A Vain Bit Of Beauty (New Fiction)

Ron Koppelberger

A Vain Bit of Beauty

A rush of breath, straightforward and excited by her delight filled Mary Hulls conscious delirium. She sat before the vanity, primping and consoling herself, the facade she had been borne to. Her chocolate complexion was flawless and her liquid brown eyes were an allure that men fell into with a careless abandon. She inspired the desires of married men and those possessing the courage to approach her with admiration and fearless interest.
She stroked her hair, long silken in web like tendrils, and applied a bit of saffron oil, her secret hunger touching the corners of her pouting lips. She dabbed a moist cloth to her parched lips and for just a moment her tongue traced the shape of her mouth. The cloth was a bright crimson and the puddle beneath was a faded pink in hue.
The fortress was her home and her walls were adorned with portraits of her in various moments of blushing kept beauty. She arranged the lace chocker and pendant around her slender neck as she hummed an old Broadway tune,

“On to the ghostly show of purpose

And row,

A drama in red,

A drama in red

And so they said

Dear darling

A drama in red.”

She sang and hummed in tandem with the ticking of the wooden grandfather clock that stood in salute to her time; her time she thought, all of it for me.
She splashed some perfume, rose attar in full bloom across her bosom and stepped toward the heavy maple door, burnished in linseed oil and ornate with wheat blooms. She faltered for an instant, trailing a crimson smear across the floor with her flat soled alabaster white slippers. The blood had pooled to the center of the room and was sticky in congealed puddles. She adjusted her flowing violet flowered dress and silk sash as she opened the door to the stage, the dead critic lay cold and in jealous silence as she made her way to the audience.
She had a story or two for them, the audience, a tale or two of passion and eternal submission to the tendriled webs of those who had oppressed her, had rejected her in calloused regard. She had quipped, “You have no talent dear!” Mary had gone insane for a moment and her private theater had become a charnel house.
She wiped her feet against the small Persian rug near the door as she prepared for the audience. They would listen, by the gods she could act and they would watch and listen. She stepped through the entranceway and began the performance of her life.

The Brawl (New Fiction)

Ron Koppelberger

The Brawl

The whimsy of a good brawl, the Zodiac Bar and Grill sported a glossy burnished dance floor and rainbow strobe lights, flashy, loud and in a desolate abandon. Mirabel Zither provided the impetuous for the brawl. Tall, auburn haired and in skin tight spandex she provoked sensual thoughts of Eden and sustenance the requited romancer found to be utterly enthralling. Rapture incarnate, a kiss in the shallow pond of lukewarm spit, she was the essence of ethereal allure.
The brawl began with an ambiguous thump. Gene Perkins fell to the floor in a paralytic heap; his neck was broken and he was bleeding from the ears. The brawl continued unabated. The slavering Sledge Rankin sailed through the air and across the bar, smashing head first into the giant glass plate mosaic of beer logos. A liver of glass fell with a sickening crunch, merging with Sledges flesh; he was immediately impaled to the wooden floorboards. The bar emptied in hallmark jumbles of leather and flesh. Mirabel looked on in silent appreciation as the patrons filed out the door. Sipping a whiskey sour and cinnamon stick stir, she followed the discourse of the final battle. Two men, enthralled by Mirabel to the point of murder, to the point of deranged desire and the sweet sugar of the auburn haired goddess, slashed and stabbed, kicked and punched until a bloody exhaustion told the conclusion.
They collapsed simultaneously and in perfect symmetry. A dance in pathos she thought, a grand ball, a mandate in hungry glimpses of heaven. The temptress in scarlet and spandex grinned in dusty moted malevolence as the ethereal vapors of the dead fulfilled her thirst. Willful in wiles of secret desolation she left the bar leaving a tiny bouquet of rosebuds in her wake.

Poetry for the lost and weary

Ron Koppelberger

Snake Belly Blues

Renditions in revolving, evolving sway and swinging

Tiger cat tome, the wild violet voiced in verse and

Sure same sonnet, The carousing cure for snake belly blues

And shaded restless omens in speckled owl horns

And flighty raven call, the love of the lay and the wont

Of a songstress turned to the bells of an eternal song, sung

Sold, brimful and boasted scarlet by teary eyed notes

Of dusty tempest and solitudes

                                                                     Silent parade of bliss.

