86 the Office

 As promised, photos of my summer and fall project.  Now I have a space for writing.  If only I could build some time.

                   What will my gorgeous illustrator do with these canvasses? 

Inside the Skull of David Priest

Because I'm half in a sharing mood and half apologetic for not writing much at all for the last couple months, I'll show you what I've been up to with the David Priest Project.  Right now I'm giving a taste of a normal day for him.  A pretty good day, actually.  Soon I'll throw a bad day at him.  Then I'll start establishing his own special kind of crazy.  I'm looking forward to that.

The David Priest Page

Cathartes Aura Part Three

It begins again.  I began feeling that pecking sensation and had to get back to my buzzard.  No title yet, but I'm moving forward.  This will be the story of random survivors rebuilding and trying to get along.

Father James still gives me the goosebumps.  I expected Joe, Sam, and Valentine to be my favorite characters, but James is so much fun to write for.  I get to channel my inner preacher-man.

This is just a rough draft, but I like it so far.  Stay tuned.  I promise to spend less time sawing, drilling, and painting and more time writing.  Sometime in the spring this thing will be done.  Until then:

Cathartes Aura and the Apocalypse Zoo

and

Cathartes Aura on the Road from Nowhere

Cathartes Aura Part Three

Chapter One

On glazed asphalt, the tank sits cored: slack treads

And scorched armor frame a funnel of earth

Shined like glass from the kiln. On wheels and doors,

Hoods and trunks, cars lie scattered with spent shells,

A humvee and jeep, pools of gummy blood

With clouds of fresh flies. Walls pocked from bullets.

In a meadow up the hill, six fresh graves

Hold wrapped bodies while seventeen stand stooped.

A robed man scans them with hickory eyes.

“Stand straight. You look half in the ground yourselves.”

Hands clasped on his worn leather book, James breathes,

Lifts his voice to the trees. “I see Satan

On your shoulders, hissing doom in your ears:

'You will die quick deaths, live meaningless lives,

Accomplish naught but fertilize the ground.'”

Three farm women weep together, arms hooked

and faces stern. The old woman wails, hangs

On the round man in overalls. “Forked tongues

Caress your skin, tempt you to sin. Who cares?

Live loose. This world is gone. But I see God.”

Focussed, Max watches James' brightening face

And uplifted palms. “I feel His love glow

In the comfort you offer each other.”

Al picks grease from his nails. Sam stares glossy

At shifting clouds while Val does toe-raises.

“I see Him in the union of strangers

Steadfast against intruders.” Next to Val

The bright-eyed girl lifts her heels in time, beams

At James, his shoulders now hunched, whispering:

“I sense Him so close I can feel his breath.”