Improv 1, Week 7

This is just the beginning. I had read this article on Struck it Lucky (who is still very much alive) in my husband's ESPN magazine and I wanted to do something with it. I've been carting this damn article around for weeks, trying to make something happen. I was moved by David Bottom's poem "A Heron ont he Oconee" and although this is a loose improv, I liked the idea of decay, remembrence, and breaking a poem into parts. Chaple must have got it from him too, as she does it quite a bit in her book. Anyway, here goes:

Part 1.

A flag snaps in the breeze,  

the maiden horse clad in navy blue Struck it Lucky.

The crowd, white and moneyed, wears Brooks Brothers and Lilly Pulitzer.

Part II.

Injected with Lasix to control internal bleeding, front legs wrapped

In neoprene ice packs, stuffed cotton balls in ears.

 899 days of existence amount to mud fever and grass sickness.

 swelling, spraining, tearing, breaking.

Part III.

Still, Stall 31 is exactly the same. A 14 x 14 room of cinderblock and wood

A layer of straw on the floor, fresh water in a bucket

A bale of hay dangling outside its door. Struck It Lucky 

Nevermore.   

random

What the hell is with all this hipster self-titling? Anyone who calls himself a hipster is obviously anything but...

annoying!!

Free Entry, Week 7

Pyramids

playing with shapes and patterns
like Euclid and his elements. Like Confucius,
who sees tradition in all things diamond-shaped and formed
like pentagons, squares and isosceles triangles held together
by religious glue and right angles. There is order and chaos
the battle over form and formlessness never concludes
mantras form clusters of stars that rise and swirl
like marble fudge batter
unbounded by a common recipie, hands broken free,
hitting the tongue like a gulp of sand.

Classmate Response 1, Week 7

Calisthenics, Wk7

In class on Thursday we did an assignment were a student was asked a bunch of random questions about her childhood in Chicago and we as a class took down notes on her answers, some were simple and some of her answers were completely out there. From there we had to write a short draft with her answers and this is mine:

The pegs are all knit into the rug as she tries to make another star-like pattern. The close space between the glowing pegs remind her of the short distance between her ghost town and the Wasco candy store, a yellow and not yet ripe orange color warming her hands. From behind she can feel the cat's sly eyes goring into her human frame. As she silently wishes for the cat to die by the cold tangled silver coils of a slinkey, she sister plunges a royal blue peg up into the unknown space of her nose.

Reading Response 1, Week 7

A Heron on the Oconee

                                        1
Now on the Oconee, on this shallow elbow of quiet water,
the first moist sunlight seeps through the thicket,
and a heron streaked in feathered lightstrides out among the rocks.
Ruffled and muddy, it wobbles out into the river
and balances on sticks among the rocks,
 utterly motionless among the rocks.

                                       2
Near the end, the way my old man stared into the distance,
the way he leaned from his armchair
toward a window, elbow quivering on his walker,
and gazed through oak beanches into a broken sky,
is the way this heron, ruffled, muddy,
stares downriver at the water rippling into the trees.

-David Bottoms, from We Almost Disappear

I like how this poem is purposely split into sections. This is surprising because it is a calculated move that I would think would take some of the intrigue out of "figuring out" the poem. I had to stop and think about what a "shallow elbow of quiet water" looks like, and it reminded me of the time not too long ago where I watched a heron walk out of the woods into the shallow water behind my grandparent's backyard in Kentucky. Yes, I know this has no place in a critique, but it made me pick up the phone and call my grandparents. And language that calls you to action is a powerful thing. The first part, recalling the independant and strong heron and then later comparing the elbow of the water with the shaky elbows of his father was magestically tragic. I wonder if he had Alzheimers becasue of the last line, where this heron "stares downriver at the water rippling into the trees." Both images are serene, strong and silent...but for completely different reasons.       

Calisthenics 1, Week 7

From Taylor's interrogation

One half-hour outside retiree town, between not-yet-ripe orange lizards and tangled slinkies
The Lady Across the Street sells cereal and candy from behind the dusty counter of the corner store.
She squints and tries to bring the light-bright dreams of her youth back to life, like she did for that kitten just that one time -
holding a tangerine to the sky she imagines herself there, on a unknown planet. Planet Elgin,
where 9 year olds kids run the Dairy Queen and old ladies with pukish yellow skin play football.

Junkyard Quote 1-4, Week 7

"Eight piggies in a row, Oh
Eight piggies in a row. Could they laugh? no no!
Could they cry? no no!
There were eight piggies in a row..."
- this is a song from one of Raffi's children's CDs that freaks me out.

"But you didn't have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened
And that we were nothing
And I don't even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger
And that feels so rough
You didn't have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records
And then change your number
I guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just somebody that I used to know"
-Gotye, Somebody that I used to know

"A fish hawk fell from a dead tree and thrashed the river,
clawing up another trout. I thought, sure,

to have tumbled so far
and finally to have reached a beginning."

 -David Bottoms, Montana Wedding Day


"Turtles really have long legs,
But they don't stretch 'em out
Until its very late at night,
And then they run about,
Racin' over hill and field,
Until mornin' comes - and then
They curl 'em back inside their shells
And crawl around again."
-Shel Silverstein, The Truth About Turtles