Wilderness Run [fiction]

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Across the wilderness’s heated hardness growing, Sarah quickened with memories rushing at her. She ran until she had to rest, wishing for a Long Island iced tea to quench her thirst and dull the memory of leaving him behind in San Diego all those years ago.

She spat sand as he surfed in on a Pacific memory, found her, and filled her thoughts with his sweet and sour past. She chose to diet on the sweet parts—her crutch, always.

Sweet was the sugar on her mind, melting to soft goo that made her speech simple and her brain drowsy and caused her to curl into a fetal position and doze from reality.

The creature stood over her, watching while she slept.

Ode To Dali [fiction]

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Frozen morning creaking and screeches spoke from a thousand dull trembles. Heaped breaths billowed from seekers seeking suet and seed. Rabbits and mice ate carrots and cornmeal at Sarah’s feet.

Thunderous trembles agonized across her front lawn when John Dey’s sky blue Chrysler dragged ass past her and sent bone-saw grunts to scamper her guests from the open sea of snow. After several backfires, she knew there was a lord mightier than the devilish owl rustling and hooting at the fiendish wind slapping and bleating most tragic.

Icy trembles sent Sarah indoors to find warmth in her day room filled with art—strange art, Dali’s art. His surrealism was large in the breath of a kiss against a hand flying from the highest limb of war—its rose-colored design set exclusively for the cosmic ballet’s athletes. His Mother Nature in a still life moved fast, searching for the fourth dimension in desert gardens filled with masturbating fruit dyed by ribbons of a Mediterranean color.

Decipher his art, if you can decipher his mind, and you will experience the vertigo of the human absolute of consumption—Eat … eat cosmic orality … eat everything! Gourmandism … cosmic cannibalism … Gala’s table is set with so much grace … Eat, eat, eat young girls, he said all those years ago … they have exquisite insides (they blush when you try to make them edible). He said, Eat, eat, eat young girls … they tremble when you tell them they are beautiful!

BEAUTY, he said, SHOULD BE EDIBLE OR NOT AT ALL.

Sarah trembled cosmic fourth-dimension screeches beneath a desert sun of his art. She was his for the taking. He came to her and plucked her like beautiful ripened fruit blushing on the vine.

Car Hysteria (Seduction Revisited) [poetry]

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Earlier today,
shopkeepers seduced pot-bellied old men
with sleek,
fast,
brand-new cars
that rubbed and kissed their trousers
and guaranteed to stop lonesomeness.

Erstwhile minds backpedaled on leather seats
where stale memories surfaced and breathed new air,
striking deals in brown cubicles
under the breath of fresh coffee.

What she feared most,
kicked and scratched
and wanted to grow big enough to crawl
from the backseat of a yellow Pantera
and seduce her all over again,
while her husband and she waited
for his father to sign the lease
as wordy as Shakespeare but lacking any color.

She stayed away from the thing of her past—
Some memories are the turmoil
of a soul knotted like hair in vomit,
where forlornness and tumultuousness sting.

Our Love [poetry]

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We bedded with moss and leaf and sand
drenched in that evening’s rain;
a shimmering surf at our feet
where diamonds and poetry wept on ocean waves.

We stirred to passions rising in us,
caressing below an unwatched moon.

  • our
  • love
  • open
      no
      love
      closed
  • we
  • found
  • heaven
      in
      all
      disclosed

Your breath and sweat filled my senses
blossoming and mating with the heat;
like joyous roses in morning light,
they grew to swim in our ocean waves.

I consumed your fire and fed you mine—
even the trees shut their eyes.

Loving a Leanan Sidhe [fiction]

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Sarah was 20 when she first met a Sidhe. Leanne O’Brian was new to the college campus. She was Irish and believed very much she was an actual descendant of a Leanan Sidhe (pronounced lan-awn she). She was beyond gothic-punk and World of Darkness games. She was real and beautiful and captivating, with long and flowing, silky black hair, creamy elfin face and skin, and a lithe and shapely body.

Leanne became Sarah’s roommate and fascinated Sarah with her Sidhe tales. Sarah knew little about the Leanan Sidhe, so she visited libraries and researched the creature who had captivated her interest 24/7. The Irish name Leanan Sidhe translates to “fairy, love of my soul,” which described Leanne perfectly. Sarah loved Leanne like a sister.

Irish folklore says Leanan Sidhe women are female empaths. Surely, Leanne felt Sarah’s love for her. Folklore also says the Sidhe are high status members of the fairy world because they look almost human. Utmost bedazzling women would be a better description.

On the religious platform, according to more folklore, all fairies are fallen angels of heaven and cursed by God, which was likely why Sarah’s friends scoffed when she told them about Leanne being a real fairy. Or it may have simply been that they did not believe in fairies. All the same, they warned Sarah to be careful. The Leanan Sidhe was, depending on whose books one drew from, a cousin to the vampire.

Sarah knew from her research that the Leanan Sidhe were vampiric. Instead of drinking blood, however, they are afflicted with the desire, and indeed the necessity to consume the living spirit of mortals. The Leanan Sidhe who tried to quit cold turkey, vanished, and was never seen or heard of again.

Sarah did not want Leanne to quit being what she was. With Leanne around, she became adept in art, music, and poetry. But Leanne barely seemed to notice her talents. She slept most of the time.

The day after Sarah’s twenty-first birthday, Leanne said goodbye. She was going home, back to Ireland to finish her studies.

Sarah ran to her, hugged her, and wept in their embrace. For a moment, two sharp teeth grazed the skin before Leanne kissed Sarah on a cheek. And then she got in the taxi and was gone.

That day, Sarah quit making art and music. Her daily poems are of the love she has for a certain Leanan Sidhe, nothing more.

Kiss Her [poetry]

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Lower your lips to her heart
Where your souls touch and flame
Where you are ageless in her embrace
Protected enough to say you love her

Lay with her over moss and leaf
Drenched in last night’s rain
The shimmering surf at your face
Where diamonds and poetry love to weep

In this discovery you descend with her
Her sweat and breath fill your caresses
Like blossoms joyous in formal delight
Mating when they wander from the sun

Even the trees shut their eyes to your pleasure
Bending on you bald and wild
Bearing witness to the moments born
When you finally kiss her

Seduction [poetry]

Steve CampbellLeave a comment

Today at market,
shopkeepers showcased brand-new cars
and seduced nearsighted and potbellied old men
with promises to stop their loneliness.

The promises were offers of a future
spent speeding on swift wheels.

And so shiny chrome kissed the old men
and sent them dreaming behind leather-bound steering wheels,
the smooth bellies of animal skin seats
rubbing the bottom of their trousers,
while the shopkeepers picked their pockets
as each wallet and infatuation came undone.

And I stood alone bearing my scorn, ignored.