Artifacts

Sunlight on broken glass inside your empty house
Is as jagged as the uncertainty
Nagging at my belly.
Are you gone?
You must be.
There are only dust motes and ghosts of your intentions
Here near your teacups drying in the kitchen.
I study the upside-down enameled mug,
The one with the rainbow kitten on it,
That Adrian bought in Prague,
And the empty silicon manatee tea-infuser,
We gave her for Christmas,
Both gutted like me.
Every artifact spells out you were just here.
You planned to reappear.
Andrew’s notes above the desk outline two more years.
That picture of my uncle cock-eyed is on the magnet editing board,
Amongst the parrot from Costa Rica, a Joshua tree,
And those two of Adrian reading in a red dress by the waterfall.
Why those, all old, I wonder.
A battered wet-suit is draped over the chair on the patio
That smells faint,
Mostly of, the sea.
A book from that bookstore in San Diego
That you loved
Rests on each bedside table.
A regency romance for Adrian,
A comedic fantasy novel for Andrew,
But both bookmarked
Only a few pages in.
I can’t quite remember,
Are these books from the list I recommended to you,
Or among the ones you recommended to me?
Are voracious readers really allowed to die,
So ephemerally?
The stained-glass penguin window Laura crafted for you
Is still in a crate, as are your framed family photos,
In the one room that you still haven’t unpacked.
There are sheets on the new mattress you both complained about hauling
Into the upstairs guestroom,
Waiting for some of us to visit.
Maybe us next, or maybe Angela,
Or Kathryn and Levi with a toddler in tow.
Adrian was already worried about the Thanksgiving menu
Meeting everyone’s needs.
Andrew’s voice still echoes in my head,
Our last phone call,
“You and Laura should come. It’s only a three-day dive trip.”
I wished, but we had a wedding to attend.
“Ah well, we’ll do it again in November or April. We can have a Google hangout next week to figure it out.”
But we won’t.
You are perpetually out?
That isn’t what these artifacts say.
These trails of you evidence so many things
We have left to do
And the hopes still in count.
How do I reconcile
These artifacts
With the evidence
Of your absence?

Artifacts 

Someone I always thought would be here

Like the smell of rain on the grass,
or diesel in a crosswalk,
They were inevitably,
Part of the family compound.

Like a scorpion in the shower,
or changing flat tires,
They were always,
Part of something I'd maintain
awareness of how to handle.

Like the best book I ever read,
or the taste of malt on my tongue,
They were usually,
What I turned to,
When nothing else seemed familiar.

Like the start of an ancient hymn,
or the fold of my favorite jacket,
They were known,
As the backbone,
That would sustain my faith.

Someone I always thought would be there,
Most likely to help me survive,
Even stranded on a desert island,
With no place to buy beer,
and abysmally small Key Deer.

Someone I always thought would be there,
To ensure my desire to love,
Never went hungry for long,
And hope had a home to belong.

We are independent,
But part of the same song,
Even as I am alone,
Still singing along,
There are still,
Somehow,
the ghosts of my will,
still here.

Lacey's 10 Author Fashion Essentials

It isn't always sippin' lattes and cashing royalty checks...sometimes authors have to fashion themselves for hard work. I offer you my time-tested fashion essentials, in hopes, it will save you some time to get down to authoring (so you can #BeMightyWrite!).

