Author: Melinda Kucsera

Melinda Kucsera writes fantastic short stories, novels, and books when not being kidnapped by dragons or chased by armies of fictional creatures. (Her characters do, on occasion, rescue her.) She leaves the running of her newsletter to a cast of lovable characters who hog her inbox. Enough about her, it’s us you’re really interested in, her cast of characters. Join us every week for a new story at www.mkucsera.com/welcomecharacters. Over 15,000 readers have enjoyed their fight to survive and thrive as they straddle the often blurry line between fiction and reality. Let them take you on an adventure behind and between the scenes. Sign up at www.mkucsera.com/welcomecharacters to experience our weekly shenanigans. Go where no book or newsletter has gone before!
Fantasy, poem, poetry, Sonnet11 Comments

The Despairing Ones

Melinda Kucsera

The Despairing Ones Her thoughts black, bitter-tasting from despair. Darkness had smote her, changing angel kind to demon ranked. Gnarled, wrinkled, her form pared from shadow. Sunken eyes like coal remind of the truth she’s now embraced. This fallen thing, this harridan, this once glorious being who once shined from within, awakens with terrible purpose. Bat winged, scabrous, she drips pestilence from her fingernails. Bent, stuffed into a sack of skin-looking material whose translucence showed nails securing it in place. She’s cowering, because that nightmare woman’s blinded by sight of my angelic soul’s cascading light. ~ ~ ~ There are 12 Despairing Ones and they are the villains … Continue reading The Despairing Ones

Guardians, poem, poetry, Shayari, Sonnet7 Comments

Fright Night – A Daily Post Sonnet

Melinda Kucsera

Fright Night Dead hands claw at earth’s oppression, shove dirt from bodies rotted to bone, levered the remnants of their forgotten spirits up from yawning graves that death delivered. Far this cemetery’s blight, all’s cracked and broken in the world, ’cause balance is broken, life’s wheel is smashed, nature is backed in a corner, cowering at the crisis. ‘Till the Guardians ride, their swords raised high, their helms agleam in fading starlight, their armor bright in lines they stand, face the eye of death they do and vanquish its corpse there at the cemetery gates. To their graves the dead do flow, for the … Continue reading Fright Night – A Daily Post Sonnet

Fantasy, poem, poetry, Sonnet8 Comments

Storm Tamer – One Word Photo Challenge: Winter

Melinda Kucsera

Storm Tamer A snowy road he took cross bridge to isle in the sound. No crunch of snow heard he this deaf traveler, this storm tamer, not while wind-weaving, cloud reading, snowshoeing his way home. For Serensalia he’s bound. He writes ice messages that melt come spring. He’s snow dancing, weather tracking around the mount’n paths. Through gales he leads with daring traders heading north past storms in safety kept by magic shields that hold cold that kills at bay. He channels lightning with piety down paths inked on his skin, yes he’s got skills. He’s your best bet if north your travels tend. With him, you’ll  live to reach your journey’s end. ~ ~ … Continue reading Storm Tamer – One Word Photo Challenge: Winter

poem, poetry, Sonnet

Defining Success

Melinda Kucsera

Defining Success Put the pieces of your soul together. Arrange them until they form a picture. Use that picture, do not let dust gather. Set your reference frame to that picture Frame out your future, then live in that frame. Express the picture of your soul in all you do and say. Our words shore up the frame. Speak your soul’s picture and success will call, so long as you strive to stay within bounds set by that image. Work hard for yourself, In your heart, never let despair resound. Contained in your soul is your perfect self, when  your soul and yourself, united stand, be certain, success … Continue reading Defining Success

Mount Eredren, poem, poetry, Sarn, Shayari, Sonnet6 Comments

If You Leave – A Daily Post Sonnet

Melinda Kucsera

If You Leave If you leave, I’ll follow,  Ran thought as he spread his short arms in a hug. He didn’t say any of this to the father whose knee he sat. His father held him, but didn’t say how this parting hurt him; how he wanted to take his son with him on a journey far to find the woman, who in dreams, haunted him. In her own tragedy, she now stars. His father left; Bear’s button eyes regard Ran from his rucksack and courage they give. Pack on back, he sneaks past sitter, door guard, and Rangers on patrol. He wouldn’t live one day … Continue reading If You Leave – A Daily Post Sonnet

poem, poetry, Sonnet3 Comments

Careful – Kung Fu Fighting Butterflies Ahead!

Melinda Kucsera

Kung Fu Fighting Butterflies They were kung fu fighting, those butterflies, and grappling for a hold. Their wings’re upraised out of the way; their eyes are on the prize. Through first one round and then two, they grazed each other, neither gave ground, so on they fought into the twilight. Lightning bugs zipped by to light the ring while crickets and ants sought the best odds on who’d win by a flyby. They are kung fu fighting, still in the ring and grappling. Neither butterfly has won yet but their bout goes on ’till the birds sing and begin to gad about, then … Continue reading Careful – Kung Fu Fighting Butterflies Ahead!

