Thursday, April 30, 2015

My Hands

Today was the final session of my creative writing course, and, to cap what was a successful venture that I'm finding it hard to walk away from, I'd like to post one last piece I wrote for class. Originally, I was going to post a piece that I notice I've posted before (not even double digit posts in and I'm already wanting to repost stuff), but I'm going with my favorite free write trigger response.

This piece was written as a stream of consciousness, but I adapted it to a free-verse poem format when I submitted it for our class anthology. Not sure if I feel it added anything to piece or if I just wanted it to not look like a chunk of text on a page. My guess is the latter.


My Hands

My hands are rough,
unless liberally moisturized.
My hands are strong,
unless I'm grasping for my dreams.

These things are true,
but will they always be true.
Will these hands of mine,
which now scribble on this page,
always fail me?

It's not fair to characterize these hands,
which build
and make
and do,
as the parts of me that leave me
dangling.

If my hands could have their say,
they might grab my heart with vice-like intensity.
They would shake and shake
my bewildered heart until it beat,
truly beat,
with a desire, a yearning.
They would drop that beating, passionate heart and march onward.
Onward and upward,
until they laid sight upon a motionless gray mass.
There, they would beat upon that gray matter like a war drum,
announcing to the brain and all its minions and lackeys that it is time to do.
Do the passions of the heart
with a sharpness
and clarity
and focus
that hasn't yet been achieved.

These hands of mine
would like to move mountains.



I'm going to miss that class.  

Sunday, April 26, 2015

Classwork: Tumult


I feel like sharing, so here's a piece I did for the "Show, Don't Tell" portion of my creative writing class (which, sadly, wraps up this week).  It's based on a prompt that I'll reveal at the end.  No point ruining the surprise.


  Tumult 

  The dying light of the setting sun cast a familiar shade of crimson on the placid surface of a secluded lake. I crouch down to dip my hands into the cool water, releasing the weight I held in my hand in hopes it would sink to the bottom, forgotten. My eyes watch while colors swirl and dance as ripples radiate in all directions, distorting the lake's surface irrevocably. Cold seeps into my skin, like lead leeching through my pores, and I can feel the life draining from my hands. The encroaching numbness is pleasant, almost as cleansing as the source of the sensation. But the pleasure is short-lived as a needling irritation creeps over me, a frustrated sigh flaring my nostrils as I withdraw my hands from the lake. A quick flick of the wrist scatters droplets of water, the feeling slowly returning to my hands as I return my gaze to the world at large. 

  Trees border the lake on all sides, some blotched with the colors of the season, others sending out their lifeless limbs in random contortions. The colors seem unnatural in the moment, like someone had hurriedly slashed open a vein against several of the trees on one side, only to send splatters against the opposite canopy. Hidden between the wide swaths of scarlet foliage, leaves hued like flaxen hair quiver on a rising breeze. That zephyr, an unexpected intruder, stole into the space between the trees, ruffling the leaves and the surface of the lake alike. My fading reflection dances on the ripples, twisting and bending into the facade of some inhuman creature.

  Done with the warped visage glaring accusations up at me from the water's edge, I rise to drink in a space growing more tumultuous. Wind, swelling in force, slashes through the trees; leaves quake as they vainly attempt to flee the assault. Waves begin to roll across the lake, churning up colors of an abyss void of the light of the sun. Spray from the lake whips about me on the wind, speckling my clothing with dots of moisture. I want to strip off my dirtied coverings and toss myself, once again, into the din. To drench myself in the colors not my own, to feel the world itself rage against my body. I refrain, willing to take in the tumult from afar this time as a grin turns my lips. In the sound of the gale I hear a voice rising up in me, my lips parting to loose words spoke in another time, at another place: “You have nowhere to run.”



The prompt from this exercise was: Describe a lake as seen by a young man who has just committed murder.  Do no mention the murder.

How'd I do?