1. A comfortable attitude is easier in the right pants, Chico's So Slimming Girlfriend Jeans. These go everywhere from weekends holed up in the dusty reserves of the local library to under your punky best tuxedo jacket for an international awards ceremony...and they are comfortable enough to sleep in on a long flight...and did I mention the four real pockets? https://www.chicos.com/store/product/so+slimming+girlfriend+jeans/570268076?color=001&catId=cat8319290
2. A snuggly shirt for writing makes all the difference in getting through those tough-to-write, too-real scenes. I know you're thinking flannel, but broaden your mind a tiny bit to chamois. Specifically, LL Bean's Women's Heritage Chamois Shirt. It's even great for pulling over your favorite t-shirt inside over-air-conditioned libraries and cafes in the Texas Summers. https://www.llbean.com/llb/shop/119946?page=womens-heritage-chamois-shirt-misses-regular
3. Speaking of favorite t-shirts, Duluth's Women's Longtail T Lightweights also go from curled up on the sofa with a cat or five to under that tuxedo jacket or chamois shirt as needed and without shrinking. https://www.duluthtrading.com/womens-longtail-t-lightweight-v-neck-t-shirt-69236.html?cgid=womens-tops-t-shirts&dwvar_69236_color=OKS#start=18&cgid=womens-tops-t-shirts
4. A writer must follow her feet, sometimes into nature and sometimes through the big, dirty cities and airports to a book signing. I don't like packing heavy, so I want a shoe that does it all and looks good with almost everything...even occasionally a punky little dress. Blundstone's 500 Chelsea Boot for Women in Stout Brown takes care of everything that doesn't require a tennis shoe and can be waterproofed with an $8 bottle of Camp Dry. Bombas socks (buy a pair and they donate a pair to a homeless shelter) go great with these boots. https://www.blundstone.com/shop/stout-brown-premium-leather-v-cut-boots-womens-style-500
5. When you must wear dress shoes, but still want to be able to walk ten miles or stand around for hours, then it is all about the Rothy's shoes of your choice. They last forever too and wash in the washing machine. https://rothys.com/
6. What about the jacket? The Womens Canvas Kuhl Trinity Moto Jacket keeps the rain off, looks cool dressed up or down, and makes your Vegan fans happy too. Carbon is my favorite color because it goes with just about everything, including my silk tank top and those Girlfriend Jeans and way-out Rothy's at the award balls. https://www.titlenine.com/product/womens-canvas-moto-jacket-trinity-kuhl-512007.do?from=Search&cx=0&query=trinity%20moto%20jacket
7. I've been around the world for work and worry with only one bag and nothing beats Timbuk2s Laptop Messenger Bags with the quick-zip that lets you cruise through security checkpoints without taking out your laptop. The main compartment also holds three to four days' worth of clothes if you need it to. Mine is custom colors, but the Jetblack Static version is pretty lesfic suave too and they're made in San Francisco! https://www.timbuk2.com/collections/all-messenger-bags/products/1810-closer-laptop-briefcase?variant=12733961404458
8. It's too easy to get distracted by a Smart Watch, especially when I have a hint of writer's block visiting. I like to have a watch with a movable dive ring too for timing my writing sessions (and to wear as a back up to my dive computer on occasion). Casio's LRW200H is so affordable I can have different colors, including the one with rose gold numbers and the one with rainbow numbers! https://www.casio.com/products/watches/sports/lrw200h-7e2v
9. Normally, I write on a PC (I'm a big fan of my Surface Pro now), but I don't always have a laptop handy and sometimes I don't want to drag down my phone battery by using my Dragon Speak too much. Sometimes I also just want to jot down some notes or ideas for later. In all of these instances, Moleskine's Pocket-sized Cahier Journals are great. I like the Kraft Brown version so I can sticker it up or doodle on the cover to make it a fun fashion accessory. Each journal also has a small pocket inside that is great for travel receipts that I need to have reimbursed later. https://us.moleskine.com/en/cahier-journals-kraft-brown/p1274
10. For a writer, the pen is the ultimate in luxury jewels. It's my royal scepter in the vast queendom of my imagination, and yet I can sometimes lose it easily. Only one pen on the market writes like it cost hundreds of dollars, looks like a thousand bucks, but costs less than ten dollars: Zebra's Steel F-701 All Metal Retractable Ball Point Pen. https://www.zebrapen.com/product/f-701-ball-point-retractable/?source=brand

    

    It isn't always sippin' lattes and cashing royalty checks...

Now i Know (21)

Love's a gamble,
i take my chances,
i place my bets,
only insurance is
the house
deals regrets
win or lose
take the bruise
next time choose
which casino.

Every love-death knell
blows like iron bellows
belting over all my mettles
who's BLACK JACK
he's the fellow
got me
always hittin' hope,
even two on the rope,
countin' on the ace
of hearts
in every hand.

21

The lights draw me in.

Ode to #PRIDE

Sonnet to our enGendered empathy,
My blonde scar of woods where no wise men go,
Starred by Brokeback Mountain mole, scary,
Tender to moguls skied by fleshy snow,

The soul of my body will only know.
Some naval-gazing is necessary,
If then acceptance must weather and grow,
Thus I plant the first seeds of empathy.
Myself a song of hidden skin, wary,
Of righteous face of public governance,
Through points unnecessarily hairy,
Braving new bruises to marching cadence.

My histrionics to sew empathy,
Strong thread our compassionate symphony.

PUBLIC SERVICE WARNING: This has been a modern attempt at a Spenserian Sonnet (14 lines long, 10 syllables per line, in ABAB BCBC CDCD EE rhyming scheme). If this had been an actual time warp, you would have felt even more nauseated...so really it wasn't so bad. Try more sonnets, #BeMightyWrite, before criticizing.

All double-entendre and symbolisms fully intended! 

Words are worth a million feelings?

As a novelist and a human, I am plagued by the voice of my inner critic at times. Given the lagging sales of novels and author earnings right now, my inner critic has been clamoring a lot lately about how "a picture is worth a thousand words" so maybe I should just shut up with the novel writing and use my photography skills to tell stories. There are so many good ways to tell a story with pictures, or do visual storytelling, now and "who reads a whole book now anyway, we don't even read Facebook posts that require us to click See More " (a friend who chooses to remain anonymous).

