his mate, the mismatched blood, the contradiction in fanged arrays of whelp offspring, “Good seed,” she whispered to the dreaming wolf, “ Good seed my husband.” He saw jet black in twilight shadow and silhouette of an absent sun, black and devouring with an acquired embrace, a gentle surrender to the charcoal fur and clawed ambiance of the female. A dark peck and a wicked pact with the ancient alliance the midnight demons of err. She cooed in his mind and all the substance of ethereal futures revolved around him in delirious celebration, “ Evermore my love, evermore.” The wolf shuddered at the bad blood and the mismatched assurance of scarlet terrors and bloody heedless wont. He fought the urge to yelp in tangled scratches of wire, screaming and oblivious pulling him closer to the edge of desolate abandon. He fought and when he awoke he remembered the mists of what might be, he remembered the chase and the hunt, the divine satisfactions of an angel in alabaster feather and gossamer contrast. He remembered love and the promise of Eden.
Yawning and tasting the cool dawn airs of morning-tide life, he thanked the heavens for the start of a new day and the treasure of insight. “Straight forward.” he thought, “ Moving in paw sure paths toward the divine.” He soon forgot the mismatched blood and prayed, otherwise unaware of the currents, the fates that guide wolves and man. He strode ahead and into the fable of cerulean skies bought by daybreak sunshine.

A Wolf Embracing the Day

Ron Koppelberger

A Wolf embracing the day

Christian Forge had traveled from loves embrace to breaths of dry desolation, desert sands to mushroom strewn forests in bloom, from cinder block abodes to straw and stick foundations. He had loved, laughed and sang praises to heaven as well as cursing the demons that lay just beyond the twilight horizon.
Christian disturbed the ease of calm harbors and gentle asylum, preferring the danger in adventure and exploration. The shack was buried by the palm fronds and briar scrub surrounding it. He had managed the tangle of weeds
And the soft squish of swampy morass for the undressed wont of expectation, a secret will, a mistress in fanged trust, overwhelming, never sated with the human condition.
He had entered the tumble with a cautious desire. The herbs and juju the swamp witch had arranged on the patch of dry dirt floor had enticed his passions. He had touched the wolf-like figurine and flinched, a sharp edge tore his fingertip and the soil drank in his blood, hungry, sanguine and in need, in magic allure. Homeward bound, he thought as he devoured the sacred meal of herbs and wolf-thyme. Just a touch of crimson, coppery, salty and sleek as the tear drizzled into the mystic brew. He made a face at the taste, bitter in test, the blood a flavored liquor, a foothold on what was human.
Soon after, he collapsed and dreamed of wild freedoms and carnal delights. The sleep of wolfs and babes. Near evening-tide he awoke to the rhythm of his breath, his even forceful exhalations in wolf bred, magnified sense. His paws flexed and he growled, the evidence of his rebuke lay in tattered
Torn clothing and vesture. He was refined in the enveloping allure of wolf suspiration and he wanted, in tense posture. He wanted the hunt; a whip-o-will sounded and the keenness of his soul elevated him to heights of unbridled desire. From human to wolf, from the certain sustenance of civil
Union to primal forests and the grace of wily need. Christian would know the will of wolves because he was on the heal of evolution, The balance between man and wolf.

Tripe

Ron Koppelberger

Tripe

The mountain of steaming tripe lay in slatherings of mustard and barbecue sauce. He gobbled like a grazing hog and belched like a grumbling lion. The tripe was a saucer of adventure. Steaming, salted and in acquiescent nuances of savor the tripe offered its taste. Crazy-quilt images of rainbow sunshine leapt and fluttered through the mosaic of stained glass onto the course wood and lattice walls. A picture of cows grazing through fields of wheat hung at an angle on the slated wall.
“MMMMMMM…..MMMMMMMM!” he sputtered in full quivers of tripe and sauce. A bit of tripe fell to the plate and he scooped it up groaning , “Yummy, Yummy!” it disappeared in a greasy gulp of belching hunger, he was famished, starved, tripe, tripe, tripe…………a contest of ripe warrant and famished consent. When he finished the tripe he ate the plate in saw slivered madness, then the spoon and with wild glee the heavy oak table, splinters of wood fell to the carpeted floor as he belched and grinned a bloody toothed gasp of desire, desire in hunger, the wont for sustenance and savor.
* The edge of the world anchored the girth of the man and the earth prayed on the mind of sorceries as resolute as tripe and in need of blessings concluded by the satisfaction of expectation.

