Reflections of a Thirty-five year old Character Actor (a found poem)
I think, even though it's so awful
My first crush was probably on Hot Lips.
But do you want to know,
Seriously --
What was my porn?
Barnum and Bailey's Circus program.
A creepy lady.
And I --
six years old.
She was all sequined,
total camel toe,
some retarded hat,
a whip.
I remember looking at her
literally bossing around poodles --
rainbow-colored poodles.
"That's incredible."
It was an awakening moment
when I was a kid.
Hot Lips, in short order from there.
(thanks to JT, MLP, and Bust)
--
To e.s.
They said you were doing so well.
You showed up once, a few months before.
The same as you ever were
Shy-smiling with your hair in your eyes
Wearing that poor-fitting white suit.
White -- or more like cream?
It was an ancient, pitiful suit;
worn in the pants and knees
Jen bet Charlie that you'd split a seam
the way you sat hunched over your guitar
on the ratty carpet of Dan's apartment.
They said you were depressed,
as clinical as it sounds.
You didn't leave your apartment for a week.
When you did something else lingered in the air
amidst the cigarette dust.
Sara suggested we start checking all the familiar spots
between your fingers and toes;
like a criminal.
You put away your white suit and funny checkered tie;
the Converse stayed until the very end.
It was the last sight of you:
those knotted laces and the canvas fray.
That was the day that music died
There are no levees in Texas.
At least not where I live.
There as cheap wine though
Crumpled cigarettes, and a couple of your tapes, too.
No one spoke when you started playing again.
We tried to find a meaning in the lines;
some grand farewell or fuck you to the world.
We tried to find signs of life with all its meaning
to try and make sense of our own, existing confusion.
The next day, your mom came over to say hello.
Tucked over her arm was that white suit in a plastic bag.
I tried not to see the similarities between it
and you in the morning after
the EMTs wheeled you down the stairs.
She told me you had always been a good boy, a smart boy.
That it wasn't your fault, some failing of her own.
After she left we thought back to that night --
No one could have ever guessed that the stitches split would be yours.
Two stab wounds in the chest:
because it's one for the money,
two for the show.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
7:30 AM
I sing to the motherfucking body electric, you think as you hit your third mile. By now, all you're running on is your will not to go home. There's something frightening about expectations -- his and yours. You don't know how you'll feel when you see him still tucked up in your bed, asleep like a child. He was right, he does look like a painting. A Klimt, he's lost in his hair and tipped in gold leaf. A Picasso, he has more angles than you can count. It takes you a moment to see him as he is. A Van Gogh, the bedsheets are swirled with the motions that your bodies made together. You don't know how you'll feel when you come home and he's gone. It's not an anonymous no-name encounter like everyone thinks you're only capable of because you're young, you're handsome, and well, most of all, because you're a man, too. You think this all as you hit your third mile because it just happens to be the first good weather day of the year and that may or may not be a fateful coincidence. March fourteenth, two-thousand whatever.
It'll take another two miles for you to give up the guise and go home to face whatever it is that you have waiting for you there. It'll take another mile for you to acknowledge that a part of you secretly hopes he'll still be there. Right now, you're just coasting along on aching legs with a hangover between your ears and sweat crawling down your spine. It feels like a finger. Tickling, trickling. You should have stayed in bed.
It was dark when you woke up for your morning run. Five a.m. comes early regardless of circumstances hinged to the hour before or after. It was dark and you were scared of the body that wrapped around you like a vice. He had that wonderful slippery, sleep quality that makes everything softer. The wrap of his biceps, the sour of his sweat. He had flopped onto his back, arms spread and waiting. He smacked on the dialogue of his dreams, but none of it was coherent. A foreshortened Christ figure, hands dangling off the bed and feet twitching together. You drew the sheets back over his waist for modesty's sake and kicked yourself for it. What's the point? What is ever the point though? You question this every day because you are a well-oiled machine that runs on necessity. Want is a foreign concept. Even now, after you've processed want into being, you wonder if it's worth it or if you are on the slippery slope towards wasting precious time and energy. You worry about the future because for once, there's something on the radar that might just stick.
Is this what you really want? And need -- How about it? It's been years since you've needed somebody. You've done just fine on your own and its dangerous to add in that variable of another body... No, another person with wants and motivations. Another person who you know needs movement and the constant rotation of new things to see and do. Can you possibly sustain the interest of someone like him? If you can't, how will you handle not being that shiny new thing? Will you throw a tantrum and dissolve into a pathetic mess like before? You don't want to think about it, but you've been here before.
