Writing Samples

Poetry Samples

Short Fiction Samples

  A flicker of movement, like a shadow in the night; silent,  black...  A tiny whisper of sound, the soft-soled black half-boots; hand made  by their wearer; mark the passing figure, wraith-like, silent, blacker than  the night itself, along the cobbled way. The nocturnal breeze stirring and  billowing the soft damask fabric of the midnight coloured robes in a sinuous  dance which lent an air of of danger to the aura of mystery  and otherworldly  stillness about the figure. It seemed as if this dark being  were more...  or less than human, a shadow detached from the fabric of the  night itself, cloaked and coweled as it was, not even the glitter of an eye  could be discerned in the light of the low hung harvest moon...
  Though few  are the people abroad  at that hour of the night, each of those the figure passed was somehow compelled  to turn and watch as it moved silently  out of sight, their thoughts loud in the silence of the night air
to the black shrouded being...  fear, awe, disbelief...  all screaming louder than words, and falling on seemingly deaf ears... Satanic...  demon... witch... ghost...  the names and accusations meaningless to their hearer.  
The shadow-figure moves on; turning the corner onto another,  darker street, and stops before a recessed doorway...
   Slowly, pale hands  reach up to grasp the edges of the concealing hood, and lower it to reveal  a pale face, and hair so deep a black as to appear blue where the silver beams of the harvest moon should dare to shine.  The
features of the face have a definite feminine cast, delicate and small, so pale as to seem cast in marble, bleached as it was of all colour 'neath the  moon's light.
  To some, the face holds much beauty, to others, it
is  cold, to it's owner,  it's only merit is that it is hers alone... The chaos of thought and emotion  within, masked by the air of stillness and calm without...
  Slowly, a pale, delicate hand reaches forth to lift the  latch and push open  the heavy, iron-bound oaken door, allowing the dim light,  and buzzing voices  to intrude briefly on the night...
  In the space of a breath, the woman dissapears within,
and the door once  again holds the night at bay.
      In silence, she makes her way to her shadowed corner, carved as it is  from  the center of a wall, more a niche, a nook, really, but there never the less,  and always reserved for her...
   With a small part of her consciouness, she responds
automatically  to the  queries and greetings directed her way by the faceless voices inhabiting  the  room. Her gaze shifts from being to being, seeking faces where there  are none, responding in her quiet voice, hello... no, i'm  quite alright...  meaningless,  automatic responses to meaningless questions...
    "Starving wraiths, they are", she thinks  in the chaos of her mind " looking  to feed off the pain in my soul...
hummmmm...  i think not tonight..."
     Quietly, she gathers her robes about her, and takes
her  customary seat on  the cold marble floor. Gathering her thoughts and emotions  around her , she  organizes them lilke a shield... yes, tonight her efforts  are sucessful...  tonight, her emotions will not betray her
weakness, as they have so often  in the past done...             
It is here, in this dark, crowded room, that she feels  most comfortable...  where others like her gather, who have been feared and  shunned for their "differentness", their "apartness" from the mindless puppets  of society... though even here, few enough of them truely understand
her...            
    Yet, it isn't important to her that she be understood,
  only that she be heard...  understanding would come later, with time and thought.
     And there she sits, watching the faceless people sometimes,  responding automatically  to voices directed her way, occasionally interjecting  comments drawn from  her thoughts, an island of stillness in an everchanging  crowd, waiting...
    Suddenly, one such as she appears, materializing out
of the crowd... "Hello..."  he says as he draws near... "Hello..." she responds,  knowing, without knowing  that here is one who truely understands.
     Slowly, she raises her gaze from the cracked patterns
  of the cold marble  floor, to behold another figure, radiating the same otherworldly  stillness  as she, and he too, is cloaked in blackest shadow, the style of  dress different,  yet the feel is the same...
     "Hello..." she says again, voicing his name in greeting...
  It is then that  her thoughts are loosed to be spoken, and for a time all too brief, they converse,  and are heard by all, yet understood fully only each by the other... almost a  melding of minds over the raucous clammor of the room...
   And suddenly, he is gone, as quickly and completely as  he'd arrived, leaving  her once again to answer automatically, the voices  in the room, as she traces patterns in the cracked marble flooring and chases  her thoughts in endless  circles until they make sense...
   After a time, she tires of the endless murmur of the
faceless voices, meaningless  sound, and quits the chamber as unnoticed as when she arrived...
   Outside - the air has cooled, and the moon has set...
  a carpet of glistening  dew on every surface... the heavy nocturnal air carrying  loud in the stillness  the whisper-swish marking her footfalls as she passes,  once again covered  head to toe, a part of the night itself... Slowly, she  walks down the cobbled  street, blending with the darkness and is gone...
  Seeming to have dissapeared,  so well did the deep color of her rainment merge with the darkness of the  night around her. As she walked down the empty street her soft foot-falls  echoing in the stillness, she reflected on other nights, and other conversations...She spent  quite a bit of time in there, in that dark room, surrounded by the babbling  facless voices of people she knew almost better than she knew herself...
    It was odd, she thought, that she knew them by the
sound  and feel of their  voices, rather than the appearance of their faces... Yet, perhaps it was better  this way, easier to know someone, to share with them,   if one did not have  to see and be seen...