Ron Koppelberger

Red Weeds

Indefinite in seasons of cloaked wisdom,

Released by the bidden taboo of wretched wonder

And meandering embrace, the sly beauty of beguiling senses

In serene shadow and crimson droplets of perfumed nectar,

From red weeds borne only for the garnish of

Daisies and dandelion wild, A sodden whole perfected by the

Mists of tempered flocks and rare dogs in rocky

Exhaustions of transport, the phantom reflection of

Eyes alight by the shimmering night-tide confessions

Of sated darkness and dreams in tune

With the symphony of sadness and

Eternal havens in secret temptation, by the

Visage of a smokey drama in black.

Ron Koppelberger

Surreal Reverie’

Condensation, beaded borne by misty currents of

Breached space and rainy essences of designed

Style, a cry of common youth in cascades of

Rushing secret, the whole of chastity in ethereal

Charge and surreal reverie’, the exclusive reign

Of eloquent sprinkles and hazy labors in

Avowed desire unto rain and

Seas of crystal flow. By the caressing

Whisper of an angel’s

Call in the dry

Desert wind.

Ron Koppelberger

Passion and Rage

Carousing cats, clawing cool in silent purring

Pauses of honor and elder wisdom, by the longhairs

Of a ravaged wont and a wild needing scream,

The sobriety in forgiving haste, in tales of treatise and

Furry whiskered, cleaver yarn, by the view of a

Drama told in breaths of passion

                                                                            And rage.

Ron Koppelberger

The Suns Love

Wagers and Easter in vaunt of a nearness in ivory

Paper, Swans circling the totem of a rare

Pillar in oblique directions

Of western dust, the liable lay learned mad and in vestured arrays

Of azure neon, made elite and golden by

The suns love.

Poetry for the wandering heart

Ron Koppelberger

Brave Whispers

The place of rattle boned spirit and rooted, relevant

Love, a fine-spun thread of flowing silk spun by the

Distance between dusk and morning-tide discovery,

A luxury raving the desire of scarlet assurance and

Tender smiles in vesture of blessings decreed, in fashion

Of heaven and ecstasy, a tenuous fiber in brave whispers

Of vaunt.

Ron Koppelberger

Cotton Candy

Sweet dander and glowing roses

Of fine-spun sugar, a delectable savor

Of necessity and unbroken youth, the tears of tolerable

Desire allayed and comforted by

The nectar and web of cotton confection,

By the promise of dreams and candy wishes, by the

Tangle of warm treasures in wanton tastes of

                                                                            Cotton candy.

Ron Koppelberger

Deeply Drifting

The spirit of spoils and eyes in passionate alluring

Assurance, a vagabond verve, an eagle in breeds of

Born play, in remembrance of elder assay and egret,

Feathered flights in believing hunts of honor and bounty,

A strength in seals of silver

And ash, smoke and tendrils of deeply

Drifting excellence.

Ron Koppelberger

Beseeching Night

Coinciding with the cold blooded thirst of an agony in acquiescent

Degrees of shadow, the cool affinity of a silken

Weave in design of satisfying suspect, by quivering

Droplets of dew and spun cocoons of hungry appetite,

A child of abeyant darkness and eyes beset upon the want of

A seductive need and a sanguine source of passion,

The commingled desires of a beseeching night blessed by the assurances

Beloved by the gentle breath of a passing

Moment in waiting perfections of patience.

Ron Koppelberger

Bidden Sun

Unhitched and branded by scarce bones and taunt flesh,

By the mystery of circles

And revolutions in ash,

An emissary in shadow, in twilight,

In towns torn by the wont of wrangled excess

And dire desires, the whisper of rumored

Miracles deterred by the eclipse of a bidden

Sun.

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.