That's when you realize that you've detoured and left the shaded overhang of the park. Your apartment is in the distance and you imagine you see his blinking white body flickering in movement from the window. A lighthouse signal. There are rocks everywhere and you're going to need it as you ease around mothers with their three wheeled jogging strollers and newly brought out patio furniture. You smell morning smells. Fresh coffee. The sugary tang of doughnuts and other breakfast pastries. Diesel fuel from the rumbling garbage trucks. Sweat.
You stop only to unlock your door and fling it open. He's standing in the middle of your kitchen, sheepish and holding a mug. In your absence, he's showered and figured out the mechanics of your coffee maker. He's wearing one of your striped towels like he belongs. Maybe he does. You look just as caught as him, red cheeked and trembling with the lack of movement.
"I can't survive without a cup of coffee and a shower," he explains. It's the small things that keep him going, you realize. Your theories and concerns begin to receed to basic, more manageable ideas. He is young and bright in his towel. His smile wraps around the coffee cup. It is inquisitive and twitching with a private joke.
"Good morning," you said and the words don't quite fit. Still, they're there and they're all you've got to offer.
It'll take another two miles for you to give up the guise and go home to face whatever it is that you have waiting for you there. It'll take another mile for you to acknowledge that a part of you secretly hopes he'll still be there. Right now, you're just coasting along on aching legs with a hangover between your ears and sweat crawling down your spine. It feels like a finger. Tickling, trickling. You should have stayed in bed.
It was dark when you woke up for your morning run. Five a.m. comes early regardless of circumstances hinged to the hour before or after. It was dark and you were scared of the body that wrapped around you like a vice. He had that wonderful slippery, sleep quality that makes everything softer. The wrap of his biceps, the sour of his sweat. He had flopped onto his back, arms spread and waiting. He smacked on the dialogue of his dreams, but none of it was coherent. A foreshortened Christ figure, hands dangling off the bed and feet twitching together. You drew the sheets back over his waist for modesty's sake and kicked yourself for it. What's the point? What is ever the point though? You question this every day because you are a well-oiled machine that runs on necessity. Want is a foreign concept. Even now, after you've processed want into being, you wonder if it's worth it or if you are on the slippery slope towards wasting precious time and energy. You worry about the future because for once, there's something on the radar that might just stick.
Is this what you really want? And need -- How about it? It's been years since you've needed somebody. You've done just fine on your own and its dangerous to add in that variable of another body... No, another person with wants and motivations. Another person who you know needs movement and the constant rotation of new things to see and do. Can you possibly sustain the interest of someone like him? If you can't, how will you handle not being that shiny new thing? Will you throw a tantrum and dissolve into a pathetic mess like before? You don't want to think about it, but you've been here before.
That's when you realize that you've detoured and left the shaded overhang of the park. Your apartment is in the distance and you imagine you see his blinking white body flickering in movement from the window. A lighthouse signal. There are rocks everywhere and you're going to need it as you ease around mothers with their three wheeled jogging strollers and newly brought out patio furniture. You smell morning smells. Fresh coffee. The sugary tang of doughnuts and other breakfast pastries. Diesel fuel from the rumbling garbage trucks. Sweat.
You stop only to unlock your door and fling it open. He's standing in the middle of your kitchen, sheepish and holding a mug. In your absence, he's showered and figured out the mechanics of your coffee maker. He's wearing one of your striped towels like he belongs. Maybe he does. You look just as caught as him, red cheeked and trembling with the lack of movement.
"I can't survive without a cup of coffee and a shower," he explains. It's the small things that keep him going, you realize. Your theories and concerns begin to receed to basic, more manageable ideas. He is young and bright in his towel. His smile wraps around the coffee cup. It is inquisitive and twitching with a private joke.
"Good morning," you said and the words don't quite fit. Still, they're there and they're all you've got to offer.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
( alt: we do not know all we know)
It’s not an unusual event to walk into a bookstore with no exact purpose other than to browse and pick up a book off the New Release table. People gravitate towards the new, intriguingly packaged novels and sift through them for the synopsis or some line that strikes. It’s easy. There’s no motivation or goal other than to view. Then it happens all of a sudden and it feels like magic. You find yourself holding a book that must be bought. There’s no telling what it will be – an attractive book cover, a perfect sentence, a compelling storyline – but you’re hooked and the book is quickly bought and packaged in a plastic bag.
Sometimes you even have no clue what the book is about or who the author is.
was: annales nomadique, a novel of internet.
