Monday, October 31, 2011

NaNoWriMo Kickoff Post ---Here's A Scene From 2006

 

        Enki looked like he crawled out of a temple statue commemorating the Ancients. He had a reddish brown well-manicured beard that hung like a spike off his angular chin. His eyes were brown flecked with green, red and yellow. His ears swooped upward into delicate little points. His skin tones were like that of soil. It’s coloration altered as moved through the light of the spacious shippers lobby. A progenitor of the wood elves, Shamoo mused, save for the perceived pretentiousness of his attire, he could blend into any woodland environment. His costume was complete with an ornate golden-jeweled cylindrical headdress six inches high in the back angling down to four inches in the front, triangular pointy armored shoulder pads and trapezoidal chest plate, and a utility belt with a rucksack hanging on his right side, and a knee length armored kilt each pleat alternated between a copper and bronze like material. His lower torso was bare revealing a taut muscled abdomen. Slung across his left shoulder, under his armor, was a red sash with blue and yellow stitches composing a curious pattern. He carried no weapons save for a smooth wooden walking stick about six feet in length, which he now used in his right hand. It too was very curious; indeed, both ends were capped with strange metallic substances that appeared to be growing into the wood itself like it were a climbing vine.

        Shamoo’s jaw dropped and she absentmindedly chuckled at the sight of him. What kind of nut has my cousin agreed to interview Shamoo thought? Was there some galactic holiday I missed while we were out delivering fuel to Androcon? Shamoo realized that she was staring. She shifted her gaze away from the staff to the kilt to the sash to the headdress and then to his face. When Enki met her eyes for a brief moment she saw extreme age radiating with power. It was like looking into a reactor with tinted safety glasses or gazing at the sun too long. Rapidly Shamoo averted her gaze. She looked down as if she was a slave and he was the master. Shamoo felt like Enki had peered deep into her bones, into her genes, into her essence, into her soul. But when Shamoo looked back, everything she experienced in that moment evaporated into a puff of cloud; all she saw was ageless radiant beauty. Deeply troubled, she was not laughing anymore.

        “Who…what are you,” Brakoog asked in awe of his presence, completely oblivious of the interchange that just occurred between Enki and his cousin, “Royalty? A prince or duke perhaps? But you don’t look GP.”

        “I’m trader and an adventurer who was born on one of the free independent worlds. Urukoo, to be exact,” Enki said confidently. “And no, I am not royalty. I am something else. I came about the ad.”

        “Oh…yes…we have a few openings,” Brakoog replied. “Would you like to join us in the conference room? It is right this way.” Brakoog and Shamoo led the way, walking abreast, out of the main shippers lobby to the common conference room shared by four other shipping companies. Shamoo peaked her head inside to check the schedule. Fortunately, no one else had booked it. Shamoo held the door open while Brakoog and Enki walked in. Light streamed through bay windows ten feet high comprising two of the room’s walls. In each of the corners were tall potted plants with waxy dark green fan shaped leaves. Taking up the bulk of the space was a long table that could seat about fifty. It was a huge slab of wood two inches thick, five feet across, and twenty-five feet long with a polished glass like finish. It had been crafted from a single log dark brown almost red in color, flawless without knots. The floor, too, was wood with a luxurious silky finish. The chairs also looked like they had been constructed of the same material. They were without cushions and had tall straight backs. Enki sat down at the table’s head with his back to the door, which was not something he usually did. Shamoo and Brakoog sat across from one another on either side of him and angled their chairs to face the interviewee: Shamoo on the right and Brakoog on the left.

        Straight away Brakoog began the interrogation, “What are your piloting skills like? Have you flown a one seater through inverted space before? How about the multitasking computer? Can you pilot and shoot plugged into the terminal? Do you have a resume?”

        “Ok…yes, yes…uh…I’ve piloted many small cruiser’s like your Lavinia. And I am familiar with several models of multitasking couches with gel interfacers and control gloves too. I can even fly manually. I can shoot, operate foot and hand-sticks, wash windows, and talk all at the same time. Multitasking terminals are a chinch to operate. I, myself, prefer the challenge of the old fashioned way. Leavers, wheels, hand controls, and keyboards. Uh…what was your last question Mr. Brakoog,” Enki replied.

        “Can I have your resume? I’m assuming you have one,” Brakoog inquired?

        “Urukoo…Urukoo…Uru-koo-to?” Shamoo lost in thought puzzled, not realizing that Brakoog had already begun the interview? “Like Urukooto, the paradise, told about in children’s stories? No, you must mean Urukain― the GP throne world?”

        “No! I thought already told you, I am not of the galactic! You know, …there are a lot of systems in the galaxy. It’s not possible to know them all,” Enki said in annoyance as he reached with vigor into a pocket on the inside seam of his sash and pulled out a thin flat thumb sized film and handed it to Brakoog.

        Driven by intense curiosity, Shamoo snatched the memory chip out of Brakoog’s hand and inserted it into her personal palm computer-interfacing device. ‘He seems a little sensitive about his origins,’ Shamoo thought beginning to settle back into herself. ‘I wonder where he is really from? I wonder what his game is? What his story is?’

        “Did you know that the Hivers don’t use multi-terminals,” Enki directed towards the cousins.

        “You mean their pilots don’t plug into the computer,” Brakoog asked? “What do they do? Row their boats with raw muscle power,” he joked?

        “How old are you,” Shamoo changed the subject while looking into the display? “You’ve been to a lot of worlds and done a lot of odd jobs too. It say’s here you worked as an instructor for quite some time…”

        “It is my understanding, that under GP labor law you’re not allowed to ask that question,” Enki sidestepped her questioning.

        “What?” Shamoo said quizzically as if she had just been slapped.

        “My age. It is against the law to discriminate against age,” he said in a testing manner. “Ok, Ok…I am older than you are. Is that satisfactory?”

        Shamoo let it drop. She knew she wasn’t going to get anywhere with that line of questioning. This interview was quickly spiraling out of control. She decided that it was time to drop the big question. She paused, looked inward, and regained her professional composure before asking, “Why do you want to be a mercenary pilot?”

        “Mercenary? I thought you were interviewing me to be a partner,” Enki stated. “Your past gunner was a partner. Have I done my homework wrong?”

        “What do you mean,” Shamoo asked her eyes narrowed in annoyance?

        “All your ship hands are said to be partners,” Enki continued with raised eyebrows.

        “No. My cousin, Shamoo is my only partner! I don’t need a third one,” Brakoog countered in irritation. “What you heard was sort of correct, but not really. Some of the crew are shareholders, but most are mercenaries employed by the corporate shipping alliance whose office building we share. The shareholders get their cut after Shamoo and I take our half.”

        “Could I buy in as a shareholder then? I have equipment and weapons you could use. One of which could be sold on the black market. …The profit would be enormous,” Enki said in hushed tones.

        “We don’t deal with criminals; we are honest law abiding business persons” Shamoo raised her voice!

        “That’s not what I heard,” Enki scoffed! “Rumors say, your grandfather purchased two mini-rip lancers and a military grade reactor from a Hooman crime boss― on the other side of the galaxy― in the Bambino system after he almost lost both his life and his boat after being boarded by pirates. Both of you were young in your vocation then; almost still considered children by your people’s standards. It was a several cycles before your grandfather passed on to the Ancients. You were still learning the ins and outs of the shipping trade. It is my understanding that those weapons are not permitted on merchant class vessels by the GP. It amazes me that you haven’t been busted. My question is how did he ever pay for it? A new reactor and rip lancers cannot be afforded by simple furniture movers...” Enki’s words hung in the air like a gaseous expulsion.

        “Are you a GP cop or spy?” Brakoog spoke with aggression while vigorously jumping out of his seat with clenched fists! “Humph! That’s why you’re wearing that freaky clown suit!”

        “Calm down…settle down my children,” Enki said chuckling. “Here’s my offer. I’ll trade you 13-quantum chameleon torpedoes― if scanned, sensors will read their signature as industrial strength asteroid busters― and my wisdom as a mind scientist. It is a long standing tradition of the Ninutratic dynasty to forbid boarder worlds gifted youth entry into their mind science academies for fear of reawakening the royal lineage of their individual peoples. They consider those rooted to growing things to be inferior to them, which is also why they restrict the kinds of armaments vessels are allowed to carry. They station garrisons in your systems claiming that it is for your protection, but deny you a militia of your own to defend yourself from Hivers or other threats. And you know why? The elves of stone and steel fear you. It’s a feud that goes back to the days before we left the first planet. They allied themselves with the Hoomans― those new arrivals born from dirt and clay― who taught them how to work stone and forge metal. And they who built armies and cities waged war against nature and themselves…. The Ninutra dynasty rules as it does in fear of another civil revolt.”

