Surreal Dreams,Surreal Dreams Two,Horror Express all available at Amazon.com/Ron Koppelberger

Amazon.com/Ron Koppelberger

The Spaceship

Ron Koppelberger

The Spaceship

The spaceship was a sensational vastness in wary shadow; it eclipsed the sun and cast a silhouette across the endless acres of saffron Nate had planted. The delicate stitch of a drama in arrays of spider silk crept and cajoled the Black Widow in the corner of Nates barn, she predicted night because the lattice light shining through the slats in Nates ancient barn had gone gray with the advent of the spaceship. She began spinning silk in wide patterns of glossy weave only pausing to survey the flies she had captured. Outside Nate stared upward at the encroaching visitor. “Damnation,” he whispered, “….it’s as big as a planet.”
Nate watched the spaceship as it rippled and wavered at strange angles and soft humming dance. He swayed in rhythm to the oscillating disk, entranced by a rapturous peace.
The spider had accomplished ten rounds of silk in perfect circles of creation when she discovered the flies she had wrapped tightly in silken cocoons were breaking free. She fought the urge to attack and skewer her fare as the buzz of three or four flies, the delicate want of a Black Widow spider, queen of kings and deadly in demeanor began to fly in circles of unbroken light; a halo of flies in measured resurrection from the dark abyss of death, flew and celebrated their new life.
Nate swayed and stared at the giant disk as it sang to him in secret music, in sweet tones of youth and awakening bloom. If anyone had been watching the North pasture near the edge of the saffron expanse, they’d have been startled as the ground tore open and old Zeke, Nates horse and former partner, crawled out of the ground as good as new, in fact the horse was younger and in perfect shape.
Nate watched as birds by the dozens flew up from the soils of the farm and there was a buzzing as a thick cloud of resurrected insects flew up into the sky.
The last thing Nate remembered was the sound of his wife’s voice. She had been dead for ten years, buried in the family cemetery. There were others, some in ancient cloths but all cautiously young again.
The spaceship traveled the great expanse of the planet and near twilight tide the earth was new, nascent, reborn.

The Darkness Near Ariel

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.

Hollow Roar

Ron Koppelberger

Hollow Roar

The disaster had been reported in clear concise tone of fear. The Revolutionary Democrat had a photograph of a cloud that had specks of crimson in it and the well-bred Republican gazette showed a genuflecting pedestrian outlined by a twilight argument of darkness and scarlet cumulous clouds, a butterfly was visible in the corner of the photograph contrary to the horror of the moment. The headline read, “Beauty Before the Darkness.”, the caption beneath the photo read, “ Subservient to the unknown.” The aspirations of human endeavor, even wanton desires, had become a faded memory in the face of the phenomenon.
There were explanations offered and proposed but the complexity, the purity of the now sovereign cloud burst was still a mystery in the shroud of a mystery.
Wuhan Luke hid in the thick concrete shelter of his basement. He had moved his Igloo cooler and several cases of Victoria Springs water into his basement. A breath of life, an ordered quarrel of noise and news reports poured from his all weather radio in a barrage of static. Wuhan sat down on the variegated cotton comforter and leaned against the basements gray block wall. In wandering contemplation of his mortality, he prayed for a miracle.
Was this the end? Was this the end of mankind and life on earth? He prayed and listened with a hopeful expectation. God’s slight of hand brought twilight spears of sunshine in crazy quilt patterns through his basement windows. He was exercising his cramped fingers, he had been clutching a fold of the quilted cotton blanket unconsciously for the last several hours. Wuhan Prayed again in balanced benediction, “ Our father who art in heaven…..”, he began. As he prayed a hollow roar filled the basement and the air outside of the tiny clapboard house. It sounded like the ocean and a speeding fright train in cacophonous harmony. A flash of light filled the skies and poured in flowing rivers of affirmation through the basement windows. The August eyes of hastened force and currents of unwavering rebirth championed the earth and Wuhan cried thinking the worst.
Eventually, the hollow roar abated and Wuhan ventured upstairs to the chance and the fate that had overwhelmed the planet. Wuhan opened his front door and looked into the glowing golden brilliance of an almost ethereal sunshine. The roses he had planted were in bloom and the grass was a rich emerald hue. A gentle symphony of beauty filled the once baron desert that had bordered the edge of his property. In the distance he saw fields of wheat and saffron in bloom, glorious and blessed a miracle had occurred.

The Spaceship

Ron Koppelberger

The Spaceship

The spaceship was a sensational vastness in wary shadow; it eclipsed the sun and cast a silhouette across the endless acres of saffron Nate had planted. The delicate stitch of a drama in arrays of spider silk crept and cajoled the Black Widow in the corner of Nates barn, she predicted night because the lattice light shining through the slats in Nates ancient barn had gone gray with the advent of the spaceship. She began spinning silk in wide patterns of glossy weave only pausing to survey the flies she had captured. Outside Nate stared upward at the encroaching visitor. “Damnation,” he whispered, “….it’s as big as a planet.”
Nate watched the spaceship as it rippled and wavered at strange angles and soft humming dance. He swayed in rhythm to the oscillating disk, entranced by a rapturous peace.
The spider had accomplished ten rounds of silk in perfect circles of creation when she discovered the flies she had wrapped tightly in silken cocoons were breaking free. She fought the urge to attack and skewer her fare as the buzz of three or four flies, the delicate want of a Black Widow spider, queen of kings and deadly in demeanor began to fly in circles of unbroken light; a halo of flies in measured resurrection from the dark abyss of death, flew and celebrated their new life.
Nate swayed and stared at the giant disk as it sang to him in secret music, in sweet tones of youth and awakening bloom. If anyone had been watching the North pasture near the edge of the saffron expanse, they’d have been startled as the ground tore open and old Zeke, Nates horse and former partner, crawled out of the ground as good as new, in fact the horse was younger and in perfect shape.
Nate watched as birds by the dozens flew up from the soils of the farm and there was a buzzing as a thick cloud of resurrected insects flew up into the sky.
The last thing Nate remembered was the sound of his wife’s voice. She had been dead for ten years, buried in the family cemetery. There were others, some in ancient cloths but all cautiously young again.
The spaceship traveled the great expanse of the planet and near twilight tide the earth was new, nascent, reborn.

Round Robin

Ron Koppelberger

Round Robin

Belonging to the mix of entertainment, women and cheep cologne was a satisfying wrinkle in the web of tense embryonic existence. He caused the fray, cured the commotion and assured the gaggle of drama. A sure secret, a mystery of import and tempered rumor gone round robin. In a turn to return, a will to passing whimsy, just a whisper to the giggling mistress of screams and guffaws, laughter and flittering evanescent communication; just a whisper in a room full of parishioners. He leaned toward the raven haired beauty; she smelled of lilacs and wine as her gold and diamond earrings danced in delicate circles of light, prismic and casting tiny spears of candent white light against her slender neck. Just a whisper to come along, round robin, round robin.
Her smile faded as he whispered in gentle coquette,” There’s a fire in the loft love, a fire in the loft.” He watched as she struggled to identify the whispering source of her fear. He watched as she grimaced, teeth bared in fright,
“YYYYYIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE”, she screamed through clenched teeth. “FFFiiiiiiirrrrreeeeeeeee.” her face contorted into creased lessons of fright and her expression became a contagious rhythm of flowing fear. The room shifted and the crowd churned to the front door, Screaming surges trampling, crushing in waves of patent leather and stiletto heels, in waves of bloody stomped silk, stumbling ails and tuxedo stain. They surged and pressed and the demon smiled in distracted interest as the broken bloody bodies of a dozen lay heaped near the door. “Round robin, round robin,” he hissed in sibilant appreciation.

