Monday, Monday

A spark of inspiration and we have something other than a poem. Grab a cup of whatever you’d like, curl up with your device of choice and enjoy this short story I concocted recently. It’s rough so leave any suggestions in the form of a comment in the designated fields. Enjoy!

ASSAULT

“Katie…” Her name was sucked into the silence. She was too lost to hear John say her name.
                John kept his eyes on her. Her head tilted down, her eyes were glassed over like the surface of an undisturbed lake, where the thoughts were lost in the shadowy world below. And below the words of her attacker swirled around and around, echoing with a subtle ferocity: “You’re not melting yet. I guess I need to touch you some more.”
                John reached out his hand to hers. His finger tip grazed her knuckle. She jolted away, against the car door. “I’m,” he paused, “I’m sorry, Katie.”
                Katie relaxed. The feeling on imminent danger faded. John appeared in the seat besides her with a wrung look on his face. Her bottom lip quivered a little. She dammed the tears. Without any words, Katie sunk back into her seat and resumed her pensive posture.
                The silence was interrupted by the clack and crunch of a troop of shoes crossing the parking lot. They looked up and saw him bound and dragged by campus security. Kevin seemed to be tamed at the moment. He had been fierce and forceful in his protests earlier. Then he spotted them, safe in their car, and he lost control again.
                “Kaite!” he shouted over and over. He began to fight the officer’s grip, trying to wretch himself free. “Kaite!”
                John felt Katie’s arm slid in around his. She drew herself into him seeking protection. John stared at the wild capering prisoner, this rapist that sought maybe understanding from his prey.  Kevin glared at the pair of them through the windshield as the officers struggled to keep him detained.  They forced him farther down the parking lot aisle to a car that waited to take him off to jail.
                As John watched Kevin fight hopelessly to free himself, an idea sprang up in his head. John stuck a hand in the pocket of his coat. They were still there: tiny beakers from the University lab. They were fragile and valuable. And he thought: why not? I don’t see any room for guilt here.
                He looked up from his ponderings. The campus police officers were struggling to get Kevin into the back of the car. The trunk was open and they were wrestling Kevin into it. Then it seemed perfectly plausible. John took his arm away from Katie, who was lost in her own thoughts again. He calmly walked down the parking aisle. The cruiser filled up his field of vision as he took each step. One officer had Kevin partly into the trunk. Kevin’s limbs were flailing about. John dipped his hand into his pocket. He fingers locked in on one of five tiny beakers. He drew it out. He stopped three yards from the car. He was ignored by everyone, even Kevin who continued to fight. John thought how useless it was.
                John kept his eyes on Kevin. Then, with a flick of his wrist, the beaker went sailing toward the open trunk. It landed. It burst against Kevin’s forehead. John walked away to the sounds of Kevin’s cries. A clear liqui began to seep across his face and into Kevin’s eyes. John heard the police scramble away. He heard them radio for EMT’s.
                There was one officer who had fallen into the trunk with Kevin. He moved to extract himself when it happened. The cop moved against the fuzzy lining of the trunk. The movement produced a single charge of static electricity. A spark leapt from his uniform, undetected.  It connected with the clear liquid dripping from Kevin’s skin. It ignited. There was a woosh as the flamed sucked up oxygen. The flames danced about Kevin’s face before finding his clothes. The cops scurried away.
      They were radioing for fire engines now. None of them had taken notice of John, who was calmly started his car and drove away with Katie, who hadn’t noticed anything at all, except that the voice of her attacker grew more distant and more impotent.

Tags: Monday, Scott Petty, Short fiction

Are Some Ideas Too Big?

I bought a box of Cap’n Crunch. And I was happy. When I feel connected to something like that, I write about it. I found it difficult to put into words what my morning bowl of cereal meant to me. Are some ideas too big to put into words?

I wrestled with the words for a few days. I avoided them for a couple of days too (“Oh, I can’t. I have to work late.”). No arrangement of words seemed to adequately represent what I had in my mind. I made an attempt anyway. So this poem is still just a draft:

Why I love My Cereal
From the corner of my bed,
six in the morning,
I look out at at day
already too big
to imagine
too intricate
to fathom
too tightly rolled
to impregnate with
an idea,
like some science project
gone array.
But in this morning hour, at the
foot of the day, there’s nothing
except
a spoon,
the bowl,
some milk
and the crunch
of my cereal,
my bowl of cereal.