        Brakoog pondered Enki’s words in silence before speaking up, “If you would excuse us for a time, Shamoo and I would like to discuss your offer. You can wait here. We are going to go down to our office and check a few of your references. We’ll come back when we’re done deliberating.”

        Enki watched them get up and exit the conference room. Out of curiosity, he got up himself and went over to the bay windows overlooking Barinza Prime’s city and spaceport from the tenth floor. Spacing into the moment, he found himself stroking his beard and further twisting the long reddish-brown hairs together hanging from his chin. The city itself had an ancient feel. Many of the houses and small business were built out of whatever was at hand like mud, river rocks, packed dirt blocks, baked bricks, wood, and a few were constructed of modern plastoid materials. Much of the commerce was also old-world: farmers markets, street vendors, open bazaars, flea markets, cafes and whatnot. If it was a means to churn out a living it was there. The monopolies and conglomerations of the galactic power didn’t seem to have had much effect out here on the border worlds. Most of the streets hadn’t even been paved or cobbled with stones. And the traffic, that was another story altogether. It was a jumble of technologies from multiple parts of the civilized galaxy. Many of the Barinzain farmers and hunters preferred wagons and carts drawn by beasts of burden. The Hoomans liked non-GP built anti-grav scooters and cars. A few even used internal and external combustion engines in their vehicles. Most of the citizens of Barinza walked or used muscle powered carts or whatnot. ‘The future truly is the past,’ Enki mused.

        The urban district was home to a hodgepodge of species that contrasted starkly with the industrial-commercial district. The apparent affluence of the interior of this particular shippers office building was vastly different than that of the café Enki had enjoyed an ethnic morning meal. Most of the Barinza natives were hunters or agriculturists. Fewer than fifty thousand of them lived and worked in the city. Elvish engineers and shipwrights did beautiful elegant work. Barinza brand commercial and merchant vessels were some of the best made in this part of the galaxy. There weren’t many tall buildings either in this city though the spaceport itself was a large, most of the structure was subterranean. It moored a thousand vessels from small one seaters to large cruisers on any given day. The shipyard with its conjoined mining refinery was the biggest single structure in the city. It wasn’t exactly in the city itself, but it was within walking distance. A long walk anyhow. However, the largest building, that wasn’t really a building, on the world was the temple. It was built on a bluff above the city fifteen miles away and it towered nearly a thousand feet into the heavens. Enki looked eastward and spotted it immediately. He could see its top through the forestlands surrounding it. Smiling, he thought that it was good to know that these people had priorities. That they hadn’t been completely corrupted by civilization or the galactic power and the others they lived and worked with.

 

 
 

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Write By The Park With Purple Mark: "Drugged"

 

Drugged on Fear


        The cheap fluorescent lights in the break room illuminated without character, starkly white, creating a space no one wanted to be in for long. That might have been the intent behind it, either that or the designers decided that if you were working in a cave, you wanted as much light without shadows as possible. Opinions were divided among the employees, but Jillian thought it was just the cheapest option. She stood and read the notice on the bulletin board.
        "Safety First," it said.
        Yeah, right.
        She worked with crazies confined in a cavern underground. To go to work each day, she had to cross a suspension bridge over a bottomless pit. The bridge was designed to release quickly on one side in case of escape. Someone just had to press a button in the control room. To cross was an act of trust each time that rent-a-cop types that manned the booth wouldn't press that button "by accident" or because they were testing the system. Jillian well remembered the fatal car accident on the floating bridge when a DOT employee "tested" the draw span during rush hour, just like she always did. An electrical short in the system raised a steel barrier in front of a car and it crashed. They were so sorry, too bad, it was just an accident.
        Yeah, right.
        Jillian was observing a family group today. Before heading over she got some coffee, in "her" cup, the one with butterflies on it; chatted with Renee about the book she was writing, and was given the good news that it was being mailed off to the contest today. They shared a celebratory clink of their coffee mugs and she sat down at one of the empty green Formica tables.
        She went over the notes of yesterday's sessions. "The Savage," wrote Bernard, "refuses to take soma, and seems much distressed because the woman Linda, his m---, remains permanently." Jillian could barely make out his handwriting. She had to ask him to translate. She knew soma was used in the males religious ceremonies, apparently it was to be considered a sacred substance.
        She gathered up her notes and prepared to walk the bridge. She was going to pour gasoline on herself and set herself on fire, at least that is what is felt like, every time. Her grandfather had explained the process of getting journal bearings ready for babbitting, and that's what Millwrights did to clean and dry them out. By the time she crossed the 20-foot span over the bottomless pit, she was empty & dry. Cleaned out to her core, every fear faced. She had vertigo, something bad. She walked across that bridge with her eyes closed, hanging onto the handrail, the thought eater in her head digesting every thought but fear. When she got to the other side, the release was intense. If Jillian was honest, the rush had become her twice daily fix, her soma drug; the tension, then release.
        She got up from the table and put on her lab coat. White on white. Her coat, pants, shoes & hard hat were all white. In the gloom of the cave, the company wanted its employees to stand out, like Gandalf the White in Fangorn Forest.
        Her mother asked once if she told her employer about her vertigo. She hadn't, she wanted the job. Besides, she said, why bother talking about something you don't like?
        Yeah, right.

---By Carla Blaschka 10/29/11
      Written alongside Priya Keefe & Purple Mark Wirth at Richard Hugo House.
 
 

William James' Prompts:                                                                         

  1. Interpersonal Inspiration: PurpleMark's Halloween costume and Priya Keefe good luck on your entry!
  2. Random Word: Bulletin Board

  3. Random Question: "Why bother talking about something you don't like?" Natalie Goldberg. Writing Down the Bones: freeing the writer within. (Shambhala, 1986)

  4. Thought Eater: Thought eaters are dwellers in the ether. Their senses, however, extend into the physical plane, and any psionic or psionic-related energy use in either area will attract their attention (range of ability or magic equals attraction range. The thought eater appears to be something like a sickly gray, skeletal-bodied, enormous headed platypus to those who are able to observe it. It’s only desire is to feed on the mental energy or prey…“ Gary Gygax. Monster Manual: An Illustrated Compendium of Monsters: Aerial Servant to Zombie. (TSR Games, Lake Geneva, WI, 1978). Page 94.

  5. When preparing journal bearings, for babbitting, two very important points should not be overlooked, viz: to see that they are clean and dry. All dirt and dust should be thoroughly cleaned from the cavities in the castings, after which the casting should be dried by being placed over a forge fire, or it too heavy to handled in this way, it may be dried by pouring a small quantity of gasoline into the spaces to be babbitted and then set on fire.” Calvin F Swingle, M.E. Swingle’s Practical Hand-Book for Millwrights. (Frederick J Drake & Company Publishers, Chicago, 1910). Page 164.

  6. ’The Savage,’ wrote Bernard, ‘refuses to take soma, and seems much distressed because the woman Linda, his m---, remains permanently.” Aldous Huxley. Brave New World. (Perennial Classics Harper & Row Publishers, Inc, New York, 1932) Page 108.

     
Also check out my new wordpress website. It's a literary journal I am building up called Randomly Accessed Poetics! Submissions are open for short stories, flash fiction, and poetry. I am featuring more polished literary works, explicit language pieces, and eventually a journal a relative wrote in the late 1800's detailing their journey to Oregon on the Oregon Trail. And when I gather enough submitted works from other people, I will cobble together an e-anthology called Randomly Accessed Poetics.
 
 

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Unnoticed (A Video Poem)

Write By The Park With Purple Mark: "Thought Eater"

 

Bernard was lost. His head spun into Ferris wheels of dizziness. The cavern was queerly lit. It was reminiscent of Soma Swamp outside Swingleville where a pale pink light emanated from the below surface of the water in October. Bernard entered into distress when he heard that now familiar skeletal-click ricochet around. It sounded like a loose ball bearing rolling in a Babbitt housing.

“What direction should I go? Right or left,” he muttered. “Where was that savage thing lurking? Ahead or behind?” His ears couldn’t gauge direction.

Bernard’s teary thoughts darted to Linda. She was like a wolf. Her last words before she slipped into a dark pool of unknowns were, “How many morons can dance on a pen head?” It was an odd thing for a cunning person, such as herself, to exhale out. Bernard wondered if he was the moron for jumping into the fray. Maybe he should have fled instead? It was stupid to engage that particular monster in open combat.

Bernard bolted through the left fork of the tunnel as a sticky cotton candy mist blobbed into the chamber. The gasoline in his lantern was nearing exhaustion. The Thought Eater was near.

Bernard's skin burned from searing blades of psionic electricity that licked off all five throttling skeletal appendages from this sickening grey enormous-headed platypus like entity. Bernard slumped to the ground from the smothering pressure of futility. The final thought that oozed out like puss from his ears was, “plus ten.”