Justified By Fire

Ron Koppelberger

Justified by Fire

The virgin leaf was unspoiled by the amber colored substance, opium in a purely secret demonstration of surety. Always there and wanting a host to the lonely deliriums of addiction, the opium was always there and willing.
Harmon Blue was bred by the passage of denial and the tiny green leafed store of opium wasn’t tempting him to dramas of confusion. Instead he found himself on the border of a giant expanse. There were Poppies as far as the eye could see. Harmon was calm as he unscrewed the cap on the ten gallon can of gasoline. As he poured the fuel on the blossoms he thought about his daughter. Twenty-one years broken, that’s how long she had lived. The gas lolled and dripped from the plants. She had, in some insane yoke of fate, become an opium addict in blooming concession to all things expressing her former life; she was encumbered by the symmetry of the substance, tortoise slow and easy in the great race.
The gasoline sloshed in moist cloying union with the deceptively hateful flowers. He knew he was justified in his remedy. They had found his daughter face down like a broken doll on her apartment floor.
The echo of the shimmering fluid as the last few drops trickled across the temptress weed was hollow and desolate. Harmon Blue set the unequaled expanse of poppies on fire. He opened up his arms and cried; the poppies burned in a glittering conflagration of beauty and utter darkness.

Summer Soul

Ron Koppelberger

Summer Soul

Bruised and defiant the why and the drama of the idea was bolstered by the summer smile of what he called delicate, beautiful and wild. Treat Roe sat on the patio rail; his misgivings and doubtful knowledge tempered by the cold taste of beer sipped from a Margarita glass.
He looked at her mascara smudged eyes and saw paradise, through half swollen black eyes and purple patches of injury. He saw and whispered his affection through cracked lips, tasting copper in small measures of beer and blood. She had equine poise shaped by the lines of a night-time allure, eyes of passion and ringlets of silken desire. He ran his thumb across the slippery edge of the glass. The daughter of dark esteem she lay her palm against his and smiled.
The fight had been furious and long. Treat had nearly gone down and for a brief instant the halo had dimmed above his loves shining countenance. Dewy Meck lay in a bleeding heap near the bougainvillea vines, unconscious and defeated.
Treat pressed his palm against his girls palm, candent in azure and scarlet they became a single beam of brilliance, rouge and blood, lipstick and torn t-shirts smeared green by the stain of grass and wont. Treat sighed summer breezes and barbecued chicken while her heart blanketed the dream that made him whole with the essence of a female betrothal. A call to the vivid twilight they moved closer together in joined conspiracies of shadow. They brought the wind to a crescendo in tall pine by ravens in flight and marriage unto the breath of an ethereal second, by backyards in caste, in eternal celebration of the twilight moment. They became a single flame fed by the velocity of a substance dreamed possible by the heavens and tears of trust.
The light on the patio hummed and melded with the currents that course through backyards and county fairs, through summer picnics and crazy screams of romance, by rare wine brilliant halos of light wrought unto the ghosts of what simple abandon, for the night and the call of the sleeping crow, holds in secret reverie. A meaning given birth by the wombs of a chosen direction. The patio, the epoch, they moved upward and into the evening sky, borne in unbridled scenes of past discovery, for the eyes of a generation in lost frays, in dark shadows shorn only by twilight visions and the fears of lovelorn battles, a trim demon in contrary coquette, they ascended away into the skies with willing mind and the desire of angels in phantasmal swirl. They moved into a clandestined existence and the conquering mind of elder possession. Chicken stained hands , sauce and beer, sweat and breath like the whisper of dandelions blooming summer souls and babies recollections of cradles in ghostly prelude unto the revelation in southern skies and seconds yearning the gateway to different worlds.
Dewy Meck lay broken as the couple moved toward heaven and the promise of a future in roses, he groaned and climbed up from the farthest depth of a black illusion. In Anger, in tides of blood and ageless sand, he gained his feet vowing the world and the realm of human existence.
He sighed and fire flew from between his bleeding lips, sparks and ash in tongues of shadow, cold fire in the aftermath of a backyard battle between the winds of fate and chicken grease, chips and human endeavors to claim an instant in heaven, Eden, Nirvana, the ranchouse with children and dirty diapers and bottles of mad dog wine; the fight for what’s bought by the angels in humble secret, in asylums unseen.
Dewy looked heavenward and vowed an oath in blood and gray eyed ice. “Till death, by the need of your breath, I’ll have the favor of tide and life, of azure skies and sunshine, of warm smokey campfires and Bad mitten games won in favor of cigarette smoke and cold beer, I’ll have and in good measure!”
Dewy climbed the patio steps and went to the barbecue built into the side rail. Lifting the lid he inhaled deeply of the wood smoke, the charcoal and crispy hotdog Oder. Reaching in Dewy grabbed a tinfoil ear of corn and a charred simmering chicken leg. Carefully Dewy whispered dark drama, the beast, the dire melancholy of a jealous cousin, a brother of what has all by exiled prisoners in chain he ate and the world revolved, sun, moon, sun, moon.
The heavens watched Dewy and earth, the here praised his silhouette, his darkness, the blood of an angry command.
Treat Roe grinned in his own world with his love, his reason for life. The halo in his midst shining light down on Dewy; Dewy stopped eating barbecued chicken for a moment, the taste of cold beer on his lips, and for just a second he knew heaven. The space of that knowledge given birth, the wont of what he thought possible for his existence, for the continuance of his particular breed. Dewy by earth and Treat by heaven, by death and life, by god and by the dark demons that want the soul of simple living, that want barbecues, carnivals in summer rust, county fairs and beer on a steamy day. By the grace of an eternal battle, gasping grasping and locked in strange union between man, woman and the beast, the possessor of dark dreams and the tempter by decree, “I’ll show them the shadows and they shall want of it, they shall fall like sparks of dimming light to the earth!” He shouted to the sky above between bites of chicken and gulps of beer.
In silent rows miles and miles away, the wheat of tomorrows promise grew as did the darkness wonting fire to consume the harvest; Treat prepared the steaks, juicy t-bones, the hamburgers as he gazed out over the garden waiting for the fight yet done.
Dewy sighed and spoke, “ I know how they are, it will be mine in the end.” they both counted the seconds in a summer of souls desire, summer souls and the wont of light and dark, they counted the seconds that formed the bond between them.

Seasons In Red Chill

Ron Koppelberger

Seasons in Red Chill

The snow was the mistress of fields in rolling cloaks of sleep. Unlucky he thought as he rooted for the secret stone. The walls of the cellar were cool, thick concrete and stone and he pressed against the coarse rock surface searching for the loose rock. The cellar was dark and quiet, heaps of snow lay against the oily surface of the small rectangular windows that sat flush with the ceiling and the surrounding walls.
Principle Fix coughed a heavy wheezy gasp as he shivered in the empty cellar. “It’s gotta be here.” he whispered in a gravely voice tinged by the bug he was suffering from. Principle coughed again and wiped a sheen of sweat from his brow. With fumbling childlike hands he found the loose stone and removed it with a gentle pull. His relief was unfettered by the knowledge that he was alone, He prayed, “Let there be other survivors god.” Principle reached into the cool recess and removed the tiny plastic case.
Holding the case in his hands he remembered the sun, the blue revolutions of sky and the shimmer of endless horizons in white, it had snowed the evening before, a foot at least and the wheat fields stood empty except for the dark shoots of weed and stray wheat between the furrowed acres of land.
Hail Wister lived on the neighboring farm and construction on the old stone swimming hole behind the rows of cow stalls had ceased, it was a giant hole filled with gravel loose stone sand, dry thankless soils. Hail had predicted a great swimming hole for the grandchildren and the missus.
“It’ll be the perfect pool for all of us…….swimming and tea.” he had exclaimed. That was last summer and here it was mid winter. The pond had never materialized, construction had gone on until the hole had bubbled mud like hot molasses and smoke.
Principle looked from the kitchen window past the fence row to the great snow filled crater. Hail and his family had left suddenly one day, without notice. Hail, Alma and the two gray hounds they owned had vanished in the space of a day. The day before they left the backhoes and bulldozers had ceased to dig the swimming hole. Hails truck had stood idling in his driveway for a few moments, gray exhaust puffing out a final Farwell to the life they had known. His truck was loaded down and full of household items, the things that had gone on for years in the ancient two story farmhouse. Here today and gone tomorrow, no rhyme or reason or goodbyes to remember.
The sun had been bright and the terrain cool, frosty, sharp with the snows of a sleeping horizon. Principle remembered turning the radio on.