I didn’t know if the book was a novel or a volume of poetry. It wasn’t until I began it that I realized it was a literal novel of internet. The reader is thrust into an informational sea and left to pick out points of interest and knowing. Its a great, episodic mismash of language and culture, story and slogan. There are bits of dialogue, of information, and blink-and-you –miss-it narrative. The book is almost visual as its read. One can see all the color and shape succinctly described within the text. Rather than write something of my own, I’m going to share the best thing I’ve read all week:
I’m going to tell you what happened, eh? Bobbie gets it into his head to go out in a girl’s dress over Doc Martens 8-eye Union Jack top cap black high boots on the second day of the Stampede, promenading through the pancake breakfast with a white Smithbuilt on his head, and everyone is laughing and giving him the high sign or the finger, eh, but all in good spirits, when out of nowhere this weekend cowboy sticks him once in the gut with a shiv and runs away through the crowd, people running after him, leaving Bobbie clutching himself and looking embarrassed about how the blood’s spreading through his fingers and across the belly of his chemise like a dark crimson azalea. RCMP guy comes back winded from running but with the cowboy in cuffs and asks, is this him? Bobbie cannot say by then so they roll him away on a gurney but just when they’re closing the doors this girl jumps in saying she’s his wife and plops down in the jumpseat next to him, and when he gets out two days later after observation they move in together, just like that; she’s the sticker’s by now ex-girlfriend, see, and she tells Bobbie the way she sees it is she owes him her love because of what her boyfriend has done, and they live with each other for three years like that until she has a baby, then they get married and have two more kids, and she still tells him how sexy he looked that morning in that dress and with the garnet feather on his hat and how the scar is like a ruby under the skin of his guts. (was, Michael Joyce)
Sometimes you even have no clue what the book is about or who the author is.
was: annales nomadique, a novel of internet.
I didn’t know if the book was a novel or a volume of poetry. It wasn’t until I began it that I realized it was a literal novel of internet. The reader is thrust into an informational sea and left to pick out points of interest and knowing. Its a great, episodic mismash of language and culture, story and slogan. There are bits of dialogue, of information, and blink-and-you –miss-it narrative. The book is almost visual as its read. One can see all the color and shape succinctly described within the text. Rather than write something of my own, I’m going to share the best thing I’ve read all week:
I’m going to tell you what happened, eh? Bobbie gets it into his head to go out in a girl’s dress over Doc Martens 8-eye Union Jack top cap black high boots on the second day of the Stampede, promenading through the pancake breakfast with a white Smithbuilt on his head, and everyone is laughing and giving him the high sign or the finger, eh, but all in good spirits, when out of nowhere this weekend cowboy sticks him once in the gut with a shiv and runs away through the crowd, people running after him, leaving Bobbie clutching himself and looking embarrassed about how the blood’s spreading through his fingers and across the belly of his chemise like a dark crimson azalea. RCMP guy comes back winded from running but with the cowboy in cuffs and asks, is this him? Bobbie cannot say by then so they roll him away on a gurney but just when they’re closing the doors this girl jumps in saying she’s his wife and plops down in the jumpseat next to him, and when he gets out two days later after observation they move in together, just like that; she’s the sticker’s by now ex-girlfriend, see, and she tells Bobbie the way she sees it is she owes him her love because of what her boyfriend has done, and they live with each other for three years like that until she has a baby, then they get married and have two more kids, and she still tells him how sexy he looked that morning in that dress and with the garnet feather on his hat and how the scar is like a ruby under the skin of his guts. (was, Michael Joyce)
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Part II
Paris.
Aemilia felt her nose pressed to some proverbial glass. She was the outsider looking in. This was her routine. Every Friday evening, the close collective would gather inside the neighborhood pub and occupy a corner booth. Bodies spilled out from the vinyl seat covers and filled loose chairs. A smoke screen quickly built up from cheap cigarettes with their quick burning paper and ash spittle.
“She’s apolitical,” Claude said with a hand pointing to her. “I don’t know how you can be with someone so indifferent. No offense, Aemilia.”
“None taken. And it’s complacent. I’m complacent,” she said through a thin grin. It was the worst response that she could have given. Adam’s arm was oppressive in its pull across her shoulders.
“Don’t listen to him. He wants to fight. Always with the fighting,” Adam snorted with a shake of his head. He said nothing about his girlfriend’s lack of ambition. It was better not thought of. His drive was to create. The sight of her kneading bread and sweating over the large industrial oven was enough to reassure him that maybe, in her own way, there was a form of the same want within her.
Claude was not so easily convinced. He could see past the flour in her hair and burns over her forearms to know where she came from. Aemilia was little Marie Antoinette. Fragile. Decorative. Slouching back in the booth, he sucked hard on the filter. “Maybe,” he said in a rush of gray smoke. “Maybe I just look at people like your girlfriend in wonder and think: You! How can it be that it is you who is on my back every day? Helpless as a baby. Complacent.”
