Soft Shadow

Ron Koppelberger

Soft Shadow

Harmonies of sweet asylum and engaging

Eyes borne of perplexity, by love, sweet days of love

And breaths of mazy mist gaining the flurry

Of scarlet spears in indigo skies, of soft shadow and

Horizons attended by the pain of distant

Dreams and babes in castes of quiet concern.

Distant Mirage

Ron Koppelberger

Distant Mirage

Existence in desert exodus and desolate abandon,

The distant mirage, shimmering, swaying, wavering in rhythm

With the seductive beauty of an exquisite blossom and a

Pregnable dream of eternity, the idle suspirations

In hymn and prayers of contented silence, A sure perfection

Blazon near the twilight fray, By sand and warm breaths

Of desire, the gentle smile said in passions

                                                    Allure unto the far side of a distant vista.

Reliable Bones

Ron Koppelberger

Reliable Bones

Overtures and invites to the brew of human theater given a swatch of frightful gauze. The silhouette of an owl in shadow and an ancient steed, the bones and dust of an secret horizon, a hidden shiver of questionable fear, in twilight moths, blue neon skies at night and the call of a coyote in search of fare and hearth borne asylum.
A wordless whisper given essence by the illusion of swooping ravens and wild fires of oily feast. The hoary honesty of sacred mysteries in song. In tendered sashay against encroaching darkness and the way of the eventual common, the will of days and decades in changing order and breaths of quiet discovery; unto bond and tethered delicacies in alabaster sash and scarlet blood flows, like the symphony of fate and churning obeisance to the need of a greater force.
With wont, the desire to stand in occasions of clandestined ritual in lieu of sorrow and woeful applause. The gentle regard of shadow realms defying the dawn with reliable bones.

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.

Live and Let Live

Ron Koppelberger

Live and let live

The shrewd haul, the weatherproof asylum, the carefully exalted argument for universal gold. He saw evergreen nuance in the hundred dollar bill, it was perfection, a generous dollop of amazing art. He had spent a year perfecting the silver plates, a year of diligent dreaming in vagabond tatters. The counterfeit bill was perfect and the paper was in whitewashed unity with the fresh ink. From one dollar to a hundred. He had bleached five hundred one dollar bills and reprinted them with the silver plates.
He felt prosperous as he surveyed the clothesline full of money. “Ahhhhhhhaaaa!!!” the smell of drying ink, he sighed in quiet admiration. He inhaled the scent with profound measures of intoxicating glee. Benny Worthy was his partner in crime, he had supplied the ink and enough inspiration for both of them.
The oaken varnished veneer of the door rattled on its hinges. “Open up it’s Benny!” he went to the door and unlocked it, cautiously leaving the chained portion secure. Peeking into the hall he saw Bennies unmistakable figure impatiently shifting from one foot to the other. “Come on, open up!” he groaned. He opened the door to bennies betrayal and the end of their relationship. Benny pointed the 38 revolver in his direction. “Here…” he tossed a knapsack to the ink stained floor and said. “…put the plates and the money in the bag Hank!”
Hank filled the bag with the hundred dollar bills tossing in the silver plates last. “Thanks Hank…..” he chuckled. “Thanks Hank……for the memories.” he sang. Benny turned his back to Hank and walked toward the door. Hank had the semi auto 22 rifle in his hands a moment later. He aimed at the center of Bennies back and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened, the gun had jammed. “Live and let live.” Benny chanted as he left the room. Hank sighed realizing he had no choice.
A single hundred dollar bill lay crumpled, unnoticed against the floorboard. Smiling he realized that would buy him an unsurpassable drunk.

A Damaged Shirt

Ron Koppelberger

A Damaged Shirt

The dry cleaner hung the damaged silk shirt neatly on one of the wooden hangers in the front window. The ceremonies of earnings and loss, profit and disaster were commonly regarded as a normal function of the dry cleaning business. A dollar earned, he thought as he surveyed the torn silk garment. Better to be humble in the face of damaged goods he thought. Mr. Favor was a Knit picker literally and he would be angry.
The stores loudspeakers played a pleasant cascade of classical music; he had turned the station from the rockin oldies to a classical channel with the expectation of Mr. Favors anger.
The dry cleaner kept busy arranging and hanging cloths up on paper and wooden hangers. He had quite a few customers but none were like Favor. As the hour drew near, the cleaner became nervous with a throbbing fear, a resonant ache in the pit of his stomach. Favor would arrive soon. He imagined his rebuke, “He could kill me.” he said in a shaky whisper. He could hear the second hand ticking on the big wall clock; had to be consoling he thought, calm and easy.
The clock read 1:59 P.M., only a minute away, Favor was always punctual. The cleaner read the blue neon sign beneath the clock,

“NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR
DAMAGED GOODS!”