“It’ a great time to find the signs

In Generville. Come visit our green tree shoppers

Mall, everything for a deal, everything

For a steal.”

The commercial continued on with a disco tune from the late seventies and a screeching hoot like an owl then the news came on.

“Every hour on the hour.”

Principle turned the volume up as he turned away from the snowy vista and the red and white kitchen curtains. Gossip, laughter and then a panicked announcer…..,

“……….a giant, it tore through Peresville

Common like a bomb, it rained and the meteor belched a red colored mist,

Red rain, the entire area was deluged by

the crimson shower.

I repeat a meteor landed in Peresville Common

Today leaving no survivors. The president

Has declared a state of emergency for the area and the state.

Once again a meteor hit Peresville Common

Where it apparently rained blood……”

Principle thought about the gravel pit, the swimming hole Hail had attempted to build, obscured acquired by the land, it lay in silent reproach to the efforts of a farmer, a failed attempt at Champaign and hotdogs, river springs and the dreamy castes that filled the grand law of want and will. He had left in defeat after years in the land. The salt of the earth, Hail had left without explanation.
Principle looked back out the window it was sprinkling tiny droplets of moisture, red, thick and viscous like blood; the snow was speckled red and white with tiny depressions like teardrops. The window reflected rivulets of moisture in long streaks, slashes of crimson against the glass.
That damn hole in the ground he couldn’t get around it. Hail had fashioned the guest and here it was in a moment of silent acceptance. Give me red rain to fill the cracks and crevices, come swim in my depths, but now it was deserted except for the snows, the red rains and principle.
Principle thought about all of those things, those moments…..seconds in motion as he removed the red and blue case from the hole in the wall. It was a first aid kit he had acquired from the good-will. Inside lay two gauze and a bottle of camphor oil. Principle took the camphor and rubbed it across his brow in the shape of a cross.
“To the hole.” he coughed, it was the cold or the flu or some kind of nasty bug he wasn’t sure….he knew he was sick. The hole…..go to the hole He thought.
Principle climbed the stairs, wooden slats splintered and old, they creaked as he tested his weight. The living room stood empty at the top of the stairs, Debbie gone now and the children grown. The sky shone bright through the pinkish red sheen on the windows. The hole, go to the hole he thought again; he opened the backdoor to the frost and the blood, to aged fields of wheat in summers gone by as he made his way to the deserted hole in the ground.
His feet came away in frigid layers of frozen scarlet, puffs of loose cotton beneath. Staring ahead he looked at the depression in the ground and sighed in quiet contemplation.
Great strands of ivy covered the surface of the snow in layers across the bottom of the pit and gouts of steam wafted from the center. The truck gone now, Hail had missed it his hole was gushing hot water and steam, Roses and daisies lined the edges growing up defiantly through the snow. His hole, and hails failure, hails reason for leaving. Principle exhale and moved down the edge of the slope where he stepped into the steaming water.
It felt good and he discovered that he really didn’t care about the rain much as he submerged himself in the springs warmth and asylum.
For a moment he dreamed of pools and pearls, he owned it for that moment, forgiving the sky and the blood that poured down around the secret oasis.

Thye Veil Of Sleep

Ron Koppelberger

The Veil Of Sleep

Agile Sin slept in quiet comfort, it was a dark and lonesome sleep she was accustomed to. As the hour of eleven P.M. approached she began to dream in rapid sequences of light, fire and shades of darkness. She was a vampire to the breath that allowed her to continue living, crimson and scarlet in color, the penance of blood stole her sunshine and today left her with demons in the form of a nightmare.
She was by the edge of a great glassy pond, partially dressed and bathing her fatigued body with the fresh spring water, her reflection cried to the gods in shadow light, to be of the caste, the vampire laden unto the task of feeding, sleeping and even bathing. She sang a lullaby as she bathed, something her mortal mother had taught her,

“Clean about little one

The day will come little one

When the seams and stitch

Of a forgotten dream will

Bring you all that it seems

All in all clean.”

She was dressing in the dream when from the corner of her vision the silhouette of a creature appeared. Startled she dressed and stood away from the edge of the pond. “What is this…..?” she spoke aloud. The sky sang songs of evening tide dread in that silhouette, in that great goblin of a beast that had found her in a moment of weakness. She prepared herself for the fight that would ensue when the great beast came to her. It was fire red and smelled strongly of brimstone. It’s horns were great appendages growing from it’s forehead and it’s teeth were pointed and dripping saliva. She watched as it plodded closer to her whispering, whispering.
“Sin, I come to collect what is mine by the right of those who feed on vampire and wolf, by the right of we who have the steadfast hold on dreams and nightmares, we who hold the key to your salvation as well as your damnation. I come for you Sin, in this dream of dreams as a messenger and the spirit that will take you to the test.” he whispered with a lashing tongue and fangs that sang the song of everlasting pain.
“But you are no vampire beast and I shall not succumb to your whim or your test!” she said with a touch of rage in her voice.
“By seasons of betrothed calm and lessons of rapture you will come to me Sin, for the blood, the blood of the condemned and the taste that lies within you. By my eyes and yours!” he commanded as he moved closer to Sin. She stepped back a few paces and drew her dagger, the pass between them filled with a dank fog and sin coughed at the stench of rotting flesh.
“You are dead beast, if you are to test me then how will you do it, you’re not a living thing, how will you do it?” she yelled at the roiling mist around her. His voice echoed in the fog and smoke.
“I will test you in accord with the vampires of old, the vampires of old my dear…to the blood of a lamb and the innocence of a babe!” his voice said closer to her now. The sky filled with the light of a thousand suns in her dream and the trees looked as if they were in flames. The beast glowed a bright crimson and maroon as he loomed closer to the edge of the pond. She could hear him breathing, he was panting now and the heat he was generating filled the space between them. “You will be mine!” he spoke into her ear, “You will be mine Sin!” She drew the silver dagger she had near her hip and thrust blindly into the glowing smoke. The sun blazed and the beast screamed in mortal agony as the blade penetrated it’s flesh. Shadows and silhouettes filled the smokey flames around them and the beast fell to the ground defeated by the one action that Sin had guaranteed him. “You will die now!” Sin said in the dream as the beast faded to nothing and the night horizon returned with inky blue velvet and the twinkle of a thousand stars.
Sin fell to her knees and prayed to the elders, the vampires of her youth and in that dream of praying she found respite with the truth of who she was, what she was and where she belonged. She knew she would never be anything but a vampire, Agile Sin the wash of a thousand dreams and the wish of a lonely vampire, and she dreamed until she awoke, and when she awoke she found a few sprigs of dandelion weed clutched in her palm smelling green and new. Like the fresh cut flowers of a new day and a new beginning.
The flowers stained her fingertips and she tasted the bloom, it was in patches close to her. The stain of crimson drizzled gray and black on the grass as a remembrance of her dream, had it been real? What of the test? She tasted blood and the sensation revived her and made her ready for the evening hunt, except for dreams and nightmares she had no care in the world except to fulfill her destiny as her caste demanded.
The night sky lay like a blanket across the landscape as Sin made her way to the village common and her food, the sweet taste of warm blood would cradle her in it’s ecstasy and give her a reason to move from today into the promise of tomorrow. She sang again,

“Patient vapors hold the

Ceaseless plumage of a raven in

Designs of ancient taboo

And shadows alive unto the twilight of a new evening

Dream and the way of wandering hearts given the

Will of the night and the taste of a tear in silence and blood.”

