Jamieson Wolf
Aurora Award Nominated Author
The Reality of Dreaming – A Poem
For as long
as I’ve known
you, I’ve felt
like I was living
inside a dream.
As if everything
that I had with
you was too
good to be
true. I was
holding on to
the dream, living
within it, enjoying
every moment that
I had with
you. Part of
me thought that
it was doomed
to end as
no one could
be this happy,
this content, this
enraptured, this joyous
for very long.
Though as time
passed and the
days turned into
weeks, then into
months and now
years, I let
go of the
idea that this
dream would fade
as all dreams
do. It still
felt as if
I was living
inside of a
dream and I
knew that I
didn’t want to
wake up, that
I couldn’t live
my life without
you and the
light that you
bring to it.
I began to
believe that we
would spend our
lives together, that
what we had
transcended the idea
of love and
mad it into
a reality. Then
the unthinkable happened.
“You know,”
You said.
“We’ve been talking about having a commitment ceremony. We’re doing everything but getting married. So why don’t we just get married?”
There must have
been a disconnect
in my brain.
All I could
hear were the
sounds of glitter
joy and stardust
as they sped
through my head.
“What?”
I couldn’t get
the words out,
didn’t know what
to say, words
had left me.
“Will you marry me?”
Instead of answering
you right away,
as the words
were still trying
to find their
way back into
my consciousness, I
did the only
thing I could
think of. I
kissed you. Inside
of that kiss
were the words
that I couldn’t
find, the emotions
that you stirred
in me, thankfulness
for you that
illuminated me ever
day, the joy
I have of
being loved by
you. When I
broke the kiss,
there were tears
in my eyes
and you said
“So is that a yes?”
I looked you
in the eyes
and said “Yes.”
I realized then
that I wasn’t
dreaming, that this
was glorious reality
and my dreams
had become real.
You have given
me a reality
that was better
than any dream.
Taking Flight – A Poem
When the darkness clears,
I am flying through the sky.
Though I know I am asleep,
I am more awake inside the dream.
Underneath me I can feel muscles
moving up and down with the wind.
I can hear the flap of wings
and see the flash of purple scales,
shining like jewels in the moonlight.
There are sparks coming off of
the scales and they float through
the darkness like stars.
I feel the dragon begin its decent
and wonder where it has taken me.
It sets down on the grass softly
and I slide off of its back.
I look around me and, through the shadows,
I see the home that I lived in as a child.
Its curtains are closed and there
is no one home, but there is a light on inside,
as if the house was expecting me.
The dragon urges me forward,
pushing open the front door with its tail.
I slip inside quietly, afraid to see what
lies in wait within the darkness.
I can hear the sounds from the memories
that are encased within the walls,
the torment that these walls encased,
hidden from the world outside.
I take a step into the house and a breeze
follows me inside, bringing purple stars
upon it. As I look at the stars,
they fall in a path leading upwards,
footsteps appearing on the wood
as if I had already walked this path before.
I slip up the stairs, careful to step
on each footstep. Each time I do,
the sound of bells rings through the air.
The footsteps lead to my old bedroom
and the door is already ajar.
I stand in front of it and place my hand
upon the wooden surface.
I see myself as a young child and wonder
where that boy went. I feel an answering
beat inside myself and know that
I carry him within me.
Inside, the room is much as I had left it
And I head to the closet to see
If my box of treasures is still there.
The box begins to vibrate and hum softly
When it feels my gaze upon it.
I approach the box with trepidation and
anxious anticipation. I open the box,
its wood worn smooth after so long,
and look inside. Lying nestled at the bottom
of the box, on a bed of purple felt,
is a pencil. It’s yellow and has a pink eraser.
My name is written upon one of its sides.
I remember this pencil. I wrote my first story
with this pencil, wielding it like a sword on the page.
I pick it up and it starts to shine when it
comes into contact with my skin.
Purple light, so reminiscent of those stars,
begins to shine out from it and I can see
words floating through the air, words that
it had written. Soon, my bedroom is filed
with the words of all the stories I wrote here,
the stories and the words were my escape,
my safety, my refuge, my salvation.
I hear the roar of the dragon outside
and run to join him, the pencil still
spilling out words and light.
Now it’s letting loose words from stories
that came after, novels and sonnets,
poems and stories, poems and prose,
so many words and each one a joy.
Outside, the words begin to float up
into the air. The dragon gives another roar
and lets out a stream of purple fire.
I run to it, clutching the pencil
in my hands. The dragon lowers his head
so that I can climb aboard and then
he takes flight. We fly up into all of
the words I have written, every syllable,
every letter. They are like clouds in the sky,
like smoke upon the water.
As we fly further, away from what I used to be
and towards what will be, I see more words
shining in the distance. These are gold in colour
and I know that they are words that
I have yet to write for my story is
far from done. I urge the dragon onward
and when we enter the glowing cloud of words
it is like entering the sun. The dragon
give one final roar and when I wake,
there is a pencil clutched in my hand,
glowing softly and pulsing with
soft light.