“No one is on your back,” Adam groaned. He leaned in close and buried his nose against Aemilia’s ear. Arms wrapped her up and he felt her rigidity. It was his defense that seemed to string her tight. He watched the transformation in the glass that stood across from them. “Should we go? Let’s go.”
“I’m leaving. Next week. I’m going to visit my parents.”
Adam’s features creased with surprise. It was news to him. He stared at her and made no attempt to feign indifference or knowing. Aemilia took his pause to slide out of the booth and step over the tangle of bodies. He followed quickly after with coltish legs and jerky movements. He tripped over a bag, but caught up with her at the door. “When were you going to tell me?”
“I’m leaving Tuesday?”
“And it’s Friday! Do you have your plane tickets?” He opened the door for her and watched her slip out. Her head nodded. Yes, of course she had her tickets. “I’ll drive you.”
“Louis said he would.”
“Why are you doing this? Are you leaving because of me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Aemilia said. Her tone was measured and decided. It was enough to make even him convince himself that every word she ever said was true.
Aemilia felt her nose pressed to some proverbial glass. She was the outsider looking in. This was her routine. Every Friday evening, the close collective would gather inside the neighborhood pub and occupy a corner booth. Bodies spilled out from the vinyl seat covers and filled loose chairs. A smoke screen quickly built up from cheap cigarettes with their quick burning paper and ash spittle.
“She’s apolitical,” Claude said with a hand pointing to her. “I don’t know how you can be with someone so indifferent. No offense, Aemilia.”
“None taken. And it’s complacent. I’m complacent,” she said through a thin grin. It was the worst response that she could have given. Adam’s arm was oppressive in its pull across her shoulders.
“Don’t listen to him. He wants to fight. Always with the fighting,” Adam snorted with a shake of his head. He said nothing about his girlfriend’s lack of ambition. It was better not thought of. His drive was to create. The sight of her kneading bread and sweating over the large industrial oven was enough to reassure him that maybe, in her own way, there was a form of the same want within her.
Claude was not so easily convinced. He could see past the flour in her hair and burns over her forearms to know where she came from. Aemilia was little Marie Antoinette. Fragile. Decorative. Slouching back in the booth, he sucked hard on the filter. “Maybe,” he said in a rush of gray smoke. “Maybe I just look at people like your girlfriend in wonder and think: You! How can it be that it is you who is on my back every day? Helpless as a baby. Complacent.”
“No one is on your back,” Adam groaned. He leaned in close and buried his nose against Aemilia’s ear. Arms wrapped her up and he felt her rigidity. It was his defense that seemed to string her tight. He watched the transformation in the glass that stood across from them. “Should we go? Let’s go.”
“I’m leaving. Next week. I’m going to visit my parents.”
Adam’s features creased with surprise. It was news to him. He stared at her and made no attempt to feign indifference or knowing. Aemilia took his pause to slide out of the booth and step over the tangle of bodies. He followed quickly after with coltish legs and jerky movements. He tripped over a bag, but caught up with her at the door. “When were you going to tell me?”
“I’m leaving Tuesday?”
“And it’s Friday! Do you have your plane tickets?” He opened the door for her and watched her slip out. Her head nodded. Yes, of course she had her tickets. “I’ll drive you.”
“Louis said he would.”
“Why are you doing this? Are you leaving because of me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Aemilia said. Her tone was measured and decided. It was enough to make even him convince himself that every word she ever said was true.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Part I
Note: This is two for the price of one.
Paris.
Aemilia Prior had a sneaking suspicion that this was not her life. She sat at a table for two with her forearms pressed against the top and hands laced easily together. Across from her, inside the modest red-tiled kitchen, Adam Baptiste attempted to drain water from spaghetti noodles. Steam rose from the metal colander and fogged his glasses. He was blinded. She could not see the shape of his pale hazel eyes; only their marbled brown-green color. When he grunted and pushed black frames up his forehead, she laughed into the hands that were brought up to her crooked grin.
"Don't laugh. I still have that picture of the fat pony that you drew," he mumbled into the roar of the faucet. He drenched the noodles with cold water to separate them. She let him and peered around the apartment for sign of the sketch. He had threatened to frame the childish scrawl of limbs attached to a round body. A horse.
His flat was a riot of spilling loose leaf and canvas bolts. Large prints of Basquiat and Haring decorated his walls. An easel sat wedged in front of the narrow door that led out to a welcome-mat sized patio. It was winter and snow had piled up on all the windowsills. It was too cold to paint outside. Everything smelled like turpentine and paint, dust and paper. They were all familiar, good smells. It was one of the reasons why she could come over. It reminded her of home.