From Ambling Broad Clouds

Ron Koppelberger

From Ambling Broad Clouds

Misty Smoke and dreams of a better tomorrow filled her mind with the promise, the promise of western futures and wild coyote jamborees. She tilted the Stetson against her sweating brow and adjusted the leather chaps that had gotten her as far as New Mexico. The horse wore old war paint and the froth that covered it’s flanks told her to slow down.
The coyotes were following Careful Spell with loyal abandon, tracing her hoof prints across the desert plains. There were hundreds of them and they were loyal only to Careful and her mystery. She lifted the kerchief she had tied across her mouth and called to them with a long lonesome whoop. “Yaaaaaiioooooowwwwww!” she called in a fervent gasp. The coyotes called back by the hundreds filling the desert air with the wild song in the shadow of a twilight moon. Careful gathered the little kindling that was available and built a camp fire for her and the old horse. The evening was fast approaching and it would be cold, they’d need the warmth of the fire. She sat next to the flame she had built and prayed to the old spirits and the silhouette of an approaching night, the coyotes howled and sang to her with fierce loyalty. She paused for a moment to remember, the wagon train, the party and the end of something important. It had been the end of the day, the end of the trail for her and thirty others. The desert had been merciless to them and they were suffering the fate of inexperienced travelers.
Pool Johns had told her that the road would be hard, he hadn’t intended it to be impossible. They were out of water and most of the horses had died leaving them with horse meat to eat and little else. When the meat ran out so did their hope and eventually they had succumbed.
Careful had awoke to the sound of coyotes howling the next morning and she had felt refreshed, rejuvenated by the sound. The old horse had appeared from the dust and she had saddled him and donned her dead husbands chaps and Stetson. She didn’t know where she was headed if she was really headed anywhere, west and the promise of a new beginning. Perhaps she had perished with the others, a ghost, maybe I’m a ghost she thought as she waved to the distant horizon and the army of coyotes. The night wore away the veil of sleep and she continued on to the next day moving closer to another town, her and the coyotes in silent command of the desert and the world perhaps, the world as it stood between the living and the dead, the old and the ancient, the world in sure whispers of life beyond life and living beyond the realm of the living. Careful prayed again as she rode high in the saddle, she prayed to the approaching destiny that would carry her across the great gulf and the wont of a breathing thing. All in all the coyotes knew their song and they knew the passions of a desert that could take and give the essence of a dream, from ambling broad clouds to the eyes of a legend.

The Efforts of The Hungry

Ron Koppelberger

The Efforts of The Hungry

Sworn by the underworld taverns and decreed by the lords of feasting prosperity, the clan wore its’ livelihood with relish abandon. “We feast upon the flesh of men and then we toast to the greater things that the gods can lend us. Great grand thirsts and desires of renewal and survival absorb us for the sake of what they call Ghoul.” the clan leader exclaimed as he chewed a piece of thigh bone thoroughly and passionately.
They lived and congregated in the deepest depths of graveyard commons, beneath the surface of the earth, hidden and unseen by the prying eyes of men. This was their haven, their respite from the deeds of men. In the past they had tried to live with men but the hunger had intruded and they had been killed whenever discovered by man. Beheadings, burning at the stake and even buried alive. The tradition stated and told the tale of the first. Buried alive, Buried alive in piles of bones and rotting flesh and the grandfather of the Ghoul had survived. He had partaken of the flesh and he had changed become something more than human, because of humans, because of their fear. He had started the congregation with rag tag remnants of humanity and the clan had flourished. There were nearly five thousand of them now and they were the masters of their domains. They moved from cemetery to cemetery as their hunger perused them, devouring the discarded the forgotten and the lost.
The head of the clan reflected on this as he sat atop a coffin behind the closed gates of an ancient mausoleum. “A drink for us all in the summer of our youth, our souls in the seat of those who perished without cause, a taste for the Ghoul and a glass of fine wine for the survivor in all of his glory.”

New Fiction By Ron Koppelberger

 

Voodoo Hyacinth

Enchanting Stories From The Boneyard

Authored by Ron W Koppelberger
A book of frights, troubled diversions, reigning terror and whispering twilight. These are the things you dream of in the darkest hours of the night. These are the ghosts, the demons, the monsters you love to read about but fear in the farthest reaches of your mind. Come delve into the shadows for a brief moment, explore the dark corners of your mind with this frenzy of fear. Voodoo Hyacinth will bring you to the edge and beyond.Available at Createspace.com/4026131 for $7.99



 Sundown Shadows

Horror Stories For The Brave

Authored by Ron W Koppelberger
Horror stories for the evening hours. Take a trip to unbidden shores......travel to lands in shadow and realms of the macabre, dance with ghosts and test the limits of your endurance, let the fear take hold and guide you through the mists, the smoke and the lands of the impossible. Let creatures inhabit your consciousness, strange demons and dreams of eternal life, let the frightening become substance, if only for the briefest of moments. This is what you can expect from Sundown. Available at Amazon.com/4021778 for $10.99

Strange Forest

 

Poetry and Blood

Authored by Ron W Koppelberger
The dreams of a vagrant few, illusions in dawns promise and the wont of a solitary truth. Poetry that fills the spirit with wonder and curiosity, these are the moments we often cherish.....brought to life with the dreams of a generation and the aspirations of many, this is the poetry you need to read.
Available at Createspace.com/4000925 for $6.99

The Ghoul Saloon Is Open For Submissions

---

The Ghoul Saloon edited By Ron Koppelberger


For this anthology I would like stories about Ghouls…..living or dead. In Bars, in cars in the wild west, in school and maybe even on the moon! Ghouls, Ghouls, Ghouls in any world you would like… ” …we’ll all have a drink on the ghoul!” might be a line from one of the stories chosen for this anthology. Humor is ok and so is outright horror. Send me your best, the story you want to shine with.

Send submissions to: will806095@bellsouth.net with The Ghoul Saloon in the subject line.

Reprints are Fine as long as you hold the rights.

Send your submission in RTF Format.

Length: There is no minimum or maximum

*A for the love of only anthology, I have done dozens for the exposure!


FORMAT: Usual Static Movement formatting rules apply: single space with indented paragraphs, no space between paragraphs and standard 12 font. Use centered *** for scene breaks, and please put your bio at the end of the story in the manuscript. Please make sure your story is how you want it to appear in print, and pay attention to grammar and punctuation!

* Cover art to come.

*Poetry Is OK!

Read more: http://staticmovement.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=koppelberger&action=display&thread=849#ixzz26oCtpbwo

Thresholds and Countless Ravens

Heartbeats and the Sublime

Poetry for the lost. Worlds of gentle rain and bright sunshine, worlds full of shadow and light, these are the lines of careless abandon and the wont of dreamers. Come measure the heartbeats of lovers in a summer shower or the footfalls of a lonesome dreamer in the hours before sunup. These are the jewles of blissful broadcast, the moments we live for, the times we leave behind and so desperately desire, these are heartbeats and the sublime. $7.99 at Createspace.com/3983659.

Thresholds And Countless Ravens

The realms of illusion and the songs of untold truth, fantasy, desire and pumpkin grins. All told the passion of midnight dreams and Carnival glass done in scarlet.

