Short Story Slam
Some John Wayne anyone?
haha okay, I’m supposed to write a short story or poem about this photo. And, I don’t feel like a story right now, so let’s go with a poem . . .
Buckaroo eyes
A thin cargo trim,
Before the cowboy tries
To dream against a whim.
Hand draped idly,
Protective. Perspective
Never hastens wildly
Except to sweep the scene retrospective
Before it all . . .
After the squall,
Came another story–
A truer journey
Told across the wrinkles
And twinkles in his starboard eyes–
The wily expression of cowboys
And indians messing around with the race of space . . .
And time.
Never enough of it
To tell
Pray well
How the scar crossed
His gray-stone eyes
Or a freckle of luck
Kept him alive . . .
But there’s an experience
That forgets the rest–
It’s the perseverance
In this man’s chest.
Lunch Poems
Frank O’Hara.
He just has one of those easy-going, no nonsense, tell it how it is, say it straight kind of faces. And, he takes his experiences of every day life and jots them down.
Here is a little word play . . .
gUm
by Taylor Beisler inspired by Frank O’Hara’s genius
It is 12:15 and no New York in sight
The weatherman keeps on droning on about the fogginess
I
Slip on some shoes and slide out the door
To find they’re not my shoes and
It’s sunny
It’s rainy
Not sunny
And all the weatherman can do
is keep us looking up for more unidentified flying
Particles
On to the farmer’s market
By an orange to find an apple to chew
We don’t like oranges
as much as apples, nor apples as much as lemons
For lemons you can make juice out of
And apples you just can’t squeeze that hard
But oranges you can
but no one cares what oranges can do
Because they’re orange
I keep trodding with sticky tack
Of some
Thing
On the bottom of
Someone Else’s
Shoe
On my foot
Pass the Kizito place on the left
With her headdress and cookie plate all set
Bikers whiz by without helmets
I guess they want to be cool without the protection
And it’s quite a sticky situation
When one tries to wear another’s shoe for a while
It never works
But don’t take it from my foot
Put it on yours
The sun comes back out
And with Smoothie King around the corner
A guitarist or two evades our crowd of misfits
Almost cracking someone in the head with their instruments
Then disappear
Whatever else is new
A Caribbean Way in hand
we’ll see another side of life move on
The air says today will be sunny
Or rainy
Or both
Or foggy
The Bardstown Road keeps meandering as the sticky tack
Clacks
But not another word on the weather
Or we’ll all just cry cats and dogs
With another thought flinging into our heads
Finding
U
In the middle of them both on a shoe
REFLECTION
Reading Frank O’Hara allows the ease and simplicity of capturing moments as they proceed enjoyable. O’Hara uses the present tense to escort the reader into his experiences, no matter how trivial. Using much of description (of the little things, such as his favorite motifs of weather) and his own thoughts on the subjects he sees, O’Hara makes sense of the world in a sarcastic light, finding humor.
As I tried to form an experience of walking down Bardstown Road, I kept in mind O’Hara’s present tense style. As the experience goes on, the motif of weather keeps the reader in the moment as it switches back and forth, much like in “The Day Lady Died.” O’Hara always progresses easily into the next thought, so each line is seamlessly flowing (with enjambment) into the next line to portray O’Hara’s fluid thought process. Even in the end, the lines do not make point to terminate, making use of the reader’s flowing conscious. This progression also refers to the idea of Personism, where life is lived as a progression and a conversation between two people. So, I tried to place the reader directly in the scene using present tense, the senses of the scene (weather), as well as using “we” and calling upon the “you” of the reader. Also, the different sizes of lines, as well as various groupings and uppercase letters standing out in the poetry of O’Hara intrigued me, thus I employed some of these findings.
Also, there is a little bit of a switch during the poem. I placed the “I” in the middle of a line by itself in the beginning. And, in the end, “U” stands out by itself. Wanting to make notice of the way Frank O’Hara keeps his reader engaged even while starting the scene with his conscious self, referring to “I” usually only once or twice in his work, I made the reader stand out more in the end. In standing out more, the reader becomes the one who experiences most of the play – the reader becomes the experience. And, I think that’s what Frank O’Hara was trying to capture.
I have no idea
Do you?
You probably know better than me. In fact, I’m sure you do.
Yes, I’m talking about that age old question and answer game. It starts with petals. Then, it ends with a clump of a daisy’s forget-me-not naughts in a knot, and where in the world am I going with this? Who knows.
It’s that feeling. That weird little jump your heart takes when your eyes meet his . . . or hers. Everyone says it’s like electricity. Puh-lease, it’s much more like a tornado swirling a hundred miles an hour – winds wiping your eyes clean open, smile wide, freeze the frame, and there you go – heart pumping. But, how do you tell him . . . or her . . . that you have feelings for him? There’s no easy way to do it, I guess. You don’t want to scare them half to death. There is that tried-and-true method; the one where you scribble on a half-torn, half-no-one-knows-what-happened-to-the-destroyed-yellow-crayon-smudged paper, “Do you like me? Check yes, no, or (my favorite) maybe.” Oh, yes. We truly did learn everything we ever needed to know in kindergarten.
These are the things I learned:
- Share everything.
- Play fair.
- Don’t hit people.
- Put things back where you found them.
- Clean up your own mess.
- Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
- Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
- Wash your hands before you eat.
- Flush.
- Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
- Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
- Take a nap every afternoon.
- When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
- Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
- Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup – they all die. So do we.
- And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned – the biggest word of all – LOOK.
Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.
Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all – the whole world – had cookies and milk at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.”
[Source: "ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN" by Robert Fulghum.]
A muse?
Why yes . . .
That’s kinda weird since the a and the muse part can go together quite well . . .
So, do you need a muse to write? I say yes. You may not realize it, but your muse might be you at this moment, pouring yourself into one of your characters. Or, a muse may be a guy/girl you have a crush on for a romantic/handsome character in your next novel. At this moment, there are a few muses I’ve used for my novel . . . first, Airsing and Syocer – God definitely is the sublime Creator of those two. Then, Xavier – my muse? Myself. Then, Zayin – a romantic guy, yes, and then Azriel – a bit of me in there as well.
Have you ever noticed that you begin to ask yourself what you would say in a situation where you place your characters – challenging yourself, your muses, and your situation. That’s the fun part about writing. Muse away! And, amuse yourself with it too . . . writing should flow out of your pen like fun. Leave the drudgery to the edits, that’s where you can add the freckles and such to your skeleton of a story. :)
