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 Fires of the Bashful

Ron Koppelberger

The Fires of the Bashful

Further from the derelict nest, the swamp trill of crickets, frogs and whip-o-wills, was an appareled vulture done in ash and curved talon. He had eaten and the stink of carrion was on his shiny black beak. In two parts the world had grown a bit smaller and more interesting to the vulture.
She was delicate and in alabaster feathered allure, a curved symmetry of white fluttering glory. What chance did he have, he was ugly, rapacious and hungry beyond belief; she was a beautiful dove and he a vulture. She watched him eat from her perch. A viscous meal of rotting meat and visceral abandon. She said, “Do you enjoy your meals?” in shy coquette. He turned upward, a bit of flesh hanging from his beak.
“It’s the way of my kind sweet dove.” he offered.
“I eat seeds and insects.” she said offering the suggestion.
“Come try my fare sweet dove!” he said with a sweep of his wings. She flew to him and nibbled at the carcass bashfully. Soundlessly he considered the dove. She was rapture and the shy side of his hopeful abandon. He gently covered her with an outstretched wing. They slept, sated and at peace. When he awoke she had gone. He lamented the loss and pondered in careful wisdom. “A doves breadth is not in the fray of a sober carrion dream and a vulture……..simply is!”

One Light Unto Another (new Poetry)

Ron Koppelberger

One Light Unto Another

Kindness in nascent availing delight, the sturdy shoulder

And the butterscotch sweet summoned by the tears of little whelps

And tender tots, by the need for grandmas gentle kiss

And laced sneakers for holiday seams, the breath of an

Ancient memory, borne by the lines of bygone love,

Called up and whispered complete by the

Reflection of an aged countenance once touched

By the kindness of a moment in time

And the passage of one light

Unto another.

What Destiny Desires (New Poetry)

Ron Koppelberger

What Destiny Desires

Churning in tempest raptures and unyielding

Tempers of taunt, narrow season, a wish in the

Daydream loves of princesses and paupers,

Of beasts in life’s constant revolution and heaven’s thrashing bliss.

An embrace torn by the winds of attention and seared by the

Embers of what destiny desires.

The worshiping twilight in clear shades of musty

                                                    Shadow and diversions in orange ash.

Seizing the Moment (New Fiction)

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.

Unbidden Love

Ron Koppelberger

Unbidden Love

The talisman was a marriage of gyrating beads and straight crow feathers bound by a worn leather tether and a small gilded chain. Rani Gean rolled the blue and ebony beads between her fingertips. The love of her life, Bobby Breck, he’d be hers, all in all by night shadow and lovers embrace; the fetish would assure his love, his tender kisses, his gentle hand in hers forever and forever.
Rani had fantasized about Bobby all through high school and when graduation day had come she’d been in a mild panic. What of our future Bobby she had thought. He was completely oblivious of her obsession with him, in fact he couldn’t even tell his friends what she had looked like. After it was finished , after the culmination of her wont, her insane need, he’d only say, “ She was all dark, eyes of deep hollow craziness, she was jus a damn fruit basket!” he told his football buddies.
Rani had stood in cap and gown near the front of the gymnasium waiting for bobby to walk across the platform and accept his diploma. She had it all planned out, she’d climb onstage and embrace him, express her love and her desire to be his wife. He had to be with her, he had to, he was her love, her breath and the sustenance in her life she thought as she pictured him as her husband.
The principle had called Bobbies name and just as he walked across the stage, at midpoint in the most important moment of his young life, she leapt. He staggered back as she embraced him and forced her tongue into his mouth. He had pushed her back, his arms outstretched,
“ I love you Bobby, we’re gonna be together Bobby………forever my love!” The gym coach and the principle pulled her away from him. She scratched and bit and in the end they had her removed.
Bobby had accepted his diploma with the gymnasium in an uproar. The principle had given him a consoling look as he congratulated him and patted him on the back; seconds later the gym coach with scarlet runnels from the fight across her checks, ushered Bobby out of the gymnasium.
He had believed she was crazy, yet he was compelled, They would be together, it was madness but he knew, he loved her without reason, her rash affections, her dark eyes, all he could think about was her.
Bobby shuffled closer to her house, slowly with conscious determination, keep walking he thought, just keep walking Bobby boy, she’ll be waiting. Her dark eyes called to him and he knew nothing else but the seductive currents of her attentions.
Rani had gone to the witch, she lived near the edge of Gibbet Marsh; she had said, “Take the fetish, take the charm and he’ll be yours forever!” The witch had charged her five thousand dollars worth of her collage fund for the charm, but it would be worth it she thought as she waited patiently for her love.
Bobby had gotten drunk after graduation, drunk as a skunk and he always drove too fast; a Stingray, his dad’s, “CRRRRRRRRAAAAAASSSSSSHHHHHH!” he mumbled as he placed his hand on the front door to Rani’s house. The maneuver was difficult, he tried to turn the knob, the blood made the brass handle slick and he couldn’t get his damn hand to work.
The car had careened into a tree, his dad would be pissed but he didn’t care he needed her dark eyes , the passion he felt for her was unequaled by anything he’d ever experienced.
Rani hoped and prayed as she turned the charm in her hands, she could hear him fumbling with the front door. The witch had been right. He was hers now. Rani ran to the door and pulled it open. Her screams echoed for blocks, Bobby stood there at a crazy angle, blood pouring from his crushed head, he had flown through the Stingray’s windshield head first into a tree. He didn’t think she would mind, “IIIIIIIIIaaaagagagagagagha LLLLOOoooooooooovvvveeee YYYYUOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUU,” he gurgled through his broken teeth.
The witch chuckled to herself her dark eyes glowing with fire and glee as she contemplated the twilight and the dawn of another day. “Young love,” she whispered, “…….knows the boundary of life and death sometimes.” She thought of her own lot, her isolation and solitary swamp life. Shaking her head she dismissed the brief notion of romance; she knew better.