CreateSpace eStore: https://www.createspace.com/3992086

  Western Mystic



Ghosts and mysteries of the west, the desert and it's secrets. The future of a generation.....western mystery and poetry at it's very best. The love of spirits in commune with the sagebrush and cactus flowers, desert decrees of heat and wild dance......desire in cowboy duds...travels through the sands of time and beauty at it's most dangerous, These are the elements of Western Mystic. Available at Createspace.com/3970720

Western Mystic



Ghosts and mysteries of the west, the desert and it's secrets. The future of a generation.....western mystery and poetry at it's very best. The love of spirits in commune with the sagebrush and cactus flowers, desert decrees of heat and wild dance......desire in cowboy duds...travels through the sands of time and beauty at it's most dangerous, These are the elements of Western Mystic. Available at Createspace.com/3970720

Illusions In Shadow (Flash Fiction)

 

Illusions In Shadow

 

Fiction Bound By Dreams

Authored by Ron W Koppelberger
A book of flash fiction daring the momentum of a classic. A world of dreams and elusive spells of wonder combined to create a birth in the imagination of the reader. Shadows and light, the brilliance of the sun and the cool respite of the moon, strange asylums and whispering danger......what comes next? The answer is you, the reader, the explorer of distant horizons and magic drama. These are the elements of Illusion in Shadow.
Available at Createspace.com/3953158 for $7.99

 

Farthermost Dream

 

Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry

Authored by Ron W Koppelberger A book of Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry designed to take the reader to distant horizons. Explore the red sands of Mars, travel to the distant reaches of the universe. Go to the next Earth and find exotic adventure. Come imagine wolves and kings in worlds of fantasy. Take a trip to the rings of saturn through measures of passion for the far reaches of the galaxy. Rocket ships and twilight horizons, time travel and dark shadows, aliens and the settlers who make their way on new unexplored worlds, this is the essence of Farthermost Dream.
Available at Createspace.com/3948018 for $7.99

Books by Ron Koppelberger available to buy at Amazon.com/Ron Koppelberger

*Twilight-Tide

  Dark Poetry

Authored by Ron W Koppelberger A book of dark poetry for the late hours of the night. Pull the covers tight and light a candle. The world in an evening sky at the edge of twilight, this is poetry for the lost, the wandering, the denizen of late night haunt. Imagine flickering lights, full moons in orange spears of light, the lonely call of the wolf at night or a raven's caw, this is the substance of Twilight-Tide.  $7.99 at Amazon.com.

Horror Rush

 

Horror Stories in Shadowy Light

Authored by Ron W Koppelberger A Book Of Horror fiction for the late hours of the night. Imagine the shadows in dreams of frightening contemplation, imagine a world of light and moonshine illusion, imagine fear at it's best. Pull up a chair and get the candles burning because Horror Rush will set you on edge and thrill you to the core of your soul. These stories were written with the horror enthusiast in mind. The darkness never looked so appealing. $7.99 at Amazon.com/Ron Koppelberger.

A Butterfly Whispers

 

Surreal Poetry

Authored by Ron W Koppelberger
Cover design or artwork by Ron W Koppelberger A book of waking dreams. A world of illusion and dreams, a world of whispers and gentle song is what this poetry encompases. The sun bidden by the twilights horizon and the edge of a long day waiting for the first breath of eternity. Dreams and surreal imagery fill this book with the hopes and promises of a new day. A Butterfly Whispers will take you to the place you want to be. $6.99 at Amazon.com/Ron Koppelberger.

Raven's Blood

 

Authored by Ron W Koppelberger A Book of dark and dreamlike poetry. Imagine a world of dreams. Imagine a world where shadow and light combine to create an image painted in whispers, in silent contemplation, in dreams of what is and what has been. Imagine a selection of dark poetry that stirs the soul and captures the innermost wont of our desires and aspirations. Raven's Blood is a collection of poetry created in hours of silent contemplation and wonder. Come imagine the world in half-lit splendor and often with just a touch of fear.  $5.99 at amazon.com/Ron Koppelberger.

The Light In Snake Fuss

 

Short Fiction

Authored by Ron W Koppelberger A book of dark and sometimes light short fiction. Written with a flair for the poetic and the mysterious. The world of illusion and the world of shadow sometimes merge to form a picture. Painted in hues of sunshine and moolight this collection will stir your soul and give you cause to wonder. The arcane and the new, the unbidden and the bidden this is a fresh collection of thoughts and stories from Ron Koppelberger.  $6.99 at Amazon.com/Ron Koppelberger.

Saffron Mirage

 

Surreal Flash Fiction

Authored by Ron W Koppelberger
A Book of surreal Flash Fiction. A mixture of dreams for every occasion. Tales of adventure and horror and everyday existence all in one. Stories with a surreal slant and an eye for the unusual. A bright sky lit by the candent glow of the sun and the half-light of the moon. 50 stories for the curious and the wandering. Available at Createspace.com/3939904

      






All Books Available at The Kindle Store.

Horror Rush (Horror Stories)

Createspace.com/3932678

Wolf Craft Submissions

If you are interested in participating in a great anthology about wolves,  wearwolves and lycanthropy send your submissions to Will806095@bellsouth.net.  The writer's guidelines can be found at Static Movement under the message board (Wolf Craft).  Thanks and have a fantastic day!!

Chasing The Storm

Ron Koppelberger

Chasing the Storm

In chase of the storm, in chase of the storm he was in that most absorbing moment, staring at the picture on the wall. It was a picture of a squall and a boat rocking in tall sea waves, the frame hung loose from the portrait and the painting was wrinkled in one corner revealing a dark cardboard backing. He took the nail gun from the tool chest he had brought into the living room and stared at it then the picture. He would fix the portrait, then it would be the perfect image, to chase the storm in perfect harmony with the dawn’s light he thought.
Things that foretell the morning-tide dawn and happenchance he thought as he approached the painting with the nail gun. “Pop, Pop, Pop…” went the gun as the tide swelled and the boat continued to rock on the giant sea waves. Riding the storm to islands unbidden he thought as he raised the gun again, “Pop, Pop, Pop,…” the gun went again.
A long crimson smear and the sneer of a madman, “Pop, Pop, Pop,…” went the nail gun into the soft flesh of his business partner. The portrait over his face and the painting just a wrinkled mess, must be perfect he thought as he primed the gun for another round of firing. The picture conformed to his partners face and the nails leaked long rusty red trails across the wall he was propped up against. “Pop, Pop, Pop,…” went the gun and the storm and the coming morning sunrise sang in degrees of insanity as he mumbled a curse and looked at his work.
Still the cardboard showed through along with the crimson gore of a newly fastened picture in hell. His partner had lied and cheated winning millions from the company and he had been left with nothing except this absurd little painting. He had removed the painting form the office wall where his partner worked, he had thought of the storm and the currents of hate he felt for the man when he formulated his plan of action. Riding the storm, how did that song go…”Riders on the storm, Riders on the storm, take a long holiday and let your children play, Riders on the storm!” Jim Morrison had it right. Ride the storm he thought as he Admired his work in the new dawn light of the living room.
The sun glowed a bright pink and orange through the spotless window glass and the lace curtains, almost evanescent in its strength. The light warmed him and gave him a healthy aura of exuberance as he worked through the morning on the portrait. In the end he would be caught and the irony was that the painting had been valuable worth over two million dollars at wholesale. The police had been shocked by the bloody mess, the scene of carnage and anger. When they tried to question him all he said was “In chase of the storm, DON”T YOU SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, IN CHASE OF THE STOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRM!”

