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.
If you could do anything . . .
This is my tweak of the Google logo for a scholarship application based on the premise, “If you could do anything . . .” Personally, I would go to the moon. :)
You decide…
What’s your caption for these fellas?
Look what I can do! Modern version of Bambi . . .
Must . . . have . . .
The snack that smiles back . . . until it bites your head off . . .
Smile . . . you’re on candid camera . . .
Dananaaaa . . . dananaaaa . . . dunuh . . .
All right, so in composition class, here’s the rub:
MAKE A PICTURE TRUE
We looked at a photo . . . our group saw a black and white picture of a football player on the ground. Our assignment: write about it as if you were there. Make the reader feel the photo . . . All right, here goes nothing . . .
The blank sky blazing to lurid colors and white ringing vibrantly true, the football field rolled on ahead, the piqued shocks of grass all spent in the dust and ash of victory’s tune. But, it wasn’t victory that split the air, it wasn’t cheer; what splashed through the biting air of fall came to rest upon the shoulders of a shuddering soldier—a grass-kissed jersey folded itself over silence, collapsing into the despair of a loss, the death of a tribute. My eyes never strayed; they rested, imbibing every inch of this warrior’s stance. He shivered at moments he breathed, worrying his hands about the grass—glass blades biting his hands as he clutched their shards in agony. He lay like that, slain and desperate, for a while. I soaked my eyes in the cool gloss of a blink, trying to strain away the blistering breezes as they soared by. Then, my pupils collapsed upon ripping themselves ajar, strung tautly now to a line of lighted beads, emanating shocks of white sight. I looked away, my eyes trailing downward through the peaks and valleys of the numbered lights that counted faultily of the score. A few spectators, sorely rushed for lack of time, brushed by my sorry stance in excitement; their clean cotton bit my back as they thrashed through, creating a tension in my being that clung to the rimy rail of the stands. I stood, shivering, biting my lip as a breath caught the air in visibility for a moment, borrowing a cloudy cloak from its hands. Something drowned; that something was a something I could not pass words upon, but it happened to be a something of great importance to the warrior defeated by a sea of grass. Out of place it seemed to be, rocking its regal ridges against a plain plot of land. Somber solace spread its callow wings over this soldier, his frame hunkered in the splashes of groaning grass that relieved the air of the want to be taken in.
