Improv. 5 (Week 10)

Practice with “Loss,” C.K. Williams. The Piece in itself fascinated me with this idea about loss so i wanted to try to coax the idea out of an elegy for further drafting.                      

To the once was piece of flesh    

tinged with singed coat tails 

you aren’t in vain.Your cod scales

are immersed in worms and soiled 

manure. Created with caked blood,

silent death your names are etched in.

The true gravestone that never withers.   

There is a gravesite in all of us that cleaning

Improv. 4 (Week 10)

Practice, of a world within a world. Mostly the struggle with a self acceptance i suppose.

Creamy canary yellow strands of hair flare
while the tips of her fingers creak and crack
at a computer screen. Her heart’s aflutter, going
20 words per second, gurgling vowels, unheard
vocals, bathing herself in fragmented sentences.
slowly gnawing at her calves whispers of“the in crowd”.
The stares at the lunch table make her lurch. Brittney.
strawberry crushed bangs, Kyle with his Smokey locks,
tattoo "only God can judge" it speaks.

Improv. 3 (Week 10)

This improv was off of Robert Hass' "Meditation at Lagunitas" Something about how he manages to navigate the big picture with these small details interested me, so i wanted to try something similar.

To you, she may be Mary Pre-Jesus.

A poison butterfly drizzling

Its scales over the pits

of your stomach every time you mustered

goodbye after church.

Realize that while she may be a singer her laugh

Was the sweet mosaic of two rain showers

on opposite ends of the earth

tapping the concrete in unison.

Could you have unshakable faith in that?

The beads of sands that skirt

Around the palms of our feet while

dancing in the middle of the desert.

Is that too sacrilegious of a view

of the person who makes people buckle

their knees under the weight of her voice?

how she has you feeling like your heart

is a Volkswagen sized artery pinched with pinpricks

leaking reasons to restore your faith.

Do you know about dialtones?

How instead of signifying end calls,

they’re excuses to bellow

attempts to close the distance.

How she’s beautiful,

Like 6 willows branches bending their heads in unison.

Improv. 2 (Week 10)

I decided to tune another revision to my piece and see if I could make it expose more of itself.

Ink

I hate it—smell of pigment, drops

running through my fingers. Anyway,

My bed, was a guest room stuck between

my grandfather’s music collection in a closet

and the bathroom. Every spring we talked.

I called it “cutting,” since words tended to relieve.

But this is a poem about ink. My mother,

she used to cut with her voice along. 

“Writing is your past time,” she’d say.

My notebook was a water pail in a hole.

“Never let your tongue drench your words,”

my grandfather said. Another cut. Another

when he barged in my room, and the door

hit my ink pot. Black splotches on my bedspread.

His tongue, black as the ink on my quill, ready

to spit. “Why the hell you want to waste your life?”

The last day he cut, he lacquered over the porch.

It’s still there, I bet, just waiting to be cut.

Improv. 1 (Week 10)

I decided to work with my workshop draft in greater detail, this is the result.

I Hate Ink

The smell of its pigments,

Drops of it running through my hands.

My bed, was a guest room, stuck in between

A closet of my grandfather’s music collection

and the bathroom. Every spring we’d talk,

Call it cutting cause words tend to relieve.

But this is a poem about ink.

My mother used to cut with the lisp of her

voice.  “Writing is you’re past time, don’t

confuse a hobby with your career.”

My notebook was a water pail searching

Bottomless holes.  Grandfather muttered

“Never let your tongue drench your words”

Another cut,

You barged in my room, door shoving

my ink pot from desk to bed. Ink splotched

over sheets, like me and writing fought.

Tongue, blue as the ink suspended on my quill,

ready to spit. “Why the hell you wanna waste your

life cutting when you’ve got the smarts to be somebody.”

The last day you cut, you lacquered ink over the porch.

It’s still there, waiting to be cut.

Junkyard Quote 2 (Week 10)

"Art is like masturbation. Design is like sex." - Colin Wright

Junkyard Quote 1 (Week 10)

“Do you fall in love easily?
Yes often.
With a view, with a book, with a dog, with a cat, with numbers, with friends, with complete strangers, with nothing at all.”

—	Jeanette Winterson, Gut Symmetries (book about human relationships and physics

I liked that fact that the pairing of love is typically seen as between two people, not realizing that most people go through their lives loving complete and sometimes abstract things.