Words for Rain

[James]

Sept 28, 2016 0:24:22 GMT -5 Inkdrinker said:

I do think it's kinda funny that you think The Trucker and the Drifter is the most finished, cause while I don't necessarily disagree, I really feel like I didn't earn it with that one. What I posted is literally my first draft (which I wrote in one sitting with no pre-planning or really idea of where it was going), changing the name God to Jesus, and then a cursory proofread. Sometimes you get it in one, I guess?

I think that's the nature of a monologue. If you get a handle on the narrator's voice from the start, then a monologue is never going to need much editing.

Sept 28, 2016 14:15:38 GMT -5 Sekot said:

All the stories kind of need a little extra touch, so choose one you'd like to put all that time into.

That's good advice.

[Inkdrinker]

Sept 25, 2016 2:54:40 GMT -5 Inkdrinker said:

As I mentioned during Inklings, I'm submitting an application for an all-year writing program and they want a sample of my work. So, AWR, what piece do you think I should dust off and spruce up?

Update:
I got accepted! Thanks for the help, James and Sekot.

[James]

Oct 8, 2016 0:36:25 GMT -5 Inkdrinker said:

Sept 25, 2016 2:54:40 GMT -5 Inkdrinker said:

As I mentioned during Inklings, I'm submitting an application for an all-year writing program and they want a sample of my work. So, AWR, what piece do you think I should dust off and spruce up?

Update:
I got accepted! Thanks for the help, James and Sekot.

Awesome! Congratulations!

[Inkdrinker]

Teaching Them How to Brood

You are eating soup alone again
There is nothing wrong with eating soup alone
You like eating soup alone
You ate soup for lunch every day for a week
It was delicious on Monday
But you were sick of it by Thursday
You made the soup yourself
Somehow that makes it more lonely
You wish someone would make something for you
Or that you would make something for them
But you don’t
And they don’t
So you eat soup alone again
And that’s alright
There is nothing wrong with eating soup alone
But it can be rather lonely

On Monday and Tuesday you had rosemary bread
You downgraded to a stale baguette on Wednesday
It is Thursday and you have crackers
Ritz crackers
To go with your curry soup
Which you are eating
Alone
You wish you had the stale baguette
You wish you had the rosemary bread
But you don’t
You have
Ritz
Crackers

In the kitchen or the canteen or the cafeteria
Wherever people gather to eat
You are eating soup alone again
But there are other people
People who are not eating soup
People who are not alone
But they pretend they are anyway
They play melodramatic music out of phone speakers
They talk about how hard their lives are
As white kids
Attending a private school
In the greater Seattle area
Not that they don’t have problems
Puberty is hard
But not really that hard
Like wood

So you resolve to teach them how to brood
Your actions are deliberate
But not dramatic
You pace
And pump the handle of the paper towel dispenser
And rip a length of paper towel off
You pace
And pour your soup from a repurposed yogurt container
Into a bowl
Put the bowl into the microwave
You don’t even like yogurt
Set the microwave for one minute and thirty seconds
Avoid eye contact
Listen
Pace
Open the microwave
Stir the soup
Close the microwave
Set the microwave for one minute and thirty seconds
Play with your center of gravity
Shift your weight
Sway on the balls of your feet
Take the soup out of the microwave
Transport the hot bowl onto the table with paper towel oven mitts
Sit down
Pass judgement on their music
Say nothing
Unscrew the cap of your hot sauce
Stir the hot sauce into the soup
Peel the wrapping off your ritz crackers
Pause
Look disappointed
Straighten your posture
Pull your chair in
Hear the chair legs scrape across the linoleum floor
Maybe someone will notice you
If you sit straight enough
If your chair is close enough
If you scrape loud enough
But they don’t
Or you don’t
So you face your soup
Again
And your ritz crackers
Alone
And you eat
And you feel lonely
And the soup is bland
You ate it one too many times
You didn’t use enough hot sauce
Nobody notices you
Your masterclass in brooding goes unappreciated
Your lessons go unlearned
So to prove that you don’t care
That you are above and beyond such things
As adolescent angst
You clean up your soup
Wash your hands
Walk out the door
And write a poem about it

[James]

I think, collectively, we've decided that reviewing poetry is just really, really hard, but I thought I'd write something anyway. All I would say is that there are just a couple of choices about line breaks that I'm not entirely on board with, and it might be just a smidge too long.

But I liked this. It actually reminded me a bit of Gaiman's attempts at poetry: the second person, the conversational type tone, the flow. It was an enjoyable read.

Always cool to see something new.

[Inkdrinker]

Jan 12, 2017 22:50:24 GMT -5 James said:

I think, collectively, we've decided that reviewing poetry is just really, really hard, but I thought I'd write something anyway. All I would say is that there are just a couple of choices about line breaks that I'm not entirely on board with, and it might be just a smidge too long.

But I liked this. It actually reminded me a bit of Gaiman's attempts at poetry: the second person, the conversational type tone, the flow. It was an enjoyable read.

Always cool to see something new.

Thanks for reading. It was a very spontaneous piece; an experiment in playful angst, writing-what-you-know, and doing away with meter, rhyme schemes, and perhaps, some quality control.

Gaiman was definitely on my mind.

Which linebreaks specifically didn't you like?

[Inkdrinker]

Very casual piece of Fabula prompt writing, as a writing exercise. The 5 plot points, in the order that I had to use them:

The woman learns of her brother's death.