---William James 10/29/2011


 
 

William James' Prompts:                                                                         

  1. Random Word: Wolf
  2. Random Question: How many morons can dance on a pen head?
  3. Thought Eater: Thought eaters are dwellers in the ether. Their senses, however, extend into the physical plane, and any psionic or psionic-related energy use in either area will attract their attention (range of ability or magic equals attraction range. The thought eater appears to be something like a sickly gray, skeletal-bodied, enormous headed platypus to those who are able to observe it. It’s only desire is to feed on the mental energy or prey…“ Gary Gygax. Monster Manual: An Illustrated Compendium of Monsters: Aerial Servant to Zombie. (TSR Games, Lake Geneva, WI, 1978). Page 94.
  4. When preparing journal bearings, for babbitting, two very important points should not be overlooked, viz: to see that they are clean and dry. All dirt and dust should be thoroughly cleaned from the cavities in the castings, after which the casting should be dried by being placed over a forge fire, or it too heavy to handled in this way, it may be dried by pouring a small quantity of gasoline into the spaces to be babbitted and then set on fire.” Calvin F Swingle, M.E. Swingle’s Practical Hand-Book for Millwrights. (Frederick J Drake & Company Publishers, Chicago, 1910). Page 164.
  5. ’The Savage,’ wrote Bernard, ‘refuses to take soma, and seems much distressed because the woman Linda, his m---, remains permanently.” Aldous Huxley. Brave New World. (Perennial Classics Harper & Row Publishers, Inc, New York, 1932) Page 108.
 
 
 

Also check out my new wordpress website. It's a literary journal I am building up called Randomly Accessed Poetics! Submissions are open for short stories, flash fiction, and poetry. I am featuring more polished literary works, explicit language pieces, and eventually a journal a relative wrote in the late 1800's detailing their journey to Oregon on the Oregon Trail. And when I gather enough submitted works from other people, I will cobble together an e-anthology called Randomly Accessed Poetics.

 
 

Friday, October 28, 2011

Wow...Did I Write This?

 

I wonder how old this grocery store girl is? I suspect she’s older than she looks. At least that’s the story her backside tells as well as the cake on her face. I'd like to hear one of her tormented poems or see an angst dripped painting. She’s nice. I enjoy talking to her in the isles when she’s shopping in reverse or gathering carts from the rooftop lot. I like watching her eyes as they waggle between my face to my big ass pewter belt buckle with a brassy horse head on it. It rides like a jockey showing off the package in my jeans. I like being treated like an eye-lick or a Popsicle or in my case a big bonesicle. That’s right, I’m a brassy pewter horsehead meatslinger. Check out my guns. Bang, bang. You’re dead on my bed of red sheets tired after one slinging with an Aries god of war Martian man.

Fortunately these jeans make it look like Jack in the beanstalk's cock. A giant in comparison to how I’ve envisioned it in the mirror. That always tells a different story. Strangers always look back. I don’t remember this face. I don’t look like such a goofball in my minds eye. But the mirror images back a fiction I didn’t ask for. I am a Rockstar. I wear my hair long dirty blond in straight waves cascading down my shoulders. It whips around when I bang my head. And I’m a top-notch guitar player too. I wear makeup. I play in a band. I’m a goo-goo gaga impersonator. I rise like cream to the top of the jug. Skim me off taste me. I taste goooood.

But who’s that guy in the mirror. He’s got short hair. And it’s starting to disappear at the temples and there’s a thin spot at the crown in the back. I don’t remember that being there. Where’s the hair gone? And that face? Who the fuck is that?

At least I got a big ass belt buckle. It rides my stallion like a jockey at the track. My horse rounds those curves and those trifecta odds will pay-off big tonight. I’m having that girl over for tea. Showing her the space that five-hundred and seventy-five dollars buys each month on Capitol Hill. The place is all tidy. I scrubbed the carpets by hand. On my knees like a good Catholic boy. The church raised me right. I can stay down there a long time. And love you with a brush. Scrubbing into the fibers of the carpet. Licking that carpet real long. Real good. Making it kitty cat clean. Scrubbing away them smells. Because my bed is next to the floor. Ain’t got no box. Just mattress laying flat. Covered with red sheets. And I got red Mexican candles too. With a big picture if Jesus on ‘em. I say my prayers. Light my candles. Say my peace. And place ‘em on the night stand next to those little packages of rubber coats. Catholic boys ain’t supposed to have. But there ain’t nothing in the catechism about using ‘em in the rear. As long is it is hetro. It’s okay. It's all good.


 
 
 

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Even SPAM Can Become A Poem

 

I didn't realize you were so close
I'm not looking for romance
I'm looking for a midnight booty call
I need a man shoulder to lean on

I'm not looking for romance
But I am looking at your pictures
I want your man shoulder
Will you rub shoulders with me?

I'm looking at your pictures
I like sport, music, and Internet
Will you rub your shoulder against mine?
I'm blond with blue eyes.

I like sport, music, and making Internet movies
will you be a wonderful friend to me?
You'll like me, I'm blond with blue eyes.
Let's get straight to the point tho

will you be a wonderful friend to me?
I have some new pics, check them out
But let's get straight to the point
I wanna meet for a quick eyeball near my place

I have some new pics come check them out
Please I'm ready, call me, I'm Anna
Let's meet for a quickie near my place
You can get a hold of me

Please, you can call me, I'm Anna
I am here all weekend
You can hold me
Are you up for it?

I am here, alone, all weekend
I'm looking for a midnight booty call
Are you ready for it? I have a Polaroid.
I didn't realize you were so close


 
 

Poetry can be found everywhere. This pantoum was constructed from emails I found in my hotmail spam folder.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

6-Word Writing Experiment Completed

 

A Collectively Composed 6-Word Sestina

I’ve traveled along the roots of life from horizontal walks to core depths
My face is the image for the backdrop of despair
My head was never a compass--- my heart was the guide
While stuck in a worldview of a dreamer searching passion to renew
---stacks of steel beyond this guarded heart of armor
So that one day my mind stops living on a prayer of resurrection

The Lotus was mostly brown, too late to resurrect
it from Death which grasped from the depths
of its black heart seeking the only form of Armor
that it knew even though its touch was despair
and the life-force it sought to restore and renew
the Lotus was its raison d’etre if not its guide.

Accept Amor to be your guide
to when the passions resurrect
and soap-bubble thoughts renew
run unencumbered in the depths
to combat a bleak despair
from satan's black armory

A man riffled through chips in his pockets like grizzly implements in an armory
he mumbled on about an extraterrestrial phenomenological guide
he met, playing slots, in the rapid riches room that demonstrated the meaning of despair.
He said, that no wheel, no matter how lucky, could resurrect
your sanity after, on the number 3, you placed a deep-
blue marker. Won money will never satisfy your need for spiritual renewal.

I am the one whose memories renew
the past. Wearing armor,
I sink into the depth
of a forgotten time, guided
to my former self who resurrects
the wings of despair.

The heel of this despair
presses down, as if to renew
through weight and gravity, to resurrect
what cannot be protected by heavy clanging armor.
By revealing its burden, it is a guide:
illuminating its darkness, shielding us from its own depths.

Avaunt despair, with amor’s armor
This will renew the facilities to guide
Oneself where hope does resurrect to pull life from the inky depths

 
 

Sextet one was written by Tera McIntosh, sextet two was written by Purple Mark, sextet three was written by Don Comfort, Sextet four was written by William James, sextet five was written by Caroline Albert, and sextet six was written by Janine DeWitt (a friend of Tera's). The three line envoy was composed by Don Comfort and myself.

The words: depths, despair, guide, renew, armor, and resurrect were submitted to 6-Words by the Reverend D Carlson--- the pastor of Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Willamina, Oregon ---on July 23, 2011. Thank you Rev-Debra for submitting these six rich words!

And thanks everyone for your participation. Many more of these experiments are possible on Pen Head Press!

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Ahhh...Yes! YES! A Disasterpiece Submission

 

The beginnings of a poem

Sitting on the uncomfortable dark blue chair
Looking at the blank paper in front of me
Thinking, pondering, doodling, and waiting
Where are the words?

Nothing comes to me as I sit here
My mind as blank as the page in front of me
Wishing, hoping, praying and still waiting
For the elusive words to magically appear

Oh wait! Here is something …
My bum hurts and my legs are feeling numb
Oh… mmm.. uhhhh….
Well, that isn’t exactly what I had hoped for

So here I still sit on the uncomfortable dark blue chair
Now wondering should I go with it or cross it out
After all, it is something.
I could rhyme it…

My bum hurts and my legs are feeling numb
Do you like this line or does it sound dumb
Let’s see… on second thought…
I cross out the only two lines I have written

---by Sharon Meixsell


 
 

Also Check out Sharon's blogger page called Shazza's House of Passion. It's a place where you can find words strung together with a more spicy flare! And she's got thirteen pieces on too, and a fantastic smile.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Write By The Park With Purple Mark: "Tekeli-li!”

