Hey, Your Nose is on Fire!

Everything's:      Flooding out here at the end of the year!      And I'm not writing that just because this poem's called " What Water Says ," though I'm never one to turn down a pun if it comes wandering by.      This one's about water rats poling their barges down mystery-shrouded rivers, and the form is one I've played with before . You take a sestina , see, and you insert haiku before, after, and between the stanzas. 'Cause I'm all about the mix 'n' match!                                                        Mike

The Daily Grind Table of Contents      So many eyes...

The Daily Grind Table of Contents      Because I don't think we've had an unsettling clergyman in the comic yet...

The Daily Grind Table of Contents      These days, whenever I venture to draw somthing more complicated than a couple characters strolling along, I'm astonished that I managed to do 15 years of this thing here as an actual comic. Just utterly astonished...      But at least we're maybe gonna get some zombies here or something. I guess we'll all find out together!

The Terebinth Story Archive      Let's see how Lamont and his party're doing. We haven't seen them since page 1,846 , after all!

When I first wrote this poem:      The title was "A Game of Snake and Chicken." I was thinking of Cordwainer Smith's classic short story " The Game of Rat and Dragon ," but in the poem here, they're dealing with a cockatrice instead of a hideous space monster. Hence the "snake and chicken" part, y'see.      I sent it to Cosmic Roots & Eldritch Shores, the webzine who published my short story " Collaborators " back in December of 2024. They liked it, bought it, sent me a revision, and the title had changed to "Impossible Eggs." Cockatrice eggs figure into the plot, y'see.      I rolled it around in my head for a while, but that title seemed too focused on a single aspect of the story. So when I sent in my revision of their revision, I changed the title to "Scrambled Expectations." That got the eggs in, but it also addressed some of the larger themes I hoped the story was addressing.   ...

The Daily Grind Table of Contents      Pirates... Why does it always come back to pirates?

The Daily Grind Table of Contents      I can only assume things'll be bursting into flames here any minute now.

The Daily Grind Table of Contents      Reckon they must be in Kentucky, what with the grass there being blue and all...      I told myself I'd only use that line if I couldn't think of a better one, and, well, here we are.

The Terebinth Story Archive      There's so much violence in comics these days! And I'm not so sure about rhyming "ephemeral" and "well," there, Esther...

The Daily Grind Table of Contents      Now I'm wondering if that map's to scale...

The Daily Grind Table of Contents      Ah, the wonders of personal connection...

The Daily Grind Table of Contents      I think I've only ever ridden in a taxi cab two or three times, so I hope I'll be excused for not becoming the drivers' life-long pal and/or confidente...

The Terebinth Story Archive      Esther does love her triolets...