"If you do so wish it sire, a Proky Paladin wishes to be admitted to your court."
Humph. Another one of those pathetic little so-called heros. Yet perhaps it would be best not to insult him. Foreign affairs were difficult enough already. "Let him enter."
Kleven nodded and opened the gigantic door leading to the throne. "Sire, allow me to introduce Hyusgru, one of the notable Proky Paladin."
Formalities. What a bother. "Thank you Kleven. Leave us." Zog turned to the visitor. "Welcome, honored Proky. How may I be of service?"
"Oh great emperor, I must be allowed to speak! Your soldiers have destroyed one of our villages and killed many of my people. The Proky could not stop them. Tell them to retreat! I know, of course, that you did not order the attack. They mutinied, right? You are not responsible and I assure you, my people still respect you. . ."
"Calm down, Proky. Perhaps my men were just letting off some steam. The attack will not continue." At least, not until I have a need for more bone spears. . .
The Proky bowed and left the chamber with a smile.
The author comments, "Great contest!"
sleep tugs at my eyes; however, i need to leave you with an image of myself. i need to do it before night’s dreams over take me. your new sonnet... i perceive your darker half emerging thru the development of your verse’s most engaging consumption of the mythical phoenix. your pen must have drawn blood from your very being, and your pages must have stolen the fire from your very eyes... it must be so!!! to have inspired such an image. but alas, there remains hope for our enigmatic creature, for the resurrection of the phoenix is always imminent. the cyclic symbolism is an excellent touch.
i have enclosed a new drawing of myself. i must inform you... the transformation i have undergone in the past few months is most startling. mesmerizing. as though a rebirth of my child-hood memories embodies my movements, manifestations... my dreams. i see you in those dreams. a poem rather than a person. it is disheartening to see you... lifeless, two dimensional. i think this has occurred on account of your absence. yet... i understand that my journey was necessary. and no, foolish man, i am not melancholic. i miss you and anticipate your possilbe journey to my most mysterious place of concealment. beloved, are you filled with anxiety at your impendent arrival? i am, my love. i fear you might not approve of my transformation. but like the phoenix, i have ceased to exist for a mere moment and have now been reborn. perhaps our link inspired your writings. if it so.. i do believe you will admire rather than abhor my evolution. write soon.
your inspired muse
sweet poet,
i contemplate words from a library...tonight, i have found the library environment to be most oppressive. one is surrounded by words... yet one gets the feeling that this place is devoid of life. i ask, what are words? merely two dimensional thoughts defined by the abstract? that is, unless these words are infused with life.... you perceive, once given life, words envelope the very essence of muse-like-sprites, but devoid of this life force... well, then words have no meaning... no life. but alive!!! you see them filtering on the wind... caught by an inhalation of inspiration!!! to be etched on paper as memory and dreams are etched in my mind. however, these words then fade... when left alone in these old dusty books. there is not one passionate person among these zombie-like library goers to evoke the life necessary... to evoke the spirit of these sprite-spun-stories.so i ask, are words immortal? i perceive they may be much like your phoenix. they lie dead until someone's breath is blown into their awaiting mouth. hhhmmmm... possibly more like the myth of the lion than that of the mystical phoenix. however, you do not need another to breath life into you... no, you who gives life to art. do you know, my love, despite the distance between us... despite the space, i revel in the birth of your art.... i delve into each pen stroke. i see your work, a reflection of life more realistic than life itself.
my love, a most frightening image revealed itself to me today!!! in my explorations of this dark image.... well, i have found i need give this image/being a form or it will consume me more completely than your phoenix... and, unlike the lion, there will be no one to breath life into my dying body. therefore, i must give this aspect/wraith life. i believe it to be the manifestation of my darker aspect. she is the dark angel. the one you thought to be me....
all my love, your young muse
greetings dark lady,
if you are reading this mail... then the address i procured is accurate, and you are living a short distance from a mutual friend.
you are correct: Frustration is never alone. In her arms, she carries her children as they starve at her empty breasts.The brothers Madness and Inspiration, the Muse, inhale the other's exhalations, share breath.
i will remember your words...