He did not. Adam was an inverse with his coffee-with-milk skin and hair twisted into tiny dreadlocks. He was bohemian and ratty in a stretched out oatmeal cardigan spotted with ink and paint on the large square pockets. His jeans were a tragedy. His feet were bare. When he grinned, his teeth were impossibly white and straight. He had his French father's sharp features and the full mouth of a Nigerian mother. He laughed without reason. A happy man. No shadows or torment. Hands were capable as he stirred the marinara sauce with a wooden spoon.
"What are you thinking?"
Her head snapped back to face him and she shrugged. Fingers nudged at the messy knot of her hair. They pulled out the curled strands of hair that itched at the nape of her neck. "I don't know. Nothing at all, I suppose."
"You looked very far away."
"Maybe I was," she said with a tilt of her mouth. The line of her upturned nose wrinkled.
"Wine?"
"Oui."
"In the fridge," he said with a thumb nudging to the small icebox behind him.
Aemilia lifted from her coiled spot on the chair and padded across creaking floorboards into the cold press of tiles. Her toes curled up in chilled shock. She grabbed the wine off the lighted shelf and brought it over to the cabinet. The drawer beneath was pulled open and she lifted out the silver bottle-opener. The corkscrew was coaxed out from the pocketknife compactness of the opener. She stabbed metal into the stopper.
"Benoit called. He is putting together an exhibit of 'Young Paris' and he wants me to put some stuff in. Apparently, our shabby-chic is all the rage," he snorted with a shake of his head. "It is terrible that my poverty sits in other people's mansions."
"When you have wine, how can you be poor?" The label was cheap, but good. She sloshed wine into a set of glasses and held up one for him to take. Her cheek pressed up into the pucker of lips that met it. "Are you going to participate in the exhibit?"
"I don't have much choice," he said before swallowing back a sip of the wine. "Let me paint you."
"No thank you," Aemilia laughed. A hand lifted to cup the sharp jut of his jaw. Thumb streaked lightly over his dark skin as her head turned. "I couldn't stand to sit still."
"That's right. Busy, busy Aemilia Prior. How long did it take me to convince you to stop working and go out with me?" His head ticked to the side in a teasing motion and he tapped at his chin. Free hand cut off the gas and blue flames died from beneath the pot that sauce bubbled inside.
"Six months," she mumbled.
"Six very long months," he agreed with a nod. "And let's not even get into how long it took me to convince you to spend the night. Now look at you -- Here on your own volition. I think you could sit still enough for me to paint you if you wanted to."
"Maybe I don't want to then." She shrugged and stepped away from him. Aemilia slouched against the doorframe and let her head loll. Eyes stared out over his gritty landscapes. He was obsessed with texture. All his paintings rolled up from the canvas in thick, messy ridges of acrylic and paper layers beneath. His hands folded over her hips and tugged lightly at the hem of her t-shirt. There was still flour in her hair and she smelled like vanilla and butter. A baker's smell. He buried his nose in her hair.
"Don't be mean," he said. A hand slipped beneath her shirt and sprawled over her belly. His palm was as warm as her stomach and comforting in its sprawl as fingers spread apart. "I won't make you sit for me, but I have one more request..."
She took a sip of her wine and head tipped up to stare at him.
"Move in with me." He kissed her temple, her ear. "If you hate this flat, I'll find another. Move in with me though. You have half your stuff here anyway. It's time."
"It's time?"
Adam nodded and his hands wandered higher. It was time for him. They had been dating over a year. She crashed out on his couch or bed more afternoons than not. The tops of ledges and counters were littered with her hair elastics and stubs from purchases made. She deflected in what he could have considered an answer as she slipped from him and pulled t-shirt from her skin. The material was cast aside as fingers curled into her palm. Dinner was forgotten for a fuck that occurred halfway between the kitchen and the bedroom. As her spine hit the plaster in a repetitive thudding, she tightened her legs around his hips and buried her face into his neck. Aemilia wandered -- a million miles away, across sea and the impermanent dots of islands between. New York City in her ears, summertime humidity on her skin.
Paris.
Aemilia Prior had a sneaking suspicion that this was not her life. She sat at a table for two with her forearms pressed against the top and hands laced easily together. Across from her, inside the modest red-tiled kitchen, Adam Baptiste attempted to drain water from spaghetti noodles. Steam rose from the metal colander and fogged his glasses. He was blinded. She could not see the shape of his pale hazel eyes; only their marbled brown-green color. When he grunted and pushed black frames up his forehead, she laughed into the hands that were brought up to her crooked grin.
"Don't laugh. I still have that picture of the fat pony that you drew," he mumbled into the roar of the faucet. He drenched the noodles with cold water to separate them. She let him and peered around the apartment for sign of the sketch. He had threatened to frame the childish scrawl of limbs attached to a round body. A horse.
