RIVETed, the listeners sit around the fire.
CREAKing tree limbs, teller’s voice the only sounds. Tale:
CACHE of gold, three weeks’ journey. Dreams flare in their hearts.
CHILLs as teller states: none have returned from trying. Each thinks: Am I the exception?”
Category: ohthatwright
Farewell
DRAFT of letter written.
JERKY breaths now. Get a grip for the edits.
DOZEN stray thoughts, weight of time increasing as days tick closer to zero.
BLINK, breathe: try to do the last things well.
Don’t Fight the Monkey
A MAZE is a bad place to be sloshed.
TOKEN of my folly: I got to the center, picked a fight with a
MANGAbey. Never fight a monkey. (Even when on the wagon).
BOOZY ideas crumble when you’ve sobered up and are getting a rabies shot.
Chaos or Order
EXIST, professed, in cauldron’s roiling brew, atoms colliding, yet
FLAIR for story, most days, has you weave sense, narrative, purpose.
TAROT’s a glitch, a wobble in your views, a hope some kind of providence is there to read.
TRUST your nihilistic cosmos, dismiss your intuition of sense. Or: invert that order and seek order?
Sorry, Camels
LOYAL? I didn’t know, so I googled it. And yes!
CAMELs are. And friendly, and affectionate.
ODDLY, I only remembered that they spit.
QUITE an apology I owe to camels, man’s most hydrated best friend.
A Taste of Eden
CLEAT lassoed, I tie up the skiff,
BLESS the water, bless the land, bless
TODAY. Here’s to the slowness, to the
CONCH on the beach, to the sun, to a taste of Eden unbarred.
The Birth of Prose
PROSE, epiphenomenal to writing and records of writing,
LEACHing some of words’ power: words need no longer sing in memory.
FLUTE’s melodic line, soaring, embellished, singular to the mind, vs.
FOLIO, numbered pages, going on, long form, the certainty of an archive replacing song.
Butch and Sundance
CLIFF edge suddenly yawns,
FREAK out for 10 seconds,
MOUTH tastes metal: chase and panic,
TROOP is 3 minutes back. The logic of the jump emerges.
The Gift
CLEATus doesn’t like his name, doesn’t like the spelling: both a
CHUNK of unquellable frustration. Yet, there is also his resplendent gift:
SNARE drum, kick drum, he’s a genius of percussion. When his hands are whirling, in
TURBO mode, he takes a kind of flight, borne up by sound, by forging time, by transport, by wonder.
Unpolished
REBUTting you: yes, I am often late, I wear novelty T-
SHIRTs, I forget to pay bills. But why cite these? Why
CLASH? I am yours, wholly loyal. I do not glorify my faults. That
SCAMP you were with before was polished-and what was he worth?