Wading through
the murky waters of your memory.
dredging through the mind,
searching for a ray of hope;
knowing it isn’t there.
the silt slips through
your fingers.
Nausea v2
There is a gremlin who
In my stomach, sits
Kneading swollen knuckles
‘Gainst the walls around him.
A purpose he once had:
Protecting from the ills
Of prehistoric
Curiosity.
Crying
What Do
You say when
You see
A stranger
Crying
?
nausea
There is a gremlin
Who in my stomach sits
Kneading his rounded
broad knuckles
Against some hidden organ
Put there to save us
From our own prehistoric
(or not)
Food curiosity
Haiku from Barbara’s 4/28
The cattail dances
Pulling its feathered shadow
Swaying unto dusk
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).