  The silence was loud in the stillness, even the crickets had ceased to sing, the night's creatures disturbed by the presence of an unseen figure... Well hidden by the trailing branches of an ancient willow. Behind it's drooping branches, she had an excellent view of her surroundings, yet was able to remain hidden from passing sight unless one knew exactly  where to look.  As the night's creatures began again their serenade, having  come to the conclusion that this black clad stranger in their midst posed no threat, her thoughts turned toward the recent past.   

  The conversation of the afternoon replaying endlessly in her mind...  She heard again, as always, the endless low pitched murmur of the voices in the dimly lit room, the people  faceless in the gloom... Through myriad conversations she'd drifted, answering,  with automatic responses, the voices which called out to her in the darkness,  until one voice laid claim to her undivided attention...  And pieces of that  one conversation, a few sentences, echoed ceaselessly now, in the silence  of her mind...

  ...you're the only reason he comes here...he's different when you're here... it's like everything stops for him, no matter who he's talking to, when you come in, and he focuses only on you...  Selected sentences, the most disturbing, the rest lost in the confusion of her thoughts...  It was the second time she'd heard words to this affect. She couldn't discount them this time... And she thought back to the first time she'd heard words with the same disturbing intent; more blunt, less descriptive...

  "I see something   beautiful between you two, or the potential for it..." that voice had said...   "I think i see love, so why do you both keep running away from it?"  

  Why  had she discounted it before? Why had she refused to see? And why now, did  this shaft of pure terror slice through her at these remembered words? She  knew that all of this was somehow significant, yet she couldn't understand  how...  The more she thought, the more questions arose... Why was he different  around her? How was he different around her? What did it all mean? Question  upon question ran circles in her mind, the answers just out of reach, creating  chaos of already disordered thoughts.

  For hours, she sat staring into the  darkness, following the same endless circle, chasing, but never catching the answers...Again, she went back over that conversation, simple words, really, but somehow, vaguely disturbing...  "...I think you're the only reason he comes here..." the voice had intoned.  "what makes you say that?" she'd asked.  "he's different when you're here" it replied.  "Different? how so?" was the return.  "it's like every other conversation he's having stops, when you come in, and he focuses on only you. It's like he's just waiting for you" came the answer.   "focuses? on me? waiting? for me?" she'd whispered.  "yes" the reply.  "i don't understand..." she'd said then. "i... hummmm... I have to go." and without waiting for an answer, she was gone, out the door, into the fading twilight...

  For hours, she'd wandered, sometimes running, always moving blindly away. Trying to escape all she'd been told, until she'd found herself here, in this hidden place... Seeking answers to her questions, yet afraid of what she'd find...

  Eventually, sometime after midnight ,she attempted a different approach. She began to sort back through her memories of him... Back through months of conversations. And suddenly realized that she could clearly recall nearly every instance when they'd exchanged words... She couldn't do that with her other friends"... And too she remembered times when she'd watched; hidden, no one aware of her presence, and these times, she realized now, he had seemed different... And the answers were there, waiting for her, nameless, hidden, and she knew that if she but studied it long enough, they would reveal themselves to her, for good or ill...