SAP

 

Anyone have a favorite cereal besides Capn’ Crunch?

Tags: Capn' Crunch, Cereal, ode, poems, Poetry, Scott Petty

Ideas always strike right before bed time…

When the ideas strike, it’s irresponsible to simply roll over and say “I’ll jot it down tomorrow.” It’s not going to be there tomorrow. And if it is, it won’t be the same idea. It’s what a writer does. When the idea sprouts the writer stops and takes notice, giving it full attention. That’s the end of my preamble. And now the poem…

Where Dreams Never Begin

In a twin-sized bed
Under a ceiling fan
With three pillows stacked
beneath my head
While music coats the
darkened room
And I’m still here
without you.

SAP

Tags: bed, Dreams, night, poem, Scott Petty, twin sized bed

Avoidance

Life wants avoiding sometimes. There are plenty of reasons for it. There are plenty of tactics to do it: booze, meth, TV, food, sex, porn. Even rushing to avoid the sad and embarrassing moments in life, it’s inevitable that some of the good ones are missed too.

Then I heard a song, and remembered why avoidance tactics sucked. This song, right here:

Something about this song reminded me how music heightens our connections to life’s experiences. There’s no way to feel numb to life when music is playing. And that’s really a much better approach to life: feeling it head-on. Head on…that idea is how I arrived to this poem:

Sobriety
Choosing to
meet the
intensity of
living head on,
keeping  the
lines between
the blues , reds, and greens
sharp,
feeling your
senses
slide into
every moment,
walking from
serenity into anger
from apathy
into enthusiasm,
unable to ignore
the smell of
the briny
liquids pouring
out of the body.

SAP

Tags: avoidance tactics, Colours, Grouplove, pain aovidance, poem, Scott Petty, Sobriety, video, writing, YouTube

Perspective

Relativity

35 dollars
35 dollars in change
35 days of compound interest
35 percent correct
35 points in a football game
35 feet from the finish line
35 lovers
35 kisses
35 bullets
35 pounds of flesh
35 seconds never lived
35 words that didn’t mean
a thing

SAP

Tags: Perspective, poem, Relativity, Scott Petty, wirting

This Little Piggy

I returned home one day and my roommate has the piggy bank he bought on Olvera St. in LA strewn across the floor. That poor pig. But it’s interesting how a simple scene like that can spur a poem or story. In this case, it was a poem.

Piggy Bank
He slid his
finger
down the cracked
ceramic,
with a lover’s touch,
until the
chipped
pottery bit
back.
The blood
leapt dutifully
from
his
fleash
to what was left
of
the things
he never
quite
forgot.

SAP

Tags: Piggy Bank, poems, Scott Petty

Rental Cars?

When I write something new and share it with a friend they respond with: “Well, what I think it means is…” I…don’t…recall asking for an interpretation. I just wanted to ascertain the impression my particular brand of art left. It seems almost inappropriate to ask someone to make a guess at my intended meaning.

See, art is like a rental car.

Rental cars don’t belong to the individual. Still, no one will tell you where to drive it. They don’t even tell you how far you can drive it. Just have the tank full upon return!

Image courtesy of William Stern

I arrived at this conclusion when I sat down and took a good long look (and it took a good long while too) at a piece by James Tate:

The Trap

Inside the old chair
I found another chair;
though smaller, I liked
sitting in it better.
Inside that chair
I found another chair;
though smaller, in
many ways I felt
good sitting in it.
Inside that chair
I found another chair;
it was smaller and
seemed to be made
just for me.
Inside that chair,
still another;
it was very small,
so small I could
hardly get out of it.
Inside that chair
I found yet another;
and in that another, until
I was sitting in
a chair so small
it would be difficult
to say I was sitting
in a chair at all.
I could not rise
or fall, and no one
could catch me.

I sat down and pulled this piece apart trying to decipher his intentions. But without having Tate around to ask, success was a far guess. I threw my thinking into reverse and just took off in my own direction. “The Trap” became personal. I felt something of myself in his words.

