Rick Marriner
@rickmarriner.com
Photographer, writer, trouble finder. Chasing light, chasing truth. A navigator of oceans and ideas, relentless in pursuit. Endurance in sport, life, and thought … always searching, always seeing.
Pinned
Rick Marriner
@rickmarriner.com
· Sep 28
I write one sentence at a time, for one reader at a time.
They may never know they’re the reader.
It’s broadcast, yes, but aimed like a private beam of thought.
Others overhear, but my hope is in that single line reaching a single soul.
That’s writing for my muse.
#writingcommunity #muse
They may never know they’re the reader.
It’s broadcast, yes, but aimed like a private beam of thought.
Others overhear, but my hope is in that single line reaching a single soul.
That’s writing for my muse.
#writingcommunity #muse
Shen-hsui writes:
The body is the Bodhi Tree;
The mind like a bright mirror standing.
Take care to wipe it all the time,
And allow no dust to cling.
Hui-neng writes then:
There never was a Bodhi Tree,
Nor bright mirror standing.
Fundamentally, not one thing exists,
So where is the dust to cling?
The body is the Bodhi Tree;
The mind like a bright mirror standing.
Take care to wipe it all the time,
And allow no dust to cling.
Hui-neng writes then:
There never was a Bodhi Tree,
Nor bright mirror standing.
Fundamentally, not one thing exists,
So where is the dust to cling?
November 30, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Shen-hsui writes:
The body is the Bodhi Tree;
The mind like a bright mirror standing.
Take care to wipe it all the time,
And allow no dust to cling.
Hui-neng writes then:
There never was a Bodhi Tree,
Nor bright mirror standing.
Fundamentally, not one thing exists,
So where is the dust to cling?
The body is the Bodhi Tree;
The mind like a bright mirror standing.
Take care to wipe it all the time,
And allow no dust to cling.
Hui-neng writes then:
There never was a Bodhi Tree,
Nor bright mirror standing.
Fundamentally, not one thing exists,
So where is the dust to cling?
If language were sufficient, love would be simple and fully explained by sunset. But words fail, and silence too offers no answers. What’s left then is the only proof of it. Love exists only in our actions. It is as it does.
November 28, 2025 at 3:37 PM
If language were sufficient, love would be simple and fully explained by sunset. But words fail, and silence too offers no answers. What’s left then is the only proof of it. Love exists only in our actions. It is as it does.
The revolution won’t be televised. Not now, not ever again, not with AI turning our screens into guessing games. What’s real still waits outside, in the open air. Find me there, in the streets and the public squares where our voices carry.
November 28, 2025 at 3:02 PM
The revolution won’t be televised. Not now, not ever again, not with AI turning our screens into guessing games. What’s real still waits outside, in the open air. Find me there, in the streets and the public squares where our voices carry.
Maybe it’s the Merchant Marine roots, or being called to active duty in the Navy during the war, but drip black coffee from a Folgers tin in a stained second hand mug still feels like the first true taste. Everything after is only a variation on that morning truth.
November 28, 2025 at 2:57 PM
Maybe it’s the Merchant Marine roots, or being called to active duty in the Navy during the war, but drip black coffee from a Folgers tin in a stained second hand mug still feels like the first true taste. Everything after is only a variation on that morning truth.
Class over, they sat on the step. She confessed that #history was a waste; dust and longing. On the new Earth, love was a relic too, archived under “obsolete custom.”
He asked what “𝑏𝒾𝓈𝑜𝓊𝓈” meant.
She smiled, leaned close, and whispered.
He touched his lips, confused by the ache.
#vss365
He asked what “𝑏𝒾𝓈𝑜𝓊𝓈” meant.
She smiled, leaned close, and whispered.
He touched his lips, confused by the ache.
#vss365
November 7, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Ferns tall enough to walk beneath, dew drops falling, cooling her skin, the air thick with loam and morning pulse. They moved where no path existed, feet sinking in soft earth. He whispered something about #geography, but she didn’t hear him. The forest, in silence, stole away all sound.
#vss365
#vss365
November 6, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Ferns tall enough to walk beneath, dew drops falling, cooling her skin, the air thick with loam and morning pulse. They moved where no path existed, feet sinking in soft earth. He whispered something about #geography, but she didn’t hear him. The forest, in silence, stole away all sound.
#vss365
#vss365
The listeners gathered in the agora, the last seated in the dust as quiet descended. #Education drew light from darkness for the few remaining citizens. He said, “Before clocks, time was kenning, the sun, the wind, the hunger.” She learned it daily. The sun taught thirst and darkness mercy.
