THE INKHOUND’S NAME
Scattered through Ireland are ‘thin places’,
where the veil between this world and the next
is very thin, and my Myth-hunter’s trained
weather eye can, on certain evenings
at nautical twilight, see to the other side.
The Newgrange Monument, a half-century
older than Stonehenge, is vibrantly thin
and abuzz with stories of The Dagda,
a Druid god, his son eldest son Angus,
and the shapeshifter called Pooka.
Perhaps it’s the latter who runs at me
out of the evening mist, on four legs,
with curved tail all aswirl. White fur,
mostly, with black blotches around ears
and tail, body shrinking as he nears.
It’s a puppy racing from the Newgrange
mound to the only human visible, and I await
his arrival, punctuated by leaps into the air.
bouncing as if built of spring-metal, finally
leaping higher than possible, into my arms.
As he licks my face I hold his energized head
with my hands and smile, “What’s your name,
boy, what’s your name?” He holds my gaze
tightly with his deep russet eyes
and speaks out loud: “Fermac of Croboy”.
THE FOG OF WOLF
Captured in a photo
from the Sarajevo Siege,
emerging from the rubble
of a neo-Moorish archway
fronting the National Library –
first a book, next a young girl,
moist blood streaking her face.
In hospital, her fairy tale book
never left her side, so her nurse
christened her Crvenkapica (Little
Red Riding Hood) which always
resulted in giggles of joy.
Two decades later the world
hears her, a singer now called
Garnet Capely with an aching
soprano growl floating above
thrashing, jangly guitars
in an electro-punk swirl.
Kim Peter Kovac works nationally and internationally in theater for young audiences with an emphasis on new play development and networking. He tells stories on stages as producer of new plays, and tells stories in writing with lineated poems, prose poems, creative non-fiction, flash fiction, haiku, haibun, and microfiction, with work appearing or forthcoming in print and on-line in journals from Australia, India, Dubai (UAE), England, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, and the USA, including The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Red Paint Hill, Elsewhere, Frogpond, Mudlark, and Counterexample Poetics. He is fond of avant-garde jazz, murder mysteries, contemporary poetry, and travel, and lives in Alexandria, VA, with his bride, a Maine Coon cat named Frankie Malone and a Tibetan Terrier named Mick. @kimpeterkovac – www [dot] kimpeterkovac [dot] tumblr [dot] com
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