2016-17creativewriting-blog

[2016-17creativewriting-blog]

I’ve been dreaming weird.

I can’t hear you, the cicadas are so loud.

Wind twisting the trees,

blowing through the open window and scattering my papers

across the floor,

around the house. The lighting bugs showing off, love.

Next to this river before a storm.

The stars in their hiding places

the morning pushing away the night, upstream

the unforgiven are pure didn’t mean much

didn’t mean you. Either the dew didn’t set

last night or the sun pulled it up before we woke.

Blank skies away in their own minds,

walking down the street.

They didn’t see you there, or worse,

not walking, not looking.

The river’s dam has been porous since

back when the dam didn’t do much and the river was high

like the times my dad talks about, when he was a kid and the old

man told my dad of when the river was higher even before then,

when the old man himself was a kid.

Old man, how did you die? They said you went

night fishing and the boat got away. You jumped in and drowned.

My grandfather fished for silversides on this river.

He said they found an old river boat floating downstream.

They kept it tied up and built a dock around it. Then the river

froze one winter and that spring it washed away.

Comparing water to past

shoes to strangers

landscape and time

weather and others

spiritual autobiography

short history of my time

Short history of time

landscape was never the subject matter

language was the subject, God.

You’re walking in the water and down the street

Your pants rolled up, your hair shorter

That old church in roan mountain,

Someone shot one of the men singing.

I don’t know why, it was back in the time of riding horses.

On the radio,

why does medication hurt this kind of hurt?

He said he stole all the rhinestones out of Carolina

Don’t look back. Turn the channel.

I lost myself in the corn field and yelled my way out.

The moonshine in the evening rising moon

circle my uninvited.

Hotel in the desert.

Strange dream.

Floating down the canals of cities I have never seen,

boats floating, for no apparent reason, just to say they can.

Water sloshing up the walls. Girls that sit and watch

from the boats and from the streets, their lizard boots,

black jeans with slits cut in the knees,

How to not find someone in this?

There was plenty to chase after, but not for you.

Stealing the evening from time once in our life,

while I spent half the summer looking for shoes.

Someone asked me if they should cut their hair and I don’t

know it’s just boring how all girls look the same.

Don’t be mean to yourself

came from the meanest one,

even worse to herself.

Blue, white morning

waiting for me now alone in the subtle way

people leave you in your sleep.

Mexico must be made for us to hide.

My mind keeps running over in a rusted pickup truck,

sun at noon drying me out.

Blue mist coming up after the sun

river disappearing in the summer

snapping turtles laying on the grass

shooting down when they see me coming out the other side.

That box of things you kept

with a name in it. I figured,

you wanted to be remembered.

I don’t know the fun in that.

Do I understand?

Car driving away from my self

I can’t be my own back seat driver,

with nothing to trade.

Dry south wind blowing in my face and through the long dead grass on this mountain

the sun coming down at the end of a picture book

I’ve been scratching against this paper the way a dog licks

water out of a bucket, or more like, the way a trout

rises to the surface, and lifts it’s upperhalf out of the water.

Nothing to trade with and little nothing at that.

Mad fingers in a haunted house on a bloody fret broad

sunset loser with a sensitizer

Pack up my laugh like drug I can’t stop.

All the sudden,

I don’t want it anymore.

I don’t feel like wearing shoes today.

All the sudden, the night is slipping into the morning

I packed my shades to leave.

Upper corner of the book with the theme standing on the roof

looking down through my hair

darkness after the evening redness in the west.

Black and white theaters

selmer glowing light flashing in my mind.

Slow tremolo.

Nashville cooking my mind. Summer heating the mornings

quicker as the leaves turn strange.

I think you’re more ready than anyone.

I think you’ll greet the end of the world like an old friend and hug his neck.

I think you’ll see him and if not,

you’ll die anyway.

Robbers stealing the night away like all my Beatles records I needed.

Not cool man, not cool.

I’d kick those kids in the neck,

if they didn’t exit so quickly any way.

Soundless and effortless, or at first, but not afterward maybe.

No, definite, like tying down a boat and losing your watch.

Signals.

The world I’ve been sitting in silence wasting

I wanted time to move slower

Rubber Soul tripping up my stairs

lost in Los Feliz with some kid, standing for double meanings.