an admirer
lovely lady,
do you wonder why i write you? well, i dreamt of my beloved poet.... in the mists, behind his shadow, i glimpsed you. i knew not your face. i must admit, i acted presumptuously in my search... but my intuition rang true. i will not go into the details of my search. no, i will merely fill in the significant facts. i found that you were a lover of my dear william. i assume he had not mentioned you... well, i am thinking your relationship entailed a bit of pain. again, my presumption jumps ahead of me. however, young goddess, know this, i am not jealous of your manifestation... no, merely curious. more than that, i found myself oddly stimulated by your sudden appearance. i found it most interesting that you would appear at all....
i anticipate a possible meeting with you. i must say, you are quite lovely... stunning, to say the least. but i will say more!!! your image was most... enticing in its darkness. an image betraying all modern conventions!! i hope my words do not frighten you.
a young man
p.s. i had a strange image appear to me recently. i wonder if the dark angel is in some way related to you....
sweet will,
your words seemed hurried. i detected the barest hint of your old kindness. but i suspected it would be so... well, i was uncertain how you would react to the letters written to rhiannon.
you must perceive... it was much the same with her as it was with you. no, that is not completely true. i saw her first in a dream... it was a dream of you.... her in the mists. soon after the dream the visions started. actually, the visions began the next day. i saw her scribbling those words down. she looked so serene, so dark and enigmatic. i had no idea when she wrote those words, however, the impact they had on me was quite intense. i knew i had to write to her. i knew she might have some correlation to the dark angel in my vision.... yet... now that she has taken form...if it is her.. well, my love, she no longer frightens me. no, in fact. i am very intrigued by her... enamoured by her.
furthermore, i do believe it is essential i inform you of these passions, fore rhiannon has become the focal point of my desires... i hope my words do not upset you. i will enclose a poem your young friend unknowingly inspired me to write. i do hope you will approve of my most...eccentric behavior and of my poem.
well, kind poet, here is my poem. i implore you, show it to young rhiannon... she is the subject of my piece... i would like to know how she reacts.... what emotions, if any, it evokes in her. i would like to meet with her, nevertheless, i do not wish to frighten her. anyway, i would like to believe my words might have a... stimulating affect on her.
william, i had told you i would be infusing this dark aspect with a form.... well, this is the shape my darker desires took:
ah! do you not know? can you not feel me wash thru you? like a tide on a summer’s day. crystallized salt coats your lips. a lick. a touch, to wet the moment. do you remember? the fantasy i had. you were there. running. thrusting. so strange to think. to dream. the artificial moments of reality inhibit the path to your open mouth. frustration slides down my throat like an ocean. he was there. a part. inseparable from you. an extension of the whole. so tenuous. tenacious. the molded form. three spirals spun of the abstract. the fitting pieces meld like sand on a beach, and crumble as easily. so strange. these contemplations. a psychic link to you. the flesh of the land. the mountain of your breast. his tree awaits my body to mount its branches and suckle his sap. can you see me now? a little monkey. the mountain. the tree. i walk the path of my flesh. the separation from your touch. do you know me? no!! do not answer that. i have yet to explore myself. my grassy hill-top and inlets. i speak of oceans so far from you. wish it could pour into you...thru him. i watch you from here. the play in my mind. a connection of thought. can you see me? swimming? i watch you to distraction. the leaves shake. the mountain heaves. i laugh. confused. separated. my ocean spills into your valley. fills the gap. waters the tree. fishes and sharks swim and eat. your lips part for the prey and hunter. do you feel me swimming inside you? seeking my lost soul. seeking you, him, me...
do you not see what binds us together taking from within my words? i believe it is some sort of trinity. some spiritual connection. you will not fight it? will you? will she? this can not be dismissed merely because of fear. you knew that with me. know that with this. the link is too strong.
i will be with you soon. the avenues of this trinity will be explored more deeply at that time.
all my dreams, your confused muse
The author comments, "don't you want to know what happened between shakespeare, the young man, and the dark lady?"
Drawing on the inspiration she had gleaned from her collection of books on the supernatural, Beverly took a deep breath, wiped away her tears and resolved to get revenge. Once at home she concocted her evil plan. She would draw on the power of Satan and his minions to see to it that everyone on the cheerleading squad would die a slow and torturous death. She drew in yet another deep breath, and traced a pentagram onto the hardwood floor of her luxurious bedroom. "Now we'll see who gets the last laugh" she thought to heself with sadistic glee.