His flat was a riot of spilling loose leaf and canvas bolts. Large prints of Basquiat and Haring decorated his walls. An easel sat wedged in front of the narrow door that led out to a welcome-mat sized patio. It was winter and snow had piled up on all the windowsills. It was too cold to paint outside. Everything smelled like turpentine and paint, dust and paper. They were all familiar, good smells. It was one of the reasons why she could come over. It reminded her of home.
He did not. Adam was an inverse with his coffee-with-milk skin and hair twisted into tiny dreadlocks. He was bohemian and ratty in a stretched out oatmeal cardigan spotted with ink and paint on the large square pockets. His jeans were a tragedy. His feet were bare. When he grinned, his teeth were impossibly white and straight. He had his French father's sharp features and the full mouth of a Nigerian mother. He laughed without reason. A happy man. No shadows or torment. Hands were capable as he stirred the marinara sauce with a wooden spoon.
"What are you thinking?"
Her head snapped back to face him and she shrugged. Fingers nudged at the messy knot of her hair. They pulled out the curled strands of hair that itched at the nape of her neck. "I don't know. Nothing at all, I suppose."
"You looked very far away."
"Maybe I was," she said with a tilt of her mouth. The line of her upturned nose wrinkled.
"Wine?"
"Oui."
"In the fridge," he said with a thumb nudging to the small icebox behind him.
Aemilia lifted from her coiled spot on the chair and padded across creaking floorboards into the cold press of tiles. Her toes curled up in chilled shock. She grabbed the wine off the lighted shelf and brought it over to the cabinet. The drawer beneath was pulled open and she lifted out the silver bottle-opener. The corkscrew was coaxed out from the pocketknife compactness of the opener. She stabbed metal into the stopper.
"Benoit called. He is putting together an exhibit of 'Young Paris' and he wants me to put some stuff in. Apparently, our shabby-chic is all the rage," he snorted with a shake of his head. "It is terrible that my poverty sits in other people's mansions."
"When you have wine, how can you be poor?" The label was cheap, but good. She sloshed wine into a set of glasses and held up one for him to take. Her cheek pressed up into the pucker of lips that met it. "Are you going to participate in the exhibit?"
"I don't have much choice," he said before swallowing back a sip of the wine. "Let me paint you."
"No thank you," Aemilia laughed. A hand lifted to cup the sharp jut of his jaw. Thumb streaked lightly over his dark skin as her head turned. "I couldn't stand to sit still."
"That's right. Busy, busy Aemilia Prior. How long did it take me to convince you to stop working and go out with me?" His head ticked to the side in a teasing motion and he tapped at his chin. Free hand cut off the gas and blue flames died from beneath the pot that sauce bubbled inside.
"Six months," she mumbled.
"Six very long months," he agreed with a nod. "And let's not even get into how long it took me to convince you to spend the night. Now look at you -- Here on your own volition. I think you could sit still enough for me to paint you if you wanted to."
"Maybe I don't want to then." She shrugged and stepped away from him. Aemilia slouched against the doorframe and let her head loll. Eyes stared out over his gritty landscapes. He was obsessed with texture. All his paintings rolled up from the canvas in thick, messy ridges of acrylic and paper layers beneath. His hands folded over her hips and tugged lightly at the hem of her t-shirt. There was still flour in her hair and she smelled like vanilla and butter. A baker's smell. He buried his nose in her hair.
"Don't be mean," he said. A hand slipped beneath her shirt and sprawled over her belly. His palm was as warm as her stomach and comforting in its sprawl as fingers spread apart. "I won't make you sit for me, but I have one more request..."
She took a sip of her wine and head tipped up to stare at him.
"Move in with me." He kissed her temple, her ear. "If you hate this flat, I'll find another. Move in with me though. You have half your stuff here anyway. It's time."
"It's time?"
Adam nodded and his hands wandered higher. It was time for him. They had been dating over a year. She crashed out on his couch or bed more afternoons than not. The tops of ledges and counters were littered with her hair elastics and stubs from purchases made. She deflected in what he could have considered an answer as she slipped from him and pulled t-shirt from her skin. The material was cast aside as fingers curled into her palm. Dinner was forgotten for a fuck that occurred halfway between the kitchen and the bedroom. As her spine hit the plaster in a repetitive thudding, she tightened her legs around his hips and buried her face into his neck. Aemilia wandered -- a million miles away, across sea and the impermanent dots of islands between. New York City in her ears, summertime humidity on her skin.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Being there
I’m having trouble dipping into the creative center of my brain. By now, I’m pressed against the deadline that I’ve set for myself and I’m feeling that familiar pressure build. This is usually the place that I get the best and most of my writing done. Still, I falter. I can’t pick on an image that sticks. Instead, I get shreds of details and passing characters. Like this:
In 1959, Charlie Armstrong was discharged from the United States Army. On his way out, he made one last stop at the army post exchange. There, with the contents of his back account, he bought twelve pairs of pants and four dozen pairs of socks. The clothes were sturdy cotton and though simple in cut, well made. He didn’t look back.
