Poems, stories, and scraps — both new and old. [☆ = best stuff] [CLASSIC = written long ago]
I wrote this poem by dictating into the phone while walking the dog — which suggested the first line — and it progressed from there.
Some things must be spoken
They cannot be contained
Confined to the page
Or worse
Never released as words
Some ideas should be shared
Far too big for one to lock away
And keep concealed
At risk
Of being buried with their keeper
Some rivers overflow their banks
Unbounded by the past
Too much too fast
Seeking
New paths, new hope, new life
No good children’s story is complete without involving the reader to solve some problem for the protagonist. One vehicle to accomplish this is to include riddles which, through whatever contrivance, need to be answered for the protagonist to succeed. Here’s a riddle that I was planning to include in the story I mentioned a few days ago that would weave together several of my longer poems into something akin to Alice in Wonderland. Feel free to submit your answers as comments.
That which is, and which reveals.
Closed to the world, though open to a few.
Drawn and shaded, but clearly there.
Look out!
Here’s another of my fully-baked longer poems that I’ve refined over the years. A bit dark, but it has a good structure.
I get these sudden urges.
(urges, urges, urges, urges)
To go howling at the moon.
(at the moon, at the moon)
This tendency emerges.
(merges, merges, merges, merges)
Feel it comin’ very soon.
(very soon, very soon)
My body structure changes.
(changes, changes, changes, changes)
Bushy hair sprouts from my face.
(from my face, from my face)
My whole being rearranges.
(ranges, ranges, ranges, ranges)
My teeth, deadly fangs replace
(fangs replace, fangs replace)
I gobble up small children.
(children, children, children, children)
Leave adults a bloody mess.
(bloody mess, bloody mess)
My habits are bewild’rin’.
(wildrin, wildrin, wildrin, wildrin)
My actions they can’t guess.
(they can’t guess, they can’t guess)
I live as one of you do.
(you do, you do, you do, you do)
‘Til the full moon starts to rise.
(starts to rise, starts to rise)
Then I venture forth to get you.
(hunt you, find you, rend you, kill you)
I may take you by surprise.
(by surprise, by surprise)
He stood in the rain staring bitterly down at the wedding invitation. He held it gingerly, a faint look of revulsion on his face as if it were a snake about to deliver the killing strike. He appeared suddenly old, years of future loneliness weighing down his features into a seemingly irreversible frown.
Diane!
His immobility belied the fervor with which he had torn open the envelope. He had thought irrationally that it might be a letter saying that she had forgiven him and that it could once again be alright between them. Hadn’t it only been three months since he had last seen her? The invitation was postmarked Boston.
Boston? Diane!
He and Diane had once been lovers a short eternity ago. Their’s had been the dream world of timelessness. Happiness abounded, and he knew nothing could destroy their perfect relationship — or so it seemed. A chain of events bordering on unreality that had begun with his laughing off her suggestion of marriage had led to her sudden departure on a cruel winter morning. After one week he was ambivalent; after two, he was deeply sorry but could find no trace of her to apologize. She had escaped to parts unknown.
Boston?
He had even bought a house for them to live in when she came back, as he had been always sure she would. The invitation said the wedding was the day after tomorrow. He watched the invitation become blurry and washed out by the rain, or was it his tears? It slipped from his hand as he turned and began the quarter-mile trek from his mailbox at the side of the road down the driveway to the house, now forever empty.
The rain stopped and the sun emerged to taunt him about his loss. Birds tittered his agony and the puddles through which he splashed were the tears of nature’s sympathy.
No! It didn’t have to be like this, did it? What if he wished — what if he truly believed that things were different? Could his belief change the past? What if he hadn’t laughed at marriage? What if Diane were his wife? Grief fed his purpose. I truly believe that this has happened.
Then. It. Is. True.
He broke through the trees into sight of the house. She stood on the porch of the house — their house — as she always had. His eyes misted over as he ran to her. His smile shown bright enough to dim the morning sunshine.
“Why are you so happy?” she asked.
He took her into his arms.
Wow. This, conceptually, is a great story. It actually brings tears to my eyes. It might need more fluff to be great, but I really, really like it.
Hey! I found a box of old writings.
“What do you want?” the old woman demands of the darkness, “Who’s there?” She stands at the top of the stairs, one hand on the rail, the other clutching her robe to her breast to calm her pounding heart. There is no answer save the wind. Her stomach knots in fear.
“I’ll be alright,” she had told her son and his wife when they had offered to take her with them to the show this evening, “I’d just fall asleep anyway. You two go and have a good time.”
They were wonderful children. Mark, her youngest, had married Laura shortly before Mark’s father had died. “But you’ve got to come live with us, Mamma,” Laura always called her ‘Mamma’, “This house is too big for just the two of us anyway.” This was two weeks ago.
Much as she hated to be by herself, she couldn’t have those two staying home every night because of her. It had taken her two weeks to become used to the house, two weeks to build up enough courage to try to spend an evening alone. Finally, she had ignored her fears and insisted that they go to the show.
