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!”

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.

The Circle

Ron Koppelberger

The Circle

Rationed by burdens of reflection and the omission of pure recollection the secret was a tangled cleaving taboo, a dawn of rare breed, a velocity of ragged union. The sun he thought, the sun. Thrilled in spears of glory and hope, the sun. The embracing alliance and divinity of the fates called in perfect harmony.
He flexed his chapped hands, seeing, seeing the long nails and the growth of fur covering his hands, his paws, his body. Contracted by the skeletons of misery and the faith of crowns that spoke of allure, allure to the darkest realms of shadow and to the wont of seas in saffron gold. Ancient old gardens of naked passion and angels in flight.
He saw the circle of bloodied stones in a dream and the gathering of men. A fracture in the gloss of humanity, the aberration, men in delirium unsatisfied with the gift of wheat, of saffron and light, men of doubtless conviction, nevertheless hell and sin following. He saw the revelation of his purpose. He saw them in his dreams and nightmares, in evening twilight hunts and the glow of the full moon. They waited for the third coming of Eden, their calling, the advent of their damnation.
The stones, guarded by endless waves of wheat, the garden, the blessing, the spell of patience. The men would open the seal and the old garden would burn, and the lycanthrope would sense the wont of mortals in trespass. The stones, the palace of blood and dust, waiting for the blood rush of sacrifice. They would spill blood there, in the circle of rock and granite and the wolf would scream, scream for the angels to champion the secret place and the garden.
The men would destroy the saffron conclave, in their gathering of destruction, hate and greed……unto the advent of the last, the conflict between good and evil, war and eternal blessings.
Falling to his hands, changing he ran toward the endless eternal wheat. Perhaps a wolf can peruse the world he thought, perhaps.

The Ritual

Ron Koppelberger

The Ritual

Iron Crosspoint acknowledged Crisp with a brash expression of trust. Crisp had firmly accepted Irons dedicated resolve. They would breach the veil, forgoing the murmur of immortal deserts and encroaching shades of evil.
Iron delivered the appropriate phrase and slashed the palm of his hand. A well of bright scarlet announced the advent of mortal conclusions. Crisp winced as Iron handed him the hilt of the duel edged blade.
“Yer next!” Iron said pointing to Crisps palm. Crisp closed his eyes and inhaled as he held his breath. With a violent slash his palm was laid open, crimson springs of coppery baptism flowed in rivulets and beaded confluence with the ritual.
Iron held his hand over the bone fragments that were scattered in the shape of a cross, Crisp did the same. The sun shone saffron gold amidst the bones; tiny puffs of dust arose from the arid ground as the blood spattered in gentle rhythm, a rhythm of passion and heartbeats, fury and anger and vengeance. The conviction of bond and infamy wore the lined faces of their determination. They paused in red ribboned whispers of release. The bones rearranged the disarray and a creature of purpose was borne. The anatomy of an enchanting allure in the embers of spirit, in tender devotion to the cause that drove them both. A shadow, a silhouette in shape, in symmetries of divinity and purpose, the legend lay bare in wrath and wonting songs of legend.
It arose from the desert sands and dust in the order of the brotherhood and the task at hand. Growling it flexed its sinew, its breath the incense of a thousand dreams and understanding purpose. The two men stepped back a few paces as the creature considered them. Crisp troubled the bleeding wound on his palm with a complaining grip, hands clasped he remembered the silence of the moment. An empty space filled with cascades of blood, dripping to the dry skeleton of the creature.
A bit of saliva fell to the desolate soil as the beast snapped its muzzle in fussy fanged hunger. Iron reclaimed the moment as he approached the creature.
“EEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!” it cooed. Touching its fur covered paw he intoned a Latin phrase. It moved forward and Iron saw the flames in its eyes. Fields in ash, burning, burning. In staid sober certainty Iron imagined his enemies falling, one by one.
“Burning saffron seas!” he muttered as they began moving westward toward their fate and the vengeance they would exact in fire.

