Unblushing Winter Fluke

Ron Koppelberger

Unblushing winter Fluke

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

Tempted to Sow

Ron Koppelberger

Tempted to Sow

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

The Highest Dry

Ron Koppelberger

The Highest Dry

A resonant scream echoed near the base of the hill. “Heed my call oh ye who would have my soul fer yer supper!” Forcefully, the man moved upward picking his way through the stones and boulders scattered along the path.
Several days passed and the man found himself halfway there, the valley lay far below and the sea stretched away endlessly toward the horizon. He rested and listened, a voice sang in grumbles, “If yer passing my realm, yer to be my slave in blood, I’ll drain yer spirit and break yer bones, by the depth of the secret pond you’ll bath in my eyes and shadow!”
The mans expression was stone and determination he would charge the demon and climb the pinnacle at the apex of the hill.
The monster cooed, “ Yer to be here forever human, forever and a day, forever!” The man moved forward and up toward the summit. Once at the peak he surveyed the secret pond that lay in the uppermost crest of the hill.
The monster sat on its haunches, on a precipice near the center of the pond. “Come to me!” it hissed blood bubbling from its fanged maw.
The man rested and broke bread near the waters edge. “ There’s a destiny fer ye to follow.” The beast coaxed. ‘ Come to the ledge, swim over here the water is cool and life giving!” The man ignored the creatures request.
“ I’ll throw the bones of my enemy into the pond.” the man said as he dumped a sack full of bones into the small lake. The creature stood on the upraised island near the center. “Yer to fulfill the prophecy with the drink, drink of the well, drink of the water, drink of the lake man!” The man paused for a moment and turned away leaving. “I’ll not humor your command beast, for you are surrounded by the bones of those who have lost, the water is tainted by that blood!”
The creature watched the man leave, its burden eternal and it’s fate the highest dry. The temptation to drink the water forever in its consciousness. Unable to drink or cross the pond the beast accepted its fate as it waited for the well to run dry.

Eyes of Blood

Ron Koppelberger

Eyes of Blood

The horrors of ethereal moments borne in scarlet betrothal were evoked and initiated by the ivory wedding gown and the grooms neat attire; in contrast it was their eyes, blood red with streaks of crimson rolling down sallow sunken cheeks and drizzling onto her gown in slashes of color. The red adorned his silk white tuxedo in horrible smears.
They were barely alive by any measure, metal frameworks held them in an upright standing position before the alter, the muscles in their legs had given out weeks earlier, now they stood poised by braces in troth, side by side eternally, vowing the bond. Their hands were wired together a bridge of clasped caress signifying their love.
The priest was insane, he had drugged the couple and wired them into a parody of marriage. They still bled, nearly finished with life and they still bled. The mad priest had cut tiny incisions into their eyes and they had bled.
In the end the police came to the abandoned church the crazed priest had moved into. He had screamed, “Redemption, the marriage of demons and angels!” he had flailed his arms and ran at the officers. They resolved the priests wild mania with several shots to the chest. He collapsed and died immediately and in the aftermath they discovered the nearly dead couple, emaciated and bleeding near the alter.
Several years later the couple divorced seeing each other only once more in the following twenty years. They would nod shyly and commit to questions of health and the weather, lastly they embraced and moved on leaving the horror behind.

Meandering Saints

Neather Realms

New Poetry in shadow

Ron Koppelberger

Deepest Night

Chuckles and grins gone askew in gardens of

Ghostly reverence and clutches of secret

Daisy, a blameless burst of echoing asylum

Given unto the wont of dark eyed lashes and tidings

Of quiet discovery, an amusing address by the stars of

                                                                              Deepest night.

Ron Koppelberger

Dark Nightmares

Sulfur wash and gray sparrows flittering

Near the far edge of a twilight-tide horizon,

The prevailing desire of forgotten youth and aged sufferance

Unto the will of fated dreams and dark nightmares

Gone to seed, a rare energy to continue on toward the

                                                                        Dust of paths untrod.

Ron Koppelberger

Night-Shade Song

In earthen chambers of silence,

the needing moon slivered in spears

Of candent lattice, by the secret discoveries we hold to

Our bosoms, in sated breaths of mist and

Fearful heartbeats pulsing

In rhythm to the night-shade song of wild

Beasts and hidden charms.

Ron Koppelberger

Evening Murmurs

Enjoyment and quiet dreams of cause, borne by the chosen

Weeds and roses of late belief and wine drunk by the edge of a

Sleeping sun, an applause in pale

Mysteries of enchantment, by ranting thrush and crickets loving

                                                               The sky and evening murmurs.

Ron Koppelberger

Soul in Shadow

Immediately coy by the call to dark eyed

Tears and apt affairs of shadowy apparition,

The word joined by whispers of ancient

Parchment and magic’s in caste and cure, the sorrow of

A tender kiss bought by the love of a soul in

                                                                                Shadow.