The following poem feels rather undone to me. It comes from Read Write Poem prompt # 85 image prompt, “Cemetery in Malvern”. It’s a sepia print of two men squatting in a graveyard. I went in a couple of directions before I boiled it down to the idea that these men were old buddies, not necessarily friends, but former coworkers. They were grave diggers – one of them still worked there, the other had left but decided to walk through on a morning and find his old friend. Obviously, in this setting, what more could you have but a conversation that somehow relates to work?

GROUNDS CREW MORNING

You said this work shouldn’t hurt. It only did once, when a girl
of nine or ten came to a grave with her dog at the end
of a long leash. She was right out of Rockwell print, red hair,
freckles, yellow sun dress and floppy hat to spare her neck.

I imagined she was here to see a dead grandparent. I didn’t
make a habit of watching people pass through.
There was something about the girl. Too reserved
for her age. Not banged up about the dead body
under the grass.

She was the loveliest thing I’d ever want to see from the shade
of a tall pine. I stopped thinking about all the rest I had to dig.
That’s when I remembered how you said never check the graves,
forget the dates, be content
with whoever it is you think is down there.

This one time I drew the nerve, waited until she and the dog
were gone then walked to the stone. Did the math
on someone named Margaret. “Loving Mom,” dead a year.
Figured God sometimes leaves the little ones here to work it out.

I’ll be facilitating three new writing workshops starting September and continuing through the end of October, two that focus on business & marketing communications, and another on launching personal narratives and memoirs.

Please visit the Workshops page for more details. Thanks.

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WORKS OF ART is an exercise in serial flash fiction, as part of Declaration Editing’s Super-Short Summer Serial Challenge (S4C). Part eight, SECOND FIG, is below.

“Second Fig”

The great idea — the one single great idea Fig had ever had was that none of this was happening. Of course he couldn’t prove it, seeing as he and everyone else was stuck in the same illusion. Through stillness, maybe. Through transcendence. But how does one transcend?

He stopped writing and looked up at the clock – after three, yet noise still carried on outside and downstairs. Perhaps getting out of time was the way to do it, but how the hell did that happen? Or walking through glass – he wondered if he could walk through one of the tall windows that faced out to Pen Boulevard.

He went back to scribbling, tried to jot down as much as he could before the thought was gone. Things came and went like that, especially in a world that wasn’t happening, where nothing existed including himself, the paper, the pen with which he was writing.

“So why write at all?” he said out loud. He stopped and looked up again. Someone was knocking. He ignored it. Then there was another one, accompanied with a shout.

He walked around from his booth and saw Syl at the main doors. Her face was nondescript, a blurry mix of pain, chemical imbalance and anxiety.

“I just jacked my ankle,” she said. She limped in and put her arms around Fig to keep from falling.

“How? Where?”

“The curb. I need to piss.”

“Restrooms – ”

“I know where the toilets are at, jackass. I can’t make the stairs.”

Fig helped her through the restaurant and into the kitchen. There was a standalone shower back there where the cooks rinsed off. Mostly it was for ringing mops. Fig walked her over. She dug her nails into his forearm and squatted.

“Are you gonna stare or what?”

“Sorry.” He looked the other way until he heard the trickle stop. Then he helped her up and walked her back to his booth.

“Nice setup for the nighttime janitor,” she sneered. “Glass of beer, roach in the ashtray. It’s a regular party in here.”

“I get by.”

“And what if our boss came in?”

“He never has.”

“What if?”

“What’s the point? None of us are here anyway.”

She didn’t know what he was talking about.

“I’m quitting in a month,” he went on.

“For what?”

“Career I guess.”

Syl slapped the table.

“Doing what?”

Fig shrugged.

“I’ll find it when I find it.”

She rolled her eyes and took a cigarette from his pack. Then she opened his notebook. Fig’s hand jerked to grab it. Then he remembered nothing was real. So he stopped. She was too drunk to read anyway.

“I need something to calm me down,” she said. “You got any ideas?”

Fig glanced at the ashtray roach.

“I mean something that’ll really knock me out.”

Seattle poet and publisher, David Horowitz, will lead a discussion on rhyme this Monday, 7/27 at Looking Glass Books in Portland. David’s a wonderfully gifted poet and citizen of poetry, and it’s a pleasure to know he’ll be spending some time in the Rose City.

