Brick-length oblate feather phenotype etched with a smudge stick, stock still shocked will to flight blunted in blood.
Tag Archives for change
August 16, 2011
If you gather enough pieces – cicadas-here, fried chicken and poverty-there, family-just so – will it look like home? Or do you just tell the story foreigners expect to hear?
May 26, 2011
My legs slough off vacation in thin papery memory flakes, the dull sheen of former sun peels to reveal a shiny skin present.
April 26, 2011
When I come back, I will be surprised by the banal half box of soup and desiccated mango in the fridge, and thankful.
April 18, 2011
Sidling up to Bob Dylan’s loquacity, cowed by his humanity, my cowardice, I am mute.
April 13, 2011
Head full of spikes, wound points leak bleary streaks onto the page, lines misted, words atomized beyond meaning.
April 2, 2011
Words fly from your hands to mine, a school of silver minnows parted by current.
February 27, 2011
The Internet was nice today, sending messages I only wanted to receive, responding to queries with search algorithms finely balanced as a Stonehenge lintel, rewarding the threshold click. No selling, no shouting, no lies. Like the last 20 years hadn’t happened.
February 17, 2011
The twinge-ease, hinge-wheeze of kiddie swings freed from winter’s rust sleep are siren sighs for time gone by – one season more, and her feet touch the ground.
One-Month Reflection on the Today Project
A month into my writing project for the year, and feedback from a limited number of friends and family has been positive (thanks!), though the words “melancholy” and “forced” have come up.
Of course it’s forced. The whole goal is to use the fewest and best words to convey an accurate description of what I see. These nuggets don’t exactly trip off the tongue without serious editing. If what I see requires lots of hyphens and adjectives, well, it’s my perspective. (How po-mo is that. yawn.) But perhaps after more practice, I’ll find a rhythm that isn’t so strained.
If the opposite of forced is to convey the natural, narrative arc of my day, then I will not indulge. Who cares about the time I got a cup of coffee for my morning migraine, or when my kid had a snotty nose, and I ran over a stray kitten, watched the game with those people, you know, and where I heard about the besnotch that’s going out with my ex, but I can’t think of anything to write, so I’ll just go to sleep after this thoughtful post (insert spelling errors). Besides, it’s nobody’s business whether the kitten lived or died.
The melancholy isn’t intentional, but it’s been a grey winter. I’m usually a contented person. Except when I feel snarky.
On the fourth day, and every day thereafter, I wanted to write about how difficult / boring it is to compose something regularly.
On the fifth day, I was daunted (and then bored) by the thought of doing 360 more posts about what I see in three sentences or less.
On the sixth day, I bribed myself to continue with the idea that I could do something different in February. Haiku? Cinquain?
On the 30th or whatever day, I’ve resolved to keep with the three sentences. And to try to inhabit the middle of a Venn diagram that consists of Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Leonard Cohen. I could get to March in worse company.
Note to self: Don’t write about angels, even if they are snow angels. It’s embarrassing.