“Are you sure you’re going to be alright, Mamma?”
She stands frozen, not wanting to go forward and investigate the noise, but not wanting to retreat to her bedroom and hide under the sheets, waiting. She strains to hear another sound, her poor eyesight little help in searching the shadows of the living room below. Another noise. From where? Behind her? She looks around but sees nothing.
The throbbing in her ears once again grows louder.
“That’s just the house settling, Mamma.” They were downstairs in the dining room playing rummy when they had heard a noise. “Big houses do that a lot.” She had felt secure then. The house had seemed so safe with Mark and Laura around. But now…
Maybe I should call the police, she thinks, there’s a phone in Mark and Laura’s bedroom. But as she turns, a creak from down the hall stops her in her tracks. There’s also a phone at the foot of the stairs. She hesitates, then takes the first step down. Each step is a trial. She places her foot, then pauses to listen. Nothing.
After an eternity, she reaches the bottom and stops, robe held protectively about her, searching the room. The moonlight stabs through the window, revealing a face to her left. She screams and falls clutching her chest, her face unnaturally white.
Are you sure you’re going to be alright, Mamma?
“Is she going to be alright?”
The doctor smiled reassuringly. “She’ll be fine. People have mild heart attacks all the time. All she needs now is plenty of rest.”
Mark and Laura returned his smile, relieved.
“…so it was only the painting of grandfather that you saw, Mamma,” explained Mark.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Laura added, “Mamma, you nearly scared us to death!”
I just dawned on me that I’ve been working with a subset of my older writings. I’ve been flipping through a yellow folder of papers which seems to contain some/all? of my old poems, but I don’t have any of my old stories — and I have tons. I think I know where they are, I just need to dig them out.
Many of the missing stories would work well in this blog format since they are quite short. I was the master in my youth of stories of one or two pages, many with ‘surprise’ endings. (Oh! the characters aren’t people at all, they’re actually ants! I didn’t really write a story like that, but maybe someday… 😉 ) I think perhaps when one is younger and less sophisticated, stories with surprise endings are kind of like poo poo jokes to young children — they enjoy them much more than do adults.
I also have some longer unfinished stories including one about a guy who’s a janitor at a university but lives in a fantasy world where he views everyday activities as if he were a medieval knight: he throws chalkboard erasers thinking that they’re daggers, he rides a cleaning cart believing he’s in a jousting match, etc. I wouldn’t mind completing that story.
It’s a short day since we spent the day in Davis watching Will’s soccer team play in, and win, a tournament. Nonetheless, here’s something old. Seems an exercise in meter.
I had this as an unfinished poem, but I don’t know where it’s going — so I’ve decided to call it finished.
I went to Dunkirk shopping mall
And saw an actor doing mime
Amid the beauty of it all
The subtle move, the flashing ball
The make believe, the hidden wall
The silent poem, soundless rhyme
A voice so near and yet so small
And sending shivers down my spine —
“Beware, my friend, the Edge of Time”
Within all my writings, I’ve found a few songs that I’ve written. Classics like ‘Can I See You Again’, ‘Lonely Places’, and ‘Ashes’ (“my heart has been burning for you for years, it must be ashes by now”) 😉 (I might have had some help with that last one — it’s been so long I don’t remember). I’m a better author than songwriter, and a better poet than author. My point being — songwriting is one of my worst ‘written’ talents. Nonetheless, someday I’ll dust off the songs, maybe record them, and pass judgement at that point.
I don’t remember doing this, but I found some poems that I’ve written where I made them rhyme in reverse. You’ll see what I mean below.
Cat by a cage
Canary sees it
Same canary
Satisfies cat
which reverses to (say it out loud)
Egac a yb tac
Ti sees yranac
Yranac emas
Tac seifsitas
Note that the first part of the word in each line is the same, and that the syllables align — which rhymes if read backwards. Here are some more. Forward, they all sound like pidgin english.
Hole to be dug
How can we do it?
Rock won’t quite work
Roll it down the hill
Liver and peas
Lived together
Peas ate liver
Peapod now empty
which reverse to
Gud eb ot eloh
Ti od ew nac woh?
Krow etiuq t’now kcor
Llih eht nwod ti llor
Saep eht dna revil
Rehtegot devil
Revil eta saep
Ytpme won dopaep
It’s interesting — as I’m flipping through my old writings, I occasionally need to google what I’m looking at to ensure it is original. It’s not like I’m that good or anything, it’s just that I have a tendency to occasionally write down other poems or song lyrics that click with me, so I sometimes have other people’s work mixed in with my own. Plus I’ve written so much stuff so long ago that I don’t always remember having written it. One such example is The Friggin Falcon (link), which I love as a poem, but seems to lack as a song in every version that I’ve heard. I wish wish wish that I had written it. To me, it sounds like something that I might have.
ADDENDUM: I reread posted info on The Friggin Falcon, and discovered that: (1) it was written by the science fiction author Theodore Cogswell, and (2) it was written as a poem and not a song. This last fact makes me feel better when I’m critical of musical versions that I’ve heard.