 

“Tekeli-li!”

The statuette was not more than twelve inches in height.
It resembled the Medicean Venus, but it was black stone
not white and its aspect repellent, denying such values
as goodness or kindly intentions: it was a thing of Ill.

“Tell him I’ll always love him,” Tessie said as she began to fade.
“Tell him I’m waking up back there.”
“Tell him I’m taking this horrible thing with me.”
“Back where it came from!” she cried before vanishing.

I heard Tessie’s cry as her spirit fled. I longed to follow her,
for I knew that the King in Yellow had opened his tattered
mantle and there was only God to cry to now. This world
now lay open to those things which lived in the shadows.

Many gigantic and pallidly white birds flew continuously now
from beyond the veil through which she had passed and their
screams were of the eternal “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!” which was the
unforgettable song of the Shoggoths from behind the veils.

He never recovered from his encounter with the Elder Spawn.
nor did he have the time. His shrieks were confined to the
repetition of a single, mad word of all too obvious source:
“Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!” which resounded through the halls.

It was all reaching out tentacle and pincer, stinger and paw,
and judging by the panoply of eyes that ringed terrible maws.
Nowhere now to hide: it had sensed him well.
It was only now he saw the source of their strange

piping sounds that were the Song of the Shoggoths
for on their heads were their breathing tubes
which resonated the air within the close quarters
like dirges for those about to die.

“Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!”

Somehow, Ronald Horn found himself walking a street,
his mind a rolling tumult of fantastic horrors:
the Servants of the Elder Ones had found him.
They were not figments of his fevered imagination.

“Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!” their song still ran through his ears.
What mad song of Antarctica was this?
Why did it seek him out now?
Why this place? What did Tekeli-li mean?

He had not seen that much during that fateful voyage:
only the horribly mangled bodies of Man and Dog and Elder One
whose scents had brought the wrath of the Shoggoths down
upon their former Masters in their hidden town.

He had also heard that infernal piping before
in the attack by the Shoggoths in that icy waste.
He had not thought that they could find him here
So many years and miles away from that frozen place.

Fire had kept them away before in cold Antarctica, though
whether it could do any damage to them here was another story.
He knew that they would find him and he must be ready,
if he would not see his story have a gruesome ending.

When they came upon him again, fire and accelerants
torched a section of their mutating flesh with an awful stench,
but soon the fire was quenched and they came on like
impervious juggernauts after him.

He ran down corridors, up stairs and through doors hoping
to distance himself from his doom and then he was outside
among the soggy leaves, dripping trees and scudding clouds
leading the Shoggoths onwards to either his or their demise.

“Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!” They seemed more incensed.

Miskatonic U. had defenses that few other schools had
such as the waiting menhir that leaned crazily up ahead.
He ran up to the stones, laid his hands upon them, prayed
for them to work and stepped bravely behind the gateway.

The Shoggoths came on like hellish things directly for him.
“Tekeli-li!” Tekeli-li!” came their eternal and fearful piping.
When it seemed he was to be their food they hit the space below
the lintel and their song was changed to simply “Li-li! Li-li!”

This was howled in harmonic tones of pain which lingered
as they were returned to whatever prison world they had
escaped from. Maybe Tessie had succeeded in drawing them
out when she had made her way to the world of waking.

Once more this place was free of them until the next hapless
explorer set them loose to ravage the world of man which had
been only theirs and their masters at the beginning and lost
to them in the long battle which had spanned the stars

and had at last come to Earth. Yet neither side had won,
each had been placed into a trance-like state which each
sought to break free of: one day to wake and once more
to rule this outpost along this arm of the Galaxy.

---Purple Mark 102211


 
 

Purple Mark's Prompts:                                                                         

  1. Tell him I’ll always love him. Tell him I’m waking up back there. Tell him I’m taking this horrible thing with me. Back where it came from.” Frank Belknap Long. The Hounds of Tindalos. (Arkham House, 1946)
  2. Many gigantic and pallidly white birds flew continuously now from beyond the veil, and their scream was the eternal tekeli-li!” Edgar Allan Poe. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. (USA, 1838)
  3. Then, as I fell, I heard Tessie’s soft cry and her spirit fled: and while falling I longed to follow her, for I knew that the King in Yellow had opened his tattered mantle and there was only God to cry to now.” Robert W. Chambers. The King In Yellow. (FT Neely, USA, 1895)
  4. The statuette was not more than twelve inches in height and represented a female figure that somehow reminded me of the Medicean Venus, despite many differences of feature and proportion.” Clark Ashton Smith. Poseidonis. (Ballantine Books, USA, 1973)
  5. At the time, his shrieks were confined to the repetition of a single, mad word of all too obvious source: ‘Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!’ H.P. Lovecraft. Astonding Stories: At The Mountains Of Madness. (Astonding Stories Periodical, USA, February - April, 1936)
  6. Somehow, Ronald Horn found himself walking a street, his mind a rolling tumult of fantastic horrors.” Frank Belknap Long. The Hounds of Tindalos. (Arkham House, 1946)
 
 
 

Also check out my new wordpress website. It's a literary journal I am building up called Randomly Accessed Poetics! Submissions are open for short stories, flash fiction, and poetry. I am featuring more polished literary works, explicit language pieces, and eventually a journal a relative wrote in the late 1800's detailing their journey to Oregon on the Oregon Trail. And when I gather enough submitted works from other people, I will cobble together an e-anthology called Randomly Accessed Poetics.

 
 

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Write By The Park With Purple Mark: Urinal Panic

 

Where are you when you're at your most unprotected moment?

Standing with your back to the door in a public restroom---pants unzipped, hand guiding penis---trying to begin a stream is like being in a gritty one-pump gasoline station on a lost mountain road with a big bearish logger fidgeting in line behind you in navy pin-striped overalls, slapping a twenty-inch, skull shattering, socket wrench into the palm of his labor swollen hands. Pissing exposed feels like the sound of a wild dog---on the eve of the first winter storm---howling into a river of wind where she is so close you can smell her rabid breath and taste the warm muddy bloody drool dripping from the corners of her mouth. And when you glance behind, though the crack of your eye, you can see her lips curl up into a quivering snarl; hungrily she barks, “buddy, you’re a goner. I’m gonna rip your belly open and pull your intestines out while you still breathe.”

Squeezing the first drop out into a urinal feels like primate terror of a caveman busting loose from manacles constructed from six-thousand years of pent-up civilization.

And the question I ask is this, why do they build public restrooms the way they do? It's Rhetorical I know, because it has to do with the logistics of space and the economy of plumbing, but for the primitive mind buried under a thin crust of modernity, it makes no sense whatsoever.


---by William James, 10/22/2011

      I joined Purple Mark, Priya Keefe, Zoe Omega through skype at the Richard Hugo House
      next door to Cal Anderson Park.
 

 

Priya & Purple Mark's Prompts:                                                                         

  1. "Where are you at your most unprotected moment?" Priya's Question.
  2. Where he had gone, Augusts freed both hands from the manacles and unfastened his feet.” Edgar Allan Poe. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. (USA, 1838)
  3. Beside the body were several sheets of charred yellow paper.” Frank Belknap Long. The Hounds of Tindalos. (Arkham House, 1946)
  4. Flying became a real effort.” Frank Belknap Long. The Hounds of Tindalos. (Arkham House, 1946) page 182.
 
 
 

Also check out my new wordpress website. It's a literary journal I am building up called Randomly Accessed Poetics! Submissions are open for short stories, flash fiction, and poetry. I am featuring more polished literary works, explicit language pieces, and eventually a journal a relative wrote in the late 1800's detailing their journey to Oregon on the Oregon Trail. And when I gather enough submitted works from other people, I will cobble together an e-anthology called Randomly Accessed Poetics.

 
 

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Independence Day (A Video Poem)


 
 
The poem Independence Day was published in Hoarse, Issue #4: Field day. And apparently, they haven't updated their online bookstore thusly, it is not for sale quite yet.

Write By The Park With Purple Mark: God's Work

 

God's Use

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. That poem from Ecclesiastes kept me going for years. I was considered promising when I was young, and as the years drifted by, I hoped it was true. That I was some sort of late bloomer and not some lazy sod who didn't bother to live up to her full potential.

The cause of the error is very simple, I thought. as I regarded the five pine bookcases in my apartment; memories themselves of my dad creating them for me with his hands in the garage where he spent so much of his time. Over six feet tall, the bookcases held my own memories, and they had to go. I wasn't the language scholar or the craft person any more. I wasn't even going to read all those theology books from my dad, and they were in my major. And if theology taught me anything it was that we don't have a purpose, except to be loved. What hubris that is, to think we can claim or discern some cosmic plan for our lives. It's fun to do and it sells books but we all get the same wage in the end.