Don’t you see art in the same way? Someone pulls up to you with their piece and they say: “take it for a spin.” They don’t tell you what the destination should be (usually). It’s on you, the consumer, to determine where the piece will take you.  There are occasions when this process ends up being a carpool commute, you and the artists happen to end up on the same line of thinking. You may just end up cruising down the 101 while the artist may have had the 5 in mind when they conceived the piece. It doesn’t matter…or I don’t think it should.

As a writer, I want my work to take the audience on a personal trip. Since life is pretty personal, so should the interpretation of art. If everyone got the same thing out of my writing then it would be a commercial.

You can take the piece (the painting, the poem, the music) where ever you want to go, like any rental car. And even though it does not belong to you, you’ll never forget where you went with it. That will always belong to you.

Tags: James Tate, poem, Rental Car, Scott Petty, simile, The Trap

The Cinematic Influence (a satirical piece).

The medium of motion of pictures is a wonderful vehicle for stories. You hear and see the elements of the story. I’m waiting for the day when I can smell them too. The power of this medium has been decried decade after decade.
I have felt the influence of this medium in my own life. I have five (I know, a list) examples that come to mind right off the top of my head. Here are the five things that movies have convinced me NOT to do…

1)      Back pack or even visit Eastern Europe

Where did this extreme notion come from? Have you seen “Hostel II?” There was a first, but I haven’t seen it. I got to the sequel first, so that’s my frame of reference. If you haven’t partaken of this piece of gory cinema from famed horror director Eli Roth, then visit Eastern Europe first. Watch the movie after you’ve landed safety back in the States. This so called “torture porn” will drive the desire right from you.

Why? Well, first the creepy gang of kids that seems to be conveniently placed at every turn. These Slovakian rug-rats don’t even flinch at violent death. Watch them as the kick around a decapitated head like some kind of soccer ball.

At least the kids in Mexico only try to sell you Chiclets, or, at worse, steal your wallet.

Add to the list of reasons, as demonstrated by this movie, not to visit this region of the world: creepy stalkers, human trafficking, lawless businessmen. I could go on with misplaced assumptions. The point: I would rather be victim to LA gang violence than to fall prey to torturous millionaires who get off on bathing in fresh human blood or slowly feasting seared human muscle. No thank you!

2)      Use a Tanning Bed

This is one that I’m thankful to have listed. I don’t know what’s worse, getting stuck in a tanning bed and burning to death or doctor’s bills? I have to confess that when I think of medical bills I shake with fear. The prospect of paying thousands of dollars to have melanoma removed from my skin frightens me, maybe even less than going up in flames. Having medical bills hang over my head is like a death sentence that is exacted once a month. But thanks to “Final Destination 3, t”hat scenario is a just a distant day dream. After seeing two oblivious girls get trapped in their tanning beds (a strand of innocuous circumstances binds them in their beds, then sets the beds aflame), I’m perfectly fine avoiding these purveyors of faux sunshine.

A "Final Destination Moment" is when you just know something bad is going to go down and you're gonna die becasue of it.

3)      Live in North Dakota

Officer Marge Gunderson sits in her patrol car with the culprit detained in the back as she utters these poignant words: “There’s more to life than a little money, you know. Don’tcha know that? And here ya are, and it’s beautiful day.”

"Beautiful" is really a subjective term.

If that beautiful day was an average day in January, in North Dakota, then it would have been about 4 degrees below zero at the time. Where I come from (California) a beautiful day is about 75-80 degrees with a nice, dry atmosphere. Leave the humidity back east.

And after that scene from the (genius) Cohen Brothers’ “Fargo,” I will never move to North Dakota. I may be jumping to an irrational conclusion. I mean, look at California’s economy: a $25 billion shortfall in 2010, and a peak unemployment rate of 12.5%. The weather is really the only reason keeping me from fleeing to North Dakota (where the state enjoys a $1billion dollar surplus and an unemployment rate that hasn’t peaked above 5% in a couple of decades). I would be hard pressed to leave my homeland though. Thanks Fargo for giving me a glimpse into the flat land (and living) that is North Dakota.

4)      Leave the Group

You’ve been on a tour, right? You’ve been guided through foreign territory? There’s a reason you stay with the group. Parameters are one of those concepts that should not be shunned. They should be embraced. Boundaries are there for a reason. That poor couple in 2003’s “Open Water” was a great object lesson in the importance of staying with the group. I had that care-free, adventurous (and obnoxious) attitude that “the group” did not apply to me. Well, after seeing a couple become fish food over the course of several grueling hours, I have a new respect for the directive to “Please, stay with the group.”