Covenant by Michelle St. James – A Book Review
Charlotte Duval is at a loss for what to do.
Her father has passed away and she is stuck with the task of what to do: close his antiques shop, the Galerie Duval in Paris or move on and go back to Los Angeles, where her own job at the Getty museum waits for her.
Does she close the shop, the one reminder of her father’s legacy and the only place she ever felt a connection to her father? Or does she return to LA where her job and her mother await her? The choice should be clear, but closing the shop would be like letting go of her father forever.
While working on repairing a desk for Christophe Marchand, one of the shops best clients, Charlotte discovers a ring embedded in one of the drawers of the desk. On the inside of the band, the phrase The fates lead the willing is inscribed in Latin.
When she drops off the desk at Marchand’s, she isn’t prepared for her reaction to him. Her heart races and she finds herself imaging what he would look like undressed. The air rushes out of her lungs in wanting. She is slightly unnerved, though, by the gentlemen guarding his home. They are carrying guns. What kind of man needs men who have guns to protects him?
That man is Christophe Marchand. Head of the Paris mob, he’s not a man to be trifled with. He rules the Paris mob with an iron fist. But he is far more than a mobster. He is a collector of memories. After his father squandered the Marchand fortune and sold off pieces of furniture to pay bills after Christophe’s mother died. Pieces that Christophe remembered form his childhood.
Christophe has painstakingly put the house back together, piece by piece. The house makes him remember his mother most of all. Christophe hadn’t realized how much his mother held the family together, his brother, his father and himself, until she was gone.
For his part, Christophe is not prepared for his reaction to Charlotte. It is almost primal
When men break into the galerie and threaten Charlotte, demanding the ring, one of them holds a knife and Charlotte knows real fear. The men give her one day to hand over the ring. The thought of them coming back and potentially doing more harm to her and her fathers shop fills her with even more fear.
She turns to the only person she thinks can help her: Christophe Marchand…
There is so much to love about Coveted. Michelle St. James always manages to fill the pages with a story that moves me, that strikes a match and sets the world she creates aflame. However, she went one step above with Coveted. Words can’t express how much I love this book.
Christophe isn’t your average mob guy. He’s a man with so much heart but he keeps it hidden behind a hard wall, afraid to let anyone in. The fact that she gives us such a deep look into his psyche and personality deepens his connection with us. He’s so afraid to let anyone in that when Charlotte lights his match, he tries to forget her, tries not to think about her, but the heart wants what it wants. St. James paints this struggle so well that, by the time they come together, I found myself cheering for him.
We’re also given a deep look into Charlotte’s life. Living in L. A. in a job she likes, dealing with her washed up actress of a mother, St. James shows us a woman on the edge, wanting change, wanting adventure. Unsure of what she wants, heartbroken after the death of her father, Charlotte knows she just wants more.
They find solace in each other and watching them come together was a joyous experience. I was struck by the depth of these two characters. The secondary characters also sparkled and lit up the pages, but this is Christophe and Charlotte’s story, make no mistake.
I love how Michelle St. James tells the story of two people who don’t know that they’re lost until they find the other half of their hearts in the most unlikely of ways. I always say that this is the best book Michelle has written and it’s no different this time around. Michelle has given us a story of two people who are so entwined in their lives that they almost don’t recognize salvation when it happens.
Covenant was such an emotional journey that it left me wanting more! It had heart, humour and was hot enough to set the pages afire. I can’t wait until Revenant is released in October to find out how the story continues!
The Raven’s Lament – Flash Fiction
Oliver hated waiting.
He was a creature of the instantaneous. He wanted gratification now, for it was his to take and he had taken so much of it over the years. Oliver tapped his fingers impatiently on the table and tried to calm himself.
He found that being kept waiting was one of the most insufferable things that human beings did to one another. When did the common niceties fall by the wayside? To pass the time, he looked at himself in the mirror at the back of the room. He knew it was a two-way mirror and that he was being watched by doctors from behind it, but he paid them no mind.
He had a thin face with a skin that was almost translucent. Dark hair that flared out from a widows peak and flowed down to his shoulders in a riot of curls. Thick, supple lips that could smile easily and ice blue eyes that never did.
His looks drew people in. Women or men, it didn’t matter to him who he maimed. They always came to him. It just proved an important point to Oliver’s mind: people put too much emphasis on looks and didn’t bother to find out what made a person tick.
Thankfully, he was driven to find out what made people function. He had come to the conclusion that blood ruled over everything else, even the heart and the mind. Oliver had studied many of those, too in his time. His work was never dull.
The doors hissed open and there was a woman standing there. Oliver had to keep his temper in check. He would leap across the table at her if he wasn’t chained to the floor. Her blond hair looked luminous and perfect, not a hair out of place. Her own blue eyes were filled with the light that his lacked. Her skin was still the same shade of soft pink that had always enthralled him. The flush of her skin meant that her blood ran close to the surface. He had had to experiment on her to see just how closely it ran. Blood ruled all.
