Kinder Hours

New flash “KINDER HOURS”  and one of my illustration’s “UNIVERSAL WIZARD” together
Words and art keep each other company during this magical holiday season
Published in an excellent zine, FREELIT

Kinder Hours

Across the bridge where snow meets the sea, I comb my hair while wishing I were a swan.
 His broad hands stroke my delicate neck, gentle and curving on the point of a star.

I wake. Those same comforting hands are strangling me in the emptiness of shadow. Moonlight gives him the power to see my neck breaking, my jugular turning deep violet like the purple bed sheets of his new lover.

There was a time I would have gladly fallen beyond salvation. I’d have welcomed the pain. A tailspin drop to his bed, his mouth, his body. He touched my flesh and treasure books lost their gilded words. Warm gold lines melted into my bones. His shield of dragon horn turned silk upon our pressed bodies. He was magnificent. Those beautiful lips once whispered, “I love you.” 

The simple act of survival taught me to fight back. How many times must I do battle. I’ve grown weary. One weakness bests another. Pain rouses conviction, but I no longer possess the courage to face morning upright.

If my wand held an ounce of magic, I’d demand my mind dismiss its owner of memories. Dreams collect in a thick midnight veil, and waking hours are cloaked in cold light, light we once practiced magic in. A barred owl screeches as it lowers for a kill on the dark flattened tracks. The silver train streaks across the sky, but I’m not in a rail car. Trapped in a place that’s damning me, I will not adjust to the light. The sun is much too bright. It scorches earth and steals water. Charred holes open up into blackness and I watch all the white rabbits disappear. 

In darkness, I might remember the moon in kinder hours. Gentle arms cross my body where we lay together. Gold melts into my skin. His hands caress my neck. I scratch at his eyes then fly away.

Universal Wizard illustration

created with prisma pencil

farce of the heart

a day of whispering bones

Happy Halloween!

I am stone

The lady you see in the background was a sculpture I created way, way back, my junior year of high school. I was ever the wilful child turned into obstinate teen and did not take direction well. My art teacher warned me of clay thicknesses. I didn’t listen. The sculpt, 3 feet in length, did not live long. All that remains of her – a few photos that I treasure as a reminder- there is always more to learn from others – listen well and learn – always learn

after image, new poem published

new poem, after image, in NowthenMagazine, October Issue, Word Life Section
this is a wonderful magazine, honored to be included in the October issue

after image

when you close your eyes and fall asleep
your mouth changes
your lower lip sets back
like the life holding it in place has let go
can’t help but imagine this is the face whose cheek
I’ll tenderly kiss
when your body ceases

behind this thought comes another
I desperately hold

your beautiful face not defined by age
rather your brilliant smile and eyes
infused with the will of a thousand newborns

AM Roselli

memories long past

blackest days

school right around the corner, time doesn’t fly it rockets
I’ve been altering colored photos of my children when they were younger and appeared more innocent😉
I enjoy stepping away from pencil and pen once in awhile and pretend I’m a photographer

magic

I created this wizard to raise funds for a local high school’s Senior Night. I wish I’d taken better pictures of the darn guy before I gave him away. Live and learn! 😘 – thank you

and the crows fall, new piece published in Panoply!

had a new piece, and the crows fall, published in Panoply, A Literary Zine – a most excellent journal

Languishing poles. Highway of wobbly crucifixes, running the length of asphalt where the unmerciful sun crashes earth. Sharp black silhouettes dive-bomb steeple ears of corn at the place the Lord floats to heaven. Crows die on the land, sometimes falling from the sky. Water slapping the wrong side of the ocean. A vertical worry crease in her forehead–
a flesh canyon to hold wetness for droughts sure to come. Dried deadness. Fields twisted from parched riverbed to riverbed. He guzzles precipitation from a flat silver flask, tarnished on the rim, where it once was forgotten in a steamy summer rain.

Farm got in the way of her writing. Words got in the way of his drinking. Clogging the soil and his arteries.

Crows fall from the sky, like May flies in August.

artwork created way, way, way back in college, ink print from a zinc plate etching

callous