A Deep Love

Ron Koppelberger

A Deep Love

“I’m alive with you baby,” Straw Berkley whispered into her ear, “ Alive and born again with you my love.” She grinned in an askew sort of manner and shifted on the leather sofa. A sticky squishing sound from beneath her shifting figure broke the moment, like Velcro peeling away from Velcro and a mouth full of swishing spit. “My eyes for you darling, my soul and my captured heart baby.” Straw said in earnest desire.
The book lay open between them. She sighed and chortled in a strange gleeful passion.
“ Everything for you my love .” he exclaimed to her in easy waves of affection. She glanced at the open book between them and a look of fear crossed her face in misshapen dilemma. Straw paused and she said nothing as she smacked her lips and clicked her tongue against her pointed teeth.
The moment was a cool breath between them and as the twilight glow of an ancient sun and the divide between night and day pierced the tiny living rooms dusty window blinds, Straw had a moment of obliging trepidation. She waved her arms in gentle airs of dance , flowing in angled difference to the space that separated them.
The bloody red hue of her gold rimmed irises flittered and swam as she moved her cracked leathery lips. The book, perhaps he had made a mistake. Straw looked at her gelatinous frame and her long flowing strands of hair, silvery corn silk, mirror like, “ Maybe we should take our time in this relationship thing.” he said having a few second thoughts. Her teeth glimmered razor sharp, dripping a snot like saliva onto the open book.
He considered, maybe his wish, his wish for love and ecstasies unbidden had been a hasty decision.
She opened her mouth and a great spraying geyser of scarlet splashed him from head to the tips of his sneakers. He wiped his face noting the moth dancing near the ceiling fan above them. She waved her numerous arms and screamed a shrill Banshee like scream. Her legs, decaying in degrees, shifted to lift her giant frame and she stood hunched in amorous appreciation for Straw.
As her scaled tongue darted out to taste Straws lips , he understood the depth of his mistake. Screaming in fear he grabbed for the ancient book, the Legend of Demonic. As his fingers traced the skin of the volume in bloody trails of desperation, she embraced him and took him as her husband.
“Baby,” she gurgled between his screams, “….my love and my beautiful salvation.”

Irons

Ron Koppelberger

Irons

Coral Fundy wore leg irons and a faded orange jumpsuit lettered bold in black, FUNDY 320983. Following the mornings sin against his grumbling stomach, a breakfast of runny eggs and charred bacon, came day number 2,457. Coral laced up his work boots, heavy tanned leather hide and stained earthen hues of dirt and brown dust, tinctured by green grass stains. In a prelude to the grass trimming and weed removal, the guard banged on the row of cells one by one, “Work detail!” he yelled.
Corals cell door slid open with an aching screech that was all bones and age. He shuffled out onto the gray shellac of the polished hall. “Follow the yellow line!” Quincy bellowed. Quincy fell in behind Mars as he followed the yellow strip painted along the center of the of the concrete floor. Quincy guided the inmates through the birthing process finally emerging through locked iron gates and a foyer with thick bullet proof glass.
The two white vans were marked with the logo of the Hammock Correctional institute and an official state seal. Coral and the other inmates moved into the vehicles, single file and silently attentive to Quincy and the other guards.
The daybreak sunshine chided motes of dusty reverence through the window glass in the van. The taboo of freedom rolled past the oily smudged panes of glass as they moved closer to the south Hammock Oak and Rose Sanctuary.
Coral perched in expectation of the route he was in visible expectation of the flower, the amaranth, the magic blossom that released him from bondage. The vans crowded the row of parking spaces as they pulled in at a sideways angle. The spoils of nature and lively freedoms unchained the inmates sensibilities as Quincy unlocked the silver metal doors of both vans. He marched the prisoners out in a neat row of assessment. Head count and assignments of labor were shouted out.
Coral stepped out onto the pebbled concrete parking area. The assurance of roses in bloom and the perfumed remains of flowers in acclaim filled the warm summer air. Quincy led Coral to a secret grove, an enclave that sported ragweed and bordered the outer edge of the sanctuary. As Quincy left Coral to his work at clearing the ragweed from the sheltered roses, He looked back and saw a furious Coral pulling weeds from the between the rows of flowers.
The mystery of the amaranth was shaded under a narrow ornament of oaks. Coral exhaled a musing sigh as he weeded the successive rows of rose bloom. Attending the lines of fate he admired the beauty of the amaranth, the magic trifle of god. Pausing for a moment, he went to the shade of the oaks and the resting place of the amaranth. He touched the delicate blossom with gentle care in holy reverence for its wonder.
Quincy ran the work detail for another four hours before he spotted the empty leg irons. Quincy yelled and whistled as the silent roses kept their divine secret.