He would point to the sign and explain the policy.
Two P.M., the front door rattled and the string of bells on the door handle tinkled violently. Favor stepped through the door and screamed,
“Where’s my shirt?” The cleaner pointed to the rack in the window as tears welled up in his eyes. Favor yanked the pile of cloths apart and grabbed his shirt. There was a moment of silent breath, the seconds before a storm, calm and easy. Favor grinned malevolently, It’s torn.” he said matter of factly. The dry cleaner began the speech he had practiced………,” it’s our policy…….” he paused in mid sentence as Favors mouth opened wide, wider than humanly possible, the expanse of deserts and flame, wicked perfume and darkness, unhinged enormous his mouth elongated and stretched to freakish proportions, from head to toe, all teeth and mouth. The line of his lips was a trail of spittle as his mouth gaped to a six foot chasm; thorns and briar and fire, a conflagration in the midst of hell. The cleaner yielded to the gaping pit with a screech as Favor swallowed him whole in a great gulping spasm.
Favors mouth closed and he pressed back through the front door with his damaged shirt.
The day wore on and the dry cleaners business saw a number of bewildered customers , “Where is he?” one of them questioned. “The sign on the door says, OUT TO LUNCH” the other responded sneaking her new dress off the rack and out the door of the dry cleaners.

The Bog (Crime)

Ron Koppelberger

The Bog

Fast answers to the brave resolution of Wallis K. Nassau sloshed and rolled with the thick morass of quicksand he was neck deep in. Was it preordained he wondered, was he destined for some fateful absolution, a medium of reconciliation with god?
Wallis had intended to throw the garbage bag covered corpse of his wife into the morass. A perfect conclusion to years of miserable garrulous arguing and infidelity upon infidelity. She had turned her back to him as she grabbed for the phone, her accomplice; she was finally asking for a divorce. She had chosen a new lover, a boy in the dawn of maturity, a child barely twenty-one. Looking over her shoulder she had given him a smug sneer of unbridled hate. In that moment the decision was made for Wallis; he grabbed a silver burnished vase embossed with archaic Egyptian legends, it felt good in his hand, heavy and dangerous. As she replaced the receiver he slammed the vase into her head, crushing her skull with a scrunchy crack.
There had been a spellbound moment of fear as he watched the blood pour from her head but it had passed and he had calmly sopped up the blood with a roll of paper towels, then he snuggled her into several garbage bags tying them off with a roll of twine.
Her body had thumped into the trunk of the car with a satisfying thump. He drove the Mercedes near the speed limit as he followed the curvy road to the swamp. Finally he pulled off the concrete two-lane highway onto a dirt two-track. The Mercedes bumped along nearly getting stuck in the muddy ruts. He had stopped the car at a thick knot of tangled vines and briar scrub. Opening the trunk he removed her body spending the next hour dragging her through the Palmetto scrub and pine tree saplings.
He had intended to leave her in the midst of the dense thicket when he saw the reflective surface of the morass.
Dragging her to the edge of the muddy quicksand he hefted her in. Unfortunately the twine around one of the garbage bags had coiled like a snake around his ankle and he stumbled in.
As the swampy grit flowed into his mouth and eyes he realized that the scream of a wild goose was echoing in the forest. It sounded a little bit like laughter, his wife’s laughter.

Hollow Roar (Fantasy)

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 Light in Snake Fuss (Fiction, Horror)

Ron Koppelberger

The light in Snake Fuss

She wriggled and questioned the deft snakeskin bond, the ceremony in sated beliefs, the belief that the viper would mind the miracle in course. She charmed and prayed. She committed her half-blood desires to the suspicions of an insatiable thirst, thirst for control over the cool, sleek craft of her performance and measure of passion.
The silence of her wild inborn assumptions weighed in equal parts lust and need. The snake shadowed the silhouette of ash and the woman waved the mists of perfected art with nimble hands, just a touch of blood and the serum of saints, she thought. The snake fell into a listless sleepy subjugation and the woman, in sanguine appetites of affection, danced and gestured in gleeful commune with the souls of those akin to the snake. Her fangs shimmered and the snake submitted its’ wrath to the devotion of a charm.
In assurances of divine resolute will, she sunk her fangs into the pliant flesh of the snake and sipped, just a bit, just the briefest reprieve in the mystical arena, the sure shed skins of existence. In the nature of creatures we wish, she grinned in triumph and slaked admittance. The portion of the snake that laid hold to the nether realms of whim and fancy completed the woman’s wish as she spun in circles of delight. The sweet nectar of the apple, the taste of blessings in snake fuss. In a moment of reflection she questioned the difference between apples and snakes blood, nevertheless the moment was flittering in distant thought as she thought of nothing but the gain of her appetites.

Endless Tears

Ron Koppelberger

Endless Tears

Extraordinary, tolerable by the secure beginnings of

Seas and shores of wealthy report, akin to desolate

Conclusions in ash, a shawl in ebony tinctured

Decrees of fashion, endorsed by the will of earth

And sky, by days and nights in reposing wont and

Trembling incarnate sustenance, the consuming

Cause of bathed showers and rainy cascades

                                                                     In endless tears.

Clever Blood

Ron Koppelberger

Clever Blood

Blackened by the fire in emerald eyed dreams,

Humming in silent tunes of passion and fear, allayed

By the promise of heaven at the end of the secret path,

In primitive extravagance and gnashing misgivings,

In sure sated angel hair and goblin aghast, butterfly merits and

Cocoons of silk, a construct sustained by the favor of

Delirious paths and frayed bat wing will, by

The proposed clever blood of faithful

Rapture.

Vexed in Peace

Ron Koppelberger

Vexed in Peace

The bother in bears and boars, in snares and tours

Of acquiescent allure, in satisfied envy arrayed like

The rage of roses in bud, in bloom, in

Diversions of constant

Thirst,

An unerring artisan in wild sense and tame decree,

A pleasant dare in infinite wealth and

Clandestined secret, signed by vexed in peace.