Crusade

Ron Koppelberger

Crusade

The spirits of careful animate revolution beguiled the courage of gateway distress and a powerful benediction. A blood value in pledges of novice approval, laudable by the blazon flags of rainstorm mothers and venerated spider weave, souls of sunshine spirit and chambers of shuddering custody.
A thunder of possessed blessing and the crusade of what need and desire give to the love of holy seals and soldiers in quest. The distance between bare compulsion and measurable realms of contemplation in the instant of crusade, the breath of a determined passion. The enduring gain of steep hollows and overtures of fateful vision, the guest in fields of rolling saffron array, in genuflection, a crusade in silent ferment and dandelion wine. The shroud of will in the time of velvet petals and bloody thorns, gone unto the illusory dream of tomorrow and beasts given the rule of restless abandon, a crusade in sated narration for the wont of a purpose and the whisper of a woman in love.

Rough House

Ron Koppelberger

Roughhouse

The punishment for practicing rebel materialism was a squeeze in the roughhouse summons, the call to claim, the wont of a dire advance. The weak bawl of lockup orders was what Olympia Hillock contemplated in opiate exclamations. “Unholy smoke, I ain’t in the midnight crew, bless this mess and forgo the screw.” she said in defiance to the nighttime wash, the cold crew, the crazy bastards had ciphered the bosses safe. Diamonds, cash and flourishes of gold,……..inmate No. 287465241, Olympia H. The shelter of her ignorance was little consolation as she had been named the understudy and her innocence in the charade was in question.
Rich (Iguana) Garner had given her a diamond bracelet from the bosses safe. Rich was on the midnight crew, the shadowy shape of a penitentiary class, janitors and thieves. Olympia listened through the heavy oak doors as Asmodeous P. Utmost roughhoused Rich, his punishment for the safecracking. His screams were a poignant instruction in testimony to Asmodeouses anger. The secretary in the outer office glanced at Olympia her coffee jumping in a splash as something slammed against the office door, a moaning breach of sound filtered in through the oaken door as a bolero of roughhouse dread filled the room in dark waves of fear and tempered forbidding. Rich staggered back through the office door. The secretary pointed to Olympia and in harpy disregard she said “Go on in sweetie!”
Olympia stood in forlorn repose as she paused for a moment, then she ventured into Asmodeouses office. In fields of gold she thought forcefully, fields of saffron and wheat she pleaded. Her prayers were silent in contrast to the billowing demon, “ Wild witch, GET IN HERE!” she cringed and expanded her consciousness in savory amber waves of light. Saffron safety, saffron security, she thought. Moments later as Amadeus raised his fist she found herself in a vast oasis of wheat, fields of gold scented with sunshine fragrance. In august heat and comforting harmony she touched a wheat stalk and sighed with reverent awe.

