Chapter 1 Atticus sat with his friends at Pizza Hut, the atmosphere buzzing with excitement and relief after they had all successfully passed their final exams. The aroma of freshly baked pizza and the sound of cheerful chatter filled the air as they indulged in a well-deserved celebration. Atticus was described as an athletic-built young man with milky white skin, raven black hair styled straight to his shoulders with a...

Away from the carbon dioxide and the clatter of the city the citizenry sleepwalking. Away from the mainstream breathing fresh air from manifolds in the trees. Playing our Bossa Nova in Mother Nature without mascara to hide the fault lines. Taming the shrews who live in plexiglass houses, common sense becomes the new norm.

...crescent thumbnail moon of love's radiant gaze merging soul to heart like a gondola on night's sea cresting the tides with the man on the moon in my fantasy of love's radiant gaze

I decided to take a bus for the last section of the journey. I knew that traffic in the New York City area would be crazed, and no place to try to hitch a ride. I’d had excellent luck hitching so far, perhaps due to the protection of Mishipeshu the cat/dragon, but I was no longer within his sphere of influence. Maybe it was the time to stop tempting fate. I’d heard of New Paltz and knew it was fairly close to New York Cit...

...the sound of silence dissolving beneath a full moon pulsing blood in my veins echoing like a bird with wings soaring into the wind to catch a leaf falling then it becomes a raindrop dripping with a human soul, dream awakening

My rides dried up. I’d had pretty good hitching luck up to then, with only a few long stretches of waiting for cars. Now, the situation had changed. I had a big bloody scabby bruise on the side of my face, right up against my nose. It did not seem to be engendering a lot of trust in me with the many cars passing me by. I wasn’t feeling too mythic. It didn’t help that I’d left the comfort of the Trans-Canadian Highway, tra...

Layers of brushstrokes and rough edges in one's imagination of a lovely dream where each stroke is a poetic stanza a breath of expression softly released beyond the futon of memory sticks with recycled art seen through the eyes in one's imagination of a lovely dream

...in the faces on the old bark on backroads of memories of musings, doings and lucid dreams of red clay down by the feet of my shadow where Mama now rests surrounded by nature's postcards in the faces on the old bark

Sir Oswald had left the room to see Lord Duckham to his coach, after his Lordship had inspected the new stables and made a very surprising presentation to Jack. So surprising, such a shock that, as Becky pressed against him, he was still wrestling with the problem of how to approach what it was now imperative for him to admit. Then he heard the sounds of the coach pulling away. As the room door began to open, they jumped...

I must have been lonely. I have a distinct memory of sitting in a park, in where I think is Sudbury, Ontario, my back against the trunk of a large tree, listening to Bruce Springsteen. Specifically, I was listening to the end of “I’m on Fire” off Springsteen’s Born in the USA, and marveling at the plaintive high lonesome “woo-hoo-ooo” trailing off, as the narrator of the song expresses his longing for the girl, his desire...

Jack Wetherley walked slowly, morosely, along the front of the new stables. Not since the death of his father six years earlier, had he ever felt so low. Passing the open-gated front of the twenty, as yet, unused stalls, he was asking himself whether his months of intimacy, with Becky, the niece of Sir Oswald Brandling, were about to tear them apart. They had both been aware of the risks they were taking in prolonging the...

The crowd is getting anxious – then the lights begin to dim, and in the spotlight’s capture, they can see – it’s really him! A true iconic rocker – one that everybody knows, with a fanbase he’s collected from a thousand prior shows. The instruments are waking up, as the players take the stage and try to sound the same as when they’re played by Jimmy Page. He saunters to the microphone amidst the cheering fans, and makes a...

For everyone on the Brandling Estate, the three months after their Newmarket triumph became the most chaotic, the most worrying, the most exciting, the most definitive months they would ever know. After Trafalgar’s massive success as a three-year-old, Jack Wetherley, and chief ostler, Alf Winter, took the advice of the local vet, Victor Lazenby, not to risk their champion in the prestigious Epsom Derby. Victor had indicat...

Sophisticated shadow in silhouette seen through the windowless pane dressed in nothing but moonlight draped over the midnight hour pale as a white rose petal clouding the leaf smiling on the flower sophisticated shadow in silhouette

He sits on top of my cupboard just staring into space a layer of dust covering his body a slight smile upon his face. But I tend to think if he were real he'd be out chasing bees eating ants and berries and climbing large pine trees. He'd be swimming in Lake Pend Oreille stealing apples from our trees catching trout in the creeks taking naps whenever he pleased. But his jointed body never moves no one ever plays with him...