Poems 4/27 part III: Read

Read
I stare at words
Ticks and scratches with hats and feet
Marching
My eyes dart
Laughing behind, talking,
Whispers, Phone
Ringing, I
Scream,
Tear the pages
Drown
It all out in
Muted rage.

Poems 4/27 part II

It is so easy
to get lost in the foreground
the infinite mesh of a window screen
the links of a chain fence
sometimes you look so hard things
     lose their meaning, no frame
no definition, no perspective
the mind craves the epic
the open, the free and overarching

Poems 4/27 part I: Job

Job
We only wanted
What was best for him
Sometimes you need a little tough love,
Show you the error
Of your ways;
Yet he stood, stubborn
No repentance for that
Which he did not do,
Then God spoke
     brought back his son Job
Denounced us.

Window Exercise 4/27

Foreground: The splash splattered sun against the hazed glass.
The screen a grid of wire, if you move close enough it dissapears.
Paint chipping, mummified insects sleeping in the eternal breeze.
The glass is streaked, layers of windows

Middle-ground: A servery worker wanders to and fro, pacing back and forth.
The grills are out and open and the cooks are joking,
There is a sad routine to it all.
Trees, and island.

Far-ground:
Mountains — a universe of ____, the rest of the world — outside the filmy shell of our bubble.

Fiction Reflection

Much like creative non-fiction, writing fiction has been a transformative, crystallizing experience that served to draw together my scattered experiences in out-of-class writing into a recognizable enjoyment of making stuff up. So, in other words, It showed me that I like to make up stories. The chance to just let loose and see what happened was both terrifying and fascinating (and fun). I like how a fiction work can just go its own way in every dimension, unlike creative non-fiction which must maintain its integrity as a representational work. As I’m sure others have said, and will always say, such leeway is both energizing and paralyzing, especially given my personal tendency to feel overwhelmed by any number of choices or options. However, once I imposed a structure (especially in class writing games, or at least the first one when we did the café scene) and was given a shock (in the form of a prompt etc…) my ideas were able to charge ahead fearlessly into the unknown (sort of). Then, of course, I hit another wall upon realizing that the thing had to become a whole coherent story and the block came back. Also, I had lots of trouble trying to get excited about the story, and care enough about the characters to find out who they are etc… But persistence, and emphasis on interactive, verbal planning, as well as just generally self-confidence boosting meetings with BG helped me get over the last hump, to get things out of a jumble and more into the narrative as it wants to be shown. So, I really love the creative, free side of fiction–without this essential ingredient I wouldn’t have enjoyed creative non-fiction nearly as much. But at the same time it can easily be overwhelming, though by writing many “chunks” and then stitching them together the monumental task is made much more manageable, provided the chunks can actually be successfully integrated (see the refuse).

Oh, and I really enjoyed flash fiction. Being able to just zoom alllllll the way in can be really fun, and can make the story take on a cool surreal quality that I really like. (The bit in my short story about the earring getting hot in his ear, or the final scene are both mini-encapsulated flash fictions).

The Earring (v3 95% done)

Who could she be? Hal pictured her clearly as he played with the earring’s dangling silver shards; he saw her walking into his cafe with a look of conscious poise that only barely betrayed her distress. He was hypnotized by the swirl of her solitary earring. He cursed as the double soy latte he was preparing overflowed. He wanted nothing more in the world at this moment than to find this mystery woman—the one whose earring he held. Hal knew the customers didn’t understand; to them, the earring was nothing more than a feeble swipe at society dangling from his ear. He relished their discomfort; he hesitated before handing back their change, watching as they inevitably looked again, they couldn’t help it. He flashed a corporate smile and they ran, caffeine in hand. The morning rush was over and Hal leaned against the back counter, sinking into his elbows. He let himself unmoor

She looked everywhere. The office, the car, the lobby. She asked her secretary, she asked her officemates. She called home and asked her dog on the answering machine. It was nowhere to be found. She felt the odd looks as she briskly moved along the sidewalk against the lunch-hour rush, but she could not be fazed. The looks continued as she surged into the cafe, filled with frustration and the desperate hope that this place was The place; it didn’t help that she wore only one earring, its silver petals sprinkling the morning rays across her neck. What does it mean to be good enough? To make people proud. To rise above ones circumstance; A good poker player can win with any hand of cards—they don’t even have to look. Why was she in law school? It paid well, sure, or it would—eventually. Wouldn’t it be incredible to see her name in lights… ”Young Upstart Litigator Upsets Dominant Paradigm, Successfully Drafts 167th Legal Brief!“ Her headache was back; it was only 12:15. She stared absently down at her salad. She hated salad. Her feet were finally returning to their natural shape, the torturous pumps sat innocently under her chair. She stared at the leaves, and her fingers wandered to her left ear and twirled the air. Then she noticed her earring wasn’t there. She was sure she had worn it, she remembered putting it on, checking herself in the mirror during the morning traffic. Her stomach sank further, removing any notion of food from her mind. It had been taken from her. Even her appetite was gone; she felt violated. She wedged back into her heels and rose to leave. Her feet took her through town, past the bus stops, through back alleys, across bridges. She walked for what seemed like hours, maybe days. At last she stopped; she stood in front of a small coffee shop.