The Light In Snake Fuss, Horror Fiction by Ron Koppelberger, Available at Amazon.com

Forest Dreams

Ron Koppelberger

Forest Dreams

He finds himself tempted by the fire, almost overwhelmingly. The dark phantasms that whisper his name over and over again, “Almar Downy, Almar Downy!” He lays unsleeping except for the waking dream, the dream of flames and perdition. He stands before a forest of tall iron pines, there is no way through the wood…except for the hacksaw. He approaches the first tree and begins sawing the lower branches off of it. Soon he has a pile of timber, it must burn he thinks. Lighting a match he sets the pile of branches on fire then begins sawing at another of the trees and another, and another until he has giant heaps of timber to burn. Perhaps he will see his way to the other side of the woods.
The day moves forward into the twilight hours of dusk and still Downy finds himself burning and sawing at the trees. The first sliver of moonlight shines through the trees and the bright orange glow of the fires cast a hazy aura into the dense tree line. “Almar Downy, “ they whisper again, “Almar Downy…”
He saws at the branches until the piles overwhelm the terrain, piles of burning brush in great conflagrations. In the end the woods catch the flame and the tall iron pines light the night sky with a burnt umber glow, smokey and hot. Near morning tide the forest has revealed itself as ash and soot, a once proud enclave for those who seek shelter from the edge of the world. The edge of the world, and this is what Almar found on the other side.
Tall buildings crumbling with decay and great mountains of refuse, a small dirty pond filled with plastic containers and tin cans. A reflection of what lay just beyond the forest.
Almar walked over to the small dirty pool of water and looked at his reflection there and he saw tired eyes, dark half moons and dirty smudges of soot across his face. Had he dreamed all of this or was this his fate.
He stood before the tall pine with hacksaw in hand and looked forward, in that moment he realized that it was not the view to the other side that he wanted and instead he built a house from the surrounding trees, a place to hide from the other side and a shelter against the future, for one day he would have to go to that pond and look into it, but for now the forest would remain his shelter and his sanctity, his peace of mind like the soul of a wise owl who knows the way.

Raven's Blood a book by Ron Koppelberger available at Amazon.com!

createspace.com/3885973

Wishful Listeners

Ron Koppelberger

Wishful listeners

The tribe lived on the distant moon of galiumnet number eight. There were five or six hundred of them and they were a rare sight to see. They kept to themselves, hunting snakes and wild chickens brought by the Earthers. They lay still by the edge of a great gully, all waiting, prone, listening for the sound of the hover crafts. They held lassos and large hooks designed for their thick braided fingers. They waited and listened as they had been for the last several years. If they were never seen there was a reason, they did not want to be seen. The purity of their mission was simple, to kill and capture as many of the humans as possible, learn the hover crafts and take the mother ships, and so they waited with an amazing patience. Gossamer webs of light lit their eyes as the sound of approacing crafts neared and they said Amen, for theirs would be Eden. One of the females sighed and adjusted the hook on her hand. What of her storm, the vesture of her life on this world, what would she become as a future mother and wife. She closed her eyes and crawled away from the gully and the advent of an endless war. She would be free, with child and free.

Ron Koppelberger (Holding the light of secret dreams)

Ron Koppelberger

Greetings

I have been poasting on this web site for over a year and I do not say much personally except with my poetry stories and artwork.   My Grandmother died yesterday at 7.00 P.M.,  she was in a lot of pain.  I take solace that she is with god now and happy.   Some might say that the forces of darkness have a monopoly on the sorrow we experience and that may be true but I know there is light at the end of the tunnel.
I ordered an advanced copy of Diablo 3 last week and it's due in today.  I guess that's like a task I'm not sure.......anyway the one thing my grandmother wanted was for me to suceed as a writer  she said you are going to be famous someday Ronnie with lots of books.  I have about 103 books with my stories in them and another 160 or 170 magazines with stories art and poetry in them and I am not famous yet.........nevertheless I know I will be because my grandmother was blessed with that kind of intuition....She will be missed and the bad guys have something extra to worry about now.  Anyway I hope you have a woderful day.

Ron Koppelberger

August Snow (Chapter one and Two)

Ron Koppelberger Jr.

August Snow

Copyright 2007

　

Chapter One

“Demons in bloodless abandon heedless, immovable wanting the

Possession of paralytic charms and the infidelity of

Elemental tangents. Disturbed in conclave window glass

And frozen in artic, gnashing consummation of souls in

Distressing late attrition”

*******

Naive, innate enchanting witchery in the sinew of a dream

And the welcome of a quest for the dauntless bustle of futures

Without sin, prophecy forgiven in the cashew of unbidden barefoot

Clarity and journeys to begin.

Soothsayers and the fate of a king in rag-bag vagabond

Discretion, searching the legacy of a fulfilling consigned

Venture and direction, crystal plums of glass and mosaics of raven eyed gypsy smoke. The pittance of a penny for a curious remedy and the

Forbearance of a sainted knight as the journey unfolds and the byway

Of delirium becomes light.

*******

An oath and tears from the eye of an angel in scarlet and azure

Tincture, a white witches spangle. The besotted touch of

Phoenix agility entwined by the breath of a flame and blessed ability.

A shield of luminescent two fold attendance and the ethereal sanctity

Of spiritual presence. A vow exchanged and the blossom of

Balanced blossoms in expectation of god rearranged. Spoken in the throe of

A precious wish, the mystery of sacred speech and unhesitating exhalation,

“Belie the shadow realm

And guide the sacred helm!”

The witches final exhortation as unfurled savannahs and sylvan paths

Align to the discretion of secret pearls and the sashes of destiny. To honor the special substance of alchemy and unbidden quests for the breadth of straw dogs and calamitous curtseying dragons in white, the adventure begins at the even-tide and the frayed seam of night.

*******

Plenteous and fulfilled in the trail of unbidden tears, a moonbeam and

Salubrious star allaying brave fears. The sacrosanct silent, pregnant prayer

To heavens and twilight wine, signifying the journey and thrust of time.

Thrashing thresholds along the path of tiers and stone already parched and

Feigning a desire for home. Ripples of wind and owls in vociferating

Vocation of wondering wisdom, the bleat of distant sheep and wolves howling winsome with worry for the hunt and incensed by the scent of a human, drizzling saliva and a famished grunt. Straight imbued with the direction of stitches in a long seam, he continues northward forever it seems.

Drowsy, overwhelmed by the victory of a night he collapses tatter Malian still seen in mist by demons in flight. Phantasms and portends of mythical call fill his conscious almost all, the brood of broadened ash and sunshine

Arrays of risen abeyance in possession of magical conveyance and curious

Enveloping crimson ascent in the hold of god’s consent.

*******

The morning dew and emboldened moted sunshine flittering against his pale skin as sleeping in hours times four and flourishing angels in glowing luminescence like sentinels akin. Dreams of Eden and patient cadence benevolently drawn in the truelove trifles of countenances passing, the winded wetlands of moss and lichen hue surpassing the charcoal tattered, gangly shadow of powers amassing. The corruptible morass proceeding a time to come, the journey irrefutably undone, by an unlearned question of wandering sum. Why is it you and why am I not the one? Evil shrieks of death and damp cattail fluff. He sleeps and discovers that the love of an angel

Belies the wish of a demon, The angel sings.

“You were simply dreaming.”

Balanced and alive aware of the quested blessing yet to arrive, Elements of delight in the conquest of spite.

*******

Chapter One Part 2

Intact, harbored in delicate folded safety and asylum he exhales,

Suspires and breaths the byway of hammock wreaths. Paths of glory and firmament above a journey of winter love. In defense, to the harbingers of sorrow and the eyes of darkness, his course caresses the saffron blooms

Of haloed guidance and the ramble of pilgrim rag tag abandon, “Onward North!” he cries to the blanket of warmth and the southern skies.

Sunbeam brilliance lights the way as he meanders through another day. Honeycomb delight and the sweet nectar of god along with the hungry

Abeyance of demons he is destined to trod. Mossy Lilly pad frogs and white

Stag infinity are companion in stride, relevant realms of phantasm

And spectral effulgence no longer hide. In conscious definition of

Suspended belief he finds little refuge or relief.

