runaway sentence.

festival

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 16:42:00 +0000

She sat on the hill, watching the crowd swaying, an army of arms waving in the air like so many balloons. Those people were so high, they had no idea what they looked like, a mass of teeming body parts flailing, mostly in rhythm, a few errant offbeats proving the rule.

She scanned the sea but he was nowhere in sight, and the band creeped her out anyway, with those scary wrestling masks. She'd be better off listening but not watching.

She began the long hike back to her tent. When morning came, no one would feel better than she.

This week's 100 Word Song at My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog is "This Too Shall Pass" by OK Go. I just love that video! Well, all their videos, really. And hat tip to Los Straitjackets, whose music, but not appearance, I love, too.

sunday blues

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 17:14:00 +0000

All of my flaws are on display,
exhumed and arranged on display--
fighting the urge to fly away.

Failing flight, I can fake a smile
beyond the blue cloisonne smile
that's challenging to reconcile.

Would that we were only talking--
fervent wish for no more talking,
my calloused feet should start walking.

Kerry's weekend challenge to the Real Toads is to write the blues--the blues stanza.

the wild one

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 22:16:00 +0000

Let your hair down,
be brave. Belt it out, all in view.
Let your hair down.
Don't be afraid to act the clown,
or vamp, or pose, uniquely you.
Take some advice from Suzi Q--
Let your hair down.

A gut response to the rock hard! music prompt at Real Toads, inspired by the fabulous Suzi Quatro.

rock hard!

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 11:31:00 +0000

My occasional music prompt over at Real Toads today features the inimitable Suzi Quatro. Please join us and be inspired!

rock hard!

Up The Proletariat Skycase

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Thu, 31 May 2012 02:40:00 +0000

On the day Princess Profound
plies her Predestined Comeuppance,
the Plebes will parade Parliament
parrying Ploughshares for Panache.

The Measure of Magnificence
will make Merry Men quite Mad.
Even Monsieur Mountebank, mounting
a Mordacious Mortar Masterpiece,

admits both Allies and Adversaries
are Ably Animated in their Avarice.
And again, as All's Aye that Ends
Aye, our Average Abe avec le Sky.


"Flying Steampunk On The Sky" from wallpapersland.net

Kerry challenged the Real Toads to write in the Steampunk tradition, and this is my offering, steampunk or not, up the down or whatever.

reunion

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Wed, 30 May 2012 19:23:00 +0000

A mountain zephyr
refreshes the crowd.
Children's voices sparkle,
a bat cracks a ball, cheers rise.
As you breathe the breeze,
you taste the picnic on the air,
BBQ mixes with beer and laughter.
A cold drink, a kiss hello,
it's our big reunion.

forty-six

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Tue, 29 May 2012 10:00:00 +0000

A woman could drown in conjecture.
Did I choose right? Wherefore the others?
But at age forty-six
And a lifetime of tricks,
She's not just getting older, she's better.

within me

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Tue, 29 May 2012 02:35:00 +0000

It was my first year of college. I'll never forget the upperclasswoman who lived in the dorm room next door.

She was strong, spoke German fluently, and got up at 4:00 every morning to row with the crew team on the Allegheny River. You did not mess with her. Everybody knew it.

Because she was next door, she observed what I was up to. Comings and goings, happy days and tears. She noted everything and analyzed.

Eventually, she posted a sign on my door that said, "I love everybody and you're next."

I think she saw me before I saw myself.

I'm playing 100 Word Song at My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog. Last week's song (yes, I am trying to catch up!) is "Within Me" by Lacuna Coil.

symbols

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Mon, 28 May 2012 02:32:00 +0000

Maple floor revealed
beneath ancient carpet glue,
the smell of tar shampoo.

Dr. Pepper tastes like
childhood. My skin is much worse
since last you touched it.

That station wagon was a tank,
or a bassinet, or a womb.
He, and you, gone too soon.

The famous singer's girlfriend
made a mosaic stars & stripes.
I was in the process of leaving.