We are used, when needed, by God to fulfill his purposes. In the in-between we can cry and rail and yell about all our problems and how unjust it all is, but if we are wise, we become grateful for our difficulties. Those difficulties are often just the thing we need to be compassionate and patient and not a horror to everyone else. We are loved and we are used and in the in-between we make our own choices. The error is simple: It is in thinking, we have to do this alone.

---By Carla Blaschka 10/15/2011

     This piece was written alongside Priya Keefe, Zoe Omega, PurpleMark Wirth, Philip Smith at
     the Richard Hugo House as well as with William James, lost, someplace in Cyberspace.
 
 

Purple Mark's Prompts Used Loosely:                                                                      

  1. Jules Verne: Five Complete Novels. (Gramercy Books, 1995)
    1. "The cause of the error is very simple" Around the World in 80 Days
  2. Jane Hirshfield: "The poem taught me to be grateful for my difficulties." Bill Moyer. Fooling with Words: A Celebration of Poets and their Craft. (Harper Paperbacks, 2000).
  3. Object: Five bookcases, 3 x 6-feet high holding her (my) memories.
  4. Idea: Moment of epiphany; a sudden discovery.
 
 
 

Also check out my new wordpress website. It's a literary journal I am building up called Randomly Accessed Poetics! Submissions are open for short stories, flash fiction, explicit language pieces, and poetry. At Randomly Accessed Poetics I am featuring more polished literary works and, eventually, a journal a relative wrote in the late 1800's detailing their journey to Oregon on the Oregon Trail. And when I gather enough submitted works from other people, I will cobble together an e-anthology called Randomly Accessed Poetics.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Write By The Park with Purple Mark: Epiphanies

 

The Search For the Epiphanies

“Professor, you must not confound Statics with Dynamics
or you will be exposed to grave errors!” he expostulated.
His Logic made the other’s case moot.

He did not pretend to speak the 2,000 idioms made use of
in different parts of the globe, but he did know the important ones
for he had traveled all over the world in 80 days nonetheless.

He had been both above it as well as below its surface
and all of his voyages he had made many discoveries,
but the Epiphanies had avoided him or he them.

It was if they were floating islands, not fixed points on the maps
which had resisted his efforts to locate them, so he found himself
leaving the Museum of Maps hardly satisfied in the search.

“Cheers for Edgar Poe!” roared the assemblage, electrified by
their President’s words. It made him feel both part of the times
and entirely outside of them, his search had kept him separate.

“An English criminal, you know, is always better concealed
in London than anywhere else,” someone had said to him.
He did not consider himself to be a criminal, but he was English.

He had found himself here across the pond far from Hackney
looking for his epiphany, yet it was not to be found here either.
Passepartout was not the man to let an idea go begging and

directed his steps towards the docks. Perhaps it was time to go home
because maybe his search was chasing it away or maybe if he did not

go to all this trouble, the Epiphany would come of its own accord.

---Purple Mark 10/15/2011

 
 

Purple Mark's Prompts:                                                                         

  1. Jules Verne: Five Complete Novels. (Gramercy Books, 1995)
    1. Professor, you must not confound Statics with Dynamics, or you will be exposed to grave errors.” 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.
    2. "He did not pretend, like a certain learned pundit, to speak the 2,000 idioms made use of in different parts of the globe, but he did know all the more important ones." Journey To The Centre Of The Earth.
    3. "Cheers for Edgar Poe!” roared the assemblage, electrified by their president’s words." From The Earth To The Moon.
    4. "An English criminal, you know, is always better concealed in London than anywhere else.” Round The Moon.
    5. "Passepartout was not the man to let an idea go begging and directed his steps towards the docks." Around The World In Eighty Days.
  2. An Epiphany or sudden Discovery
  3. Logic: the study of types or forms of inference
     

Also check out my new wordpress website. It's a literary journal called Randomly Accessed Poetics! Submissions are open. I will be publishing literary works, explicit language pieces, and eventually a journal a relative wrote in the late 1800's detailing their journey to Oregon on the Oregon Trail. And when I gather enough submitted works from other people, I will be cobbling together an e-anthology called Randomly Accessed Poetics.

Random Poetry Found While Packing -- 9 (Pilot Books Random Line Write)


Fanning out into Pram, the Network

The smashing of your neighbors dishes times perfectly to the shattering of Wally Gators teeth.

Exhibit One:
From Bare floors and empty rooms to black and white Polaroids.

Exhibit Two:
Like everything else, the finches outnumber the crows.

Echibit Two:
Home was no longer the DMZ.

Sinking, enduring with bated breath, a conclusion first. You look happy. Have you been avoiding yourself lately?



Written on 7/19/10 at a Monday night Pilot Books freewrite. Pilot books, no longer extant, was a independent book seller located on 219 Broadway East, Seattle, WA 98122. Summer Robinson was the owner/operator of this novel idea. She created a space where local writers could gather and sell their work.

This post was generated on 8/28/2011 at 1412 Summit Ave, 210, Seattle, WA 98122.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Random Poetry Found While Packing -- 8

Job Description & Procedures for Bill (at Your2Feet):

Hi Bill,
I have started your job description and would like you to fill in and add to what i have as follows. I have just put down (a few) bullet points and we can write it up once we get all the items down on paper.

Job Description for Store Manager

Wow...I was a Store Manager...but that's not how the owner treated me. All this time I thought I was just a peon!

* Open Store 5 days a week
* Keep track of inventory
* Purchase items when inventory levels are low
* Receive new items into inventory
* Stock shelves and racks with new inventory
* Keep accurate counts of inventory
* Daily inventory and sales reporting

I also have the following list of procedures that I would like you to add to and make any changes necessary.

Inventory Procedures for Store Manager

* Keep accurate count of inventory items and match/adjust Point of Sale quantities.
* Monitor inventory levels & prepare orders to place (Is there a current form that you use? If not we should create one)
* Forward order form to Dr. k for feview and approval.
* Receive new inventory at the Capitol Hill Store - This includes counting all items that come in and compare them against packing slips. Note any discrepancies on the packing slip and follow up with the vendor. Sign approval of items received and file packing slip in its appropriate binder.
* Enter new inventory and its cost in Point of Sale.
* Record all items that are removed from the Capitol Hill store for use in the Ballard office or for fairs and trade shows. Prepare list (can use the same form for ordering with slight modifications) have the person removing items from Capitol Hill store inventory sign the form in agreement. Record the items being removed from Point of Sale with customer name reflecting this transfer of goods. Send the signed list and report from Point of Sale to Accounting in the Ballard Office.

Sales in Capitol Hill Store---

* Open store
* Turn on lights and heat
* Answer Phones
* Help customers with shoes
* (Bill add to this list as needed).

This is a start. We will work on this in the near future. Let me know if you have any questions. I'll give you a call on Thursday to touch base.

I will check with the Point of Sale expert I know to see what is needed to install multiple locations POS software package and see how it can help going into the future.

Have a great day,

Kirsten

Professional Small Business Management Consultant



The memo was found while I was sorting through stuff and packing my Seattle life up on Wednesday, August 23. It was dated to Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Write by The Park with Purple Mark---Carla Blaschka's Prompts

 

Tristan was blue. He was down-n-out depressed blue. He was "kick the can down the street" blue. He was puppy dog blue. He was lonely blue. He was broke blue. He was plane and simple blue in the face blue.

He wondered what Sheri was doing at this very moment. He missed her. He missed her like a puppy. His guts howled like Jumpy did when Elisna shuffled him into the utility room last month at her annual "kiss summer good bye" house party.

Last night, Sheri flew out of the Valley in a furious storm. Her older brother Bob, who had been watching over their senile folks, was burned to death in a fire. She thought smoking would do him in. Sheri was right. Bob probably fell asleep with a lit cigarette. The cottage, on the Manhattan estate, burned to the ground like a Independence Day roman candle.

Sheri, the youngest child, had to leave her life here in the valley for the chaos of New York. None of her other siblings could do it. They couldn’t leave because wives, husbands, and children depended on them for support. Sheri and Bob were the only two of ten who could do it. Bob had children but they had all grown up. Bob was the firstborn. The surprise child. The favorite. Sheri always joked that mom conceived Bob with a different man than their father. Mom always crooked a smile when she told the story of how George, the fireman, rescued their first kitten from the apple tree.

Tristan thought I guess I can go to Ella’s, but she won’t be home for four more hours. He was about to kick the can again when he noticed a slip of paper stuck to it.