Enchanted Tatters

Ron Koppelberger

Enchanted Tatters

She was gracefully ragged in silky gray dusk and dream heavy eyes; her solace was a burden advanced by the sweet nectars of a dandelion field, borne by the easy winds of chance. A spirit in magic acclaim, her soul took nothing for keep, yet the beauty of a million petals rained in glorious union with her tattered vesture and her frayed seams. She was adorned in love and cool whispers of crème, sugary tastes bidden by her passion and her suffering tears. She found a wanton touch of silk bound in the midst of blossoms and enchantment, near the sustenance of love.
She strayed and troubled the gift of betrothal unto a weary traveler, in happenchance, by the trail through the dandelion field and leading to the ramshackle cottage of her birth. She stood in eye to eye assessment with the stranger and the thirsty young man, “Have ye need for rest?” she questioned her husband to be.
“Yes, dear maiden , by yer way I’ve found the peace of the angels and my love, my wife, my respite.”
She silently consented with the young prince and grew old with his hand, nevertheless the dandelions still sang in fields of saffron glow by the beauty of her heart and the memory of a rare tattered enchantress.

Midnight Willow

Ron Koppelberger

Midnight Willow

The uncontrollable buzz of June bugs and crickets in song, sung sure and in rhythm with the firelight embers. The outline of the Willow wept in shadow and moonlit silhouette. Crem Harridan sat in the unfurled comfort of an aluminum and plastic yard lounger; the fire burned at a low ebb near his outstretched feet. Crem sipped at the blue and red can of beer with a slow contemplative breed of order. He lay there unpretending forethought before the flame.
He had found the passion of the egg. He had believed it to be an Ostridge egg. It was, or had been, the size of a large grapefruit. “An authentic Ostridge egg!” Wade Specter had said to Crem in excited exhalations of cigar smoke. “A gosh darn feast of feathered fare Crem!” he had exclaimed. Crem had begrudgingly bought the egg from Wade for ten
dollars and a beer.
The Willow swayed in the cool summer breeze and the scent of sulfur permeated the air. An Ostridge egg he thought; it hadn’t been an Ostridge egg.
Crems ex-wife had left in a sudden fit of rage nearly two months earlier. “Yer good fer absolutely nothing Crem, yer a lazy drunk and yer lousy in bed!” Mince Zither Fry March Harridan had screamed in his half conscious face. He had laughed and thrown an empty beer can at her. “Sonofabitch!” She had screamed in a furious rage. The argument ended with Mince tearing across their yard with the old Ford F-150 they had bought in the first year of their marriage. She had left deep ruts in the yard and a broken cement bird bath behind. He grimaced as he remembered the scene. If he had been in possession of the egg then things might have turned out differently.
The egg lay broken at the base of the Willow tree. There had been a snap and a crackling sound as fissures formed on the surface of the egg. He had considered sobriety for a brief moment as the egg ruptured in crackling expressions of birth. Untangling itself from the bits of broken shell it flew eagerly in warm currents of spell. It gracefully filled the close trembling shadow Crem cast over the taboo.
A likeness to the beauty of a mischievous question in vengeance swore an oath borne of miracles and impossibilities before Crems eyes. The winged magic of a fairy, maybe it’s a fairy he thought. It had the wings of a moth and the eyes of a tiger, scarlet and amber hued, Flittering, all teeth and a widows peak near its bulging forehead.
He lay there thinking about the Fairy and the shattered egg. His anger, his fury had turned it into a bright flame of rage as he thought about Mince and the Ford F-150.
It had sped off and he had honestly felt good for a second. He wondered what Mince would think about the fairy. Crem tilted the beer can toward his mouth and swallowed as he dreamed about his new friend.