In his brief stint, he had seen enough. It wasn’t the close calls of warfare and all its horrors that had left an impression on him. He was never deployed. Still, it was the men around him that seemed to leave a mark on him.
And that’s it. Who is Charlie Armstrong? I know where he came from, but the story still remains.
I get asked, “How’s it coming?” from the next room and feel a sense of expectation to produce this great new, finished piece. Eventually, I will. The thoughts in my head will be cannibalized and stitched into different pieces. Charlie Armstrong is up for alteration. He could turn up five years from now as a little girl orphan in an army surplus jacket. That’s how writing is for me. There is no formula, no magic moment to set me off. Instead, I wait until I can write, then I write.
I’m going to use the example of Charlie Armstrong to illustrate how I write five hundred word stories. The first step is to get an idea that is complete and not too sprawling. Generally character portraits or vignettes about daily life work best. Anything spanning time and place gets complicated. Still, it can be done. You think of your story and then write it completely out from start to finish.
In 1959, Charlie Armstrong was discharged from the United States Army. On his way out, he made one last stop at the army post exchange. There, with the contents of his back account, he bought twelve pairs of pants and four dozen pairs of socks. The clothes were sturdy cotton and though simple in cut, well made. He didn’t look back.
In his brief stint, he had seen enough. It wasn’t the close calls of warfare and all its horrors that had left an impression on him. He was never deployed. Still, it was the men around him that seemed to leave a mark on him.
This is 109 words. For this example, the story should be fifty words. The next process is editing. I’ll cut out and reorder things so that I’m left with the intact, albeit (sometimes) different, image. The first things to cut out are generally adverbs, needless adjectives, and any transitional words. It’s up to the writer to decide what is important.
Charlie Armstrong was discharged from the army. On his way out, he made one last stop at the surplus. He bought pants and socks. The clothes were sturdy, simple, and well made.
He had seen enough. Not the close calls of war, but the men around him. He didn’t look back.
Fifty-one words. Generally, stories end up being a word more or less. Rather than try to find an article to erase out, I leave it. It’s close enough to count as fifty. What’s left behind tends to be more succinct and direct. Gone are phrases like “seemed to be” or “looked like.” Everything is forced to be.
In 1959, Charlie Armstrong was discharged from the United States Army. On his way out, he made one last stop at the army post exchange. There, with the contents of his back account, he bought twelve pairs of pants and four dozen pairs of socks. The clothes were sturdy cotton and though simple in cut, well made. He didn’t look back.
In his brief stint, he had seen enough. It wasn’t the close calls of warfare and all its horrors that had left an impression on him. He was never deployed. Still, it was the men around him that seemed to leave a mark on him.
And that’s it. Who is Charlie Armstrong? I know where he came from, but the story still remains.
I get asked, “How’s it coming?” from the next room and feel a sense of expectation to produce this great new, finished piece. Eventually, I will. The thoughts in my head will be cannibalized and stitched into different pieces. Charlie Armstrong is up for alteration. He could turn up five years from now as a little girl orphan in an army surplus jacket. That’s how writing is for me. There is no formula, no magic moment to set me off. Instead, I wait until I can write, then I write.
I’m going to use the example of Charlie Armstrong to illustrate how I write five hundred word stories. The first step is to get an idea that is complete and not too sprawling. Generally character portraits or vignettes about daily life work best. Anything spanning time and place gets complicated. Still, it can be done. You think of your story and then write it completely out from start to finish.
In 1959, Charlie Armstrong was discharged from the United States Army. On his way out, he made one last stop at the army post exchange. There, with the contents of his back account, he bought twelve pairs of pants and four dozen pairs of socks. The clothes were sturdy cotton and though simple in cut, well made. He didn’t look back.
In his brief stint, he had seen enough. It wasn’t the close calls of warfare and all its horrors that had left an impression on him. He was never deployed. Still, it was the men around him that seemed to leave a mark on him.
This is 109 words. For this example, the story should be fifty words. The next process is editing. I’ll cut out and reorder things so that I’m left with the intact, albeit (sometimes) different, image. The first things to cut out are generally adverbs, needless adjectives, and any transitional words. It’s up to the writer to decide what is important.
Charlie Armstrong was discharged from the army. On his way out, he made one last stop at the surplus. He bought pants and socks. The clothes were sturdy, simple, and well made.
He had seen enough. Not the close calls of war, but the men around him. He didn’t look back.