"#99 THINGS TO DO WHEN YOU'RE BLUE: Come to a show this afternoon. And when you’re through visit the rapid riches room. Put a dollar in and let it spin. You can win at Legends Casino!"

That’s odd Tristan thought of all the pieces of paper on the road, why did the can happen to pick up that one. When Tristan looked up he saw Legends Casino a quarter mile ahead.

Ella got the call from the police station to come pick Tristan up. "Shit," she said, "what the fuck has he done this time?"

When she put him to bed in his one room camper, she soothed his bent arm and black-and-blued backside. Tristan, delirious, mumbled something about all that money lost, but that didn’t make sense, because he didn’t have a job. Ella wondered what Sheri saw in him. And she missed her too, because now Tristan would be pawing all over her like Jumpy. He never could be left alone.

“A deeper sleep,” Ella whispered into his ear. It was the only thing Tristan remembered her saying before she blew out the lantern and exited his trailer.

by William James, 10/15/2011

 

Carla Blaschka's Prompts:                                                                         

  1. Quote:                 "'A deeper sleep,' Elisena whispered into Tristan’s ear." Susan Dexter. The Mountains of Channadran. (Ballantine Books, 1986)
  2. Random Idea:      Things to do when you’re blue: "Magnify your life!"
   

Also check out my new wordpress website. It's a literary journal called Randomly Accessed Poetics! Submissions are open. I will be publishing literary works, explicit language pieces, and eventually a journal a relative wrote in the late 1800's detailing their journey to Oregon on the Oregon Trail. And when I gather enough submitted works from other people, I will be cobbling together an e-anthology called Randomly Accessed Poetics.

2-Lines for http://shazzasbedroom.blogspot.com

 

Teddy, had a big wet mouth
He drooled all over a sexy book
Nelly, slipped on the bedroom floor
and strained her back

Teddy drooled all over the checkbook
Then put his pants on backwards
Nelly, moping up the wetness, strained her back
She ejaculated, your feet are smelly

Teddy put Nelly's pants on backwards
He wanted to feel her backside rubbing his junk
She was turned on by his smelly feet
And purred like a kitty in Teddy's ear

He wanted to feel her backside rubbing his junk
Nelly, slipped her hand in to it
And purred like a kitty in his ear
Teddy, had a big wet mouth


Shazza SweetCheeks on 9/28/2011 submitted these lines: "She drooled all over the book, She strained her back, His feet are smelly, He put his pants on backwards," and requested they be made into a pantoum. You too can do this and submit me 2-Lines and I'll create something silly or serious from your random elements!

 
 

Also check out my new wordpress website. It's a literary journal called Randomly Accessed Poetics! Submissions are open. I will be publishing literary works, explicit language pieces, and eventually a journal a relative wrote in the late 1800's detailing their journey to Oregon on the Oregon Trail. And when I gather enough submitted works from other people, I will be cobbling together an e-anthology called Randomly Accessed Poetics.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Write At The Park with Purple Mark ---Philip Smith

 
 

Fraunhofer Diffraction

The body of a sparrow lay decomposing on the rough grey sidewalk, near a black sign that read, in white letters, "Bedlam". It was just past a brilliant colored abandoned empty Hawaiian BBQ chip bag, surrounded by a horde of faded to dull brown autumn leaves. William had chess knight stepped over it. He noted in passing its breast feathers which bedraggled by grim death still had a sunlight hue of yellow to them that reminded him of a brief happy day in Summer when he was 15. He wolfishly munched on his danish pastry without thought, barely tasting its sweet apple flavor. He wished for a second cup of coffee but the mornings set aside funds had limited him to just one. Not for the first time did he wish for some skill or superpower. His Gran's voice popped whisperingly cheery into his head "If wishes were fishes and beggars were kings, now wouldn't that change the shape of things". Anyway, he already had one wish running through his head and that was to get himself through his class at the University on Wave Optics. One could only hope for the best from fate and do what one could pragmatically. In the caffeine refreshed from beer recesses of his brain's dim back burners- "Babinet's Principle" was currently being memorized. It was a mantra running in a litany feedback loop like a musical earworm. "Diffractional patterns and complimentary diffractors are identical in the Fraunhofer limit." Robert H.Webb "Elementary Wave Optics P.149 sure to be part of the next pop quiz in class.

Those bright yellow feathers and that happy day when he was younger. He had gone shopping with his cousin Clara and the light in her hair had glowed in a faded gold way like that. The sky had been clean summer blue totally brilliant and he had not had any fears or worries. Clara had on this perky summer dress with yellow roses. She always took a black light with her to see what the fabric looked like under it she had explained in case she would want to wear whatever she wanted out clubbing. She also at that time and place been highly into magic, quoting to him from such books like The Woman's Encyclopedia of Magic or The Three Dangerous Magi. William stopped on the corner to check for traffic crossed to the other-side and deposited his danish wrapping paper into the trash can. So easy to rid oneself of litter, he didn't understand why it was so hard apparently for a lot of people to accomplish at least that simply task in an orderly sensible manner.

Clara swam back fondly into his thoughts as he processed towards the park. He remembered that day at age 15 his birthday just passed "that did he know the word ME came actually originated from the Babylonian and it meant mother wisdom and or the magic of fate?" He had been totally infatuated with her he being just 15 and she now a college girl in her freshman year, She also had had awesome boobs. He had blushed when she caught him looking at them, and they had collapsed laughing so. His brows knitted at this point remembering or trying to remember the perfume she had worn that day, it was always intoxicating to him. He tried to focus and not go all stiff in his pants about it, he had of course when he was 15. He had not been listening to her because he had been daydreaming and had nodded a response to something she had said..what was it..that memory almost came to the surface and then swam away like a fish. They had moved on he recalled into Aliester Crowley's theories about magic and chess that had sort of stuck with him and so had the dream he had had latter that night. He was in Alex Haley's book Root's- He had been Kunta in the dream and he lay on his mattress thinking about freedom it seemed the alarm the next morning never would go off. He was thankful it hadn't been a reoccurring dream going on for weeks and weeks afterwards. Still it had been vivid and stuck in long term memory. Perhaps it was because it was that he was white and Kunta was black, like opposite colors on a chessboard. Totally nonsense anyway he had reached the park. Clara and Gran had died that fall in a car accident.

William sat down in a semi hidden area and attempted to meditate, bump up the alpha brain waves and all that perhaps help the mantra running in his head. Maybe it would help with his test score, he certainly hoped so he needed a good grade. The sounds of a soccer game drifted towards him, he focused on his breathing. The intake of breath, the exhale of breath. He fought the urge to whistle either way and then collapse giggling. The wood seemed so quiet he didn't hear the birds or the soccer game anymore, nor did he hear the two 7ft tall robotic silver ant shaped humanoids that appeared behind him. For a moment they all were together in a group. Then they all vanished in a wink of light.

A grey squirrel burying a horse chestnut that was so lovely and brown saw the whole thing, its tail flicked and then it covered up the nut with black rich dirt and went off to find another somewhere to bury somewhere else.

---by Philip V Smith, 10/08/2011


 

William James & Purple Mark's Prompts:                                                      

  1. Quote1:    "Babinet’s principle states that the diffractional patterns of complementary diffractors are identical in the Fraunhofer limit," Robert H Webb. Elementary Wave Optics. (Academic Press, New York, 1969) page 149.
  2. Addendum to Quote1:    Fraunhofer diffraction
  3. Quote2:    "Kunta lay on his mattress at night for weeks afterward thinking about freedom," Alex Hailey. ROOTS. (Dell Publishing Company, New York, 1976) page 297.
  4. Question:    What skill/super power do you dream of knowing/possessing? [A super power] based on a random word precious artifact.
  5. Personal Statement:    Purple Mark said that he used to go shopping with a blacklight
  6. Random Word:    A Precious Artifact


  7. Word Conceptualizations:    In the Babylonian language, the word Me was defined as “Mother Wisdom.” Furthermore, according to "The Encyclopedia of Women's Myths and Secrets,” the word Me also means the magic power of fate.





   

Also check out my new wordpress website. It's a literary journal called Randomly Accessed Poetics! Submissions are open. I will be publishing literary works, explicit language pieces, and eventually a journal a relative wrote in the late 1800's detailing their journey to Oregon on the Oregon Trail. And when I gather enough submitted works from other people, I will be cobbling together an e-anthology called Randomly Accessed Poetics.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Write At The Park with Purple Mark: The Way to Enlightenment

 
 

The Way To Enlightenment

“You cannot practice your enlightenment...
it simply is... it overflows you.”
These words by Osho seemed to sum up
my current writings of a Magickal Education.

I have been working on a book, my fourth
about a School of Magick that was not
Roke or Hogwarts or Brakebills,
but was its own entity with its own rules.