Fantasy, Mount Eredren, poem, poetry, Sarn, Shayari, Sonnet2 Comments

Talk – A Writing Rehab Prompt Sonnet

Melinda Kucsera

Talk “Talk, tell me why you’re here. Will you just talk? Open that mouth of yours and talk, say some- thing, anything. Don’t just stand there mute, talk to me, spit out words about any thing…” Sarn stayed silent, kept the truth penned in where it couldn’t hurt him, prisoned behind teeth set ‘gainst speech, caging words that want to tear free, expose a secret with eyes and teeth… A secret he’d rather die to protect, a secret life he longed to return to but the Ranger facing him might detect the boy his silence protected, who through it all crouched behind a … Continue reading Talk – A Writing Rehab Prompt Sonnet

dragon, poem, poetry, Shayari, Sonnet16 Comments

Breaking Free

Melinda Kucsera

Breaking Free Now, it needed to break out of its shell. Shatter the prismatic outer layer that attracted the noble fool who fell in lust with its luster. Purveyor of fine gems, he fancied the egg, mistook it for a faberge, but it’s the real thing. A dragon egg laid by an old crook, now sitting on a desk, perched on a steel holder, that’s keeping the rocking egg from tipping over despite its occupant’s attempts to crack its housing. Time had come for escape, it pushed a claw through to grant freedom and dragged it down until it burst forth and into the world, the … Continue reading Breaking Free

poem, poetry, Sonnet77 Comments

To Write and Roam: a Mobile Sonnet for WWWP5K

Melinda Kucsera

To Write and Roam Who uses a pen to notate when with a swipe of a finger, you make letters appear on your touch screen phone? No mere myth this handwriting, this scratching that fetters some writers, keeps them up deciphering their ink marks until night drains into day. I do not indulge in quill sharpening. Nowadays, I can write and walk all day, Or just for six miles but hey, who cares? It’s still walking and I’m still writing–err tapping? Swiping? Tearing my hair? Who dares to text? My creativity flowers on long walks, that’s why I started this poem on my smartphone, so I … Continue reading To Write and Roam: a Mobile Sonnet for WWWP5K

Fantasy, poem, poetry, Shayari, Sonnet2 Comments

Spring Send Off – A One Word Photo Challenge Sonnet

Melinda Kucsera

Spring Send Off Everywhere he looked spring had sprung green, gold and clear running streams no longer ice-choked. Nights still froze his balls off, but leave the wold he would to see Shayari ‘fore he croaked. Nothing tied him here now that his wife had gone. His children grown no longer wanted him around, an inconvenience he’d become. He set off that morn adjusting his brim, to hide the tear tracing his grizzled cheek. He put his home of five decades behind and headed for the last time to that creek which marked the end of home, no time to whine about loss, giving … Continue reading Spring Send Off – A One Word Photo Challenge Sonnet

Guardians, poem, poetry, Shayari, Sonnet6 Comments

Avengers’ Masque – A Stomp Prompt Sonnet

Melinda Kucsera

Avengers’ Masque Her costume, a gown of fine wine, her mask set with pearls clasped to her face by ribbons woven into her tresses for the task of concealing sharp toothed combs. Those ribbons doubled as garrotes to choke betrayer’s throats if she could lure the king’s killers out to the veranda. Did the betrayer see circling near that his doom had turned out? The whisper silk of her dress gave notice of her progress across the ballroom, booze kept all but one, and not her accomplice, from watching the killer, that one guest whose sword belt held not a copy tied for peace, but a Guardian’s blade wanting … Continue reading Avengers’ Masque – A Stomp Prompt Sonnet

Fantasy, poem, poetry, Sarn, Shayari, Sonnet8 Comments

The Scribe – A Prompt Sonnet

Melinda Kucsera

The Scribe: Miren The quill scratches, making marks that record the deeds of Sarn, his beloved brother, who can’t see his worth. That task never bores Miren as he sits writing of his brother by lumir light every night. How many words must spill on journal pages before he finds the spark for an epiphany? Every day his brother fetches food for orphans then works to earn his bed, his bread and his brother’s education so that Miren won’t have to work until he’s dead. Sarn sacrificed freedom to an autocrat. Miren’s still writing, recording the deeds of a life sacrificed in love and need. ~ ~ ~ Mired was feeling left … Continue reading The Scribe – A Prompt Sonnet

poem, poetry, Sonnet27 Comments

A Crown of Sonnets for Your Soul: A Stomp Prompt

Melinda Kucsera

A Crown of Sonnets for Your Soul (All the sonnets from the series in one handy place. You’re welcome.) Soul Walking A woman walks in slow time savoring the images the music paints upon her soul. On the band plays never knowing the joy they bring one young woman’s soul. Drawn to roam the graveyard, barefoot for all time, she keeps the rhythm of her steps in line with the sweet music that makes her soul chime. The lead sings on for their patrons that dine. But don’t see, souls weaving to and fro, ’round the graves. A soul singing but … Continue reading A Crown of Sonnets for Your Soul: A Stomp Prompt

poem, poetry, Sonnet

Souls Praying: Stomp Prompt Sonnet #7

Melinda Kucsera

Souls Praying “He who began the song with that one chord, didn’t sit enthroned. Raising Choruses of peace, so all could be of one accord, he sang, delivering new summonses, Weaving a song of forgiveness: atone now, he spoke to her, the woman who walked in slow time savoring the show. Her bones rest in the graveyard, where the music waked her soul and painted it with images sung by that musician. She kissed his cheek with grave cold lips. ‘Tween her stands no cages to keep her from the salvation she seeks. To Him she goes, to join his … Continue reading Souls Praying: Stomp Prompt Sonnet #7