Vodka Drawn Cold

Ron Koppelberger

Vodka Drawn Cold

Del Ivy guided the icy vodka shot to his expectant lips. The silent, perfect alliance of moted dust and dirty lace curtains gave special attention to the yellow glow of sunshine silhouette. The spears of swirling light touched the pleated skirt of Hilda Lesser; she lay immobile on the wooden floor, burnished crimson in leaking pools. Del sipped, remembering the fray, the wild throe of angry surprise. Hilda had handed him the parchment, the aged scroll of sought after magic’s. She had coughed, “ Take it you crumb, take it!” she had insisted. The quality of light in the tiny apartment had gone from glowing to darkness and ash, he had whispered,
“Alive, alive.” Hilda hadn’t heard him, “Alive.” he repeated.
The papyrus was ancient, a spell, a pharos salvation. Del’s eyes had crinkled up near the corners. Hilda had paused in quiet expectation,
“Now where’s my money?” she hissed in greedy desire.
As he sipped the Vodka cold he twirled the long silver hook between his thumb and index finger. The hook was stained scarlet and a tiny bead dripped from the curved edge.
He had waited an eternity for the scroll, denied birth, denied the secret, denied the conclave of the scroll; it had ended up in the Museum of Ancient History where Hilda worked as a tour guide.
She lay still, silent, dead near his feet. He had prepared and the herbs were combined and placed by her waiting lips. He had removed her brain through her nasal cavity according to the tradition; the hook had done it’s work as he inserted it over and over again.
He sipped; he had waited for the right moment, the right woman and he felt as if he could conquer the world. Hilda was the first.
She sat up, blood matted her hair flat and congealed on one side. She stared sightlessly forward, toward the darkening horizon, toward the will of a sanguine spirit.
“ Go and clean yourself up Hilda.” Del commanded. Finding her feet she disappeared into the bathroom. He listened to the sound of water running in the bathroom sink as he imagined the swirl of blood in the drain; he saw a tempest, inevitable, unwavering in desire and essence.

Longfaces Reward

Ron Koppelberger

Longfaces Reward

He held the cerulean sphere in cupped hands. His reflection wavered in the blue effervescence like a beseeching prisoner, a captured image of long faced desire, the desire for secrets and equal measures of beauty. His face elongated and drooped in long allay, his chin was a full foot beneath his pursed lips and his forehead sloped upward to an impossible length. He was Longface, Longface Wild as the town referred to him. He had tolerated the taunts of children and adults both over the tumult of his existence. The everyday spoils of marriage, children and love had eluded him. He was long faced and rambling in tonics of rare disposition.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaa,” he sighed in a whisper of reverent appreciation. The blue stone shimmered and swam before his eyes as he prayed for the confluence of events, the very purpose of his breath.
Longface closed his eyes and saw the afterimage of cobalt fire, the stone in the midst of a tempest. A tempest gathered against the exclamations of perfection, the decreed portion of beauty. A gathering tornado true, borne by longfaces and rare expressions.
The stone had been in the conclave of the dead near the edge of town. A long underground cavern where the townsfolk and country denizens had laid their loved ones to rest, in eternal sleep, a forever in company of damp moss and subterranean dreams.
He had crept to the entrance of the cavern and later, after dark, had gone into the ancient graveyard. The rows of rotting and mummified bodies had remained silent, passive and ever watchful. The flashlight had been a beacon and a torch as he searched the rows of decaying bodies. A moth flittered and danced in the moted glare of the light. He scanned the corpses and finally, near dawns edge he saw the prize, a large blue stone muzzled in the decaying jaw of an ancient king.
Longface had torn the jawbone free from the rest of the skull and the stone had rolled close to his feet.
“ Ahhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaahhhhhaaaaa.” he said, “Thank-you.”
As he sat in the small secret copse near the horizons frayed edge, the stone gleamed and glowed calling, calling. The old guard, the desires of the dead and the dreams of delirium. He waited, in confessions of revenge. Longface Wild, Longface Wild, they called as the air filled with the screams of the living and the gasps of the dead.

The Memorial

Ron Koppelberger

The Memorial

The expressway of incredible existence, the existence of bare gatherings in substance and circumstance, in indigenous kaleidoscopes of life, love, and passion merged with his cognate mind. A thousand histories and a million lives all written in fulfillment of the memorial.
Lofty egress and taller cities of stature led him to read the embossed brass plate,

“NEW YORK”

And beneath a triune symbol in black and yellow. The extravagance of the garden was a full circle of catastrophe and rebirth. The planet was an uninhabited Eden. Ancient ruins of unknown origin lay scattered in the lush tangle of trees and scrub. Birth and rebirth, the legend of his forefathers, the legend called earth lay before him. The spacecraft was a pregnant womb, a precursor to the world that would be. The space angel read the dusty brass plate again and sighed, the new plate would read,

“EDEN”

From heaven to Earth he thought, from heaven to earth.

