Micro Fiction (part 2)

Here's the second; this is from an exercise where the entire piece had to be one sentence in length.

Five Seconds of Serenity

Step out of the shower into a world of fog spreading over you – thick steam filling the cracks and spaces of this room, reaching for your blurry eyes, into your mind and through your skin to clean you out, winding its way down to renew you – it’s all that matters for the longest moment, this sudden gray shading everything around you for eyes which refuse to squint, which – for this once – revel in their broken ability to see; your mind stilled, its mad spinning of questions and stories and insecurities which wage war with confidence and concrete truth and the scrap of some song buried in the whirlwind is slowed in this shroud – and in less than a moment, between the heartbeats when you step onto the cracked linoleum and reach out for the slightly damp, too small towel hanging in sudden blue from the doorknob, here in this white oblivion, the cold will rush in, will wind its way under the door and through this steam to find every water drop clinging to your numb skin, will smash into your hair and your toes and trace its burning way over you, ripping this serenity from you and tearing it into quaking pieces, and you will shiver, and you will shiver and clench your body, folding in on yourself like a broken origami star, and you will shiver as you towel yourself off, trying to be dry, shivering, and shiver, and shiver, trying with all of the will power in your body to ignore the water in your hair and on your legs which refuses to loose its grip – in a second, you will be cold again, but for now, here in this serene shroud of warmth, blind, you are tall, strong, and clean.

Micro Fiction

Some new Micro Fiction pieces here. First one is a confessional.

Confessional

How do you write a confession to yourself? How do you do it? Do you describe your feelings when you can’t order them in your head? Do you say that? If it reaches your point, and if your voice flows through your pen into an ink jumble, do you laugh? Do you refuse to look at it, instead dropping letters in your wake like the deranged debris of a forgotten poet drifter who can’t remember his name? Do you cherish it? Do you raise it up on a pedestal and refuse to acknowledge its flaws – or worse, see flaws as beauty? Do you keep yourself blind? Do you keep yourself blind? How do you write what you already know? How do you describe something that’s a part of everything, that can’t even be seen? Do you write around it? Do you throw words at it until you think you hit? Or do you aim, and breathe, and fire with your voice, blazing metaphor like lead and leave only smoking trails of ink curling from your guns? Do you look it in the eye? Do you refuse to shrink away from the truth you see so clearly? I’m addressing you. What are you going to do?

A Very Old One

I was plumbing the depths of my writing folder, and found a poem from a year and a half ago that I thought I'd lost. Enjoy!

Sketch From The Sun-Lit Benches

On my door I've written my own motto -
"Imposed form is Imposed frame of mind."

It's not an indictment of
any sort of classical poetry -
I don't pretend to be above it,
I'm not claiming to be offended by iambic pentameter -
or loathe being trapped inside
the parallels of a sonnet.

It's a reminder.
A reminder that voice needs freedom - that truth
only comes when we free ourselves to say
exactly what we want to say.

Imposed form is imposed frame of mind
is a warning.
Beware, beware -
stifled voice is a taint to the soul and
bottling voice puts
horrible pressure on yourself
that increases and expands,
as its feasts on everything
inside that you treasure,
defend as being a part of you
and absolutely necessary to your survival.

Imposed form is imposed frame of mind is a reminder
to live your life.
To find an outlet for pulsing creative consciousness -
why I spill ink onto torn,
raped sheets of virgin notebooks -
to run howling in the streets because there's just too much to
hold inside -
to sketch and draw and shade in the world with your life -
to find a way to leave your mark -
write your chorus
and hum your melody
scream and shout and dance
and sing
and to do it
in your own mind, with your own voice,
and a free, beating heart.

I'm learning to live for myself -
I'm learning to live my life for me - to live honestly,
I'm learning to live
in the space between moments
the heartbeats between the flash of lightning I'm counting
one, two, three
till the rolling rumble of life begins again

Cherishing the good moments
the mornings when I can run and revel in the pounding
beat of feet meeting pavement in the heart of
my city
the mornings when the sun envelops -
warmth and light melding together and bringing slow smile
to face.
The mornings when pen scratches over paper
so fast that i can't keep up and
the wheel that spins out my thread of consciousness
is throwing sparks -

The musician loves his callused hands
for the proof that they give -
physical evidence that those hands produce the
music he hears in his head,
screaming out of cerebellum to fingertips
to be summoned into the world as
rhythm
melody
improving the world as it strengthens his soul and
hardens his hands -
each note leaves an impression on his body

We're all living for the mornings
and so accept the nights - when they come,
and we thank fully
that they're rare - when loneliness strikes
and slips tendrils into head and
heart and makes you groan
and when you drop off to sleep,
exhausted from the struggle -

The nights are the price we pay, the
debt to work off -
we're living for the moments
when the world is quiet.

A Train Ride

I'm leaving tonight,
slipping out through frozen winter air.

This is the first time
that I'm not running away.

I blinked yesterday.

I opened
my eyes in a moment of hope,
so strange and swirling through
cracked ice and the sharp Connecticut wind.

I will be train-riding
south in the gathering dawn,
going home.