Do you still suck your thumb?
Press your belly against
the cool wall. I pieced a star.

mosaic by marian, photo by marian

This weekend's prompt to the Real Toads is a photo gallery of Isaiah Zagar's mosaic installations by Daryl Edelstein. I was inspired to write the story of a mosaic I created, photographed above. Below is my favorite of Zagar's mosaics. 4,000 Poets, yes!

mosaic by Isaiah Zagar
photo by Daryl Edelstein

disturbed equilibrium

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Sun, 27 May 2012 14:29:00 +0000

Seems the perfect time to share this short piece by my grandmother, as this is her birthday weekend and I just spent the last two days scurrying around working Reunion. I'd describe my equilibrium as a little off at this moment; it seems here that's she's trying to retain hers.

Everything has been in such turmoil all day. Why must girls fuss around so? Why do they let such a little thing as a mixup in a fraternity rushing party disturb the equilibrium of a whole day? The mad dashes from window to window, the wild scurryings up stairs and down, the secret conclaves assembled in one room, that gradually disperse and gather in another, soon grow to be wearisome rather than amusing. All this disturbance goes against the grain--against the philosophy that I prefer to be following today--to sit by and rest and take life as it comes.

one hundred and two

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Fri, 25 May 2012 10:00:00 +0000

My grandmother would have been 102 years old today.

Here she is, in her mother's arms, circa 1910.

Please click on "my grandmother" in the tag cloud

to experience some of her magnificent writing,

more photos, and some of my writing about her.

instructions for burning

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Thu, 24 May 2012 14:32:00 +0000

Take the thing inside your heart,
the flicker that keeps you, add
a catalyst, and detonate. Feel
it burn, licking, conflagration
finally engulfing like cremation.
Tend the ashes and give it time.
A year later, see that blister?
If it bleeds, you're still alive.

tokens

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Wed, 23 May 2012 11:40:00 +0000

You came from winter,
set numbers in the grass,
conquests 99 and 100
in divots near the woods.
I caught your eye,
greeting you from summer.

larry

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Tue, 22 May 2012 23:41:00 +0000

Frank's brother Larry had asked him to take a look at his piano, to see if it needed fixing or just a good tuning. Frank was no piano technician, but Larry was right, he could probably diagnose a problem, if there was one. But Frank could not understand why it was so important that he have his piano in good working order when so far as Frank knew, Larry did not even play piano. He didn't understand why Larry had a piano in his house at all.

My friend SAM at My Write Side tagged me in an interesting blog meme called Lucky 7. The instructions were to go to page 7 or 77 in my current manuscript, go to line seven, and publish the next seven lines. This is an excerpt from page 77 of my novel manuscript. Though these lines are fairly innocuous, the scene turns very dark a couple lines after this. There is a strong possibility that this scene, and maybe Larry's character, won't make the final draft.

white

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Tue, 22 May 2012 02:37:00 +0000

Think, she thought. Where was that revolution?
She could damn well use a solution, but television
or no vision, ain't no revolution envisioned here.
Ain't no revolution in the institution. Think.
Where was the chairman? And she could damn well
use some fresh air, man. Fresh air, not this institution
pollution. Is anyone listening? Or just the television?
Think. You are older and slower. Think. Am I a tin star?
Or was it an El Camino? That's a car. Or was it a truck?
Try not to feel, love. It's gonna be all right.
You know it's gonna be.

This week's 100 Word Song at My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog is "Revolution" by, ahem, The Beatles.

dispatches

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Mon, 21 May 2012 11:30:00 +0000

I dreamed
that I was writing
from the Haiku Coast.

When I woke,
I was required
to get ready for work.

hallowing

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Sun, 20 May 2012 18:00:00 +0000

In
the time
it takes to
kiss me goodbye,
you could decide that you would rather stay
wrapped in linen, stowed for a rainy day,
consecrated
like the plait
in my
hair.

Kerry's weekend challenge to the Real Toads is to try a tetractys. This is a double tetractys. Fun!

grief

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:08:00 +0000

Let me tell you something
I know about hopeless grief.
It is green, acrid, violent,
and unrelenting in its ache.

Nothing passionless about that.
In my view, it's when the grief
subsides and the dark moves in
that you should start to worry.

When the numb hits the limbs,
that's when the time is right
to stage an intervention. Bring
barrels of wine and love, please.