Fifty-one words. Generally, stories end up being a word more or less. Rather than try to find an article to erase out, I leave it. It’s close enough to count as fifty. What’s left behind tends to be more succinct and direct. Gone are phrases like “seemed to be” or “looked like.” Everything is forced to be.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
The quiet
Greene was an island located off the coast. Not counting the ferry ride – which came only on good weather days – it was a good ninety minutes away from the nearest inland city. The shore was rocky and unforgiving. Some left, few ever came in.
Noah and Mary Ellen Shepherd moved on the island during July when the weather was good. They had few things. Noah carried his typewriter beneath an arm. Mary Ellen was a beauty. She reminded the townsfolk of what a woman ought to look like. What was most striking was her laugh. It was clear and ringing like the church bell. Not that the Shepherds went to church.
When Mary Ellen had first come to Greene, she had tried to start conversations with some of the women in town. They were all faded, callow girls. When she complimented them on their dresses, they had stared at her as if she spoke another language. Requests for help and recipe advice had likewise gone unacknowledged. Mary Ellen was alone. Noah was no help either. He was busy with his new novel. Fifteen, twenty hours of the day were spent at the typewriter.
It was the quiet that disturbed Mary Ellen. She could already feel what would be an endless winter settle. It crept up in and became real. It was bitter and blue, hungry for warmth. It became her companion. It spoke to her in the voice of a little girl, soft and sweet. It giggled.
“It gets lonely up here,” Mary Ellen said as she hugged her elbows. August brought in endless gray days and cold nights again. “Don’t know how you can stand all this quiet.”
She looked down to see the lost girl, but there was nothing to see. She heard footsteps. Mary Ellen turned and began to follow the sound. She stepped into a puddle of water. It soaked through her heel. Water pooled up from the floor in small, kidney-shaped piles. Footprints. They were clear up the stairs.
The pipes groaned in the ceiling. She could hear water running.
Noah didn’t know how long the water had been running. It could have been hours from the stiffness of his joints as he stood up from the desk chair. It could have been five minutes. Why he was compelled to check on his wife was unknown. He grunted with irritation as feet hit the tiny puddles of water that littered the ground. When he hit the second floor, that was when he saw it. Water rolled from the space between door and floor. It continued to spill over the floorboards and itched towards him. His feet splashed as he opened the bathroom door.
Mary Ellen, wide eyed and mouthed, lay in the bathtub. She was a fish beneath the water. Her hands strangled the lip of the tub. He reached into the water to pull her up. She was lifeless.
That was when he heard it – the sound of the little voice, that girlish cackle.
Noah and Mary Ellen Shepherd moved on the island during July when the weather was good. They had few things. Noah carried his typewriter beneath an arm. Mary Ellen was a beauty. She reminded the townsfolk of what a woman ought to look like. What was most striking was her laugh. It was clear and ringing like the church bell. Not that the Shepherds went to church.
When Mary Ellen had first come to Greene, she had tried to start conversations with some of the women in town. They were all faded, callow girls. When she complimented them on their dresses, they had stared at her as if she spoke another language. Requests for help and recipe advice had likewise gone unacknowledged. Mary Ellen was alone. Noah was no help either. He was busy with his new novel. Fifteen, twenty hours of the day were spent at the typewriter.
It was the quiet that disturbed Mary Ellen. She could already feel what would be an endless winter settle. It crept up in and became real. It was bitter and blue, hungry for warmth. It became her companion. It spoke to her in the voice of a little girl, soft and sweet. It giggled.
“It gets lonely up here,” Mary Ellen said as she hugged her elbows. August brought in endless gray days and cold nights again. “Don’t know how you can stand all this quiet.”
She looked down to see the lost girl, but there was nothing to see. She heard footsteps. Mary Ellen turned and began to follow the sound. She stepped into a puddle of water. It soaked through her heel. Water pooled up from the floor in small, kidney-shaped piles. Footprints. They were clear up the stairs.
The pipes groaned in the ceiling. She could hear water running.
Noah didn’t know how long the water had been running. It could have been hours from the stiffness of his joints as he stood up from the desk chair. It could have been five minutes. Why he was compelled to check on his wife was unknown. He grunted with irritation as feet hit the tiny puddles of water that littered the ground. When he hit the second floor, that was when he saw it. Water rolled from the space between door and floor. It continued to spill over the floorboards and itched towards him. His feet splashed as he opened the bathroom door.
Mary Ellen, wide eyed and mouthed, lay in the bathtub. She was a fish beneath the water. Her hands strangled the lip of the tub. He reached into the water to pull her up. She was lifeless.
That was when he heard it – the sound of the little voice, that girlish cackle.
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