David’s discussion will focus on using unpredictable, compelling rhyme, and how subtle changes of perspective on rhyme can help writers recognize its potential to subvert expectation, deepen meaning, and sound completely contemporary. He will also address issues of meter and rhythm.

Visit Rose Alley Press, David’s imprint, to learn more about his work. He has also been a guest writer on the site, and has contributed his time in way of an interview.

ABOUT THE EVENT

Improve Your Rhyming, or How to Avoid the “Moon/June, True/Blue” Syndrome

• When: Monday, July 27, 7 p.m.
• Where: Looking Glass Bookstore (7983 Southeast 13th Avenue, Portland)

ABOUT DAVID HOROWITZ

DAVID D. HOROWITZ founded and manages Rose Alley Press, which primarily publishes books featuring Pacific Northwest rhymed metrical poetry. His new poetry collection, from Rose Alley Press, is Stars Beyond the Battlesmoke. Other collections, from Rose Alley, include Wildfire, Candleflame; Resin from the Rain; and Streetlamp, Treetop, Star. Many of his poems have been published in fine literary journals, such as The Lyric, Candelabrum, and The New Formalist. Some of his recent essays have appeared in Exterminating Angel and the IBPA Independent, a journal specializing in helping small press publishers. In 2005, David won the PoetsWest Achievement Award. In 2007, he edited, as well as published, the Rose Alley Press anthology: Limbs of the Pine, Peaks of the Range. David gives frequent readings in and around Seattle, where he lives.

WORKS OF ART is an exercise in serial flash fiction, as part of Declaration Editing’s Super-Short Summer Serial Challenge (S4C). Part seven, BETWEEN THE ACTS, is below.

“Between the Acts”

Lil stood on a banana crate in the middle of her living room. Normally the crate was an end table. Now it was a stage. One of her friends held a half-gallon of cheap wine up to her. She didn’t need it, was already enjoying the glow of a warm somatic experience thanks to the ecstasy, but what the hell, it was poetry, and where there was poetry there should be a poet drinking bad wine straight from a bottle.

“Oh to be in one’s body again,” Lil said before she swallowed. Someone against the wall started to howl. Soon the entire room was howling. The noise moved around like a wave amongst the 30 or so bodies that had crammed in, taken turns reciting, orating, singing, quoting, misquoting. Everyone had a turn. Now Lil was up again.

The hostess. The emcee. Call her what you will. Right now she was a famous poet, on her way to fame at least. That’s what her mind kept saying, kept flashing a golden star labeled You Are Here.

The eyes of the room said so too, as did the gaping mouths, clapping hands, stomping feet. Someone banged a cane. The floor called up to her, sent a reverberating shock through the crate, into her feet and straight to the top of her head, where her soul, it seemed, kept coming in and out.

“To the body,” someone yelled. Lil took the toast and swallowed another slug of wine, then passed the bottle down to the person who was reading next.

She hushed everyone in a theatrical way, the sound off her lips louder than the noise she was silencing. She was about to start when she heard footsteps enter the room from the stairs. She looked and saw Angel in the doorway, a halo from the hallway light over her head.

“You’re late,” Lil shouted. Angel blushed.

“There is no late,” she said. Lil started to laugh. She knew as well as anyone time didn’t exist, at least not during a moment like this.

Angel slid in against the wall to watch her friend read. Lil asked if she brought her fire. Angel nodded. Then Lil began.

“This piece is called, To Virginia,” she said. Someone howled. Lil smiled.

“Let’s put on our overcoats,
pockets full of stones, walk to the river
near home. It’s cold for a swim.
No one minds no more than no one’s mind
finds these times ground for fertile soil.

When we concentrate on the greatest
happy gift, I wonder if we’ve been
what we can. I know a hundred ways
to live through your disease.
You figured one hundred and one.”

WORKS OF ART is an exercise in serial flash fiction, as part of Declaration Editing’s Super-Short Summer Serial Challenge (S4C). Part six, STILL LIFE WITH ANGEL, is below.

“Still Life with Angel”

Syl was glad for the air. In fact she’d never been happier to be sitting on a bench by herself in the middle of the night. Except the girl kept dancing, even though they were away from the music and crowd.

“Can you please stop?” Syl barked.

