Archive for the ‘Piece of Mind’ Category
This is short character study I wrote after a speaking voice came to me during a recent free-writing session. This is the first I’ve published. More might appear as posts as I draw closer to the novel ledge.
I have heard people say that everyone has a story to tell. I may be the exception to that rule. I have nothing to say about my life or the lives of the people living around me in these townhouses. All of them look the same, the people more so than the houses. Quaint and beige. In their 60s and 70s. I am 63 years old. I get the paper about 5:30 or whenever the paper boy throws it in the drive, which lately has been past 6 during the week and on weekends, close to 6:30. When I’m done reading or sometimes if I’m not – if it’s a really engrossing paper but it’s getting close for to time for the kids to make it down to the bus stop – I”ll fold it over the arm of the chair and water my plants in the pot on the front stoop. The neighborhood kids have caused me too many interruptions. I like to wear my sandals with socks, which draws hysterics from the boys who walk by under the chestnuts to the stop sign and can’t find something more interesting along the way. They point and me say things they don’t think I can hear behind my back. (more…)
Posted in Piece of Mind | No Comments »
Tags: Fiction
Due north from the manicured office complexes on Kansas City Road is a finger nail-bitten drinking establishment called Bar. Not The Bar or Bar North. Just Bar. And I love it for that. Inside, the walls are covered with wood paneling. The tile, the pool table and the dart board are what you might find in your neighbor’s basement. In the summer, you can sit out on a wooden deck that looks like it was crafted on a long working Saturday by a weekend handyman, probably the owner – or the owner and his best friend. Someone who owes him a favor. You can sit at the wrought iron tables and look over the edge at a blue brick auto repair shop or the trains that drag past just gaining there steam, pulling long cars tagged by grafittists. And the engineers go by watching for pretty women and maybe to tug on the whistle if you acknowlege them. I’ve seen it happen. This seems a strange place to write poetry, but it’s as good as any. Better probably.
BLUES FROM BAR
I hadn’t planned on it.
An open night
with no plans
that happened to be payday,
so I took what money was left
from the week before,
just a few singles,
and sank them into wheat. (more…)
Posted in Piece of Mind | No Comments »
Tags: Poetry
My apologies for not writing more this week. I think this is the most time I’ve let pass without making a post since the site sputtered to a start last year. Besides the normal distractions, I’ve had my hands full recently with a freelance web copy project. I’ve been commissioned to write site content for Jackson’s Service Station in Edwardsville, Kan. And, for the first time in my career, I’m doing it for trade. My payment is going to be a tire rotation and the owner, Gary Jackson, has agreed to help me score a good deal on new tires when I need them. Money was on the table but it makes a much better story if some Goodyears are involved, don’t you think?
Posted in Piece of Mind | No Comments »
Tags: Business
Six bucks on a vodka tonic – and pleased to get it so cheap. Anything but writing tonight. The sky is draped with clouds, pavement pocked with holes and rain drops. Me wanting to walk out on myself so I mosey to the car, parking lot, bar ledge, pink drink with two black straws and crystal ice cubes. Across the street lives Edith Wharton, Thomas Hardy, Nikolai Gogol, E.M. Forster, Tolstoy, Freud, and Shelley. Bald men and babies in the book racks, both completely confident and asleep to the world. Women in casts and tennis skirts – the same woman, actually. I walk to the window on the second floor and look down on the neon trim where I was before, the revolving door, people crossing just right of the crosswalk and people still stop. No Rimbaud in the store, bare is his place on the poetry shelf. Most – the best – writers dead. I see the local interest books for identifying the birds of Missorui for the people who don’t notice them. God books, fat books, new age books written in the 1970s. Books on bi-polar disorder jump out at me as a man with a cane coughs himself up on the escalator. The stairs fold under themselves like applause, the down set on the other side, across a broad opening, so the entire upper level must be walked through before departing. What words are these people looking for? Can they be found here? Have they been written or can I write them for them? I have no need for an audience tonight – except for the Japanese girl in the cards (I haven’t seen her face but can tell her nationality from behind). So selective and yet she carries a pink purse that matches her lips. Back outside on the sidewalks, mist, the jewelry stores closed and no more engagement rings to be sold tonight, love closed until 10 AM Thursday.
Posted in Piece of Mind | No Comments »
Tags: Poetry
Bull Rider
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
She climbed on the bull in mixed lighting and rode it waving an arm free in the air. I watched her balance herself with that arm and turn her hand with the same grace that hands have when they are steepled for praying. This happened early in the night when the fresh poured beer was spreading a liquor smell through the bar. An indoor dusk settled on the tables and stools as the light faded from the courtyard. The people were still finding their way around the pen to watch the patrons ride, to forget themselves – to be out, drinking and maybe take their own shot at the bull. (more…)
Posted in Piece of Mind | No Comments »
Tags: Bull Riding