Cowboy Eternal

Ron Koppelberger

Cowboy Eternal

Vast shimmering clouds of mist, thick in sheets and moist blankets of slowly moving shadow, chased and flirted with the edge of the frayed desert horizon. Bully Scrap moved closer to his fate, the reward, or perhaps the punishment that lost cowboys and desert wolves, coyotes and saddle sore survivors were destined to endure, forever, lasting as long as a snakes unwearied name; thus the temptation to unknown pass, to vistas of discovery, dreams and wonted adventure.
The horse moved in slow steady rhythm and Bully coaxed the wind, parables and the promise of mysterious deliriums. Bully borrowed the courage of sagebrush riders and stallions in abeyant purpose as he entered the mist, the eye of the tempest and the point of no return.
The flow of warm summer rain fell on Bully’s shoulders and the mist abated to reveal sunshine and sporadic rain, the sweet season, the blossoms of a lush sylvan wild and a riddle borne by the sky and the clear lines of youth.
Bully cried and prayed, thankful, accepting the newness of his soul and the fresh breath of an unraveled whisper. To be reborn in castes of sunglow dew, by the distance between here and the past. Bully looked toward the orange fire of a nascent sun and an azure heaven. Cowboys commune he thought, cowboys commune. Gently he spoke, “ I have a wish to labor, onto the light evanescence of the river, thereby I live, thereby I live for the next horizon.”

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 Lions Share

Ron Koppelberger

The lions Share

Grubs and grasshoppers, secure, secret sanctioned as the way to stave off the remains of a hungry oblivion. He imagined his escape from the uncanny rush of prison gray, walls of brick and motor seals. The taste of greasy human agonies and willful concerns in ash. He questioned the shroud of rain that blanketed him with cool tears and revelations of wild lament. He nourished the fellowship of prophesy and continual indulgence unto the belief of angels and saints.
A consummate hunger driven by the need to survive his existence, to survive the rebirth of methods for escape and secret prison exaltation. Escape from the hell of an endless maze driven by the mechanisms of demonic intent, driven into cages and boxes that define the substance of hate. He ate a grub and sighed, the door to the open ceiling cell shook, he gasped shocked by the turn of events. Pushing forward he crawled through the door to freedom and the arms of his love. The attendant hell had passed and angels sang in fields of wheat and golden saffron as he found the sweet surety of Amabilis and wine.

A Degree of Freak

Ron Koppelberger

A Degree of Freak

The devotion of creative sweetmeat sport and slender chocolate confection was a freak, an unusual rarity in the precedent of fixings and deserts that delicious, ferocious performances of tasty confession secure.
He sighed as he broke the reflex to devour the sugary beauty. A conscious etiquette told him to throw the patchwork quilt over the top of the oatmeal and sugar sculpture. He contemplated his masterpiece and listening, he heard angels sing and the evasive fairy gasp of settling oatmeal. The pot bubbled on the stove and the scents were tantalizing, brown sugar and oatmeal, syrup and fresh honey. He wallowed in his genius and the gossamer webs of beauty, illusion, in amazement. An embrace that defined passion and flourishes of mad indulgence.

He wiped his hands on the starched white apron and the shallows of his eyes shone in dark shadow, confederate possession and cozy flawless conclusion, “Oatmeal, oatmeal and sugar dreams,

Oatmeal and more oatmeal as real

As a dream. As real as a dream.”

He sang as he chewed and chewed then gulped a guzzle of oatmeal and syrup in tender sated union with his vision. For just a brief moment he stumbled close to the reality of his obsession and he shivered. Gently he tugged the patchwork cloak for an appreciative glace at his master work. There she was…….his wife coated in oatmeal and sugar. He sighed again and ran his finger along her foot, it came away in a gob of sticky oatmeal. “Yummy!” he grinned.

The Mummy

shadowsatnighttide.weebly.com

Her Crazy Thoughts

Ronnie.weebly.com

Poetry

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.

