Resonant Beats: A Poem

Their hearts once beat with mine

And now pulse with a strength

That resonates through

Bone

Sinew

And skin

Filling the air

With rhythms

And expansive

Dance.

About Laurie: The author of Forests Secrets and Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Rift, Persistence of Memory, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, Laurie Woodward is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapter ia.net

Encore: A Poem

Lighting upon a liquid stage

Briefly for an audience of one

Two fallen birch leaves

Pirouette in a whirlpool,

Mirrored mimes in

Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet,

Carmen, and the Firebird.

Those who had once been

Skyriders reflecting and

Filtering light

Fell to Earth

Reluctant parasailers

Only to battle ensuing currents

In a watery waltz

All escape blocked by

Cries of encore.

One ochre lover

Makes his way upstream

While his partner is left

Swirling in the sun

Lost and alone

These former cloud dancers

Surrender to the stream

And are gone.

To where they are destined

Is unknown but I’d like

To imagine

That when the wind

Choreographs them

One final time

They embrace

As they slowly sink

Forever from the sky.

Blazing Solstice: A Poem

With Winter Solstice looming near

And summer a long gone mariner

He finds power in the darkening malcontent

That traps a gaze this autumn

Above an umbrage of blazing ice clouds

Lucifer burns in the frozen star

Grinning as he weaves the death shrouds

For men’s hibernal coffins

Oh for a voyage ever southward

To a kindred hemisphere

Where azurean waves

Reflect the waxing moon

And ice surrounds no heart.

But setting sail is no easy task

In hoary waters

And dimmer skies

Where even the breath

Of mermaids’song

Hangs suspended

Like frozen desires.

For smoldering long

In the soul of man

Lingers the cryogenic star

Waiting for a time

When glaciation reigns

And the Arctic Age returns.

These celestial collisions

Bear fireballs

To illuminate and warm

A mortal sea

Eroding ice floes

That bar the way

For the long journey

Homeward.

(Photos by David Stroup)

About Laurie: The author of Forests Secrets and Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, Laurie Woodward is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapter ia.net

Velveted Blades: A Poem

Skin of blades

Velveted by day

Sheathed under layers

Of false smiles

And soft words.

But as night falls

Hinge outward

Extending scythes

Of umbrage

Razor-sharp

Piercing embrace.

Thorns: A Poem

I have been on a path to find my way back to myself
But I’m so lost that I can’t tell if this bramble covered ground
Is a road, a garden, or a kingdom.
I reach for shears to cut through the thorny vines
But they have long since rusted
And crumble in my hands.
I try wading through the woody sharpness
And look down to find my feet torn and bleeding.
I remember Jesus imploring me on that night
So long ago.
With unspoken words that touched and terrified me.
And decide that this is not a path
But a snare.
I entrap myself in again and again.

About Laurie: The author of Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and Forests Secrets. Laurie Woodward is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapter ia.net

Curtain Call: A Poem

You want me to perform on stage

For you alone

An actress reciting lines written long ago

When you first imagined nubile girls

And felt stirrings sensual and strange

You ask for a curtain call

But the first act has not yet begun

Or even been rehearsed

I am outside this theater looking up

At its neon lights.

Wondering whether to step inside

Or run from their harsh glare

To the soft twinkling

Of country summer.

You want my ecstatic dance

To rise like a crescendo before your eyes

My limbs twisting and convulsing in

Tribal rhythms

But the music has yet to play

And I am wrapped in the silence.

You want an aria, a magnum opus

A soprano hitting notes so high

As to shatter hearts.

But I am just a woman.

And can’t even sing on key.

About Laurie: The author of the recently released Finding Joy as well as The Pharaoh’s Cry, Portal Shift, Kidnapped Smile, and Dragon Sky of the fantasy series The Artania Chronicles, and Forests Secrets. Laurie Woodward is also a screenwriter who co-authored Dean and JoJo: The Dolphin Legacy. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies and she was a collaborator on the popular anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. Bullied as a child, Laurie is now an award-winning peace consultant, poet, and blogger who helps teach children how to avoid arguments, stop bullying, and maintain healthy friendships. She writes on the Central Coast of California. More about her work can be found at Author Laurie Woodward — Next Chapter ia.ne

World Building: Creation and Prophecy

How do writers world build their fantasy novels? Is there a technique to help visualize details? There are several strategies for writers from sketching to outlining to stream of consciousness journaling but two that I’ve found effective are the creation myth and a prophecy.

When I started writing Artania some years ago one question I asked was, “How could an art-populated land begin?” It made sense to me that it would have begun with the beginning of the first art. So I researched ancient archeological findings and used this to envision early humans making cave drawings. From there it was easy to visualize the cause and effect relationships for these art pieces to birth an entire planet. The next logical step was to wonder what might endanger Artania and how soothsayers would give their people hope. This lead to writing The Prophecy in poem.

Reading The Prophecy Using Voiceover

The Prophecy has helped to guide my writing multiple times over the years. I’ve used it in both the books and here in videos. So if you’re trying to world build and are frustrated, why not try creating your own.

Embedded in Vinyl: A Poem

Embedded in vinyl

Are hands over sheets

And the susurration of ever quickening

Breath

Its black grooves played

Until scratched and warped

Each sound crackles

With the resolute whir

Of closing zippers

And bodies turned away

Like records forever encased

In plastic sheaths.

Hull’s Feast: A Poem

Vultures circle

The line of metallic insects

Whose crystalline eyes see only

The flashing red thoraxes

Before them.

They wait for dimming lights

To swoop down

Break through lenses

And feast on

Our empty hulls.

Bleached Memory: A Poem

Father’s memory betrayed.

In revisionist history

Sketch after sketch erased.

Canvases unpainted.

She hides his true face

From the world.

Morphing the second Borax’s

Paint-splattered cloak

Into the bleached mantle

Of a king’s antiseptic empire.

The above poem follows the theme of my new novel: Artania V. What is memory? Why is it important? Here fifteen year old Bartholomew realizes that his mother has always lied about who his deceased Father was.