The sky is pouring green tea.
I’m indifferent to the caffeinated rain
beating sugary dust clouds down
around my bare feet. The storm
is warm, not scalding, not cold
like the reasons he gave me.
I watch tea leaves flowing
down the gutters and try to
read my future. I can see
that it’s time to go in and dry off.
So over on CMS, the blog prompt for the week is asking how we got into writing.
I really have no idea. I still have a little book I wrote in 2nd grade about getting lost in a cavern in Texas, and a story about getting transported into a computer that probably was about the same time. They may have been class assignments, but regardless of the reason, I know I’ve been writing for a long time.
My first attempts at poetry date back to high school, and I started writing them because when I first started reading personal websites on the internet, somewhere like 1997, fiction and poetry were the things to have on them. Fiction, sure, I had that nailed down. (It wasn’t good, and in fact I think I was aware of that, but I posted it anyway and it was decent enough.) Poetry looked easy enough.
Ha. Haha. Hahahahahahaha. Yeah, I learned my lesson on that one by the time I started college. And yet poetry’s like a drug. I know how hard it is to write good poetry - but I can’t stop, either. It’s harder to stop than it is to rake myself over the coals about writing well.
I wrote my first chunk of poems in tenth grade, right about the time I was discovering the zine scene, and yes, my very first zine was a perzine full of poems and glustik and cheezy digital publishing fonts and printed on my school’s cheap photocopier. I still remember copying them on my lunch break and nervously carrying them around for the rest of the day, afraid someone would somehow know I was carrying -gasp!- poetry.
Now in the long run I had more fun with the underground newspaper my senior year, but that’s another story…
Well, the Summer Nano Project for the Creative Muse Society starts tomorrow. (I think. I also saw somebody refer to Monday, but I suppose it’s better safe than sorry. I don’t want to start out a day behind.) Instead of being a straight-shot month, it’s broken down into two periods of two weeks with a break in between. I don’t know if that’ll be good, giving me a chance to recharge, or if it’ll throw off my groove and accelerate the mid-Nano slump, but I guess we’ll see. Worst case scenario, I could always just keep writing straight through.
I’m going to be working on yet another new project (I know, I know, I need to finish something) and I haven’t really got much of a plot for it yet, which is unfortunate. But hey, it’s Nano-ish. I don’t really need a plot.
I am, however, going to sit down tonight and try to do some plotting or something. Maybe with index cards.
I think a lot about redemption
and the light at the edge
of the horizon, below the bloody haze
of dawn. I’ve taken warning
but I refuse to take cover.
I will face the sun proudly and let it
burn me if that’s what it takes
to recover my self
from the shattered shell
of my uniform.
In the realm of the incredibly geeky, this is inspired by Writers Island and a video game.
There was never any good time
for that sort of discussion. She never
sat me down and put an arm
around me. It was only desperation
and anger that made her yell,
“He’s not yours, dammit. I went
out and I got drunk. I was so tired
of being on your pedestal that I
drank myself under it. I woke up alone
and there’s no such thing
as immaculate conception.”
Loosely inspired by this week’s ReadWritePoem prompt.
I don’t usually say this
to a girl on a first date
but would you please
kick me in the face again?
That was hot.
I am really tired. Please don’t ask where this one came from, I have no idea.
once upon a time
a prince fell in love with a
stable-boy’s keen smile
like the sun, it made him bloom
and spring led to wanderlust
Originally posted at Your Poems, Your Stories.
I can dye my hair
and cover the scars
but I always stare too long
at the wanted poster
in the post office,
getting distracted
as I ask for stamps
and waiting for the clerk
to notice.
I’m passing for a person,
a human being
with rights and opportunities.
I’ve seen what happens
to the ones who get caught.
Their pictures come down
in the post office
and they’re never
seen again, invisible
on the streetcorners.
I’m waiting, pretending
I’m not waiting, I’m
buttoning my suit tight.
If I cut off the circulation
to my head, I can pass out
and wake up
over the rainbow
or at least after
the waiting’s over.