Rough House

Ron Koppelberger

Roughhouse

The punishment for practicing rebel materialism was a squeeze in the roughhouse summons, the call to claim, the wont of a dire advance. The weak bawl of lockup orders was what Olympia Hillock contemplated in opiate exclamations. “Unholy smoke, I ain’t in the midnight crew, bless this mess and forgo the screw.” she said in defiance to the nighttime wash, the cold crew, the crazy bastards had ciphered the bosses safe. Diamonds, cash and flourishes of gold,……..inmate No. 287465241, Olympia H. The shelter of her ignorance was little consolation as she had been named the understudy and her innocence in the charade was in question.
Rich (Iguana) Garner had given her a diamond bracelet from the bosses safe. Rich was on the midnight crew, the shadowy shape of a penitentiary class, janitors and thieves. Olympia listened through the heavy oak doors as Asmodeous P. Utmost roughhoused Rich, his punishment for the safecracking. His screams were a poignant instruction in testimony to Asmodeouses anger. The secretary in the outer office glanced at Olympia her coffee jumping in a splash as something slammed against the office door, a moaning breach of sound filtered in through the oaken door as a bolero of roughhouse dread filled the room in dark waves of fear and tempered forbidding. Rich staggered back through the office door. The secretary pointed to Olympia and in harpy disregard she said “Go on in sweetie!”
Olympia stood in forlorn repose as she paused for a moment, then she ventured into Asmodeouses office. In fields of gold she thought forcefully, fields of saffron and wheat she pleaded. Her prayers were silent in contrast to the billowing demon, “ Wild witch, GET IN HERE!” she cringed and expanded her consciousness in savory amber waves of light. Saffron safety, saffron security, she thought. Moments later as Amadeus raised his fist she found herself in a vast oasis of wheat, fields of gold scented with sunshine fragrance. In august heat and comforting harmony she touched a wheat stalk and sighed with reverent awe.

Done in Black Leather

Ron Koppelberger

Done in Black Leather

Climates of dusty desert wind, bone dust dry and blown rough by the sand, Salt Nobel climbed down from the black stallion and brushed his faded Stetson with the back of his palm.
The horizon was reaching away to the south, cactus arms and sagebrush travelers danced and swam in the sweltering sun. He was prospecting the day for the promise of tomorrow; a touch of fire to the south and where had he been, he wasn’t certain, unsure in pass and tide he thought he remembered a city, a barn red livery and a ramshackle cat house. His pockets held a handful of dust and a cache of silver dollars.
Salt was hot, burning hot, he was attired in black leather and silver spurs. The sun had crept into his pores, his flesh, through the dark suede, the black leather. Why was he dressed in black and where was the next town? For a moment Salt wondered why he was traveling south and toward what, what destiny?
Salt tipped the small flask to his parched lips, whiskey warm and burning. He craved the relief of a cool sip. Staring ahead the heat wavered in illusions of liquid , an oasis tinctured by miles of sand and Vaseline. Climbing back on the stallion he continued on moving further away from long forgotten memories. Salt looked backward and for an instant he saw a flash on the horizon, a glimmer of light in the shape of a star. Where had he been?
The day wore on and the sky grew fiery red as the twilight settled across the empty miles. Salt brought the horse to a dry gully wash as he tested the air. It was crazy but he sensed the advent of rain.
The rested near the channel cut into the dry desert floor and somewhere near nights edge it began to rain.
The rain pattered in the dirt speckling the dust and his faded black Stetson. Salt tipped his head back and held his tongue out, the rain tasted good, clear cool in essence. The sprinkles became a downpour filling the gully in a matter of moments.
Salt sat there, drenched in the life-giving rain, thinking. He remembered again, a child and a woman dressed in white, a wedding, his wedding and his son. The woman was calling to him in the midst of a garden, daisies and roses. She whispered his name and turned away with the boy in tow.
Salt remembered and dreamed, he dreamed of life and loves lost, he dreamed of yesterday and the fuzzy edge of tomorrow.
Salt remembered the posse and the gun battle, in the end it flittered like an errant butterfly then faded, then he remembered his wounds, he had been shot, mortally wounded. What had he done, he didn’t know, it was fuzzy, lost. In the end he forgot again and in the morning all was new, fresh and telling him to head south to the rising mountains and the wont of a Passing breath.