#vss365
#vss365
November 4, 2025 at 3:02 PM
The listeners gathered in the agora, the last seated in the dust as quiet descended. #Education drew light from darkness for the few remaining citizens. He said, “Before clocks, time was kenning, the sun, the wind, the hunger.” She learned it daily. The sun taught thirst and darkness mercy.
#vss365
#vss365
“What will become of my spirit when I die?”
“I don’t know, you’ve been to sea, you’ve felt the wind in your sails. What becomes of the wind, when the wind dies?”
~ Gene Wolfe -
paraphrased dialog from
“The Knight” Chapter 24
@rereadingwolfe.bsky.social
“I don’t know, you’ve been to sea, you’ve felt the wind in your sails. What becomes of the wind, when the wind dies?”
~ Gene Wolfe -
paraphrased dialog from
“The Knight” Chapter 24
@rereadingwolfe.bsky.social
November 1, 2025 at 3:32 PM
“What will become of my spirit when I die?”
“I don’t know, you’ve been to sea, you’ve felt the wind in your sails. What becomes of the wind, when the wind dies?”
~ Gene Wolfe -
paraphrased dialog from
“The Knight” Chapter 24
@rereadingwolfe.bsky.social
“I don’t know, you’ve been to sea, you’ve felt the wind in your sails. What becomes of the wind, when the wind dies?”
~ Gene Wolfe -
paraphrased dialog from
“The Knight” Chapter 24
@rereadingwolfe.bsky.social
I have shed purpose, meaning and #business, a once distracted man parting with his imaginary friends, each one waving from the boardroom of my mind.
What’s left is quieter: a radiant purposelessness of the now expanding until the idea of success forgets itself amid the morning birdsong.
#vss365
What’s left is quieter: a radiant purposelessness of the now expanding until the idea of success forgets itself amid the morning birdsong.
#vss365
November 1, 2025 at 2:56 PM
A friendly critic (family) said of my work recently: “He writes in the quiet language of return. Restorative, elemental, and unguarded, where tears aren’t tragedy but an ebb tide. His prose doesn’t demand belief; it invites you home.”
#RestorativeWriting
rickmarriner.com/poetry/
#RestorativeWriting
rickmarriner.com/poetry/
POETRY
Language under pressure until it turns radiant. It does not float above the world; it bores into it, cutting to seams prose can’t expose. It is both echo and spark, holding what passes, igniting wh…
rickmarriner.com
October 25, 2025 at 5:58 PM
A friendly critic (family) said of my work recently: “He writes in the quiet language of return. Restorative, elemental, and unguarded, where tears aren’t tragedy but an ebb tide. His prose doesn’t demand belief; it invites you home.”
#RestorativeWriting
rickmarriner.com/poetry/
#RestorativeWriting
rickmarriner.com/poetry/
She’d said she liked him, and that was enough. It felt good to be liked, statistically. His Banshee class drone sped across the lunar sea, rocket fire blooming late. Frustrating, these apt light-speed delays. The math of #terror tactical; still, both light and meaning find their target.
#vss365
#vss365
October 25, 2025 at 2:06 PM
“Through Glass Darkly”
She tuned the nano-lights to flicker like real flame, the ships sensors logged the photons scattering in the thin atmosphere. Across the table, she’d programed his image and it held her gaze; #unseen behind digital eyes. She ate in silence, orbiting the idea of him.
#vss365
She tuned the nano-lights to flicker like real flame, the ships sensors logged the photons scattering in the thin atmosphere. Across the table, she’d programed his image and it held her gaze; #unseen behind digital eyes. She ate in silence, orbiting the idea of him.
#vss365
October 24, 2025 at 3:12 AM
The mission lead’s reflection #hovers in the panel glass, steady as the orbit I plotted. We’d promised not to cross the line between data and desire.
Equations don’t tremble, but my pulse does. We already proved we can stop. Now I want to understand what choosing feels like.
#vss365 #scifi
Equations don’t tremble, but my pulse does. We already proved we can stop. Now I want to understand what choosing feels like.
#vss365 #scifi
October 19, 2025 at 1:40 PM
When I look back, the moments that haunt me aren’t when I was wrong, but when I was harsh instead of tender; when I could have chosen kindness and didn’t.
#reflection #writing
#reflection #writing
October 16, 2025 at 11:39 AM
When I look back, the moments that haunt me aren’t when I was wrong, but when I was harsh instead of tender; when I could have chosen kindness and didn’t.
#reflection #writing
#reflection #writing
MoonSea Log Entry Day 251:
Our automated reef-bots keep the kelp clear as we prep the divers, their lensed eyes shimmer in the dawnlight. 0630: Bridge watch noted, unexpectedly, the bots rising higher, circling the pontoons, blades glinting. Someone joked #piranha, the name has stuck.
