One of my first fiction publishing credits was with WOW Women on Writing. I was shopping my first novel and couldn't secure an agent. I was a finalist for The Maui Writer's Conference Rupert Hughes Award, but sadly the novel didn't find a home. (Maybe in the future with a revamp.) I took sections of the novel and crafted them into a poem.
The Fifth Rider
I soar high in the brisk breeze above pastel-tinged buildings fading in the sunset. My white wings spread and I glide above tied gondolas And sweep below ballooning garments drying. I rise. I perch on the frame of an open window shadowed in a Moorish arch, and ready to divide. —I am Conquest.
*****
The fire in the limestone hearth sputtered its last flecks of life. John pinched a cooling nub of charcoal between his blackened fingers. Once living, bending, growing, now the dead wood darkened his work. He smudged the page with his thumb of his trained painterly hand to indicate the shape of his woman’s mouth. His hand hovered over the image before dotting down to mark the shadow cast by her slender lip.
A dash to shade her narrow nostril.
A long line to accentuate her definitive jaw.
A sharp slash to mark the wisps of her eyebrows.
Next, the brush. He bathed the tip in a solution of thinner he had crafted and pushed the bristles through a plot of heavily applied charcoal. Swish to the left. Swish to the right. Gray wash spread freely over the paper, offering a subtle reflection of the scars marring the right side of the woman’s face. With the same brush, he accentuated the hollows under her round cheeks and the tiniest of dents at the tip of her nose.
Finally, the eyes.
His hand pulled away from the page, unable to continue.
How could he portray the energy ever radiating from her eyes, forever in flux, forever perplexing?
What would he capture?
What facet of her personality would twinkle from his page?
*****
The bells chime for me. The sun sets red for me. The citizens of this city brace themselves against my wrath, my judgment. I bring pain through want. I bring achievement through sacrifice. Peace follows only after I reign. —I am War.
*****
During his contemplation, he retrieved his quill, tip soaked in plant dye, and wrote the words haunting him. Something in his soul said writing them might make them true, might in God's time doom her to his prediction, to the silent thunder of His horsemen's hooves. Yet it was there, the truth. And it must be said.
*****
I ride fleas and vermin in the night. I sweep high with the warmth of day and sleep with the cold of winter. I turn your skin black and shower you with pain. I am unending until you are end. —I am Disease
*****
His quatrains came out like the four riders from Revelations, each moving closer to the ultimate end. Would that be her end too?
With the prophecy released, his hand followed the plume tip toward the middle of the page to finish the image. Drops of brown dye filled in her eyes. Dark lines angled upward, defining her happiness, forever capturing the bond between the painter and his lady.
*****
I am quiet. I bloom with my plans. My pale petals open and close with suffering ceasing secrets. At the bright green flash of sunrise and twilight, I blend with the eternal, yet offer end to the mortal. —I am Death.
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