What the Trees Hide
Peace grows beneath the trees
that gave their leaves and limbs
to hide the seeds
of hope
from the searchlight moon
Image description- photograph is of the night sky. The moon is in the center of the photo and is surrounded by clouds and trees.
Minor Inconvenience of Snow
Outside the plexiglass window
Snow is falling
but my computer doesn’t care
The rubber band health insurance leash
snaps my body back
into an office retrofitted
with the best surveillance tech
Eyes on the screen or the algorithmic bitch will catch me
Slacking
Blinking
Questioning the meaning
Snow is falling outside
Can’t dream inside the plastic terrarium
Not until the fifteen-minute break I never get to take
Sticky film of recycled office air
clings to my skin
until everything tastes like microwavable dinners
Occasional vacations
let the hemorrhage of my discontent
bleed
When my time is up
I pack the wounds with fiberglass and return
to my capsule of misery
dreading and hoping for the day
my blood and fire are fully replaced
by autopilot strings
that type my reports and guide me from meeting to meeting
And the heartbeat of the world outside
becomes a minor inconvenience
Image description – image is a photo of a snow-covered pine tree. The branches are low due to the weight of the snow and hang down in such a way that they create a pathway between the hanging branches and the other trees standing at the edge of the forested area.
About the poem (a small rant):
I looked outside the other day and saw snow falling. My first instinct was to ignore it. Before becoming a writer, I worked at different office jobs as well as in sales and retail. The way companies and managers treated their employees as resources to be used up and discarded motivated me to seek a master’s degree in business management. I wanted to know how to explain to people creating the rules that there was a better way. In my naivete, I hadn’t yet realized that the system is the way it is because laws have favored corporations instead of people. Even now, years later, although I create my own schedule, the muscle memory of being unable to rest for a moment, to take a break, to breathe, to step back and think, has my first instinct being to keep working, keep going, keep moving even when it’s not productive or when the world outside has moments to offer more important than whatever project I’m working on.
And if the requirement of long working hours without enough staff isn’t bad enough, software designers have created some dystopian as hell products to further micromanage employees. Productivity software and worker surveillance equipment are tools meant to be used to force already exhausted employees to push themselves to the brink of burnout, maybe even past, in order to achieve the unrealistic expectations set by company shareholders and managers who will never be expected to work under such heinous conditions. Legislators in the US have been funded heavily by corporations and as a result, tend to pass laws that favors corporate entities rather than forcing employers to pay employees a living wage or make employee health, safety, and well-being a priority. Companies are allowed to overwork and underpay their staff in the guise of at-will employment laws. Workers are breaking under the weight of laws that don’t benefit them and those in power push the myth that success will come to those who grind harder, and that magical bootstraps of determination will pull us all up the corporate ladder into a lifestyle of solvency and comfort, if we just put in more effort and give our jobs everything we have and then some.
Every decade, working conditions degrade further down the rabbit hole full of spiders and jagged rocks. Politicians often like to push the narrative that we’re living the theoretical dream of a completely free-market economy and that the whole system is designed to stimulate competition and keep the prices on goods and services low. Nah, the system has been designed to keep people compliant and too tired and broke to fight.
Laws need changing so people can have time to do more than work, sleep a couple hours, rinse, and repeat. We should all be able to live, rather than hanging on for dear life to make it to the next few vacation days, or worse, hanging on for dear life just to make rent. Laws need changing so employers can’t treat people like expendable commodities. In the meantime, may we all find ways to slow the productivity and to strip the grease from the gears of the machine that eats us while it feeds us.
I have a super short horror story entitled Dinner for my Sisters in the new anthology Flash of the Dead: Requiem. My story begins as evening descends on Meadow Street in Richmond, Virginia.
If you’re looking for some chilling, super short stories, you can read Dinner for my Sisters, along with several other terrifying tales, in Wicked Shadows Press’ anthology, Flash of the Dead: Requiem.
Purchase Links:
The Magic of Us – a Moms Who Write poetry anthology, is now available!
The Magic of Us is the fourth book in the Of Us series. I am excited to have two poems, (The Highway and Steel Meets the Rushing River), in this anthology full of beautiful, heartbreaking, uplifting, and magical poems.
Available at- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNXTKZB9
Using our poetry to make an impact:
The Moms Who Write group will be donating 100% of the book proceeds to support families impacted by the Maui fires.
“Founded in 2016 by a group of doulas, midwives, and other passionate birth advocates, The Pacific Birth Collective is an organization devoted to educating and advocating for birth and wellness choices across the Hawaiian islands. They support those in the island community through pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. Right now, PBC is run entirely by volunteers, though they are in the process of becoming a non-profit.” PBC has done a great deal of relief work for those impacted by the Maui fires, and Moms Who Write wants to support them in that effort. When you purchase The Magic of Us, 100% of the book proceeds go to the PBC’s Maui fire relief work. If you would like to make a larger donation, you can find the information on how to do so HERE.