Al and Tipper Gore's Halloween costumes, 2001.
Monique, shivering despite the near-tropic heat, contemplated the sleeping man beside her. Was she really now
the wife of a Duke who she had never met? Everything had happened
so fast since she stepped off of the Pacific Princess...
and fell into the salty waters below. Not only had she ruined her hairdo, but a creature, not unlike the Creature from the
Black Lagoon only fishier, had grabbed her ankles and pulled her underneath those lapping waves to an underwater city. The
creature was rather rude, showing her his collection of puca shells instead of offering her a dry towel or at least a martini.
Monique became annoyed and started to whine in a voice that reminded the creature of Fran Drescher on crack. (For some
reason, "The Nanny" was the only television program capable of being transmitted to the depths of the creature's lair.) He soon
became even more annoyed at Monique than she was at him, grabbed her, and swam as fast as he could back up to the
surface of the water. The ship's bartender, Isaac, saw Monique resurface, and threw her a life preserver. When she was finally
retrieved, the Duke of Earl halted his conversation with his insurance agent via cell phone and demanded that Monique get!
to the nearest hair salon immediately.
"Your people await you my most honorable master. Another minute, Sire, and I fear an uprising right here in the Grand Courtyard."
"Yes, Itrak," replied Emperor Zog furrowing his brow even more, "I hear them. I hear there pathetic, chanting voices calling me. I know they await me, Itrak."
As she looked into his sparkling sapphire eyes, she realized that there would never be a better time than now, with the
sunset reflecting off of the mirror-like sea. Sensing that something was awry, he pulled away, the questions evident in his every
move. "Darling," She began, "you know I love you more than life itself," she paused, mostly for effect, and continued,"however, I love your bank account more." With that, the hand that until now had been hidden behind her back came into full view, along with it's contents. The sound of a gunshot echoed for miles.
She walked away, ATM card in hand. Now, if only she could remember the PIN.
"Why, she needs a man with means to support her frivolous spending, and a disposition to tolerate her, um, habit." Continued Lady Zinnia, a cutting undertone in he obvious in her usually melodious voice. She only hoped that her husband hadn't picked up on the other undertone, the one she was desperately attempting to conceal. Deep inside, she was fuming. Jessamine Thanninger knew that she was seeing Michael, as did most of the rest of society's prominent ladies, and she would pay for stealing him away. She, Amanda Zinnia, was not one who took betrayal lightly, and Jessamine knew this. Poor, trusting Bartholomew, chosen by her father, held her hand and led her to the ballroom, never suspecting another man held her heart.
She hugged herself and cried, her tears her white dress. Rocking herself back and forth and gently whimpering, she slipped into memory recalling the day she joined the squad. Nothing in her life seemed as bright as that day the sun of acceptance burst into her life. She had felt wanted for the first time. Bev had grown up chronically quiet and had done nothing but hide from others so as not to confront the mess of her home life. Her mother was rarely sober, and her father had just been released from prison after serving 5 years of a 7 year sentence. In fact, it was in his grease stained duffle that she had found the loaded .38 caliber pistol. She pulled it slowly out of her gym bag, and slid it up her arm, sending metal on flesh goosebumps tripping up her spine. She took her time and traced her tear swollen lips with the muzzle, gently forcing them open and pushing the cold barrel deep into her mouth. Her breath caught in her throat in a muffled but powerful sob as she pulled the trigger, blowing her brains out all over the scattered cigarette and twisted gum wrapper littered dirt.
I had seen broads like Gia Gondola before - Miami's full of 'em. But
when a broad constructed of nothing but legs, attitude and a wide-brimmed
hat stalks into your office unannounced and drops a baby alligator on
your desk, you sit up and take notice.Especially when that woman begins to look like more and more like that baby alligator with each passing moment. Her skin turned scaly, her eyes bulged and her bouncy behind stretched out into a whip-like tail. I was taken aback. Not because this beautiful woman was now an amphiban, but because when I first saw her I had visions of us in bed. Not any more, that's for sure. I wouldn't let those jaws near my jewels for all the money in the world.
"Can I help you?"