#vss365
Our automated reef-bots keep the kelp clear as we prep the divers, their lensed eyes shimmer in the dawnlight. 0630: Bridge watch noted, unexpectedly, the bots rising higher, circling the pontoons, blades glinting. Someone joked #piranha, the name has stuck.
#vss365
October 12, 2025 at 2:15 PM
The stranger stepped from the shuttle, haloed in steam. He bowed low before the dome colony’s lights, unwrapping a relic spun from materials born under Earth’s forgotten sky. When the afternoon later turned to rain, we finally understood, he hadn’t brought a gift. He’d brought a #raincoat.
#vss365
#vss365
October 11, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Who did he think he was? He was an #associate, mid-tier transfer clerk routing freight between Earth, Luna, and Mars. She’d never notice him.
The shuttle hummed; stars drifted like paperwork. He wondered, could a cybo feel loneliness, would she have protocols for the condition?
#vss365 #scifi
The shuttle hummed; stars drifted like paperwork. He wondered, could a cybo feel loneliness, would she have protocols for the condition?
#vss365 #scifi
October 6, 2025 at 11:47 AM
Who did he think he was? He was an #associate, mid-tier transfer clerk routing freight between Earth, Luna, and Mars. She’d never notice him.
The shuttle hummed; stars drifted like paperwork. He wondered, could a cybo feel loneliness, would she have protocols for the condition?
#vss365 #scifi
The shuttle hummed; stars drifted like paperwork. He wondered, could a cybo feel loneliness, would she have protocols for the condition?
#vss365 #scifi
Her words, small gusts against my canvas, teasing out shapes from stillness. Now and then they filled the sails on a broad reach; mostly I rowed through calm, chasing the shimmer where hope forms brackish water with doubt. She’s testing if the sea between us might yet let her drift closer.
#poetry
#poetry
October 5, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Her words, small gusts against my canvas, teasing out shapes from stillness. Now and then they filled the sails on a broad reach; mostly I rowed through calm, chasing the shimmer where hope forms brackish water with doubt. She’s testing if the sea between us might yet let her drift closer.
#poetry
#poetry
The diplomats spoke the vocabularies of neutrality, words bent like plasma in artfully manipulated magnets. No one mentioned the mines under the moon’s surface. When the Admiral smiled the envoy sensed the need to #advert, too late. Courtesy, in space, is often just slower form of ordnance.
#vss365
#vss365
October 5, 2025 at 12:59 PM
The universe doesn’t wait for consciousness to resume each morning after sleep. As far as I can tell, it keeps breathing, humming its soft machinery of light and dark. Our minds surface together, blinking at the same infinity, choosing to notice, to care, to rejoin the world, and to call that hope.
October 4, 2025 at 3:28 PM
The universe doesn’t wait for consciousness to resume each morning after sleep. As far as I can tell, it keeps breathing, humming its soft machinery of light and dark. Our minds surface together, blinking at the same infinity, choosing to notice, to care, to rejoin the world, and to call that hope.
The sound of thunder is a rumor; lightning is what actually speaks, the air screams, expands, collapses and then we hear the echo.
When we say we hear the sound of thunder, we should mean silence; the instant after creation when everything waits to see if it survived.
Thunder, the sound of light.
When we say we hear the sound of thunder, we should mean silence; the instant after creation when everything waits to see if it survived.
Thunder, the sound of light.
October 4, 2025 at 3:13 PM
The sound of thunder is a rumor; lightning is what actually speaks, the air screams, expands, collapses and then we hear the echo.
When we say we hear the sound of thunder, we should mean silence; the instant after creation when everything waits to see if it survived.
Thunder, the sound of light.
When we say we hear the sound of thunder, we should mean silence; the instant after creation when everything waits to see if it survived.
Thunder, the sound of light.
2030: artillery shells still tore steel from the sea, but the CIC AI just laughed: “fire again, 62% chance of narrative symmetry.”
The officer of the deck spat blood, realizing history wasn’t written by victors anymore. It was arranged by algorithms with ironic code.
#vss365
#militaryfiction
The officer of the deck spat blood, realizing history wasn’t written by victors anymore. It was arranged by algorithms with ironic code.
#vss365
#militaryfiction
October 3, 2025 at 1:41 PM
2030: artillery shells still tore steel from the sea, but the CIC AI just laughed: “fire again, 62% chance of narrative symmetry.”
The officer of the deck spat blood, realizing history wasn’t written by victors anymore. It was arranged by algorithms with ironic code.
#vss365
#militaryfiction
The officer of the deck spat blood, realizing history wasn’t written by victors anymore. It was arranged by algorithms with ironic code.
#vss365
#militaryfiction