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The Author’s Prologue:

Prompted I read my sweet melancholy age
and promptly write as on antique'd vellum
these fractured lines and erratic rhymes.
I have now no pleasant peninsula to seek,
or snowscaped barbed fenceline,
nor the duned sleeping bear to climb;
thus to draw some allegory of Merganser’d memories there
to cast in inked formulae upon my parchment pages.
Folio’d the decades fold and the rural dean, tumbril’d
by fashion and senility, tumbles these crafted words
upon your ears as scattered dreams, fecund -
pregnant with syllables and soughings, and my sibilant sophistries;
those harsh cymbals crashing rhythmless -
to wrench and stumble your eyes upon
the awkward titulus of my years.
Read aloud now these broken lines, this chanting psalter,
my carvings on your mind.
Hear my singing heart and sing with me,
be I wastrel or minstrel,
these tunes plucked old from the twelve-strings
of my rushing years.
Ballad me your time.


G'day from Oz,

Penname: James Gagiikwe [pronounced 'Ga-zhe-kway']

Maltese Proverb about stories: “u għammru u tgħammru, u spiċċat" (and they lived together, and they had children together, and the tale is finished)

Welcome to my virtual den. There is a bookshelf next to your chair. Grab a story, make yourself comfortable and read awhile. If it's winter where you are, then light the heater in the corner.

Coffee and tea on the table. Help yourself.

I don't read much fiction, short or long. But, if I read fiction it is usually the Tom Clancy, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, or Patricia Cornwell variety.
I enjoy reading others' stories - BUT - I worked in the real world, where I had to deal with real human merde! So, please don't ask me to read your stories if they are porn, occult, emo, or the Boons and Mills variety!

I really do appreciate constructive criticism, and my ego won't be crushed if someone does a hatchet murder on any story. Go for it.

Of my love of Feghoots and Puns: Dr. Samuel Johnson, in his Preface to Shakespeare complained - "A [pun]is to Shakespeare what luminous vapours [mirages] are to the traveller! he follows it to all adventures; it is sure to lead him out of his way, sure to engulf him in the mire. It has some malignant power over his mind, and its fascinations are irresistible."


To all my old friends, who populate my stories, incognito -

When coming unaware
upon a name once known
we dredge and sift
the murk of memory,
seeking fossils
of relationships.
And in them find the linkages
to the laughter,
amorous intentions,
long discussions;
or
accusations,
arguments,
and some final rupturings.

Or was it all
just
drift,
as people simply change?

No guilt attaches -
decades pass and lives are lived
without correlation
to the face once known so well.
But a whispered ache remains,
the thought in passing,
the quiet wondering –
Are they living?
Are they happy?
Are they well?

When we are old it is called -
Nostalgia;
but really it is –
regret
at having lost connection
with those who’ve made us
who we are.

And if we do regret,
then we have honoured them
in that admission,
and they are
well
remembered.