Then Hal was not alone. The mists of his daydream receded; he brought the world back into focus just as the door swung open, and a hot summer wind swirled the newspapers up off the tables, filling Hal’s mouth with the acrid taste of raw emotion. Hal was nondescript. He embodied it, he looked and lived it, but worst of all he felt it. Mediocre. Average. A number. A statistic. He could taste it—it was a bad taste—it lived in his lungs, in his heart. He had tried once to drink it away, but that only changed his category; piled on one more cliche. Sometimes, Hal made himself sick. He lived alone, and Hal was lonely but didn’t know it. He had a cat whose company sustained him, and brought him what he thought at least resembled happiness. His parents called, and the phone rang, and rang, and rang. They meant well, really they did. But sometimes they just didn’t have a clue. There was nothing they could do. The beep, then the voice piping out from the kitchen alcove where the answering machine faithfully recorded every word.

Hal wiped hands across his green apron. He admired the stitching. How much time would there be? Each line of fabric exactly the same as the next, perfectly even. Could he run? Faded stains from distractions past. Maybe he could hide. Every breath, each pull of his lungs it burrowed further, like a vicious cancer it spread, eating him alive. It spread to his eyes; the world had lost its glow. There was now only gray. The lush brown beans the artist in him once admired were now a lush flat gray. They smelled of wet cement, and tasted it for that matter. The sun no longer filtered through him, freeing him from his pains; now it just made him sweat. He did his job well—he could make any of the 64,513 possible beverage combinations, and most in under 2:00 flat. Corporate had timed him once. In they came with their suits and folios, radio-phones. They took his photo; put it in some bulletin to make the investors proud. They liked him. He knew how to do a job right. The stockbrokers who came on their way to the floor had told him he made a mean latte. It gave them something to look forward to every morning. He ground brewed, poured, steamed, mixed, served, smiled. Repeat.

The staring man behind the counter. He had dark eyes and a dark complexion; he had the eyes of more than a barista. Then she saw it. Her earring dangling from his left ear. Her heart jumped, and for the first time since high school she had no idea what to do next. She was completely vulnerable, exposed, completely at the mercy of the cafe, its customers, the barista. Her heart stopped beating. Those eyes, she felt them pierce her armor, peering into the depths of her soul– into the places she had left buried so long she had forgotten they even existed.

She breathed out as the train slowed to a stop, and the doors squeaked open. The passengers tumble-streamed out of the train-cars, and scurried off to their destinations. She shook her hair back, trying to shrug off the dizzy claustrophobic heat. The small bits of metal flew free, and sailed onto the tracks beside her. She hated late April, it was already too humid for her blood, and the haze of the city was slowly beginning to form.

He didn’t notice her at first. She stood before the counter, her right shoulder slung with an expensive handbag, hair flipped to one side. He had the vague sinking rolling stomach feeling that he had blown it already; he slowly realized just how absurd he must look wearing her earring. What if she had ear disease? What if he did?! He didn’t think either of these was likely, but still, you can’t take chances with things like this; heart leaping frantically from his ribcage as if to escape across the street. The room had filled with a brilliant light, but Hal did nothing. He made an attempt to shield his eyes from the inferno. The hook of the earring grew hot in his ear. He wanted to take it off and hand it back, return it to its proper owner. His nostrils flared with the scent of his searing flesh; and yet he was still.
They stood; the counter dividing them. Hal thought his legs might be shaking, though he couldn’t say for sure. His neck was stiff, and his eyes glued to the shine of her matching earring. They each stared at the others’; he didn’t know if she had already said anything. The rolling and rumbling grew more violent, and he felt the impulse to melt, though he wasn’t sure if it was his choice to make. The heat in his ear had reached new heights and he was surprised the earring hadn’t just burned through and fallen out. His thoughts danced through his mind as he watched the light play off her neck, the tiny silver petals of her earring not yet settled from their journey.

