Artwork © Robert Fleming

 

Borrowed Blood
Haibun

The artist wandered the Polish wilderness. His art was born from borrowed blood. He followed hunters, men who saw him as an oddity, a specter haunting their trails. In the crisp air of the Eastern Carpathians, he traced the paths of their kills, the blood of deer, boar, and sometimes wolves, guiding him to his canvases. Today, he trailed a pair of hunters, their rough laughter carried on the wind. He moved silently, eyes sharp, until he found the fresh blood trail of their latest quarry. He crouched beside it, dipping his brush into the crimson smears. His canvas, a piece of white linen stretched over a frame, leaned against a tree. With deliberate strokes, the artist painted the scene of the hunt—The blood added a raw, visceral quality to his work, a macabre beauty that ink or paint could never capture. His hands moved with an urgency, a reverence, as if each stroke was a prayer. The forest was his cathedral, and the blood, immortalized in shades of red and brown, was his faith. Completed—he leaves the canvas at the base of the of the tree. The hunters would find it come morning, as they always did, and wonder at the ghost who followed them. They never knew his name.

Murders of crows watch
Satisfied with the outcome

 

Rick Christiansen is a former corporate executive, stand-up comedian, actor, stage director, editor and current workshop teacher.. His new book Bone Fragments came out from Spartan Press in January. It can be purchased on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and hundreds of other platforms. He has been recently nominated for a Touchstone Award. He is a member of The Writer’s Place and a member of The St. Louis Writers Guild. He and his wife Kim recently adopted a new puppy.

Robert Fleming is a gay-man, word-artist, and scientist born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada who emigrated to Lewes, Delaware, United States. Robert follows his mother as a visual artist and his grandfather as a poet. In 1986 he published the second psychological research study on gay men’s response to AIDS in United States. Then, in the 1990s he was a contributing member of the District of Columbia’s Triangle Artist group. Now Robert is a founding member and contributing editor of Devil’s Party Press’ Old Scratch Press.