Poem: My Back for Your Love
Climb aboard
I can take it
make it
fake it
Go ahead, chip your dope
You can take it
make it
fake it
Pet your cat, eat your rat, It’s all that
Leave me, beat me, steal me, I can
take it
make it
fake it
Disappearing day by day, hour by hour, sec by sec
I don’t know you. You don’t see me, you
take it
make it
fake it
All burns up in a cup
upon a spoon
a tune
a loon
too soon
Salacious smoke slithers
out window’s crack—a lightening strike across glass
top left
through
bottom right
I’m left and nothing’s right
A silhouette in a dark room.
I can take it
make it
fake it
Go ahead, chip your dope
You can take it
make it
fake it
Pet your cat, eat your rat, It’s all that
Leave me, beat me, steal me, I can
take it
make it
fake it
Disappearing day by day, hour by hour, sec by sec
I don’t know you. You don’t see me, you
take it
make it
fake it
All burns up in a cup
upon a spoon
a tune
a loon
too soon
Salacious smoke slithers
out window’s crack—a lightening strike across glass
top left
through
bottom right
I’m left and nothing’s right
A silhouette in a dark room.
Playing with the book cover of True to the Union
True to the Union
TRUE TO THE UNION, complete at 72,000 words, combines historical, magical realism, and slight romance. The duel POV focuses on the relationship between two ancestors spanning one-hundred-and-fifty-years. The manuscript is a cross between Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander meets W. Michael Gear’s This Scorched Earth, yet centers on two ancestors: one that dresses as a boy to search for her missing family and a present-day salon owner searching for her true self.
Chrislon Tanner yearns to forget her husband’s death and loss of their unborn child. Instead, she enters a Family Constellation workshop and dives into the past to rescue her ancestor, ignoring her own pain. She experiences a vision of her ancestor’s peril on the eve of Civil War in 1862 Texas, and is drawn to the long-ago.
In 1862, Krista Vater, now a war orphan, races from soldiers and an Apache War party in the wildlands of Hill Country, Texas. Saved by a young shaman during his questing, Krista develops feelings for him, and disregards their lack of a common language, and their separate cultures. A union with him would be frowned upon by all.
Chrislon and Krista meet in the space between their times to assist each other and fulfill a spiritual contract made many lifetimes ago.
TRUE TO THE UNION is based on my own ancestry, my own true experiences, and accounts of the German settlements, primarily surrounding the town of Comfort, Texas.
I completed a Master degree in Creative Fiction, am a member of SCBWI, and attend WritingPad classes to improve my craft. I’m also the great, great granddaughter of German immigrants, A.Vater and F. Vater. Two of the thirty-nine peaceful German Settlers killed by the Confederacy during the Civil War at the Nueces Massacre. Their names are commemorated on the “Truer der Union” monument constructed in 1865 in Comfort TX that stands below a 36 Star Union Flag in perpetual light.
Chrislon Tanner yearns to forget her husband’s death and loss of their unborn child. Instead, she enters a Family Constellation workshop and dives into the past to rescue her ancestor, ignoring her own pain. She experiences a vision of her ancestor’s peril on the eve of Civil War in 1862 Texas, and is drawn to the long-ago.
In 1862, Krista Vater, now a war orphan, races from soldiers and an Apache War party in the wildlands of Hill Country, Texas. Saved by a young shaman during his questing, Krista develops feelings for him, and disregards their lack of a common language, and their separate cultures. A union with him would be frowned upon by all.
Chrislon and Krista meet in the space between their times to assist each other and fulfill a spiritual contract made many lifetimes ago.
TRUE TO THE UNION is based on my own ancestry, my own true experiences, and accounts of the German settlements, primarily surrounding the town of Comfort, Texas.
I completed a Master degree in Creative Fiction, am a member of SCBWI, and attend WritingPad classes to improve my craft. I’m also the great, great granddaughter of German immigrants, A.Vater and F. Vater. Two of the thirty-nine peaceful German Settlers killed by the Confederacy during the Civil War at the Nueces Massacre. Their names are commemorated on the “Truer der Union” monument constructed in 1865 in Comfort TX that stands below a 36 Star Union Flag in perpetual light.
a slice from
What Feeds the Heart
A selection of Poems & Images
Alonia of Ganymede
In the manuscript, Alonia of Ganymede, the reader is asked to readjust concepts and prejudices of what constitutes alien. On one planet, normal means radiation scars, hairless bodies and no muscle mass. Another planet plays in genetics to survive the low oxygen, high radiation and light atmosphere and creates their own bi-specie specimen.
Alonia, a 17-year-old genetically adapted girl runs from her fate of the MaterSubRosa, a symbiotic relationship with the salient, terraformed Ganymede. Instead, she’s kidnapped and finds herself strapped to a lab table, undergoing testing by aliens. Alonia lives primarily by The StarStone adhering to her hand, a relic of unknown power.
Bartholomew, a medical student with secrets of his own, liberates Alonia before her certain death. They stand in the open and witnesses a devastated planet. In search for clean water, the unlikely couple are taken hostage by a guerrilla group, lead by Commander, a double spy. The outspoken leader finds Alonia offensive because she’s “… an animal, an alien, not human.” Now, the last teenagers on Earth must fight a megalomaniac, join the resistance, and restore the planet’s wonky rotation or die.
Through humorous dialogue and cultural misunderstandings, the two teens disagree and finally uncover a truce beyond the convention of alien. Alonia and Bartholomew banish old societal codes to construct their own. However, how do they save the dying planet below their feet? Separated physically, Alonia and Bartholomew develop a telepathic heart link that defies human understanding.
With the underground resistance’s help, Alonia flees to the desert alone to make contact with the planet using techniques she and the StarStone create. By experimentation, Alonia discovers a hidden oasis, Eco-Cashes planted eons ago, and a budding telepathic Meer-cat society. Alonia and the Meer-cats uncover five more 230-year-old carriers of seeds, trees, and insects that aid Alonia’s mission: to save herself and the planet she is stuck on.
During her 28 days alone, Alonia fights zombie-like men, ‘FearSoldiers’ who attack the fledgling village. Will Alonia cross her own line to kill another to protect the oasis village she creates or can she sync her emerging human nature with The StarStone’s power for good? Will jealousy from Bartholomew’s break their bond? Will time run out and the planet implode from years of unchecked radiation?
Coming from cold, Co2-poor Ganymede, Alonia faints from heat exhaustion and oxygen overload. Connection with the planet’s core, Alonia accepts support. She reunites with Bartholomew and discovers how physically, mentally and spiritually they have grown. Alonia has lost her frigid emotional exterior and finds her heart beating irrationally, “Bartholomew’s superior muscles mass and outstanding presence developed in the six weeks since our separation overwhelm me.”
Thanks to Alonia’s talent of creating ‘A Well Within’ for herself and others, her growing tribe recognizes strengths to recreate life. Bartholomew fights to prove his worth. They are married amongst homemade friends and recreated family, a small village surrounded by desolation. Now a whole world bacons them for help.
Cover for my first novel-- What Feeds the Heart