“What if I die?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Angel sat down and inched toward her like a child.

“Have you ever had a night where you thought if you stopped doing something you might die?”

“It’s usually the other way around, sister. Stop doing something, or else you die.”

Angel chortled and put her hand on Syl’s back.

“Why do you insist on touching me.”

She shrugged, stood up and started swaying again. She looked in at the boy who was mopping floors in the restaurant. Boys everywhere, no men, just boys with men’s bodies but little boy brains. The boy in the restaurant was a boy for sure, a sad one at that.

“Do you know him?” she asked Syl.

“Sure. He’s the janitor.”

“Is he sad?”

“The world’s sad, sweetie. Except you I guess.” Syl gave her phone another try.

Angel watched her and started to laugh.

“I think once they’re broke they’re broke.”

“How does a cellphone fall in a toilet?”

“Usually when people are sleeping and peeing like you were.”

Syl leered at her.

“Let me use yours. I need to get home.”

Angel gave her a look that said she was out of luck.

“No phone. Don’t believe in them.”

“Of course you don’t. Could you PLEASE stop moving?”

“I am stopped,” Angel answered. “It’s the world that’s moving and your head that’s spinning. See the stars?”

Syl started to look up then stopped and told the girl to get lost. The last thing she needed was another whacked out conversation. She walked to the corner and stared at the line heading down to The Din. A two-way conveyor belt now, bodies going in and out. She considered pushing her way through, going back down to find Blo. What was the use? She walked back to the bench and asked Angel if she knew the time.

“I don’t,” Angel said. “Don’t believe in them either.” Then she twirled. “Why don’t you come to a party with me?”

“Are there more people like you there?”

“Lots!”

“I’d rather eat fire.”

“Hey, I’m doing that later!”

“Of course you are.”

“So?”

“What?”

“Are you coming?”

“Get lost.”

“OK.” Angel lunged into Syl’s arms and wrapped her in a hug. Syl pushed her away.

“You’re warm,” Angel said.

“I’m freezing.” She shivered.

“I mean inside.”

Then Angel continued away from the downtown, back to the party where she’d been earlier in the night. People were expecting her.

The following piece is a result of ReadWritePoem’s prompt #84, brought to us from the fantastical mind of Buckeye State poet, Nathan Moore (not to be confused with the Virginian songwriter, Nathan Moore). I can’t explain the prompt in complete detail here, other to say that it involves using a dictionary, and that it was great fun.

PEAS & DOPE

Remember when Tim aimed his peashooter
from the veranda at Sally with her D cups
sunbathing in the yard and launched?

We scattered like a post-traumatic waterfall,
twelve rug rats through the arborvitae
where her father, the self-made senior controller

of his Masonic village, stood from his poker game –
a royal flush at that – and whipped each of us
for castigating the one beautiful thing

his sperm ever made. Remember how the slash
burned the backs of our thighs? Bent over chairs
as the old man sang Yankee Doodle Dandy, we cried

Daddy whenever his belt cracked and belched.
Years later, after an unwarranted search
and seizure put me away for a long weekend,

the sheriff sized up my dreadlocks, said us hippies
had no clue about pain. So I dropped my pants,
let my scars correct him.

Walking to the light rail yesterday, a woman said into her phone, “That’s where I’m at in case I go dead”, which prompted the following poem.

BACKWARDS ON THE TRAIN

We hadn’t been having a good conversation.

The wind in my mouthpiece as I walked.

A sign read look both ways before crossing.

The things that kill us come fast.

That’s what I thought of cancer when you asked.

I hadn’t always thought that way.

Now I was on record.

It didn’t sit well with you.

I missed what you said next.

My battery was lulling.

Plus reception is bad near the tracks.

To much concrete.

It’s called a dead spot.

Where I stood as the train crossed the river.

Telling you you were losing me.

WORKS OF ART is an exercise in serial flash fiction, as part of Declaration Editing’s Super-Short Summer Serial Challenge (S4C). Part five, Balling, Din, pt. 2, is below.

“Balling, Din – pt. 2″


Syl wrenched her hand away from Blo, swayed from the table and moved like a boar through the crowd. She wanted out but got stuck at the stage, slammed two feet from the singer, whose spit hit her in the face as he cried into the mic. Syl waivered, nearly fell backwards – she was about to piss herself.

