A View From The Edge

By Stephen Alexander North

Unbinding
when the fetters come off
when you slip free of your chains
when you liberate yourself
from the pain another person can bring
or the dominion of self-hate
that's when you realize
you can fly free
can you feel it
you're a bird, soaring
riding that thermal
and all the earth below
is yours to see

Florida Man Writes!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen Alexander North
• Release date: Jan 30, 2024
• ISBN: 9798223331773

Stephen Alexander North

Stephen A North is the author of the Dead Tide Series, The Drifter Series of books, and a number of short stories.  He is a Florida native, has a BA in English Literature from USF, and is a former Army Reservist.

Book preview

A View From The Edge

Stephen Alexander North

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Stephen Alexander North

Copyright © 2023 by Stephen Alexander North

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

In memory of my friends,

Donna Tinsley, and Red Saunders

and with a thank you

to Wendy Wagner Emmons for your kindness.

Book Description

A View From The Edge

Unbinding

when the fetters come off

when you slip free of your chains

when you liberate yourself

from the pain another person can bring

or the dominion of self-hate

that’s when you realize

you can fly free

can you feel it

you’re a bird, soaring

riding that thermal

and all the earth below

is yours to see

Florida Man Writes!

Contents

Beyond Apocalypse

1.Awake

2.What I left behind

3.Storm Chords

4.Words

5.Serenade

6.In the melody of the keys

7.Toward Eternity

8.Relevant reminiscences

9.When the fog burns away

10.Let me go free forever

11.Twilight

12.The bridge between day and night

13.The shadowland

14.The depiction of light

15.White Knights don’t deserve love

16.A toast to beautiful pain

17.Recedes from me

18.When you’re ready to leave

19.What if

20.Buried

21.You made love ugly

22.Not as dark as the last two

23.Forgive yourself

24.It’s in the words and the sound

25.Reflecting

26.I gave you my all

27.I’d rather sail away

28.These strange trails we walk

29.What was I supposed to do

30.The pretense of choice

31.Tethered

32.When two flaws make a right

33.Detached

34.For Aly’s Haiku/Sernyu Challenge

35.Drinking Entire

36.Old questions never answered

37.If there’s a name for this don’t tell me

38.Fifteen Thirty-Six

39.Something-Nothing

40.Near, but far away

41.Everything Stops

42.A study in contrasts

43.Noon of my life

44.In the wake

45.You, yeah I’m looking at you

46.The moment came and went

47.When my night has come and I should be in bed

48.Most days

49.Fallen leaves

50.Troubled

51.Revenge walks

52.Everlasting

53.Hellish creatures are we

54.What I know and remember

55.The will to believe

56.The Dead Walk

57.Survivor

58.Make me the last

59.With love you decide when

60.Not dead yet

61.Looking back

62.That’s where you’ll find me

63.Three, being the third number

64.In regret I drown

65.Not you

66.The art of love

67.Don’t answer me

68.Startled, but why

69.Lucid Stillness

70.The ditchman’s last drop

71.Strange connection

72.Loosely connected?

73.I hope he wakes up

74.Otherwise engaged

75.Maybe I misheard the word

76.Delightful

77.Saturnine

78.Not everything is golden

79.En réponse à Prinsloo et Bradley

80.No title occurred to me

81.Succinctly

82.You, stir my blood

83.I’m in a pleasant place with cold feet

84.Petal and Leif

85.Desafinado

86.Mas que nada

87.An autumnal eulogy

88.The weight we carry

89.When is enough too much?

90.Crazy she calls me

91.The Recon Diary of Paladin Seth Hendricks

92.The silence between piano keys

93.Passionately, apocalyptically mine

94.Mon roman à clef

95.What words cannot say

96.Come to me

97.(a series of linked haikus for an erotic prompt)

98.Moments that matter

99.Measuring an October day

100.Maybe I have a hangover

101.Regarding an end

102.The emptiness we accrue

103.Is it just something to say?

104.A portal to Ennui

105.When God speaks

106.Mine

107.Imperfectly mine

108.La lumière déclinante

109.Coiled

110.How did I end up here?

111.Oh, capricious breeze

112.The wager

113.The option

114.Indifference

115.We are mysteries of life

116.Reflecting

117.Travelling

118.Don’t forget

119.Down here

120.Full

121.Unentitled

122.Set me free

123.You don’t vote for kings

Beyond Apocalypse

Acknowledgements

Also By Stephen Alexander North - Beyond Apocalypse

About the Author - Stephen Alexander North

Beyond Apocalypse

If you enjoy apocalyptic horror, thrillers, and science fiction tales, you will love Stephen Alexander North’s prose fiction. Join his Beyond Apocalypse Newsletter to get the latest news, updates on book releases, free stuff, and more.

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Awake

For ages, the darkness surrounded me

and I slept, and it didn’t bother me

was it death, maybe

at the center, I was somewhere else

it feels like I ceased to be

the best sleep is always that way

an oblivion of all I was

and maybe this is a dream

a spell of unbinding

yet I have the sense

that nothing about me is new

this I, me

was buried deep

and now I’m awake

on a dais in a dark chamber

the only light is subdued

and comes from a hole

in the ceiling of dirt and tangled roots

am I beneath a forest

or a colossal tree

I see my pale hands

fingers

the thick wrists

immense arms

and I realize

taking in all of me

in that dimness

is bulky

so, when I decide

to move

I do it carefully

there is room to stand

and in the corners

of this space

are stacked barrels

and casks

and on the walls

shelves with dusty cans

a forgotten trove of food

and drink for me

when I woke

I’m not hungry

and I feel okay

while I look around

and find a door

that opens reluctantly

when I pull it open

and there revealed

a ruined flight of stairs

overgrown with weeds, vines

but a short distance away

a sunlit glade

ringed with trees

and I heard birds

as I emerged

from this tomb

and walk through tall grass

and somewhere close

something rustles in the undergrowth

beside a path that winds down

into a valley where there’s a river

and I look back once

remembering the roots

but the tree by the stairs

has fallen and is slowing rotting

crumbling, remarkable still

in outline, but hollow inside

hallowed

whichever one it is

feels familiar to me

(completed on this fourteenth day of July, 2023)

What I left behind

I didn’t think I had anything left to say

it’s a strange feeling

to be at peace

to have arrived

at a level place

to simply be alive

awake to possibilities

to accept the inevitability

of death, or the reality

of what might be

versus what I wish

could be

my world doesn’t extend

beyond my self

these thoughts emerge

slowly

and I know

we’re all part

of a dance

all of us strangers

so many faces

following different paths

listening to our own songs

a river of humanity

not so different from

the voices of insects

singing in the gathering gloom

sad, happy, indifferent

if you take it collectively

its beauty mirrors eternity

and it’s really one song

(completed while listening to Jeff Pearce’s ‘What Summer Leaves Behind’ on a Monday afternoon, the twenty-fourth day of July, 2023)

Storm Chords

The sound of rain

on the roof

a joyful smile seen

on her face

that day

she was with