When will you come back, again in the night for me to hug your neck like death on a train?

Love in strobe light black light. Nobody else came close.

I’m taking a nap for once in my life,

hang up the phone, pull your cover up tight.

Mascara in the rain—

margarita like lemonade.

Shaggy happenings.

Rain sleeping through the day and then coming to me in the night.

With umbrellas we went out in the mud and jumped off the ledges

dark cameras with no moonlight and no alibi.

What’s coming to me,

you or the rain?

Get in my truck and we’ll drive out to lost crystal canyons.

You were lost and I was chasing my own imagery,

where I found out where you got off,

now, do you wish you were lost, question-mark.

All my stunts still look like someone else anymore.

I got an apple watch and some Jack Daniels.

Looking out the window my neighbor

running the trash down the driveway, the legs of her pajamas

tucked in her shoes, hair in her mouth.

Walking to the tennis courts,

someone ran over a rattle snake,

tiny massasauga eyes looking up at me.

Sistrurus Cartnnatus Edwardsii

we’re just making it worse.

Fashion keeps biting its tail, because it tastes good.

What is Boxing Day? The day after Christmas,

good to know.

I’ve got itchy bones and I’m going to New York.

I’ve been told they’ve got something in the air,

intangible and sparky that makes October sunshine a little less or a little later.

The way the Tennessee river has something hotter than the same thing here,

a difference in dialect or handwriting.

Putting on makeup in the dark.

You’re not coming back again

standing all alone in the corner with his antennas up.

Mister I want to disappear like you.

I’m not paying taxes and I’m not talking anymore.

I’ve been dreaming to an Ex-Beatle album,

waking, hanging off the bed by 5 AM.

Funny smile running through my telegram

Break your feet heels.

Everything I’ve started, I’ve not liked

                                 I’ve stopped

I’ve got some aces up my sleeve.

Not waving, drowning.

Presentation of fashion and comp. of words.

Laying on your cot, but no train whistles and you’re not alone.

Is she going to impress me, art?

God or the measure of yourself by self infliction?

God. Everytime.

Tie my shoes.

I keep forgetting it’s Halloween-

         make noises.

Walking in the dark with too much grace,

us fools on parabellum,

reading Frankenstein commentary in the dark.

Someone rolled toilet paper around my truck.

I think it was Haden McMillan.

Tapping on my desk.

Snapping my fingers. Slow.

Looking out my least favorite window.

2nd grade I looked at my least favorite face for about 7 hours a day.

What satisfaction, what hot bowl of ice cream,

freezing just in time,

do people get from cutting the grass

growing from their dirt?

Third party insight … I guess.

Sprouting seeds wanting only an inch or two, but I look down and feel the half inch or quarter

between my toes. Yes … I would guess.

It is good.

I keep cutting my face in the shower, shaving.

If I didn’t shave in the shower I wouldn’t.

I saw a man wearing lipstick. No vanity.

Daylight savings and smoke this fall.

It rained Tuesday night and I woke with leaves on my windshield,

But the fires started again on Friday, on Holston Mountain and the smoke got worst on Sunday

night. It’s been so hot tomatoes grew until November.

Playing on the floor with your wheelchair in your mouth

says the one in muddy boots

Sleight of hand keep me guessing

there is something against the protagonist

off the streets

up in an apartment for the right lady to wander her way around.

World War II in photographs,

aesthetics of the dark, there’s nothing to lose when you can’t see

what you’re stumbling around.

The right eyes in the right place.

middle part girl with a diamond shaped face.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled

you’re here, but I’m a little lost

I’m, doing it and I still don’t understand.

It could change at any moment, but I don’t like thinking that.

I could run around, but instead

I sit at home and read the dictionary in the dark and change up my hair

She plays guitar with her left hand in aching pain.

Strip off your heels and put on your avocado mask.

I had a nightmare last night

you were in the paper again.

It sounds like a dirty chord in the minor bond girl’s Christmas song

Your mother’s a fish.

><(((“>

Guitar solo, you drink too much

Makes him drink just the same

Yabba dabba doo

I know the weather in heaven. To bed, early, with no dessert.

That’s what it’s like.

Making fun of the dead in all our free time.

I don’t want to live in a city and I don’t want to work.