The shadow of malevolent wrath is found in the egress of swampy defiled,

Beguiled touches of earth. Chasing the brilliant rapture

Of dancing white light he finds the will and the remains of angel aspirations

Embody the fight and a moment of pronounced abolition in the face of inhuman sedition. A wraith of delinquent play practiced in glowering contempt,

“From my anger this human will not be exempt!” Unique, strange and faithful to the wary valor and promise of the quest, in necessary requiem

To a world without sin and the vary transcendent win he knows the sanctity and power of love is without rest. Servants of intended revolt and enticing creed waver in shimmering chagrin, expecting the swale and whim of a hero in disarray and feigned courageous endeavor, “In twines of slavery you will spin!” the wraith exhorts as it begins. Relevant buckwheat realms of visionary egress and the protection of prayers in strong echos of Sheppard

Testimony resound in warm exhalations of misty rain.

“Our father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.”

“Stop, cease, halt!” in hurtling screams and anguished alarm a wraith in impossible wrenching clawing confusions of one disarmed. Embraces accepted in veiled mist the spectral demon resigns to the bog of marsh and charcoal sentence, moss and vapory penitence. Animated vigor and the

Balance of benedictions spent on the ethereal gasp of passage lent to the will of god and the courses of sacred quest near the grasslands he shall rest.

A journey to conflict and the peace of grace adorned in the fashion of a myth

Overflowing with truth and summons to say, “I’ll be on my way!”

*******

Tramp roses and ragweed sprigs vehement and tender souled in northward

Gleam, the love of chartered butterfly wings and sighs of sweet smelling

Pine needle sap in the melody of stitched seams. Sunshine bugs and gnarled roots in the manger of dried leaves and fluttering silken cocoons. Straggly, scraggly irresistible beds of wavering grass, the exit of byways in demeanor of swampy morass. Immigrant feasts of dried fruit and capricious fermented wine, the benediction of enveloping airs and dreaming time.

Fastened by transit and the need to rest, horseback lanes and the twilight reins

Of sleeping saints and pleasing confessions of nightmare repose are best kept in the wont of a nighttime rose.

*******

The transmigration of souls in the grasslands of ceremonious fanciful presence and the way of plenty. Supposed in mists of beguiling, rollicking

Memories yet born, the kingdom of unlearned possession and dire obsessions with the veil shorn and truly adorned unto the vesture of a valley in wheat confederate and replete. The shuddering mass of those in northward grass and the fear of leopards in wait, he hears the rumble of thunder detonating with brutal warning. From ambling broad clouds and the phantasm of forces swarming. The flittering evanescent passage of deeply carefree shadows

And showers of daisy petal rain, detours of savage rite in the morning tide and day sojourns tumbling unto pain. Footfalls and ethereal angels in synchronous flight with the ebony cloak of a warm summer night.

He dreams a dream of rainbows and the city of brilliant sinless

Abandon. The nascent growth of a holy seedling tall in girth and concealed berth. The sudden swelling of souls in supplicating sumptuous earth. The wings of a dove and virgin splendid abbeys treasured in misty smoke

And reflections of miracle mazy mirth, the flames of the mantles rare scarlet hearth. Faithful breath and whispering alive the sweet blossom of prophecy will survive. In taunt fur and bristling growls the fangs of the shaman leopard will bawl.

“The grasslands will be the place of your fall, for here we be powerful some of us all!” The leopard grins in toothy glee he knows the man will see. The spectral warning fades to dust, onward north he must.

*******

Chapter One Part Three

Nursling skies of generous promise and resolute bodies

In incomparable conditions. Flourishing, sublime grass and opinions of contrite rendition. The cloudless firmament fulfilling the prophecy of relations in light and the bastion of earth and heaven, venturing an endless night. Burdens of ancient divinity and fathers of substance in precedented

Fulfillment and secret journeys, he accepts the provisions vaunted by the

Carefree sunshine spirit and yearnings, venturing terrains of contemplation

The shaman leopard is close to the source, cat-paw stealth and desires of adoring, hungry flesh, he pronounces the design of a hastened mesh.

Broods of blood and patchwork invitations to secret effect, divergent eruptions of gather stride, the seeker shamming interjects. Our cleaver forefathers fulfillment in clothed graceful greeting, proposed, innate and junctures of escape. Leopard contention and slothful repose accorded and supposed, descried by battle he guards the crossroads to paths of repute, a leopard in grasp and gape clawing from the center of eternity and a grassy maw, surrounded by the twilight horizon and all, in confident belief he sways and chants an armored relief, leopard speed and the sanguine need enduring the harrowed grain and the wrath of a distant rain , the end of tolls

And tenuous flooded play. The man shouts in exhausted prairie fray, “To the lord above the wings of a dove and the ruin of ruptured rifts, send this beast a sleepy cascading gift!”

Rearranged by reason the skies answer his prayer out of the holy season,

Rainstorms of scarlet and amber hue the leopard receives his purposeful

Due. Reserves of radical liquid abandon and prairie wind deepened in defiance and deceitful reliance, the shaman leopard attempts

To rescind the scarlet curtain of interrupted sin.

“Dire-damn and fire-damn, bulwark of dried grass

Deter this shower before your servant fall to cower in the

Mans morass.” Forestalled excluded by the labor of a man

And the angel in god’s nature and drenching embrace,

The leopard roars in his place.

“Edges of mountain and ledges of fountains be your fate, conditions of hell where you’ll be late!” He looks to the distant coasts and the hilly host of land in the lord, he has shorn the will of the leopard with sanctity

And more. The leopard collapses in a baptismal heap, for now he will remain asleep. Hordes of sleeping beasts, the immortal quest lay before the feast of pathways and byways in issued belief, the symbol of comforting relief. A luring religion and notched jagged luminescence in sovereignty and

The expanse of god’s presence, the way of the sun and the lay of the journey

He travels onward, done to seed and the dire need of an angel in pass and the one to the last. The eventide horizon and glowing waves of light, laid bare and in assembled tramp sojourn he sees the testimony in flight, vowing by adoration and supplication to the eternal fight, a beseeching voyage of purity, the vista of a sinless realm and the guidance of a sacred helm.

Seas of grass and skies of glass the secret of footfalls in fertile earth

And the ever present cure of tender mirth, an affected rebirth, wide and long he swaggers in song,

“ Declarations of love

And the lord above

The tendrilled kiss

Of a maiden in bliss

Resounding in symphonies of glee,

This endless swaying sea.”

*******

Refined in rumbles and tumbles of sage rugged seed, his eyes practice the test of an ornamented need, to loyal winds and the fall of speed, unto anointed flesh and the oasis at the evening-tide wine by the gentle currents of palm and tempered rest, the drink, the thirst of a flowing dream in ribbons and worlds yet unseen. Abilities of light and the way of second sight

In pleasures of perception and promising parcel….the liquid sorrow, the rippled pool of rain beckoning tomorrow in sated overflowing celebration
in whispers of possession and wild obsession . Citadels of sanctity

And balanced conceived of corrals in reflective shadow in the refuse of certain hopeless vows, of tended tendrils in craving unabiding thirst the oasis calls unto the wont of the man in the first. The guardian angel provides and by this thought he abides.

To be continued in Part Four………

　

Chapter 1 Part Four

Enchanted reflections of tinctured glass, hollow, brimming

,sleek, inflicted double twofold times three, the slaked surprise

Of patent finished glares in the face of an azure sea. He dips his palm

In visiting whispers of sated seesaw wonder and calm, into the mirror a fashion of curse and sometimes somber speaks aloud,

Tis your mind they seek to cloud.”

He clenches his fist and stirs the puddle remains of appellant fancy

And the devil’s rain. Answered, in succored reason he knows the season

Of revelation and angels whirling in birthright light, probable, profitable he amends the fight. Adventure and advance he pays the pool

A curious glance. Bottomless and dry mindless squandered an unfulfilled

Lie. He greets the meandering purpose of carefree skies

And the eyes of a cautious rescue in mid-evening-tide, the spirits of saints

Abide the relationship and the quest he states aspiring without rest.