A question was asked there:
What skill or superpower do you dream
of knowing or possessing? It was the purpose
of the School to help the students discover
and develop these goals or attributes.

What precious artifacts were to be found
within each person? What knowledge was
to be shared to be the Bodhisatva to another?
How best to learn the things which cannot be taught?

It was like St. Elmos Fire that collected at the masts of ships
    or the Fata Morgana (marsh gas)
of enlightenment dedicated to Hermes
(God of Magick) that each student hoped
would strike them with its divine inspiration.

---by Purple Mark, 10/08/2011

 
 

William James & Purple Mark's Prompts:                                                     

  1. Question:    What skill/super power do you dream of knowing/possessing?
  2. Quote2:    "You cannot practice your enlightenment...it simply is...it overflows you," P.T. Mistlberger. Osho from ‘The Three Dangerous Magi’. (Osho Books, 2010)
  3. Random Word:    A Precious Artifact
  4. Other Idea:    St. Elmos Fire from Barbara Walker’s ‘The Woman’s Encyclopedia Of Myths And Secrets’
 
 

Also check out my new wordpress website. It's a literary journal called Randomly Accessed Poetics! Submissions are open. I will be publishing literary works, explicit language pieces, and eventually a journal a relative wrote in the late 1800's detailing their journey to Oregon on the Oregon Trail. And when I gather enough submitted works from other people, I will be cobbling together an e-anthology called Randomly Accessed Poetics.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Write by The Park with Purple Mark---Carla Blaschka

 

Breaking Out

         Kunta was grateful for the shade, In the arc of blue sky, a cloud with bits of dark rain passed in front of the sun, turning the white cotton incandescent. It was a most beautiful sight and it was his prison, that sky. The visible cage surrounding his life. He never knew why until recently. He was a pilot, not a scientist, but Rhonda had sweet-talked him into going to a lecture at the university. It seems her class had to go hear some guest professor speak on wave optics and she wanted company. He met her when he first got to earth. She seemed to think that the pale salmon color of his skin was just a mild sunburn and the unusual ridges on his body the result of a childhood accident. He didn't mean to deceive her, but it was lonely down here and the earth wasn't ready for first contact yet. Some days he wished he did have antenna that expanded and contracted like My Favorite Martian but mostly his differences were under the skin.

         He wanted to go home but couldn't think outside the box he was in, the big blue sky was keeping him confined and the professor finally gave him the reason.

         "Babinet's principle states that the diffractional patterns of complementary diffractors are identical in the Fraunhofer limit," he had said.

         That explained why his thoughts couldn't get through, couldn't reach the stars. They were being cancelled out by the sunlight of this yellow star. He vaguely remembered a footnote in the briefing but it was just one of a thousand things to know about earth and he never thought he would crash and be without his communication equipment.

         Kunta lay on his mattress at night for weeks afterward thinking about freedom. During the day he sat in the park, in-between washing his hands for twenty seconds at a time. The signs on the bus were always telling him to wash his hands and he wanted to fit in, to be a good earthling. Rhonda and his small stash of gold kept body and soul together. Gold was good currency nearly everywhere in space with compatible lifeforms.

         He needed to find a quartz from a meteorite to stick in the hole in his head and find a hole in the ozone. Then he could phone home and get back to his real life. He would miss Rhonda, true, but he looked down at his hands. They were nearly raw from all that washing.

-----By Carla Blaschka, 10/8/11
       Written alongside PurpleMark Wirth and Philip Smith at Richard Hugo House,
       Write By the Park group


 

William James' Prompts:                                                                         

  1. Quote1:    "Babinet’s principle states that the diffractional patterns of complementary diffractors are identical in the Fraunhofer limit," Robert H Webb. Elementary Wave Optics. (Academic Press, New York, 1969) page 149.
  2. Quote2:    "Kunta lay on his mattress at night for weeks afterward thinking about freedom," Alex Hailey. ROOTS. (Dell Publishing Company, New York, 1976) page 297.
  3. Question:    What skill/super power do you dream of knowing/possessing?
  4. Random Word:    Space
  5. A Precious Artifact:    Quartz from a Meteorite
 
 

Also check out my new wordpress website. It's a literary journal called Randomly Accessed Poetics! Submissions are open. I will be publishing literary works, explicit language pieces, and eventually a journal a relative wrote in the late 1800's detailing their journey to Oregon on the Oregon Trail. And when I gather enough submitted works from other people, I will be cobbling together an e-anthology called Randomly Accessed Poetics.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Oregon Roulette Cross Out Poem

 

I hate going to the doctor
watching agonizingly slow tics of a clock
sitting in endless lines of chairs
surrounded by sick people
coughing
snuffling
hurling
moaning

I waddled through sterile doors
hunched over like a scarecrow
goat in a snow frozen field
getting on the scale
was like adding insult to injury
The nurse looked at my chart
scribbled a figure
raised a disapproving eyebrow

I was finally led on a leash to room number sixteen
the exam bed was wrapped in the usual crispy wax paper
I felt like a limp steak waiting to go into the freezer
I stared at ceiling tiles
reorganized the annoying buzz of lights
into vaguely recognizable patterns
I waited some more
in cubes stacked like Tetris boxes
I cough loudly
I’m still here
I’m still sick
Where are you?

The doctor enters after an hour
I vomit out all the sordid details
The doctor smiles nods and scrawls
As a melodramatic whole
the process is far too exaggerated
for a bitter bottle of pills
only the few can afford


Inspired from the October 2011 Edition of the Oregon Wine Press, Editor’s Note, Page 6, "What’s Up Doc?"

 
 

Also check out my new wordpress website. It's a literary journal called Randomly Accessed Poetics! Submissions are open. I will be publishing literary works, explicit language pieces, and eventually a journal a relative wrote in the late 1800's detailing their journey to Oregon on the Oregon Trail. And when I gather enough submitted works from other people, I will be cobbling together an e-anthology called Randomly Accessed Poetics.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Write by the Park with Purple Mark ---William James

 

Kunta lay on his mattress of straw dreaming about the power of invisibility and what he could do with it. Kunta could free his bothers and sisters who had been held captive on Webb’s plantation. They were forced to work without hope of reward or freedom. Kunta dreamed of an Africa he’d never seen. His father was born there. He imagined running on the steppes with lions and cheetahs. He imagined laying on his back in dry heat watching the Southern Cross march across the night sky. His father always said the Southern Cross was a magic symbol. Kunta doubted if this cross and the cross his master’s wore, heavy around their necks, were the same cross. Yes, they had magic. Magic, Kunta wanted. If only he could be invisible.

The killer lurked in the empty space between the chicken coup and the storage barn. He wielded a long dull machete that he found in the cane fields. But was he a killer? Babinet thought he was. The killer killed Fraunhofer. Webb was out there now hunting the killer down.

Fraunhofer had reached the end of limit. He saw diffractional patters of light and dark every time he closed his eyes. Babinet stood over him like a wave of fresh air. Holding his hand. Tracing crosses on his forehead and hands in oil. Whispering that he would be ok. Babinet looked pretty today like when they had first married. Fraunhofer felt light. He wondered if he was dreaming. He opened his eyes and Babinet was weeping. And it was at that moment that he knew that he was going to die.


 

William James' Prompts:                                                                         

  1. Quote1:    "Babinet’s principle states that the diffractional patterns of complementary diffractors are identical in the Fraunhofer limit," Robert H Webb. Elementary Wave Optics. (Academic Press, New York, 1969) page 149.
  2. Quote2:    "Kunta lay on his mattress at night for weeks afterward thinking about freedom," Alex Hailey. ROOTS. (Dell Publishing Company, New York, 1976) page 297.
  3. Question:    What skill/super power do you dream of knowing/possessing?
  4. Random Word:    Killer
  5. A Precious Artifact:    Space / Free-time
 
 

Also check out my new wordpress website. It's a literary journal called Randomly Accessed Poetics! Submissions are open. I will be publishing literary works, explicit language pieces, and eventually a journal a relative wrote in the late 1800's detailing their journey to Oregon on the Oregon Trail. And when I gather enough submitted works from other people, I will be cobbling together an e-anthology called Randomly Accessed Poetics.

Random Poetry Found While Packing -- 7: Fortune Cookies


Here's what fate had to say about my life:

You are a person of culture.
You are kind-hearted and hospitable and well-liked.
You are never bitter, deceptive, or petty.
A modest many (fortune cookie typo) never talks of himself.
Your partner will [never] be proud of you.
Idleness is the holiday of fools.

You will try something new.
An investment in enthusiasm ought to start paying off
Relax and concentrate on your future career plans
Now is the time to set your sights high and "go for it!"
Be particular about meeting all obligations.
Areas of communication may be very busy at present.