He realized suddenly that he could not move. She looked at him quizzically, as if she didn’t know quite what to make of the situation. She wasn’t mad, he knew, but he could not make more than that. She seemed to understand his situation and his silence and lack of movement was less troubling to her than he had anticipated. She thought fiercely for a few moments, running calculations by contorting her face this way and that until at last her features relaxed. She reached her hand slowly across the counter, hovering above his own, which had clamped onto the near edge and was snugly attached. She paused again, but only briefly, before continuing towards his frozen grasp, while his eyes stayed frozen on her neck, the dance of lights plucking the strings of his being, in the arbitrary way that such beautiful things tend to; then there was an explosion. The current surged through the first layers of skin and screamed along his various ducts and canals and wires and circuits into his brain, into his chest, into his feet. The force took his breath away, and left his hair standing on end. The earring floated out from his ear at a 90 degree angle, the petals swirling around themselves in space. He could not feel the floor beneath his feet, nor the air on his face. Only the series of shockwaves propagating through his body, hitting the end and rippling back. The crossing waves produced a symphony of harmonics that filled his head, growing to a deafening roar. Each of his senses was quickly overwhelmed, and he was left only with the image of dancing stars on her pale skin.

Earring Refuse

Here is all the stuff that Barbara helped me cut from my short story, preserved for posterity.

Every day Hal rode the e line home from work. He would walk the two blocks down Main Street past the bustling bistros and boutiques, down into the damp underbelly of the city. He rode the rickety. He swayed along, crossing the town line into FUCKTOWN, he always sat by a window, except when he couldn’t, when the trains. When he had to sl. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Fiction Close Reading: The Communist by Richard Ford

Fiction Close Reading: The Communist by Robert Ford
Richard Ford demonstrates several useful techniques in his short story The Communist I have chosen to focus on the final two paragraphs (page 542). He creates vivid imagery that serves to stop time in the story, and take up space, filling out the scene. The images are then qualified, and reinforced, which is the first hint of the sense of desperation that will only grow. There is a feeling of circularity, that the narrator is stuck in the telling and retelling of the story, and the reader really feels this. The images are reinforced and restated, as if to say, ”No, really, it was like this…“ The circularity is also strengthened by the heavy use of and to begin sentences, which keeps the story moving by pulling the reader onwards, as well as adding a sense of inevitability. The perspective of the story begins at a wider level, when the narrator is 41, then zooms in, then returns to the 41 year-old narrator at the end. This combines with the other elements to show that the story is as much about the narrator today as it is about the story itself. The piece is about the narrator, at age 41, being stuck in a retelling of this story of him at age 16, and the importance of that story on him now. The overall tone is decidedly dreary and sad. There is also an echoing of the image of the geese, which were instrumental in the plot of the story and haunt the young narrator at the end of the story much like the incident as a whole haunts the narrator as he tries to move on with his life. 

//imitation

And I stood there sheltered by the counter, the café laid out before me, watching as the customers sipped and chattered, the small tables filled for the pre-lunch snack, the counters beginning to fill. And then she was there, before me, suddenly. And I had no chance to prepare, to think. Suddenly I became aware of the sea that separated us; the countertop poked its head through the waves, a sandbar for the wayfarer. She approached, and she surely knew, I had the earring in still, at that point. She ordered a coffee, and I slowly turned to the machines to prepare her drink. It was like walking through molasses, I could feel her beauty radiating down on me. The earring glowed hot in my ear, and I was ashamed. But I made her drink and began to ring her up when she leaned over and ever so gently lifted the earring in my left ear; she said she couldn’t believe how it could have happened, how I could have found it.
I often think back to this afternoon, when I first saw the hand of fate’s inflection. The sense of universal order, but also chaos; and of course how a piece of metal could have acted as an agent of history, a great force bringing us together despite the slanted odds of circumstance. I see in my wife this power, and I feel in my ear the tug of that which brought us together.

Earring Convoluted

Who could she be? Hal pictured her clearly as he played with the earring’s dangling silver shards; he saw her walking into his cafe with a look of conscious poise that only barely betrayed her distress. He was hypnotized by the swirl of her solitary earring. He cursed as the double soy latte he was preparing overflowed. He wanted nothing more in the world at this moment than to find this mystery woman—the one whose earring he held. Hal knew the customers didn’t understand; to them, the earring was nothing more than a feeble swipe at society dangling from his ear. He relished their discomfort; he hesitated before handing back their change, watching as they inevitably looked again, they couldn’t help it. He flashed a corporate smile and they ran, caffeine in hand. The morning rush was over and Hal leaned against the back counter, sinking into his elbows. He let himself unmoor

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