Handful of Fireflies
My father was a prison guard
He could have been cruel to the people
who lived inside rooms/tombs of concrete and steel
He could have used weapons to gain compliance, needlessly
and society wouldn’t have blinked
Nobody would have said a word
But he kept his weapons holstered
and kept his voice kind because
marking time behind iron bars
doesn’t make a person not a person
Fast forward to what he knew already
Undeniable research compiles, burgeoning behind
politicians’ closed doors
The suppressed data shows clearly
that jails don’t always, or even overwhelmingly
house the guilty
There is justice for all who can afford it
especially for those who fit the approved majority demographic
But even when guilt is the reason,
cruelty by those with all the power
is still condoned or ignored
Just a few keep their weapons holstered
and keep their voices kind
and it’s those few I try to remember
in this world where the greed-infested part of humanity
reigns over all that they survey
There are a handful of fireflies in the void
Not enough but enough
to cut through the darkness
This poem, rant, essay, whatever it is, is about how, even though raising a hand or voice or leverage against the defenseless might not have consequences for those in power, there are those who remain a light in the darkness. It’s those fireflies in the night we need to follow and to teach our children to be and become until the sky is smokeless fire and the judges and politicians have no choice but to listen and enforce the laws that protect those who need protecting.
Midnight Snack
After the candles burn out
darkness comes to eat
the softness away
Image Description: a large Jack O’Lantern with slugs crawling in and out of its face.
This macabre short poem was inspired by a previous Halloween’s Jack O’Lantern that got invaded by hungry slugs. I’ve been working on some dystopian and horror short stories and flash fiction lately. The flash fiction is the hardest challenge for me. Trying to create a whole story in a thousand words or less has caused me to fill many pages of my composition notebook with beginnings that have no end because I couldn’t quite figure out how to set the world without going into so much detail. Poetry comes as easy to me as breathing. The whole poem doesn’t magically come out of my head completed, but I often have an image or a story in my mind’s eye, and I work backwards to say what I want to say without describing the message in terms that are too obvious and concrete.
Check out Kate Hill’s Halloween giveaway contest! Books featuring vampires, ghosts, shapeshifters, and other strange and exciting creatures are featured all October long on Kate Hill’s Halloween Page. Bear’s Dream (book 1 in my Haven Forest Resort series) will be featured on October 21, 2023. Check out the link below to for an excerpt of Bear’s Dream and to read about one of my fun fall traditions.
Stop by https://www.hate-hill.com/halloweenpage to enter the giveaway and check out some fabulous books and authors!
Two of my poems (Lipstick and Four Pockets) will be featured in the Not Ghosts, but Spirits volume III anthology! This beautiful anthology was edited by Emily Perkovich and published by Querencia Press.
Not Ghosts, but Spirits v. III includes work by women, queer, trans, and nonbinary folx.
Image description: Image is of the Not Ghosts, but Spirits volume III book cover which features the top of a person’s head. The individual has long magenta hair, pretty false eyelashes, and lovely rainbow eyeshadow.
Purchase Links:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1959118579
Steamy paranormal romance Coyote’s Vow (Stranger Creatures book 4) is on sale for $1.99 USD on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo through October 15, 2023! Each book in the series features a different couple in their fight for a happily-ever-after. Coyote’s Vow is Trevor and Kylie’s story.
Image Description: Image is of Coyote’s Vow book cover featuring a red headed man and a dark-haired woman embracing. They are surrounded by misty woods. There is a reddish-brown coyote at the mouth of the forest.
Blurb:
Kylie Claremont wants answers. She was the victim of a brutal experiment that caused her to develop telekinetic abilities. The position she’s offered as a liaison between Shifters United and the Psy Guild will give her the chance to find the elusive research company that disappeared after experimenting on her and bring them to justice. The only thing standing in her way is an arrogant coyote shifter who is convinced that Kylie is a threat to shifters and shouldn’t be allowed to be a part of Shifters United. She never expected to fall for the gruff, mistrusting man.
Coyote shifter Trevor Ryland will never trust the psy. Still, he knows the time has come to strengthen the tentative alliance between shifters and psy. He fully intends to ignore his attraction to the beautiful psy liaison, but he’d never forgive himself if something happened to her. His plan to protect Kylie from afar is wrecked when they’re forced to work together. She could be his mate but Trevor can’t let that happen. The struggle to deny his need for the one woman with the power to destroy him gets harder every day.
Trevor and Kylie uncover a web of greed and deceit during their search for a travelling research group. They’ll have to work fast and fight hard to stop the CEO’s latest plans or shifters and psy everywhere will suffer.
Excerpt:
Who is she? Trevor tried not to stare at the woman sitting across from Shifters United President Matt Blackwell but damn, she was beautiful. Her long, black hair had a purple, glossy tint. Intricate tattoos wound around her arms and lower legs. He wanted to run his fingers along the ink lines of every single tattoo. Her skin looked so smooth and touchable. Bitable too. Nope. Not appropriate. Not at all. He forced his descending coyote fangs to recede.