Ron Koppelberger

A cure for the Ghosts

The rattle of greater acts, in claim of welcome whim

And magic pampering legacy, indefinite in innocent invitation

To enchantress eager dance, bidden in quiet

Will and struggling fancy, a wild exhaustion in evening

Tide skills and dreaming gestures in rush,

A distinction in moldering demand and

Yawning ascent unto the indigo frayed horizon,

In pregnant beloved remembrance of beguiling existence

And quaky breach of ethereal bond,

A cure for the ghosts of mire and mayhem, an on again off

Promise to shades of eloquent depth and grinning

Masquerade in ash.

Ron Koppelberger

Etchings in Blue

Sensational in silhouetted shadows of smokey breath,

In hearths of unwearied flame and mantles of gold, torn

In gentle scarlet dew, in clear reason and sealed

Destiny, the passionate shiver in winter thrill

And marble window sills framed by the crystal array

Of sunshine tides and frosty etchings in

Blue.

Ron Koppelberger

Rose Water Dreams

The easy evidence of Champaign demeanor and cool

Gilded pearls of contemplation, of shades in ebony,

Echos of celebration, and earned belonging in the desires of glowing caste,

By late evening smiles and quiet airs of weekend belonging,

The everything in all and perfumed mists of

Satisfaction, a figurine in cat’s

Eye dialogues and rose water dreams.

Ron Koppelberger

Adrift in Seas of Sleep

Societies in sources of ribboned pinwheel round, a calm

Circle of roaring silence turned by the hands of children in

Pose. An understanding in May flowers and spring rain,

By the ways of adorned history and ancient ritual, the speedy

Sun and blossoms in unfolding umbrae’ of spirit. The

Surreptitious scent of still lilacs and the flutter of silken

Wings against the frayed twilight horizon, a conveyed skyward

Want in the flight of sparrows and the dreamy tendriled wisps’ of

Dried dander and seed, in rushing baptisms of mercy, unto the

Birth of a poor traveler adrift in seas of sleep. By maypole arrays

And truth told by the will of the hereafter and shouts of glee.

Ron Koppelberger

Butterfly Chase

Sweet sighs and gentle unions of satisfaction,

Innocent by the clear eyed emerald allure of tom’s raging

The rest of ethereal moths and butterfly chase,

In dreaming diversions of wild grassland stealth

And cat scratch clover in gleeful twilight customs

Of skill, vision and spectacles in gray, the sleepy gain

                                                                  Of growls and good wine.

Ron Koppelberger

Alive

Broken clay and parched sandy river-beds, found

In pilgrims rest and ancient coaches, rushed by wind

And savage suns, by the need for survival and

Bidden applause, an earthen asylum of emerald

And glass, borne by the wont of dry eyes and

Rippling waves of hungry heat, by desolate forever’s

And tides of willing wonder, a dream found waking

And colored blue, azure swallows of heralded release,

A hesitant grant shouted to the heaven’s,

“By God, I’m alive.”

Ron Koppelberger

Dreams Told in Moments

Foil and tender emerald tangles in bloom and bluster,

Charmed by the breath of soils and fertile sympathies

In scarlet, the mischief in budding evanescent dreams

Told in moments until the balance

                                                    Of time defers silk to brittle petals in decay.

Ron Koppelberger

August Rain

Triumph in rigorous wishes and better most the passion,

An express utterance persuaded to the prophecy of

Emotional fervor and trial in want, a sworn support,

A clean opposition defined by the need of fighting

Fury and wild birth, shaded by the shores of

Rolling wonder and pregnant skies brought forth by the sanctity of

August rain.

Ron Koppelberger

Mist From Afar

Whiskey salts, looking for the taste, the sated dreams of

What’s kept secret by songbirds and sparrows in soothing

Diversions of grace, the sly smile, like tufted dandelion

Seed, gentle in pregnant release, from a distant horizon,

Bidden by the stage, the seat of fluttering satisfaction, in

Cheshire glow, a comforting view in fuzzy sips seen through the well

Of a bourbon chill and a river of hot ice, the moment in breaths of desire,

Forever in song unto the shadows and the silhouette in passions

Pleasure and clandestined perch, like the wont of fireflies and babies

In chase, a spellbound note of indulgent shiver and singing surge,

Bought at slow sums of sensation, the lady laze in muzzy seas of velvet

Verse, by ballads of mist from afar.