Greeting the Party

Ron Koppelberger

Greeting The Party

Invested by the yells and guffaws of an endless parade in silk and tuxedo tuft the greeter shook hands and posed for pictures with the new arrivals, the partiers, the attendees of the bash.
Eventually the line of people waiting for entrance dwindled to a handful. “Evening Mam. Evening Sir.” he said to the couple. The man spit on the sidewalk as the young woman giggled and shook her hair with the back of her hand. The man mumbled something and the woman said,
“Funny Ruff, Funny.”
He waved the couple by and the last in line stood in front of him waiting for approval. The greeter sighed and said, “ We’ve been waiting all evening for you.” The last nodded and pushed by hurried and a bit impatient. The greeter paused for a moment as the spectral presence of the man, dressed in white, holding an hourglass in one hand and a bell in the other moved into the crowd.
The greeter knew the party was over. The hourglass signaled the end of time and the bell a call to the hour of sleep. The man had been late, they had all been living on borrowed time as the keeper of a seconds breath and the souls hearth found the party unaware and desiring destiny.

Blood and Spoiled Hamburger

Ron Koppelberger

Blood and Spoiled Hamburger

Cold in bouquet, the final swallow of brandy didn’t cure his craving for blood. The package of hamburger was old, dripping, sodden, spoiled blood. On a bad day he’d chew a piece of raw steak or hamburger for the juice. He felt sluggish, his reflexes bypassed by an angry empty wont. For the love of warm sea salt and mossy spring, eternal he thought as he dreamed of pulsing arteries and coppery malt.
His spine tightened when the doorbell rang. He pictured Avon ladies and vacuum cleaner salesman in full blooming acceptance. Drink of us they sang, drink of our essence, our passionate cherry stain and our raspberry wine, come drink.
He answered the door in a hopeful flourish only to discover the shifting shape of his girlfriend. She was, in fact, a shifting dealer of countenance, a shape shifter by birth and her features changed with each passing moment. He let her in and explained his unbidden thirst. She paused to ponder this for an instant then offered her upturned wrist to his waiting lips.
He drank in greedy gulps until she pulled her wrist back, “Enough!” she said as she pushed him back. She went into the kitchen and yelled to the living room, “Did you eat this hamburger hon, it’s spoiled?” He replied shyly and self consciously, Yes, just a little bit darling.”
Later he became sick with food poisoning and she would have to secret him to a doctor, saving his life.
After he was cured they had Champaign and steak, “delicious.” he said between bites.
“It is scrumptious.” she replied as the Champaign bubbles tickled her nose. “And to think……,” he said “I nearly missed this moment with you because of spoiled hamburger.”
“I have to keep an eye on you every second hon.” she said tapping her plate.

Angles Unfolding

The Wanderer

The Plague

Ron Koppelberger

The Plague

(Love in the Rebirth of Hope)

