CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

This week’s verse moves from a fantasy poem about loss and revenge to a fantasy poem about a ghostly queen. It is taken from 366 Days of Poetry , a collection of mixed-genre poetry released in 2018. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------   In All Her Finery, the Queen In all her finery, the queen floats above the marbled floor, floats above the blood that stains in a slowly spreading flood. In all her finery, the queen lies in dishevelled disarray, her trust betrayed, violated, murdered on her wedding day. In all her finery, the queen floats above the marbled floor, takes herself through the thrice-barred door, into the hallway to her rooms. In all her finery, the queen lies in dishevelled disarray, her gown and petticoats sliced and torn by the beast that took her husband’s place. In all her finery, the queen floats along deserted halls,

This week’s short story takes us from the science fiction novella of love and duty on a planet at war to the magically real urban fantasy tale of farming, family, inheritance and flying pigs. Welcome to Pigs Might Fly. All her life Lily has prepared herself for taking over the family farm. The property talks to her, the animals and plants thrive under her care, and even the old tractor bends to her will. Her brothers have other careers planned, and help Lily position herself to take over when they are gone, but her father has other ideas. He wants to pass the farm on to one of his sons. He says pigs might fly before a girl would be any good at running a farm. How is Lily going to convince him that farming is the only thing she has ever wanted to do, and that she is the best of his offspring to take over when he is gone? And what do her dreams and hopes have to do with flying pigs? Pigs Might Fly is available as a stand-alone short story at the following links:

LAST WEEK, Simone said she had a bad dream about hunting Tiger down. This week, Tiger reveals it was more real than either of them wanted it to be. Chapter 6 Excerpt – Gone Stars above! That really was you? That presence in my head. You scared the sh… daylights out of me. I’ve never been so frightened in my entire life. One minute, I was sleeping, and the next thing my whole body was afraid. I opened my eyes, and there was nothing in my room. And I was terrified. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The complete series is available as short, individual ebooks, and will become available as an omnibus, later this year. In the meantime, you can find them on this blog, until one week after the last chapter in the last book of the series has been posted, at which point this series will be taken down, and a new series serialised on site. books2read.com/u/4Awrze b