Blackwell didn’t introduce Trevor to the mystery woman, though, and that sent his curiosity into caution mode. The purple-haired beauty gave him a wary look before glancing back down at the computer tablet in her hand. Right. Business. Trevor had obviously interrupted a meeting. He’d stopped by Matt Blackwell’s hotel room to drop off a folder full of intel and surveillance photos. He needed to find an excuse to stay and talk to the woman with lovely dark brown eyes.
“Thanks for taking care of the research,” Blackwell gave him a nod. “Set the info on my desk and I’ll take a look before the meeting tonight.”
Trevor walked past the mystery woman and set the folder full of information on the small desk beside the coffee table. He stole another, longer glance at the woman. Her nails were painted indigo blue. His favorite color. The tattoos winding around her arms seemed to be in motion, encircling her in their safety. Weird trick of the light. Had to be. He rubbed his eyes. Blinked. The tattoos went still. The woman smelled amazing, like wildflowers after the rain, but she didn’t smell like a shifter. Didn’t mean she wasn’t one.
Scent blockers made it easy for shifters to mask their unique scent, to a degree. The blockers also did a fairly good job at hiding other smells shifters could detect, like fear, desire, and rage. Even so, Trevor could almost always detect hints of the slightly rancid, faint garbage aroma of the blockers, no matter what brand or what home recipe a person used. Coyote shifters could pick up on smells most other shifters couldn’t.
What is the woman with the willowy tattoos? Was she a threat to Blackwell? Maybe a rabbit shifter? Rabbit shifters were the only animal shifters who carried no animal scent, but their eyes…. Not a specific color, just a look. Plus, they usually liked to flash their double rows of horrifying sharp teeth upon meeting other shifters. Just for a flex. The rabbits could be mean when bothered unnecessarily, but mostly, they were pretty decent. The woman caught him looking again and gave him a little half smile. Her pretty eyes with long, thick lashes were definitely not the strange eyes of a rabbit shifter.
“I’ll see you later, Trevor.” Blackwell gave him a pointed stare.
“You’re alright here?”
“I’m fine. I have Nathan,” Blackwell gestured to his giant assistant and body guard who was seated in a chair in the kitchenette, reading a book.
No code phrases were used, and Trevor didn’t detect any signs of distress from the mountain lion shifter or his bear shifter assistant. Trevor nodded. Apparently, Blackwell had no intention of introducing him to the woman sitting with him. Nathan, grinned at Trevor, like he knew something. Fine, Nathan could keep his secret. But Trevor would get information, one way or another.
A little more about the characters from Coyote’s Vow:
Trevor Ryland was a minor character in Wolf’s Challenge (Stranger Creatures book 1) and in Tiger’s Last Chance (Stranger Creatures book 3). The gruff coyote shifter really needed his own story.
Trevor has a cat named Chessie who likes to leave him gifts of half-eaten mice and birds under his pillow. Kylie has several tattoos. One of her favorites is of a tree with strange red flowers— a reminder of the tree that marked the beginning of a hiking trail in the Blue Ridge Mountains where she used to camp with her parents as a child. Most of Kylie’s tattoos are in color because colors feel like music to her.
Purchase Links:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BZT58GXZ
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/coyotes-vow-christina-lynn-lambert/1143274092?ean=2940185830819
Kobo Books: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/coyote-s-vow
About the Christina Lynn Lambert
Before I had the wild idea to write a book, I worked in a few different fields. I was in sales for a while, and after I finished college, I worked as a case manager. When my children were little, I was a personal trainer and running coach. During the evenings, when I was supposed to be studying for another fitness training certification, I started writing a story. Finally, I gave in and acknowledged that writing is what I’m meant to do. I love creating imperfect but determined characters who find the courage to love and the strength to survive in a world where there are no guarantees. My stories include a fair amount of sarcasm, suspense, steam, and violence. When I’m not writing, I enjoy spending time outside and finding ways to avoid cooking. I live in beautiful Virginia with my husband, two teenagers, a sweet, hairy monster of a dog, and two devious cats.
If you’d like to follow me on social media for my latest book information and excerpts, poems, contest info, book recommendations, and other fun stuff, you can find me at:
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Christina-Lynn-Lambert/e/B01MCYK0K7
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/christina-lynn-lambert
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christinalynnlambert
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15900423.Christina_Lynn_Lambert
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Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/christinalynnlambert
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chris4lamb
WordPress: https://christinalynnlambertwordpress.com
Violet Veins
Violet grows through the
chain link fence that separates
trains from waterfalls
Image description – image is of a chain link fence which has shrubbery, trees, and some small violet flowers growing through the fence.
Fences tell lies about safety. They are built to hide the parts of life beyond a beautiful view that might not fit the aesthetic. Fences softly blunt the truth about how things keep going despite the desire to stop and stay in the moment. The metal walls give the impression that the things beyond are part of some other reality, and we’re either trapped outside or safely inside the place we want to be. The flowers and vines that grow through the links in the fence are the veins that connect the division.
Christina Lynn Lambert 