Primal Smoke

Ron Koppelberger

Primal Smoke

Waves of fog rolled across the sea of wheat, saffron in rows of undulating harmony, except for the fog. The sky was a thick cloud, impenetrable by the mists that churned and roiled above Rankin Whiskeys head. “Damn, it’s as thick as pea soup.” he said aloud to the empty field of white. Rankin pulled out a pocket watch, his grandfathers embossed with the scratches and tarnished lines of an ancient piece. It was 2:37 p.m. and there was no sign of the sun or the rich cobalt horizon.
In the distance a flock of crows screamed and squawked, faraway and forlorn with the rolling tide of white. Rankin turned and moved back retracing his steps to the front porch. Somewhere in the distance an owl hooted and Fern alsomes dogs barked, “Probably Nothin.” he said aloud to himself, “Probably Nothin.”. The tethers of a cautious farmer bound him to the front porch, he could have sworn he had heard something else, something long forgotten and alone with the fog. Maybe he was just being superstitious, “Probably nothing.” he said again in a whisper.
He had sensed that something was off balance in the yard but he wasn’t sure what. The moan, what about the moan, he had heard a moaning sound coming from the edge of the yard nearest the field. Standing on the worn wooden planks of the front porch he squinted into the fog toward the sound, there it was again, a moan, he knew it was someone moaning. Rankin rubbed his chin feeling the stubble against the tips of his fingers. There it was again, a moan. “Who’s there?” he shouted into the dense fog. The mists parted for an instant and Rankin saw a flash of red and blue. What’s that he thought, it had looked like the bloody face of a man, dressed in blue coveralls.
He thought back for a moment to the curse, it couldn’t be. The curse had been Cross Corners answer to all of the strange happenings that go with any small town. The Curse, they had blamed Leonora Hapscans pregnancy on the curse and a myriad of other incidents that had gone without explanation in Cross Corners. There it was again, his face in the fog bright red and torn to reveal bone and muscle. Was he seeing things? Was this the curse come to life. He heard the moan again then silence, an eternity of silence and waiting. “show yourself ghost!” he knew it was just a ghost, it had to be.
About two years earlier two men from Castings International had come into town. They had been unwelcome visitors and the town had challenged them to get their asses out of the Cross, but they had persisted wanting to buy up the fields of wheat that made up the terrain of Cross Corners.
Evan Wigstan had said that they were trespassing on his property when he shot them both dead and no one in town had questioned it, but things started happening after that. The local sheriff had been killed in a multiple car pile up a week later and Angel Contern had hung himself the following Tuesday. The local bar and grill burned down two months later and the next years crop had been a bust for the first time in seventy years. The credited all of these things to a curse poor old Evan and his hot temper.
There it was again, a moaning sound then heavy plodding footsteps through the yard. “What do ya want?” he shouted into the thick fog. The answer came back in the form of a gravely rasp.
“We want yer property Rankin, we want yer property and what belongs to us is for us to take!” The figure in blue overalls moved into view.
Rankin gasped, his face was a leaking series of torn flesh, bleeding and leaking the graveyards rot. The front of his overalls were stained a bright red and maroon, trails of intestine lay in tangled heaps about his feet. “We Want what is ours Rankin and we aim to take it by force if need be!” Rankin inhaled a deep breath of air, sour and full of decay. “We aim to take what rightfully belongs to us!” The other man moved into view and Rankin screamed. His face had been blown almost completely away and a tiny spurt of blood spayed from what was left of his jawbone as he pointed at Rankin, “What is our, what is ours Rankin!” sounded more like “aaaahhhhaaat ith ourrssssss.” as his shattered jaw moved at an angle.
Rankin stepped back and fumbled for the doorknob, “Yer only ghosts, yer only ghosts!” he said as panic began to overwhelm him. The door fell open behind him and he stumbled backward into the house, “Yer only ghosts!”
The two men moved up onto the porch after Rankin, “What is ours Rankin, What is ours Rankin!” Rankin slammed the door shut in the first mans face. Looking down to the edge of the door he saw a small knot of intestine closed in the door frame. “Oh Jesus god!” he gasped. The door smashed inward and the two stumbled in grabbing Rankin by the hair and hauling him out into the rows of wheat.
The next day they found Rankin on a pole in the midst of his wheat, waves of saffron and clear blue skies calling out gods name. He had been tied to the pole and his eyes were missing, as if he had seen something too terrible to convey. The coroner for Cross corners noted the blood on Rankings cloths as an unusual happenstance. Other than his eyes he was free of wounds. They had tested the blood at the labs in town and it had come back as belonging to something that had been dead a long time.
Ultimately they gave credit to the curse and the ghosts that seemed to haunt Cross Corners.