Spate Groove said, “Fabulous, absolutely fabulous!” The countryside was littered with the castoffs of a thousand, maybe hundreds of thousands, deserters. They had all left in a rush, a gosh darn rush Spate thought.
Spate walked into the background, the remnants of what they had left behind. Dusty cars and old plastic shopping bags drifted and lay unattended by their former owners. They had all left when the plague had blossomed. At first a few died then they started dropping like….like what he thought, like water balloons. Plop and splash in leaking crimson buckets, they fell apart at the seams bleeding from the eyes and ears and finally from their pours. Squish, splat and into the dirt, plop against the concrete walks and streets, eventually they all fell. The news had said, “Temporary……a temporary problem with the Scarlet Pox.” Most believed they could outrun the plague, some died in their cars, some died miles away from home, mostly they all just died and bad, as bad as it gets.
Spate went into the drug store on a whim. Maybe ther’ll be something cool he thought with an amazing thirst. The shelves were nearly empty and there were splashes of red on the counter where someone had sneezed. He went to the dairy section, it was small but a cause for a grin, the back up generators were still functioning. He grabbed a bottle of OJ from the shelf and guzzled it down in two gulps.
Spate wiped his mouth and went to the rear of the store where the Vitamins and athletes foot powder were.
Pausing, he surveyed a horror in tune with the desolation of the country. He was splayed hands outward feet tied together with lengths of variegated yarn, blue and brown, someone had bound his hands to the top edge of the shelf and he hung there crucified by unknown shadows. Spate sidestepped his feet, askew and angled to the edge of the isle.
The day wore on and the sun shone through the plate glass at the front of the store; mottled sunshine and the remnants of a coke, Spate sat there at the front of the store leaning against the counter sun illuminating his tired face with the silhouette of a few flies and an empty cloudless horizon.
Spate marked the passing seconds and minutes by the shadow of the sun against the tiled floor. By his best estimate it was four or five in the afternoon.
Standing he stretched and yawned, the jewelry counter held a revolving display of watches and crucifixes. He went over to the Plexiglas display and knocked it to the floor. It bounced without breaking; staring down at the case he noticed a tiny rainbow of light shining through the thick plastic. Grabbing the case again he slammed it down into the floor with a great heave and a yell, “YYYYAAAAAAAAAA!” The plastic cracked and he stomped on it a few times breaking it open and scattering the watches across the floor. Reaching into the shattered plastic he grabbed a silver Timex; it had a simple elastic band and was waterproof. The watch read four-thirty-eight. Slipping it on his wrist he went to the front of the store and looked out the double glass doors.
A stray newspaper flittered in pieces across the street. There were a few cars lining the edge of the two lane blacktop. The closest one was a gray Camry; its hood was up and there were the bodies of a man and a woman slumped over in the front seat. There was a portable cloths rod in the backseat, cloths, suits and dresses even a few t-shirts hung on plastic hangers from the rod.
Spate went to the Camry and opened the rear passenger door. A whoosh of hot air rushed out as the reek of decay overwhelmed him. The couple were glued to the seats by leaking pools of congealed blood and strangely enough the flies that swarmed from the car were more interested in the spilled milkshakes that had dried across the dash than the couple.
Spate closed the door as quick as he had opened it. He had been thinking about a change of cloths. There must be a clothing store around here somewhere he thought as he looked up the empty street.
Spate made his way further into town. He had come from the southern side of End house Street from the countryside. He had passed a few houses and a gas station and there hadn’t been any signs of life, not even a stray cat or dog. The idea that there might be other survivors was the notion he held on to as the hours wore on, there must be others he had thought, instead he had been greeted by the ghost of a once thriving city……empty streets and the crimson splashed bodies of those who had died in the plague.
Spate moved further down the street until he found a clothing store. Bay worth Tuxedos, he climbed inside through a smashed plate glass window. Inside there were mannequins dressed for weddings, parties and ceremonies that would never be. The store was dark in shadowy echos of what had been, what was. Spate grabbed a ruffled shirt and a gray jacket. Stripping off his t-shirt he put the cloths on. The ruffles followed the button-line of the shirt and the jacket was a French cut tailored for someone much larger than him. He stood there for a moment, silent conscious realization, he knew he was alone. He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed; he’d have to find a place to sleep before long, he was famished and dog-tired.
Spate looked North toward the center of the city and for an instant, just the briefest of moments he caught the light and silhouette of a figure moving along the West side of the street. He walked then ran toward the woman making her way up the sidewalk.
The sun shone an orange twilight cloak across the cityscape. A gauzy dream in vacant storefronts and abandoned cars. The sounds of both laughter and joyful tears filled the empty spaces around them. They met, running to each other arms outstretched in greeting.
Embracing they knew the promise of a new beginning, they would make it…together. They were survivors and they had finally found each other.
“Thank God!” Spate said as he hugged her. She wiped the tears away from her eyes hesitantly with the back of her palm.
“I thought everyone was dead!” she said in half gasping sobs.
“So did I!” he replied smiling widely. She wore a tan skirt and a pleated top with a name tag attached to it. She was a waitress, or had been and her name was Elaina.
“I’ve been staying over there!” she pointed to a squat brick building with the words “JAYKEMP LIVERY” it looked to be a hotel and a restaurant. They walked hand in hand to the hotel.
Ultimately they would have children and the city would hold them close to what had been with the promise of what would be again, someday through love, laughter and moments given them both as the mother and father of a new generation, a new world in revolution.
Through all the years they lived and raised eight children and thirty-seven grandchildren they never met another soul on earth, indeed they had been the only survivors of the plague.