The cat knocks over the mug of orange juice.

The tallest building in the world is struck by lightning.

The Prime Minister of Sudan declares war on Mars.

The man calls out his return from work to an empty house.

---

Ginger padded across the cold kitchen tiles, stalking something only she could see. Her fur pricked up and stood on end as she neared her target until she had nearly doubled in size. Head down, eyes focused, tense haunches: she was about to spring.

At the moment of climax, Ginger was interrupted by a knock at the door. Door-knocks always took precedent, even over hunting. Ginger begrudgingly abandoned the shadow or spot of lint she had been planning to pounce on and ran towards the door.

One of the tall, hairless, upright cats entered the house, tracking in mud and snow as it did so. It was the curvy one, the one who gave Ginger more food than she probably needed. It was holding a thin, white shred-thing, tucked inside a slightly thicker, slightly yellower shred-thing. The Big Cat took the one from the other and looked at it for a long time. Then its eyes began to leak.

Ginger took off at a sprint, because whenever the Big Cat’s eyes leaked, it always reached for her, and picked her up, and squeezed her much too tightly. Ginger leaped onto a dining chair and from there onto the kitchen table, knocking over a mug of orange juice as she landed.

Next stop: the couch. Ginger raced across the cushions, stepping over various rubber-and-plastic chew-things. This alerted the television to the situation, which helpfully turned itself on to aid Ginger in her escape. It distracted the Big Cat with strange noises. Noises like “Sudanese space elevator,” “Freak lightning storm,” “Prime Minister,” “Blames the Martian Federation,” and “Declaration of war.”

This bought Ginger enough time to escape to her hideout within the living room walls, where no one could ever find her, no matter how tall or hairless they might be. She laid down in a pile of dust to rest and listen.

The television had been defeated, but now the Big Cat was making noise all on its own.

“Ginger,” it mewled, “Ginger… Fuck.”

Ginger stayed perfectly still, closing to her eyes to focus on her other senses. From her command center, she tracked the Big Cat as it paced from room to room. Eventually it went back to the kitchen, dug around in the little bowl it kept treats and shiny things in, dragged an ink-stick across a shred-thing, and then left through the front door.

Approximately one catnap later, something knocked on the door again. Loathe as she was to leave her lair, Ginger knew door-knocks always took precedent, so she scurried quickly back into the main living-space of the house.

The door opened and closed and then there was another noise.

“Hello? I’m home.” It was the Even Bigger Cat.

Ginger looped through and around the Even Bigger Cat’s legs. Unfortunately, the Even Bigger Cat had never been very good at reading body language.

“Hi Ginger,” it said, scooping her up before she could get away, “where’s Melissa?” It stroked her fur, then focused its attention on the shred-thing the Big Cat had decorated with squiggly lines. After a minute, it made a noise Ginger had not heard before. A noise that started like “What’s this?” and ended like “Oh shit…”

[Inkdrinker]

Two very sappy and, dare I say, rather sophomoric poems I wrote for my graduation. Call it an experiment in excessive sentimentality. It's all a little inside baseball, but I am enjoying exploring the genre of nonfiction poetry, as seen in my very silly prior poem about soup. Both of these ring more than a little unfinished to my ear, but I wanted to post them anyway.

Mirrors & Windows

Remove my misanthropy
And I am my sister
Remove my inhibition
And I am my brother
But I am not them
I am a tree
Not an ardent redwood
Nor a social birch
I am a Douglas-fir
And I have outgrown my forest


Home

Home used to be
A place by a field
With a dirt-hill
And a broken trapeze
The books needed dusting
The bathroom was shared
With construction workers

Home used to be
A place by a creek
With woodchips
And broken picnic tables
The blackberries needed trimming
The basement would flood
With water or applause

Home used to be
A place writ in chalk
With scuff-marks
And a gas-station-cum-candy-store
The rules needed revising
The meetings would fill
With incessant young shrieks

Home used to be
A place where I sat
With no one else around
And read my book
The dishes needed doing
The microwave learned to coexist
With the toaster-oven

Home used to be
A place that I needed
With four parents
And sixty-odd siblings
The rooms needed cleaning
The children grew taller
With each passing year

And it follows
Like a slipstream
An unalterable lens
Over the worldview windscreen

And it follows
Like a global positioning system
Keeping watch from above
Calibrating the moral compass

And it follows
Like a stowaway sea breeze
Heading inland
Trapped in sense-memory

And it follows
Like a liquid
Seeping into the cracks
Of stone commandments

Time to go
To rolling hills
And monthly bills
To unmarked thrills
And storefront tills

Time to go
To college tries
And starry skies
To personal ties
And puppy dog eyes

Time to go
Away from rhyme schemes
Away from meter
Time to go
Away from home
Time to go
Forward

[Inkdrinker]

I did a little experiment with some Dixit cards, this is the result.

The daytime stars they smear like vaseline
A cavalcade of bronze gutting the green
Wallpaper of this room I can’t keep clean

I think of what I did in the Catskills
The things we do in search of greater thrills
Come back as grime clogging our windowsills

These shadows and sunbeams are all I’ve got
When trapped between two bad choices I thought
That I could be the better man I’m not

[Inkdrinker]

January Snow


I found you
In the frost
Chewing on
A fern frond
Tail wagging
Teeth gnashing
Up to your
Dewclaws in
January snow
You howled
And jumped up
And got slush
On my new
Winter coat