So, Week 5. So if week 4 was exhaustion, this week was kind of about faking it, or slipping through, or coping with not quite enough gumption maybe? Because remember when I said I sent four manuscript queries last week? Well, I'm stealing two of those to count for this week because I didn't manage to send anything out this week. I blame my broken printer but that doesn't really account for me not then finding a way to send something out by email. I hope you're feeling forgiving.

But to make up for it, this week I wrote TWO small poems. And they're both new. They're acrostics, a form I never played with before.

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The first one spells out "Ravenage", an archaic form for, well, pillage, basically. Here are the first nearly four lines:

Trickster

Raven: bird of paradox, the transformer, transplanting
Antagonist of his own fictions, unpredictable as seasons
Venal, voracious, vandalous creator, mischievous glutton of
Everything lustrous, everything slick with life's fat.

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This one spells out "The Empty City", which is the working title of the novel I plan to start revising in August:

The awakening. Face in rubble and rough weeds. Alone.
Her lover gone as though he had never been. Her anger as
Empty walls crumble around her like a whitewashed face.

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As always sponsors and cheerleaders get to see the full poems. So lucky they are!