This poem is a response to the famous poem "Grief" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Kenia asked the Real Toads to write a poem containing a line from a poem of which we are not fond. It's not that I dislike this poem of Browning's, but I have never experienced grief as passionless, so I tried to describe that. And now the idea is brewing in my brain, so I'm posting in response to Kenia's prompt but this feels like a very preliminary draft. Stay tuned!

skylover loves geese!

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Thu, 17 May 2012 00:49:00 +0000

My friend and comrade Kerry O'Connor has written a review of Responsive Pleading that is so flattering I'm beside myself with blushing over here:
A Wedge of Geese
Kerry is Queen Poet-Wrangler over at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, a community for which I am extraordinarily grateful. And Kerry writes exquisite poetry herself at her Indie blog, Skylover. Please click over to read her review and then spend some time perusing Kerry's writing. You will be glad you did.

5-speed & high heels

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:58:00 +0000

Man, I'd had enough
spreadsheets and emails
and drama for one day.
For many days.
I slung my satchel
over my shoulder, tight
over my bosom, really,
hit the lights
and clicked out.

As I click click
clicked up the brick
walk, searching the conifers
searching for the hawk's nest
(I could hear them
screeching like clarinets
through my office window)
the anxious in my belly
began to dissipate.

Couldn't see them,
but I could still hear them,
bucketed in my car seat,
windows down,
guitars screeching,
in reverse, then first,
second, third, I like
how the clutch feels
driving in tall heels.

This poem came from something I tweeted yesterday: "I love the way the clutch feels when driving in tall heels." Southern Mike reacted to my tweet (I think by saying "dayum!") so I challenged him to write a poem, too. I think I like his better, please read:

Date Night

molecular memory

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Tue, 15 May 2012 02:36:00 +0000

Poking
my head in the
lazy susan cupboard
for red potatoes, I'm struck by
their smell.

My Gram's
kitchen bouquet
turns out was potatoes
aging under the sink, combined
with Schmidt's.

stories & sins

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Mon, 14 May 2012 02:35:00 +0000

There was the time when you said I had the pinkest lips.
You were looking at Playgirl and we listened to Creedence,
ate popcorn festooned in grated cheddar cheese, and you
cursed your sister for kissing her boyfriend upside down.

How many times did we step on that scale in your mother's
bathroom? At least three times a day, I think. You said I
had pretty feet, and I remembered that when I learned
from the first guitar-playing boy that I had thick ankles.

That was the same night that his brother proclaimed my ass
worth writing home about. And he dragged me to that party
and taught me to drink beer through a funnel because all
his friends were doing it, and we went to a bad rock show.

Even though I ditched you on that double date so I could
make out in the back seat, you still threw me a party and
gave me a sweet sixteen charm bracelet. I might not have
been the purest, but I sure as hell know I was no sinner.

So then, here is what I remember. I had a memorable ass,
thick ankles, pink lips and pretty feet, bad skin and a
propensity for overweight. You found Jesus and called me
sinner. Whore. Nobody cared what I thought of none of it.

fiction

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Sun, 13 May 2012 03:41:00 +0000

Tell me it again.
Hey, can you tell that one again?
I am tracing the embossed seashell
on my paper napkin
and doodling a daisy chain
with a Bic pen, fine point, blue.

It matches the Chinese plate
with the willow pattern.
I think of the orchard, the bridge,
the distaff and the doves.

But it was always the eyeballs
adorning the edge. Maybe they're apples
or fish eggs, or what have you, but
it's hard to eat with so many eyeballs
eyeballing you.
I don't wanna tell it. You can't make me.
Sometimes a lie is the best thing.

Oh yeah, this week's 100 Word Song at My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog is "Telling Stories" by Tracy Chapman.

déjà vu

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Fri, 11 May 2012 19:36:00 +0000

Disoriented,
shivering a little,
imagining her in your embrace,
rehashing your turgid argument for staying,
watching her walk away without a glance back,
wondering what you did to deserve this,
remembering your mother.

This little number was inspired by two prompts: Laurie's Word at Real Toads today is turgid, and Trifecta asked for 33 words containing the word mother.

historic day

noreply@blogger.com (Marian) — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:45:00 +0000

On the day the President
said everyone who loves
should be able to marry,
I went to work, you took
our laundry to your mother's,
and the pregnant woman still
stood with her cardboard
sign at the highway on-ramp.