The current year will bring you great happiness.
You have handled your responsibilities competently.
Someone will look to you for help and advice (that's never happened).
Keep your plans secret for now (nothing going on).
You will travel far and wide for both business and pleasure.
Remember to share good fortune [as well as your bad fortune with your friends].

Watch for reasonable added business potentials.
You will live a long and happy life
Be a little more cautious this month
You love Chinese food.
The truly creative mind is now open [for] inspiration [and for business].



---Written on October 6, 2004. The poem was found (on 8/23/11) in a Journal of other peoples poems I used when I busked poetry at Pike's Market in the Summer & Fall of 2004


---This disastrous poem was assembled October 6, 2004, after I ate an entire bag of Ginger Flavored fortune cookies. I most likely ate and assembled this piece on the job at Your2Feet. Where many poets, steal time from their employers and, compose their best work....and...in this case...there worst too.

I read it at Homeland and Mr. Spots Chai House in Ballard. Mr. Spots is now just an empty hole in the ground. Homeland gathered, bi-weekly, at OnThe House, which is now an ice cream parlor called the Bluebird. Back then, OnThe House was an amazing project. It was a community living room run by a Nazarene couple, Benji & Abby. A few years later, when Benji was awarded a reverend license everything changed. OhThe House was reorganized into Church of the Undignified.

Benji and Abby always held a place of fondness in my heart, because they graduated from the same college in Idaho that my mother did. The world even got smaller than this. Abby's best friends' father was in my mothers' class at NNC now NNU.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Carla Blaschka's Addendum to Write At The Park

 

Time for the Ordinary

What can we do once we are ordinary?
Can you save the world being ordinary or is being ordinary a problem?
Corazon Aquino was an ordinary housewife who changed the world,
In a peaceful way
In a non-violent way
and toppled the might of the American-backed Marcos regime
Mother Teresa an ordinary nun, just a woman
Oscar Romero an ordinary cleric, just a man
The Beatles an ordinary band, just musicians
An ordinary office worker stopped the tanks in Tiananmen Square and changed all of China
An ordinary woman changed the rules about sexual harassment in the American workplace, by accident
just trying to embarrass a Supreme Court nominee
We don't need the extraordinary everyday
We need moms and dads, teachers and technicians, people who work and people who play
Pearl divers and trash removers
We need ordinary people doing ordinary things everyday
like being a carpenter
To make the world an extraordinary place
Where ordinary turns extraordinary in its own time, its own place, its own season


---By Carla Blaschka, 10/1/11

 
 
 

Also check out my new wordpress website. It's a literary journal called Randomly Accessed Poetics! Submissions are open. I will be publishing literary works, explicit language pieces, and eventually a journal a relative wrote in the late 1800's detailing their journey to Oregon on the Oregon Trail. And when I gather enough submitted works from other people, I will be cobbling together an e-anthology called Randomly Accessed Poetics.

Write At The Park With Purple Mark---Carla Blaschka

Death or Chocolate


        What is the first thought you have upon waking in the morning? Haydn thought about the question his therapist had asked him the day before while he put on his pants backward. He tripped on a cat toy, sat on the couch and corrected the situation. He told her he thought about death and dying when he first arose. It always felt like coming up out of the grave when he first opened his eyes. The dark of the night sky and its vision of the universe made his soul expand, everything became doable, but sunlight turned the sky blue and blocked his view, flattened his hopes and made every idea impossible.

        He often thought of the world waking up as the souls of the dead rising to the lids of their coffins.

        She asked what he did.

        He said he was a con man, a shill for the life insurance industry, trading in death futures and playing games with peoples' money.

        "But I promised I wouldn't play with friends, nor relations," Haydn explained, blinking behind his glasses. He wanted her to think well of him.

        "Why do you do something you hate?" She asked. Another question.

        "What can we do once we are ordinary?" he countered. "I'm nothing, I'm nobody, a dead man walking. What else can I do? I stay up late at night and have such dreams, but in the morning, reality crushes them into dust, impossible plans."

        "Why impossible?" She asked, staying with the small stuff.

        Haydn wondered when she was going to ask the big, juicy questions, like why he hated his father and did he want to sleep with his mother.

        "Who will listen to me, who will help me make my dreams come true? There are no genies out there, blue, red, pink or orange walking around. I had a wonderful idea for pizza-flavored chocolate but I'm not a candy maker, so who can I tell to make that happen?"

        "You can delight your friends with it," she said.

        "Yeah, whatever. That will hardly change the world."

        "You never know," she replied. "You never know what love a good chocolate can create."

        He thought about that while he finished dressing for another soul destroying day trading in death. Maybe chocolate was a better option. Maybe he could sell life insurance to a candy maker, now there's a thought.

        Huh....

---By Carla Blaschka, 10/1/11
        Written alongside Priya, PurpleMark, Philip and a new recruit, Zoe (the other Zoe) at
        Richard Hugo House.

 

Priya Keefe's Prompts                                                                             

  1. "The souls of the dead rise to the lids of the coffins," William James.
  2. "He put on his pants backward," Sharon Meixsell.
  3. "What is the first thought you have upon walking in the morning?" Priya Keefe.
  4. "What can we do once we are ordinary?" Priya Keefe.
  5. "I promised I wouldn't play with friends, not relations, Haydn explained, blinking behind his glasses." The Steep Approach to Garbadale (Iain Banks), page 199.
  6. Inspiration from PurpleMark Wirth, his clothes and chocolates.
  7. Random Word: Shill
     

Also check out my new wordpress website. It's a literary journal called Randomly Accessed Poetics! Submissions are open. I will be publishing literary works, explicit language pieces, and eventually a journal a relative wrote in the late 1800's detailing their journey to Oregon on the Oregon Trail. And when I gather enough submitted works from other people, I will be cobbling together an e-anthology called Randomly Accessed Poetics.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Uncle Grumble's Villanelle from 2-Lines

 

Uncle Grumble got piss drunk with an old bloke
They jimmied then they shimmied
Then he woke

Face down in a puddle as a frog croaked
They jimmied then they shimmied
Uncle Grumble got piss drunk with Doke an old bloke

Dokey sang karaoke about Joke the cow sleeping under an oak
They jimmied then they shimmied
Then he woke

Hung-over the gutter in a puddle just like old Moke
They jimmied then they shimmied
Uncle Grumble got piss drunk with Stroke the old bloke

Who stumbled home crooked faced fried some eggs and broke the yoke
They jimmied then they shimmied
Then he woke

At the bar with Mope, Hope, and some other folk
They jimmied then they shimmied
Uncle Grumble got piss drunk with all the foolish town blokes
Then he woke


Uncle Grumble is the second individual two words instead of lines requesting a Villanelle. Grumble submitted two rich words, which were "awoke" & "Shimmied." I didn't find too many rhymes for the word "awoke," thus I changed it to "woke." Thanks Mr. Grumble for your words and I'm sorry it took me half a month to get around to posting your poem! Stop back by "2-Lines" or "6-Words," and hammer in some more for me to smash my thumbs on!

 
 

Also check out my new wordpress website. It's a literary journal called Randomly Accessed Poetics! Submissions are open. I will be publishing literary works, explicit language pieces, and eventually a journal a relative wrote in the late 1800's detailing their journey to Oregon on the Oregon Trail. And when I gather enough submitted works from other people, I will be cobbling together an e-anthology called Randomly Accessed Poetics.

Addendum to Write At The Park---Priya's Prompts

 

3PM at the Coffee Cottage with Don Comfort


       They looked perfectly innocent. Surrounded by bags of bags. Sitting at a table. Holding each other. Consoling. Fingering short strands of spiky hair. Murmuring. Stroking an ear with a thumb.

       “What did you do when you woke this morning,” the young thin girl said?

       “I thought of your face shinning through the window surfing on the first finger of dawn,” a young thing girl answered

       The young thin girl spoke, “What can we do now that we have been made ordinary?”

       “I guess we can drink coffee at this small town Christian café like everyone else. We can blend into the fauna of everyday life unfettered by the chains that condemned our mother’s to arduous labor in service of men,” a young thing girl responded.

       “Yes, as ordinary people we are liberated to serve each other unfettered by the chains that bound our souls to the past immorality of innocence,” the young thing girl stated.

 

 
 
 

Priya Keefe's Prompts                                                                             

  1. What can we do once we are ordinary?
  2. What is the first thought you have upon waking in the morning?
  3. And the word “Innocence” chosen at random by Don Comfort from a random book.
 
 

Also check out my new wordpress website. It's a literary journal called Randomly Accessed Poetics! Submissions are open. I will be publishing literary works, explicit language pieces, and eventually a journal a relative wrote in the late 1800's detailing their journey to Oregon on the Oregon Trail. And when I gather enough submitted works from other people, I will be cobbling together an e-anthology called Randomly Accessed Poetics.