This was the problem with pills and booze. Every part of her forgot what the hell to do, went into some sort of social retardation.

All she could think to do was scream, but the bar itself was one loud scream – the noise that shot out of her throat was soon swallowed by something larger, which itself was swallowed by something larger. Russian dolls in reverse.

She pivoted to see if she could push through when someone grabbed her.

“Did that guy hurt you?” a voice yelled. Syl turned. It was the girl from the table, the S&M one with red and white hair.

“Stay away from that louse,” Syl growled. “You need to get me out of here.”

“Let me.”

The sounds got louder again, crossed into that place where they were no longer auditory sensations. A visceral, felt sense, like a pride of boulders landing on your chest. The way you imagine the world will end.

Syl’s vision blurred. The singer’s mask was a skull, his body a husk, his guitar a scythe.

She growled again for the girl to do something, leaned into her, almost sent them to the floor.

“Put your arm around me,” the girl said. “Pretend we’re lovers.”

“Wha?” Syl started, but didn’t get the word out before the girl pressed her lips to hers then led them away from the crowd. The girl pushed her way through double doors and dragged Syl down the hall into the woman’s room.

Syl was sitting when she came back to life, opened one eye half way, looked up and heard a trickle of piss smacking water. Somehow she’d made it to a toilet.

She saw that the girl was in the stall with her, just standing there watching.

“Why the hell did you kiss me?”

“Everyone wanted us to kiss. I gave them what they wanted. Then they stopped looking. I’m not a dike. But you kiss nice.”

Syl was too wasted to be flattered. She reached her hand out when she was done and the girl helped her up. They walked to the sinks. Syl splashed water on her face and glanced in the mirror. She was dying. At least she looked it. The girl stood a few feet behind her. Syl looked at her reflection.

“What’s your name?”

“Angel.”

“Isn’t that sweet.”

“My mother thought so. My father too.”

“Well Angel, I need a cab.”

“To where?”

“I don’t know.”

WORKS OF ART is an exercise in serial flash fiction, as part of Declaration Editing’s Super-Short Summer Serial Challenge (S4C). Part four, Balling, Din, pt. 1, is below.

“Balling, Din – pt. 1″

The Din had a carnal darkness to it tonight. Too much flesh and smoke and sweat in too little space. Syl tasted it, smelled it before she got inside. Felt the buzz and gush just above the naval, the shock that rode up the nape of her neck. No name for it, just a body sensation.

When she made it to the bar she leaned far over the top and ordered a double whisky, flashed eyes that matched the feel of the place.

“Nice to see all of you again,” the bartender said. He grinned, ran his glare from her eyes to nose, chin to breasts. Syl didn’t mind letting her favorites stare at whatever part of her they wanted.

“Hell of a night,” she mouthed.

“It’s always hell down here,” he said.

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“I bet that’s the first time you’ve ever said that.” He winked, served the drink and told her it was him. Syl left a $5 on the bar anyway.

A band of four large, shirtless men in wrestler masks had wedged themselves and their gear onto a tiny stage toward the room’s back end. The Flying So and So’s, all speed surf rock and grit. Syl didn’t mind – noise was noise down here. She dug around her purse, came up with a vile and swallowed another half milligram of Alprazolam to top off what she’d taken earlier.

She darted her eyes around until they landed on Blo, sandwiched at a table amongst four co-eds half his age. Syl didn’t know why she kept going back to him. Another bad habit, worse than marriage by now.

“Where the hell have you been?” she yelled just loud enough to almost be heard.

“Sit down, baby – look, this one right here,” he pointed a finger with his drinking hand. A girl with white and red streaked hair flashed a toothy smile. “She’s into that M&M shit you like.”

“You’re an asshole,” Syl said. “And it’s S&M.”

“Same thing.” He looked at the girl and gestured with his lighter. She laughed.

“She likes the flame like you,” Blo said, then flicked his lighter near Syl’s breasts. “Those hot nipple tricks.”

Syl reached back and slapped him hard across the face. A sudden reaction without thought. A few people turned to look – the rest were too lost in the bar’s noise to hear. They watched the band’s masked faces bounce back and forth.

Blo grabbed Syl’s wrist.

“I told you last time I’d hit you back.”

“Go ahead, Taco, and I’ll send you back to Guadeloupe.”

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