You really should pay more attention to the tour guide next time.

5)      Take a Short Cut

This is an understandable…error. You’re on a road trip hauling a silver-dome camper with your entire family including that new baby. Of course a short-cut is going to be a tempting offer. After seeing “The Hills Have Eyes,” I have completely dismissed the phrase “short-cut” from my vocabulary. I don’t even use short-keys for fear of getting lost and happening into the territory of nuclear test monsters with rusty blades and chains. I’d rather die in a tanning bed than at the hands of a hungry cannibal. I’m taking a lesson from the Carters and sticking to what’s on the map. I’ll face the long hours behind the wheel just to avoid the adventure of trying to escape one psychotic Papa Jupiter or even worse…Big Brain (shudder).

The only one who wants you to take that short-cut is this guy.

Tags: Fargo, Film, Final Destination 3, Hostel II, Movies, Open Water, The Hills Have Eyes

A Particular Conversation Met With a Specific Poem

I had an interesting conversation the other day with an interesting person. Not the kind of “interesting” that leaves a bad taste in your mouth. More like the kind that leaves you curious.

The conversation brought to mind this poem I had written some time ago:

Lover’s Prayer
Can I fall asleep in your arms tonight?
I need a heartbeat in my ear
that is not my own.
Can you run your fingers through my
hair? It’s thin on top but maybe tonight
you can pretend it’s full and soft. You can
pretend I have indigo eyes  and
innocence still written across my
face.
Then I’ll fall asleep forgetting my sins, my
selfish voice and only remember to
forget.

SAP

I think of this poem often. Especially when I’m embarking on new romantic endeavor. There may have been that moment where we met someone who seems so perfect and you wonder why they’re talking to you because the only thing you know about yourself are the imperfections, the missing pieces, and the mistakes. Even when the object of our affection has accepted us, we still feel the sting of those gaps. So we pray to our lover’s that they’ll fill those gaps in our mind and that our trust in them will be justified because they will help us forget.

Tags: love, love poem, lovers, Poetry

Nothing Happend. I Think Not

I’ve had these sheets from my junior college days. They’re poems from a poetry workshop I took one semester. I skimmed them back then, but didn’t think enough of them to let myself drown in the words. Some sense of awakening caused me to excavate them from whatever lonely bin I damned them to. I read this one particular poem and the piece just…combusted. 

NOTHING HAPPENED
by Belle Waring
from Refuge ©1990

Tyler scuffs oak leaves to frisk
the scent walking through Malcolm X Park.
First date. The arms of our jackets
graze, sweet puff of romance. Then boom
I step on a syringe, the needle
quick as a pit viper hits my boot.

If this were a movie, I’d laugh, but I’ve got
works stuck into my tread. “Jesus,
don’t touch it,” says Tyler, and whips out
his hankie to yank it.

                                                 “Please,
I’m fine,” but he started to fuss,
hailed a cab, told the hack to drive fast,
got me home, sat me down to examine
The Foot; a crap of red toe nail polish
left over from August, skin intact. Then
he held my foot in both hands.

                                                   People say
Nothing Happened when they mean No Sex,
when the fact is every look counts. The sun
quivered in the wind outside whaling
the trees, and shimmered over the wall. When I met
Tyler’s eyes in that witchy light, I breathed
off the beat and choked, like I was fourteen.

I used to be depressed all the time,
and romance, by the way was not the cure.
I don’t mind winter because I know
what follows. There are laws.

I mean, wow. If I could compose a poem like that then I wouldn’t hesitate to call myself a writer. Aside from the technical skill displayed (she does that “show, don’t tell” thing so well here). But I was able to connect with this narrative. It’s like I was reading something different for the first time. It must have been a timing thing.
There are those moments in life when you look at a set of words and they’re the right ones at the right time. They’re so right, in fact, that they’re like the first words ever.
That last stanza is the segment that really sang to me. “There are laws.” Wow. I hope you’ve enjoyed Waring’s piece as much as I did.

 

Tags: Belle Waring, poems, Poetry, Scott Petty, writing