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Surriddle Me This

Thought I'd drop my latest creative writing assignment, albeit nearly a week after I wrote it.  The theme for this particular assignment was surrealism and I drew my inspiration from a combination of digging in the dirt and a painting entitled "Jet Stream" the teacher used as a free write prompt.  Without further ado, I give you:

Chop and Caw

Chop at the roots
watch the birds scatter
chop at the roots
feel blood splatter
say goodbye to those
you hardly know
make them sorry
to see you go
uproot the tree
to set yourself free
rushing waters
swirling winds
shake leaves
like a gentle breeze
sturdy limbs sinewed fiber
swats the cawing crow
seeking refuge within
the tree's ear
Be gone
nefarious crow
Take thy deeds
and roost elsewhere
not here
not in my air
not that I care
who you disturb
blue skies swallow
you crow in ashen grey
rain dead embers upon you
leave you to gasp and wheeze
trampled under root
under boot
under tree

under me

Sunday, April 19, 2015

Traveling

Bit of a whirlwind travel day yesterday.  Thought I'd pop in to drop two lines, of... something, that came to mind while in the air.  The first comes from the shapes I see occasionally on sunny days.  I've started calling them my personal Mushi, a name taken from the anime Mushi-shi. 

   Bits of translucent nothingness
   descending like lazy snow

It's an option for an opening if I ever do a piece about those shapes I see in the sunlight.

The second came from staring at and crunching ice in a small plastic cup.  Also, part of me just wanted to their in a rhyme.

   As the gates have frozen shut,
   Arteries rusted from years of being
   unused and abused

Don't know where that will take me, eventually.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

A Tuesday Morning

Woke up this morning not was wanting to wake up.  Not that I didn't want to face the day, just not an hour and a half before my alarm.  Though that did spur a couple lines I might revisit later:

  My mind is like sleep
  My body is like fire
  Burning up the air around me

Breakfast came with another idea, one I wished I'd taken the time to explore:

   Ham n' eggs on a plate
   Drum n' bass in the air

I had "Give Me More" by Grandtheft playing as I made eggs with ham, and my mind wandered back to a classmate's work on someone dancing for catharsis.  Did a little moving with something resembling rhythm and felt a good energy, which birthed those above lines with as much jest as inspiration. 

We'll see if anything comes of these, and if they do I'll let you know.

Friday, April 10, 2015

Caffeinated Acronym

Not really much of anything other than a random thought that came to mind on the drive home as I sipped on an energy drink.

Controlled
Aggression
Freed
From
Every
Interfering
Negative
Effort

At least, that's how I see it.

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Staples and String

Didn't want to leave too long a break between my 'hello' and the first 'real' post, but didn't have anything for here until this morning.  And by 'this morning' I mean my frantic attempt to get something written for class today. 

What follows is my haphazard attempt to fulfill the Instruction prompt for the assignment:

Staples and String

Do you feel that?
The tearing of your skin
the breaking of your mind
the rending of your heart?
Move quick, we must head off disaster.

Find the staples and plunge them deep
to places unseen,
binding together things once severed,
keeping ugly harmony.
Feel the parts tug and pull against
metal shackles within.
We've now kept the heart together.

A mind broken with thoughts untethered
could surely derail our plan,
so gather up the string in all its lengths
and tie thought end to end.
Feel them flop and flail as you return them to jail
and sew your mind closed.
You've now subdued the mind.

The creep of the skin shall cease at once
with string cinching at seams.
Weave the thread from edge to edge
to stitch a colorful web.
Tie them off with a bow or two to make
them seem brand new.
Our surgery is now complete.

Take in the sight of you now refined
prettied up with string and bow
hiding the writhing deep below
quietly biding its time.

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

A Restart

While taking a creative writing course this semester, during my third attempt to become a college graduate, I've developed an itch to resurrect this dead space.  My dead space.  The reason for it is really threefold:

1. To force myself to write daily, no matter my mood, energy, or inspiration.  This space will act as proof of the effort and as a personal 'deadline' to challenge myself.

2. To thicken my skin.  I've tended to be too sensitive to critiques of my work, or simply too fearful of people reading it in general to even share.  I want to change that, even if I have to fling myself to the wolves in a hidden corner of the Internet.

3. To expose my work to an audience.  This sounds like a rephrasing of the last point, but it feels very different in intent to me.  I've become so hyper-critical of my own writing that I feel I can no longer properly judge its quality.  Fresh eyes, perspectives, and opinions are welcomed to help me shape and refine my writing voice.

This is a journey I hope I can endure, maybe even enjoy, for the long haul, and if you'll join me I'd be grateful. 

-Bruh