When she spoke, her voice was soft: “How are you, Oliver?”
He smiled and she saw her flinch. Good. “I’m doing wonderfully, Lenore. How kind of you to pay me a visit. I do so miss the kindness of human company.”
She let a grimace slash across her face for a second before the bland smile was back. Making her way toward the table, Oliver saw that she carried an insulated container used for carrying food. Lenore placed it on the table and sat primly across from him, her hands in her lap.
“I see you still have a stick up your ass, Lenore. I thought my lessons would have loosened you up a little.”
The frown was back and her skin paled. “I understand why you’re upset Oliver. But you should be happy. The doctors have judged you unfit to stand trial.”
A laugh escaped his lips. “You’re my wife.” His words were venomous. “Do you think I can forgive you for this?”
“It had to stop you, Oliver. I couldn’t let you continue, especially when you started teaching me…lessons.”
“I would have thought the letting of blood would have taught you something. You were supposed to have learned. I see now that I didn’t teach you enough.”
Lenore’s hands twitched in her lap. Looking at her, he saw that her eyes were glassy with tears unshed. The sight of her crumbling composure brought him joy. “Do you feel no remorse, Oliver? Do you not lament what you did, the lives you ruined?”
Another laugh, louder this time, slipped free. It was a gleeful sound which made Lenore flinch. “I’m an artist. I don’t expect you to understand my art and my canvasses. You always were particularly uncultured when it came to the finer things in life.”
“Human beings aren’t canvasses, Oliver. And torturing people isn’t art.”
“The meat puppets had lessons to learn. I am their teacher and they became something more than their mundane bodies under my hand. I brought them glory.”
“You carved quotes into their flesh!” Lenore had begun to lose her composure. “You carved words into my flesh!”
Oliver felt his lips curl into a smile. “And what were the words I bestowed upon you, Lenore?”
She shivered. “Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door! Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”” She took in a breath to compose herself. “You tortured fifty-one people, including me. They were calling you The Raven, for crying out loud. You had a following of other crazy fucks like you.”
“I was close to the end of my masterpiece. So close. My canvass of meat puppets was not complete. I wanted the words of the scribe to be on living flesh, to create a living poem.”
“Oliver, do you hear yourself? Do you? I know the man I married is in there somewhere. When did you become like this? Or was he always there?”
“You betrayed me. I chose to bring you glory and you gave me to the wolves. You still have lessons to learn, wife.”
“No, I don’t Oliver. I don’t.”
She pushed the container towards him. “I brought you something. It’s your favourite.”
He let out a laugh and slid open the zipper. Inside the container was an ice cream cake. It had always been a weakness of his. It was the words written on the cake that made his heart stop. Written in red icing were the words: “Quoth the Raven, Nevermore.”
Sitting in the cake was her wedding band and engagement ring. “The papers were finalized yesterday. I’m no longer your wife.” She whispered these words so that he would have no choice but to pay attention.
Standing, Lenore reached out to run a hand along his cheek, like a brush of feathers against his skin, and then she was gone.
A Map of Stars – A Poem
This poem is for Michael. Thank you for all that you are. 
*
Every action also
creates several possible
reactions, the outcome
of choices that
weren’t made but
still trace a
path against the
stars. Sometimes, it
is as if
I can look
back through the
darkness of my
past and see
what the stars
would have brought
for me if
I had chosen
differently. If, instead
of living the
life I live
now, I had
run instead. When
I first met
you, I was
enraptured, entranced, enthralled;
I was also
terrified. I had
never had anyone
treat me like
you did, with
kindness and compassion,
with understanding and
passion. I did
not know kindness
in my life
from men, had
not known what
it was like
to be completely
accepted and even
cherished by another
man. I wanted
to run so
far away from
you but at
the same time,
there was no
way I could
have. I decided
to face what
frightened me head
on and instead
chose to love
you completely as
you did me.
I was terrified
but my love
for you was
stronger than my
fear. I look
back across the
black sky shining
with stars’ like
diamonds, each star
a mark on
the map that
we have made
together. If I
had run, I
would have missed
every moment that
led up to
the moment when
you first told
me that you
loved me, the
times we have
travelled the world,
the small moments
when I’ve learned
what a real
relationship is like.
I would have
missed the moment
when you asked
me to be
your Husband. I
know that somewhere,
within that map
of stars, there
is another version
of me who
made a different
choice, who ran
instead of staying.
To him, I say
“Look at everything you’ve missed. And everything still to come.”
To you, I say
“I love you.”
Though those words
aren’t ever enough.
Buy Little Yellow Magnet from Amazon and Kobo!
Jamieson Wolf has written a compelling story about navigating multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy. His story will touch your heart, make you cry, then laugh, and inspire you. A touching memoir with a bit of magic…and tarot! ~ Theresa Reed, author of The Tarot Coloring Book