Oh lord, how the evening falling,

the world standing still, watching a finger turning the lights

Low, just low enough to see, two eyes looking down on me.

White teeth grin, extra teeth.

I’m not enjoying the street lights so far,

when it should be dark, at least outside.

I want to be able to use a telescope.

That should be a measurement in find the luminance of darkness.

Enough lux for a telescope to function-

when buying a house one should take this into account.

I keep finding myself standing in corners,

Around the house, or in an unfamiliar room,

I’ll find myself there. And if there is some obscure corner in the space of all your things,

I’ll be there in your clutter of corner objects, if you’re looking, or if,

You find me, by chance alone.

Upside down, in your closet, I scratched my name into your wall.

I feel tall when I see you in there. And the only mark

I’ve made in this world was stretching my shirt and the construction of a gazebo

that has yet to be built, but all the elephants are sitting around, waiting.

I read a book of poetry by an old painter’s

widow, which broke my soul and left me

shaking in my skeleton.

How conviction came to be in a used book sale,

I decided was the result of the death of the previous

owner, which I’ve concluded must happen to us all, and certainly me.

I remember sitting on the floor in the kitchen,

Don’t call me. I hate you.

That’s funny.

What’s funny?

That’s sad.

What’s sad?

                                             The French

                                             Rock and roll

                                             Genius

Moved from Paris to L.A.

That’s not sad, that’s funny.

What’s funny?

The French rock and roll genius moved to L.A.

I’ve got something sad to make me

lie in the floor and form sentences that don’t end with punctuation, but run

on in the space around my head and hang there.

The washouts that think they’ve discovered a new sadness.

Rain forests, and the shortness of time.

I’m waiting for them to have something real to think,

I’ll have it all figured.

I’m a step ahead.

I’m across the river,

(8>/–< in my flying saucer.

I’ve laid on the floor for three weeks and now

I’m ready to wrestle an alligator.

Show your teeth and put your lippy on.

Hoffner guitars and slimy pizza,

I’m going to use the edge of my hand, cut out what I

don’t like looking at. What’s in my head that I don’t love?

Every spring my dad watched the trees fill up the top of Beck Mountain,

from the road, just a few inches of the top divisor between the sky and the new green leaves.

he took one or two added to mean summer is here and planted tomatoes, but he

doesn’t do that anymore.

He doesn’t look for the trees, he just knows when it’s ready, and time to plant.

Dodging bullets,

your rapid fire questionnaire.

I’ve been caught,

what a slippery slide guitar,

I knew there would be music but I had no idea the rhythm.

I knew you’d take me by surprise but you cheated the cards and still lost.

Looking from behind the eyes of a painting in a haunted house at the lounge

lizard holding onto the dark iced scotch,

Mister Goodnight behind the black and white telecaster,

howling at the moon from the bathtub to the bar.

Make sure you ain’t got a tail and you don’t look like a ghost.

Organ Halloween

something spooky in my rear view mirror.

Long finger nails, the little flames and sparky girls.

Pattie Boyd.

fingermonkey.

Grace Kelly.

Alexa Chung.

Preextinguishing the celestial bodies and flicking the cigarette out early.

Spitting at the camera. Old film—as long as I keep gravity downhill,

I’ll find something to write about.

As long as I keep inertia far away, I can find a girl.

I think so.

By the end of the novel I consider the antagonist to be immoral.

Summer again, hanging things out

mixing our potion under moonlight again.

Blonde and shirtless

fuzz French thin toast

18” Paiste 505 chaos and confusion

I’m the aviator, the fully qualified survivor.

My parents are arguing over a dog’s smile.

I’ve got sand in my hair and you’re in a movie star trance,

making noises in your sleep in the passenger seat,

you have no idea how much I drink in my sleep.

I wrote a letter in the desert

that I’m not going to send until Christmas

If you go to jail, I won’t bail you out, but I’ll come visit,

          I’ve got a hole in my pocket.

I’ve got some money hiding in the lining of my jacket.

I’m going to spend everything on deeply superficial

               put the queen out of power.

I’m turning into a natural actor

waking up in places different to those which I’ve fallen asleep to, and these strange sitcom scenarios

in which I play the part so well,

have no meaning at all and feels like a script you’d rather read than watch.

[2016-17creativewriting-blog]

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