Garden Blossoms and The Quest

Ron Koppelberger

Garden Blossoms and the Quest

The tangibility of calendars and seasons in branded sunshine and established breaths of life lay like winsome reflections of beautiful bounty across the horizon. An expression of glowing serenity and relinquished wreaths of perfection cast in aged layers of dust gave him substance in way of quest.
The ridge lay in the distance, beyond the yellow-gold of fluttering wheat and veiled care. The traveler prepared and rested in the fresh damp soil, the tilled rows of saffron revelation. He conversed in daydream essence and misty native dialogue with the spirits of spring. Warm, flowing and full of blossoming promise, what invested the echoing accident of divinity, the savannahs of wheat and the fertile garden blossoms. He noted the scent of fresh beginnings and the tales that would tell the horizons of both past and future, berths and births. Spring seasons of dreamy castaway love and peaceable completion.
The ridge the ascending slope, sylvan and complacently willing beckoned new adventure and the possible band of sinless quest. He prayed and an angel sang praises for the garden and the mans quest.
Moving toward the imagined glories and hoped for prophecy the man trifled the path and captivating spring harvest for the welcoming magic of sylvan foothills. A result of entrance and absolutes beneath his bosom, his heart beat in rhythm with the journey and spirits of ascension, springtime ascension.

Unblushing Winter Fluke

Ron Koppelberger

Unblushing winter Fluke

The speculative advance of pearly crystals in cool clouds of creation, an august snow in vestured savannahs of wheat an august snow in sunshine skies and surrendered summer heat. Apia Torch stood in the tumble-down enclave sweating and damp from the melting snowflakes. He watched as the flakes fell and melted against his skin and the grain of saffron-yellow vistas.
Melting away, nourishing the soil with winter applause and sated cascading thirsts of tangled season. Apia stood beneath the shower of snowflakes dazzled by the miracle of proffered pilgrim rarity. He yanked on his ponytail, straightening the colored ribbons that held it in place, “ Divine design, delivered at length and entreating accident.” he contemplated out loud. The majesty of saffron brilliance lay in fantasies of moist swaying repose and Apia said a prayer for those who traveled the path. The path through the fields and fertile pastures of gold. He obliged the wheat and the hand of god sheltered him. The distance between the rain catcher and Apia was a short walk. He would drink, drink in cool wellsprings from heaven and he would dream, dream of his sweet princess the wind and her sweet fragrance. Apia stared at the mound of earth near his rain barrel. She would return to him someday, she had told him of a miracle, the angel in human guise. She would breath again and august snows would be hers as well.
Apia sat near the mound and waited, near the rolling waves of grain and near the beginning of a new age. There he waited patiently.

Tempted to Sow

Ron Koppelberger

Tempted to Sow

The inspiration for the crop of wheat was a dream, a dream that eavesdropped on the circle of charmed delicacy. He had dreamed of saffron waves and amber confluences of satisfying wheat bloom. A declared moment of virtue and a proclivity to the garden of ancient ritual, it was the promise of the dawn.
The west end of his twenty acre vista was littered with limestone and granite boulders and in the midst one day he had called, “ Father what lays in wait for the resolute man?” The fields of wheat and saffron rolled before his eyes away from the stones and the guard in seasons of creed and faith in waiting patience for those who would come to the pile of stones, in the midst of the garden. Harrowed faith and harvested garnered cashes of virgin seed were his destiny.
The stones were arranged in an intimate circle, alabaster and streaked with the lines of gray granite. He had dreamed of the spot and of the vast seas of wheat and fluttering saffron advance. The stones seemed to contain an energy, Ancient, dark and light both, like twilight and dawn. He had dreamed and the vision of the stones and those who would come was silenced by the wheat and saffron, the gold and amber seed, the fulfillment of the land and the frayed array that would surround the power of the stones. Saffron and wheat, sunshine and warm blossoms shining with the love of god and the touch of a discerning knowledge.
The stones, he knew something was destined for the scattering of rock, something dark and powerful. In time he would plant the wheat, in time he would sow, the saffron in tandem with the assurance of the east, west, north and the south, with the stones near the center. Deliberately and in an act of contrition for the land, the promise of the best, he sowed the crop and in turn found peace with the harvest to come.