The Mystery of the Gilded Mirror

Ron Koppelberger

The Mystery of the Gilded Mirror

Oral Practice surveyed the room with delicate secret and stealthy abandon. The curtains were a deep scarlet; velvet sashes, he thought. The walls were decorated with several reproductions, Monet and Picasso, “ A terrible combination.” he whispered to himself. Touching the nightstand his finger came away dusty and dry, “ Has anyone moved the deceased?” he asked the hotel manager and the night clerk. The manager spread his arms outward in exasperation.
“ This mess,” he pointed to the torn bleeding bodies, “ is as I found it Mr. Practice.” Practice, in steadfast summery, examined the bloody remains of Cordial Germ. The carpeting was a surge of amended beige and scarlet. The gouts of blood had splashed the entire room with what was now a congealed, sticky gloss. Cordial lay scattered about the room in an array of puzzle pieces, arms, legs and head; his head was in the flower basket and his arms were sticking upward like great bloody stems from the waste paper basket near the silken flowers.
A moment of silence passed between the three and in that space a gentle thunder rolled far away, distant, desolate yet exclaiming the grace of those who were in the arranged veils of life. Silent, the blood had streamed and spattered the wallpaper with tiny copper arrays of essence, essence of Cordial brought to you by unknown demons and affairs of fear.
The silence weighed like a chunk of lead in the stomachs of the three. Practice cleared his throat and scratched his scalp. “ What whimsy in tumult and two pennies for the eyes, what fury in wayward bond with the devil, what deed doth draw us into the will of fear and angry rebuke?” Practice paused for an instant and tapped the manager on the breast. “ Tis a storm, in arrays of price paid by those who live by shadow and silhouette.” He pointed to the gilded mirror hanging askew on the wall, “ Tis here, the answer, the secret, we need only capture in the reflection of a gilded mirror.”

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.

　

Forager

Ron Koppelberger

Forager

The epitome of mystery for keeps, the foraging bolero, the questing celebration of an enlivened refugee and perfectly faithful circumstance of success. He happened, by accident or fate, to find the beaten fashion of a discarded chalice. The trash was waist deep in the bin; his cloths were second hand castoffs and his ankle length boots were stuffed with paper towels he had grabbed from a gas station restroom.
The chalice was a beacon in a sea of boxes and garbage bags, dull, gold and beaten steel. He imagined ancient knights and holy quests with gleaming eyes and questioning contemplation. A bottle of Victoria Springs water lay tucked away in one of his oil stained backpacks.
To drink just a sip from the chalice might bring him passion, peace and fortune. He grabbed the essence of magic with his stained deeply creased hands and prayed, “ Our father who art in heaven…..”, he began. In a refined crusade he climbed out of the trash bin. The fragile balance of nature and fate led him to pour the contents of his bottled water into the beaten gold and tin can in amorphous pose refined, as a chalice of divinity and ventured absolutes, he drank in slow careful sips.
Long suffering chains broke and the frayed boundary of reality roused his vagabond spirit in passion and rapture, freedom and the glory of sainted repose. He smiled savoring the cool clean spring water. Life was good, better now that he had the chalice.