“I must continue rounding west.” In secret eternity mountains loom,

Contrite reserves of contented contemplation, careful in prayers and awareness of the moon, drawn close and in eventide azure

Glow the twilight approaches the beholden row.

A sprig, a branch, rooted pine bough berths, he finds

Asylum with gentle mirth.

A bed of pine needle wise, in the midst and alive.

A raving natural ceremony in careful cardinal darkness deep,

Spells of bonded congruity with,

“Now I lay me down to sleep.”

He lapses to return in beguiled nod to the realm of phantasms

And dreaming footfalls trod,

Along paths of trinity and tromping infinity, a colloquy with the

Forgiving day and a fight with the shadow tattered silhouettes

Of ebony night.

Dreams of hills and bristling fur he discovers an alliance with a cur.

A barking wind and a howling enchantment in the bosom of god,

He rescinds the dry abandon of deserts ahead finding the heart of benevolent

Divinity instead.

Cunning, curdled flasks of wine sleeping in ambrosia and jabber

Palaver with the beasts that dine, on the aspirations

And fears of a bridled human venturing near.

The curvaceous, vivacious maiden in goats-head herds in those before

Their screams never heard, tended and shorn as if they had never been born.

She approaches in cloven hoof veil and to his avail

The misty rain of slumber and meadows of infinite pain,

Call and push the warning decree,

“In search of place, person thing, measure our fate before you begin!”

Her shadow touches a rent in the dreaming crystalline caste

Of sleeping fast.

“Agile, aghast a spectral past let our advice be your mast!”

He commands the ballast from deep within, he hazards happenchance

\to avail the city without sin as he measures his dreams and the veil of sleep,

The breath of life in yielded keep. Ghostly cadence and moments of

Bearing in optimal arrival, the miracle of his survival in realms of slumber

And established divided earth, the sanctity of god’s hearth burns with a fervid glow. In the bosom of cradled cause and sleeping pause he will grow.

Paradise and the possibility of accidental disposal, tempted

By the cycle of August snow, he prepares in sleeps

evanescent grasp for the earthen eligible invention of gasps

And groans, laughter and moans. Culminating in a moment seen by the revolution he seems to seek in the twilight quest he finds the glory of burning

Ashen flames and begins to feign the seizure of ancestral magic

As she returns her influence to the tragic beasts of enchanted

Precedence and mead owed malady bare,

The blasphemous sacrilege might not be there.

A portent, a ghostly echo of wrinkled supposition, withholding repetition,

Sanctity scolding the repentant snow and the ice of a crystalline

Faith in the absolution of lathes lamenting lashes of turn

And the embers that burn with elemental fury,

For the present he finds the conscious mind

To amend and defend paths and dirt track, a phantasm, a

Blundering wreck. Today he will ascend the foothills of the sorcerers glen.

******

Chapter 2 Part 1

(August snow and the Downy Jasmine Correspondence)

Careful ascension in deserved skill and untried rigor, he favors destiny with beginnings and bonded vigor. A surreptitious consent

To the generous ardor of arcane apportion and

Gangling preternatural shadows of entourage design, shrewd beggar

Silhouettes lengthened by twine.

The surety of enduring defense and symmetrical wiles

Of paths that beguile

The mountains and the nurtured knowledge of heeded savannahs past,

Ethereal August elements and wonder in steep foothills

At last.

The essence of sweet prospering showers, unspoiled rapture in daisy petal pastures of whispering notion and gallant potions captivated

Undue. Echoes of sworn tireless expectation

True, prevailing and direct the thunder of a divided sect, covered

In crawling vines daises behind, he traverses the makeshift carpet

Of wallowing times.

Weighted and in smidgeons of equal lines he plods into the efflorescent

Minds of ancient brood,

Modestly disparaging his passionate mood.

The cruelty of seizure and confusing dispersal,

The baron conflict of reversal. A tattered robust vesture

And the sanctity of his gesture. In a genuflected plea he finds innate innocence

And the immersion of spirits near the curative absolutes

Of souls that see, the wash of backwards rough and

Enchanted ambiguous chafe contributing enough drooling drizzle

And professed facade in the deterioration of a transmogrified nod,

From the sands of time and the estranged kindred beast

Reckoned, glimpsed in indelible feasts of fury and angry measure,

“To devour your soul, my secret pleasure! The hollow, sallow, chewing, chewing and charmed, snitches, snits and the grit of your bones I will

Farm!” He gasps and rasps as moss and dirt become blood and bone,

He screams to the path ahead,

“North, South, East and West by god with your angels I will

Tread.”

A growl a howl and jaw full of his resolve will provide the means and master. He will survive and in the bosom of guardian guides closely affected by his side he will thrive.

The belief and vaunt of a cur in care the pedigree bristle

Of a swear and an exclamation of devoted array, the accompanying earthen spirit of companion fray.

Go Down Swinging

Ron Koppelberger

Go Down Swinging

Wilfred Katie was surrounded. The group of Levi clad men and boot kicking fighters took turns yelling obscenities at Wilfred and finally they attacked.
The first was a sandy haired beanpole dressed in a red woolen shirt. He threw a right cross at Wilfred.
“Come on, get em Manny!” a voice called out. Wilfred dodged the punch and slammed his fist into Mannies throat. Manny looked startled as his hands went to his crushed windpipe. Moments later he fell to the dirt and gravel strewn ground.
“You sonofabitch!” a voice growled. A stocky man, older than the first swung a metal pipe toward the back of Wilfred’s head. Wilfred ducked grabbed the mans arm and brought his other hand down on his elbow joint.
“Snap” the arm sang. Wilfred grabbed the pipe in a smooth yanking gesture then the scruff of the mans shirt slamming the pie into his head in easy rhythm; blood sprayed Wilfred’s face and he wiped his eyes with his white cotton shirt now covered with speckles of scarlet.
“You gonna die MOTHHHHAAAAAAA HUMMMMMMPPPPPER!” a third man screamed as he rushed Wilfred with the sharp end of a Jim Bowie. Wilfred jumped as the blade nicked his side, a well of blood appeared there and the man snickered. Wilfred waited in measured patience as the man waved the knife in front of him. Suddenly he lunged; in a perfect ballet Wilfred pivoted and grabbed the mans wrist, swinging upward with his momentum he plunged the Bowie into the mans neck. He gagged as a warm spray of crimson spattered the dusty ground and his face. Collapsing the man died immediately. Wilford stood there, drenched in blood waiting for a hesitant fourth man.
“I’ll get em!” he said to the others. His hand slid like a snake, a deadly rattler to the waistband of his pants as he grabbed for the snub nosed revolver he carried. Wilfred leapt at the man, pinning him to the ground.
“DDDDAAAAAAAMMMMMNNNNNN YYYYYOOOOOUUUUUU!” the fourth man groaned as he shifted the gun to his other hand. Wilfred grabbed, twisted and punched. The mans finger found the trigger and he pulled reflexively. “Pop…Pop…Pop!” the gun chided as the left side of the mans head exploded in a shower of bone and gray crimson brain matter. Wilfred wiped his mouth as he unstraddled the man; bits of soft, spongy flesh smeared across the back of his hand and he stood shaking.
All he saw was a cloud of smoke as a blushing red faced demon plowed through the man in front of him with a black SUV. The men flew into the air and one got caught against the grill of the truck. He was screaming as his legs bowed askew under the roaring SUV. Wilfred jumped behind a gnarled stand of oaks and the SUV slammed into the biggest one with a sickening crunch. The man on the grill exploded showering the tree with a fountain of blood. The red faced driver flew through the windshield his neck breaking with a loud snap as he impacted the glass.
Wilfred watched, gasping as the remaining men ran to their vehicles in a rage of fear.
They left Wilfred, blood drenched and to his own. He had faith in the demeanor of a miracle, the prospect of survival against the odds. He heard the tender yet forceful words of his father again.
“Always go down swinging Wilfred!”