Short Fiction

In an entry in my Fiction Blog, I discussed how Fiction and Poetry have certain commonalities. They are separate genre’s, but the interlacing can also create answers to problems faced in one genre by using other genre. Here is an example of such a problem: Have you ever had difficulty getting inside of a character’s mind? If so, have you ever thought of writing a poem?

Some of my readers may have blinked when they read that last question. It is a technique I have used for years for creating villains and heroes and those who are just there to serve a purpose. I will take the character and a setting and poetically describe them both. I do not spend time rewriting these poems and manipulating the timing and the rhythm of the words like I would other poems. I do not intent to submit them anywhere for publication. However, they are an instant tool to be used when working on a story.

You come to a setting or have “painted yourself into a corner” and ask, what would this character do? Not what “would I do an an author,” but how would the character think and act? You may have taken notes on the character and be able to manipulate him appropriately. But, looking at a poem of that character has the same effect as looking at a photograph of that same character and include his emotional essence into it. Here is an example of one I wrote for the Space Western, Herne’s Law, that I am working on:

Shiloh’s Reborn
© David Alan Lucas 2010

Walking through a forest
Which haunts my sleepless mind
Since the long days
Where the hammer and the anvil
Of bombs and blizzard pounded
The metal of the boy into a man.

The three moons bathe
The forest who gave its name of peace
In the ancient tongue
To the bloodiest battle of a war
Fought between brothers
Whose blood froze on fields of Shiloh.

Days and nights that haunt
My soul and trap me among beaten trees
Who withstood thunderclouds
Dropping snow and bombs bursting
Ripping their wooden flesh
Falling with metal and snow on all below.

Many a brother I remember
From the days of fighting and the distant
Haunting sound of the others
Whom I exchanged flying flechette
Into the blinding snow
Unable to see my screaming enemy.

From the tree line I step out,
Wishing the haunting memories of war
Would stay among battered woods,
In to the valley where a creek once ran
Red with the blood of the dying
As they crawled to drink a final sip.

Now the creek peacefully reflects
The planet’s jeweled rings high above
On this cloudless night, far different
From the night of falling shroud of snow.
I bend to taste the cool clear water
That has forgotten those who died.

I swore I would leave this land
Roam the worlds once more
When the blizzard ended its burial of living
And dead, but I think my soul died
Entombed in ice on Shiloh’s floor.
Flesh remains alive and cups its hands
Lifting the cleansed water to lips.

I shiver in the arctic night
Snow blanketed land peaceful as its name
And I sit on the banks and stare into oblivion,
Not knowing I am no longer alone
Until I hear thunder once more
Coming over the land. Approaching storm?

My eyes scan the cloudless sky
No storm in sight, but the thunder roars deafening
Until I see, lowering my eyes to the field
Snow storm raised by galloping mustangs,
Reborn from ancient Earth
Running free toward Shiloh’s creek

They stop and drink, ignoring me
As if I do not exist in this world of peaceful beauty
But their wild spirit calls to mine long dead
And my heart beats again, longing to canter
With them across the fields of snow
Purified and reborn colt of a man who was lost
Able now to flee the haunted valley of Shiloh.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for information on the blogs, stories, poems, and articles I write.