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then why do we write novels? Do we still need novels?

Since my inner critic won't shut up otherwise, I have to have an answer so I thought about some of the most compelling photographs I've seen lately. Most of them are from the assorted Scuba Diving magazines I get now that I'm a (relatively) newly certified Scuba Diver. I've been a photographer for twenty plus years (i.e. earn money for selling photos kind), but I'm too new to Scuba Diving to master the challenges of taking good photos underwater. Even if I was better at capturing the light underwater just right, I still think it wouldn't be enough. Even the exquisite composites of expert underwater photographers (e.g. Cathy Church) don't sufficiently, satisfactorily, tell the heart of the story.
The pictures are beautiful, otherworldly, maybe even evocative (they make me want to tell stories sometimes), but somehow they still lack some dramatic punch. They say nothing about the millions of feelings or thoughts wrapped up in them unseen like the Electromagnetic spectrum. That picture says nothing about the chaff of the oversized dive computer against my wrist bone, the clinging suck of the wetsuit collar on my neck, the overwhelming dryness of the air I have to think about pulling in through the zinc taste of my regulator, the salt in my eyes because the mask isn't really that watertight, the hollow rumble of my stomach because I've traveled so far and it doesn't pay to eat much before going down, the pressure and extra degree of chill of each depth of water pressing in on my ribs, or my nagging wonder about where my dive buddy just wandered off. No matter how pretty, the picture doesn't explain why I learned to tolerate all of this discomfort to see this stuff first-hand.
I am weightless here thanks to the magic of neutral buoyancy, free to move in ways that are typically impossible under the influence of sobering gravity. My pictures don't show the school of Seargeant Major fish following me like curious puppies, bumping at my elbows as I try to frame the shot. I can feel the ghostly, delicate, caress of the hundreds of tiny Common Jellyfish against my bare skin as they ballet by. Just out of frame is a mysterious grotto where the light slivers and wanes around a dozen sharks at rest and the Amber Jackfish ahead does her best to keep an eye on them and an eye on me. Below me are even deeper gradations of blue, seeming unending and even wider than the sky above that is reduced to a simple translucent lid of sunshine overhead. I want to put the camera down. I want to tell the deeper story.
This moment is pure exploratory joy, like walking the moon. There is a good probability that no other living human has been here and seen this. There are still things here without any given names. The life and light on the reef, even the reef itself, change by the hour. Every snapshot falls flat. You can't tell from any of my pictures that this is the first time in two years of incredible stress and common grief that I feel like I can really breathe deep, despite the pressing weight of the entire Caribbean ocean around me. The pictures lack emotional context. I think novels exist because words are worth a million feelings.
Novels can go below the surface into the oceans of our souls. In such brave, new worlds I think words still have greater currency.

Our Alpha and Omega Love Song

The stars are just dust,
light reflected,
from some distant past,
that didn't last.
The used-to-be.
I want more
for you and me.

Alpha and Omega.
Let's break-in
to break up
the beginning
of no end.

Light a match,
set a glow,
warm in hand,
draw our lines,
in the sand,
keep this stand.

Alpha and Omega.
Hope won't
blow us away
because we're
built-in sway.

The stars are just dust,
dead shiny daggers,
of what once.
I want more us,
wild swaggers.

Fuck legendary.
Long live the Queen,
right in this scene.
Forget fate's permission.
We're all forgiveness,
alpha, omega, alpha-bravo!

If this life is
endless labor,
we are the
perpetual birth,
Before Common Error,
anno domini,
us ad hominem,
alive.

Because the stars are just
someone else's
Alpha and Omega
love song.

Fate Loves a Riddle

Survival favors the fittest,
and yet,
Nature abhors a vacuum.

There is only one thing,
I know of,
that will tell of the same thing,
over and over,
over again.
Only a timepiece,
repeats information
without wit.
Only this device,
invented by humanity,
will tell us the measure
of our own construct
continuously.

The world doesn't love anything or one equally,
and yet,
Love is blind,
like Faith and Justice.

There is no Answer,
and yet,
the Question is not Everything either.

Maybe Fate isn't fickle,
maybe,
It just loves a riddle?

Survival favors the fittest,
and yet,
maybe,
survival isn't the boon...

Maybe the desperate and disabled
have the most room
to see the real treasure,
a moment to breathe,
a lifetime to grasp.
While the fit,
fight to last.

Wouldn't that be
the worst fate?
A good joke.

I hear
Fate loves a riddle.

For Mary Oliver, who so loved nature she embraced the riddles like the bloody eye of the moon.