Haunted MTL Original – Wherever You Go, There You Are – Kelli Allen
“Wherever You Go, There You Are” by Kelli Allen
Wherever you go, there you are
-“Where I lay my head is home.” –L. Ulrich and J. Hetfield
He allowed the slick glass bottle to slip inside, felt the gin burn his tongue, and swallowed.
“Such a good boy,” she cooed.
C licked an arch blooming sweat under his nose, “What’s happening?”
The creature coiled inward against the pillow of her spine. Miss G silently gave the quieting mass within her a small blessing, a meant purr pushing past her lips through the final six syllables.
“Ssshhhh,” she exhaled. “Take another pull, C. Just like that.”
He tried to memorize the fire blooming his throat raw—keep track of how long it took to lick his lips clean around.
Miss G walked two long fingers from his nipple to the steer-head brass buckle posting guard above a zipper that strained, teeth nearly leaving an imprint in the salty air.
“We don’t wait long and this night has been long enough, too long. It’s time to begin.” She hummed as nail tips skirted cotton.
A third set of eyes began to blink in the wet dark. Their lashes extended outward to tickle Miss G’s lungs, retracted again, and the unwinding started slow.
“I have known you through every life I have lived,” Miss G said, her mouth moving fast, her hand paused beneath the belt now undone.
C caught her wrist in his own warm palm and felt the room open wide. He watched her tongue dart around her teeth. He heard the other sounds past his breathing, past her words. He heard the first crashing waves against his skimmer when he was a boy. He tasted brine and ash and raw meat.
Miss G focused her expression, twisted the thin wrist free, and spit brackish foam in a thin line into the space between her own open jaw and C’s memory-dazed face. The slick formed first a bridge, and then a roping necklace connecting her neck to his.
***
Through any much distance, they looked like drunk lovers, arms guarding the other’s waist, heads tilted close with temples touching as they stumbled in an uneven pace from the dune’s peak and down toward the darkening water.
From far away, anyone might guess that Miss G was suddenly overcome with lust, with urgent need to be held, pressed rough into the millions of crushed shells under their feet. She slipped C’s encircling arm and pulled him with her into the kelp dotting the cool evening sand. From a passing glance, they were locked in a kiss, tongues certainly hard at work in convincing the bodies to go further, take more.
Miss G’s skin lay in a deflated mound near the shore’s crocked edge.
The creature eases the soft spiral into its new home. First, lowering its tail into C’s expanding throat, it unwinds down past the pliable chest to fill C’s belly, two pincers extending toward the round ball joints of his shoulder. A nice fit, a comfortable fit.
Soon, the tide will lap its long tongue over this shell, this beast with too many hearts.
Kelli Allen’s work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the US and internationally. She has served as Poetry Editor for The Lindenwood Review and she directs River Styx’s Hungry Young Poets Series. She is currently a visiting professor of English Literature at Northeast Normal University in Changchun, China. She is the recipient of the 2018 Magpie Award for Poetry. Her chapbook, Some Animals, won the 2016 Etchings Press Prize. Her chapbook, How We Disappear, won the 2016 Damfino Press award. Her full-length poetry collection, Otherwise, Soft White Ash, arrived from John Gosslee Books (2012) and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Her collection, Imagine Not Drowning, was released by C&R Press in January 2017. Allen’s new collection, Banjo’s Inside Coyote, arrived from C&R Press March, 2019. www.kelli-allen.com
Continuing our AI journey from last time exploring Little Red Riding Hood herself as the Big Bad Wolf… All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva.
How very… Phantom of the Opera predatory… this is definitely not what I had in mind. Maybe something more cutesy?
Ugh. Maybe not.
Wow, that seems like such a cop out, cropping off the head so you don’t have to depict it. And I don’t want to lose the Little Red Riding Hood reference completely.
So no surprise there, I knew that was too many references to work.
And we continued to devolve, join us again next week for the final installment to see how this ended… And again, if you want to catch the last AI art journey, you can find it on Haunted MTL here. To see more such devolutions into AI generated art, check out the Will the Real Jennifer Weigel Please Stand Up? blog.
And as promised in Big Bad Poetry, we shall embark on our next AI journey, this time looking at Little Red Riding Hood. I had wanted to depict her as the Big Bad Wolf one and the same, although maybe not so big nor bad. But it just wasn’t happening quite as planned. All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva.
So I actually like this even better than my original vision, it is playful and even a bit serene (especially given the Sinister style). The wolf is just being a wolf. It’s quite lovely, really. But it wasn’t what I had in mind, so I revisited the idea later to see if I could get that result…
Well, that’s not quite right…
Yeah more of the same…
And as you can see this is starting to devolve quickly. Join us again next week to see how this continued to develop… And if you want to catch the last AI art journey, you can find it on Haunted MTL here. To see more such devolutions into AI generated art, check out the Will the Real Jennifer Weigel Please Stand Up? blog.
So considering my recent revival of a wolfwere and his Lucky Days and Nightmarish Nature’s hostile humanity, it seems we are due for a visit from Little Red Riding Hood, or perhaps even Big Bad himself… Here’s a poem on the subject by Jennifer Weigel.
Over the river and through the wood
flashed the fleet-footed Red Riding Hood
on her way to her “grandmother’s” house.
When running past, who should she see
but just one of the little pigs three
cowering like but a tiny mouse.
“But my dear piggy, what do you fear?”
Red Riding Hood asked as she slunk near,
teeth hidden under a sheepish smile.
The nervous small pig looked up in fright
and decided that Red was alright,
missing the subtle clues by a mile.
“The Big Bad Wolf, that horrible beast
upon the other wee pigs did feast!”
the last little pig said with a squeal.
Red Riding Hood laughed with a great growl
and threw back her heavy long-robed cowl,
in a vast terrifying reveal.
For she was really the wolf Big Bad
hidden beneath the cape that he had
stolen from Red Riding Hood at point.
“And now I’ve caught you too my pretty
and surely t’wouldn’t be a pity
if I gobbled you up in this joint.”
T’was then the wee pig leapt to his feet
And cried, “Big Bad Wolf, I shall defeat,
for I am no ordinary swine!”
The little pig also wore sheep’s clothes
spun in spells every woodland witch knows;
Old Granny herself was quite divine.
“Now give me back my granddaughter’s cape,
before I grab you by your ruffed nape
and send you pig-squealing down the road…”
The wolf dropped the cape and ran, that cur,
but Granny was swifter and hexed his fur
and the wolf she turned into a toad.
Thus the moral of this story goes,
when in the woods, no one really knows
what sheepish sheep’s clothing is a ruse
that big bad wolves and old witches use.
So this is actually an intro to my next AI art journey with NightCafe which developed from me not getting the results I wanted (Little Red Riding Hood herself as a wolf). Here’s a preview with Eric’s versions as he is much more literal in his prompting than I am, but where’s the fun in that? 😉
Prompts (from left to right) in Dark Fantasy style, executed Aug. 1, 2023:
Bipedal wolf in Red Riding Hood’s cloak
Bipedal wolf in Red Riding Hood’s cloak close up portrait
Bipedal wolf in red cloak close up portrait
Feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or on her writing, fine art, and conceptual projects websites.
