Happy Tolkien Reading Day!

Tolkien Reading Day takes place annually on March 25th, the anniversary of the destruction of the One Ring and the Fall of Sauron. In celebration of this momentous literary occasion, here’s an expanded update of my previous Tolkien music playlist “Hobbit Day 2021”. This takes us through the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and

The Rotting Horse on the Deadly Ground

As my fifty-first birthday approaches I’ve been waxing nostalgic and so, at the suggestion of my sister, have laboured long and hard putting together a retrospective metal playlist to serve as a soundtrack for the coming celebrations. I wanted it to sort of tell the story of how I became a headbanger thirty-six years ago

Though here we stand/In darkest night

I dreamt earlier this morning that I was writing these lyrics to music, to be sung by a choir. Though it was a simple tune, I couldn’t remember it upon waking, but I started jotting down as many of the words as I could recall as soon as I woke up, and I think I

Best Laid Schemes

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ MenGang aft agley ~Robert Burns, “To a Mouse” Once there was a mouseWho had the rule of the house‘Til the house’s owner got a cat,And that was the end of that. And so the mouse hid in his holeAnd didn’t see another soulFor almost twenty daysAs he studied

The Crimes of the Nation Are Your Crimes, Too

The crimes of the nation are your crimes, too The sins of the fathers they hand down to you The blood that you wash from your hands leaves a stain As large and as lasting as all that you gain From wrongs that continue to this very day And you’re guilty as hell for still

Happy Tolkien Reading Day!

This post contains spoilers for both the book and film versions of The Lord of the Rings. March 25th is Tolkien Reading Day, because that’s the day J. R. R. Tolkien gave for the climactic event of his epic fantasy novel, The Lord of the Rings, when the One Ring went into the fire and the

Fear the Fearless

Those who rule through fear, fear the fearless Who, broken on wheels that break bones, but will never break vows Sing out the song that is a battle cry Resounding to the furthest reaches Of the human imagination, we soar On wings woven for us by some Reckless Daedalus out of a tapestry of dreams.

Snow Angel

pale as death she laybut with the apple’sblush upon her cheeks clad in silver samitelike her eyes thatmirrored snowy skies her long red hairfanned out about her facea fiery halo the bell sleeves of her lithe and outspread armsforming angel wings © 2022 by Strider Lee

Beneath the Voiceless Trees, Part II

This seems hardly worth an entry but when I posted my unfinished poem Beneath the Voiceless Trees I didn’t recall that a few years after I’d written it I’d actually added five more verses. As often happens, I came across them the other day quite by accident, while searching for something else. Of course, the

Wishing Well: An Original Fairy Tale

Today is National Tell a Fairy Tale Day, and I’ll be celebrating it by tweeting about some of my favourite fairy tales, but I also can’t resist this opportunity to share one of my own original fairy tales with you, Beloved Reader, so here’s one I wrote several years ago with the intention of self-publishing