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.

A Slam Poem for Those Who Live Quietly

Here's another of the poems which came out of the portfolio. I'm going to try and get this one recorded - it's a very visceral poem.

Life

When grief and loneliness
pile up inside, creeping vile,
from the pit of churning insecurity
to spill out your mouth and eyes - smother heart –
life is the brilliant thing which will show up to ravage you -
make you whole. It comes
as poetry of time and place,
found in passionate voice
that sets a room on fire,
or leaves it quaking
in sudden silence.

Life is what we see in the slanting shade
of every memory we’ve made –
all that we’ve seen, replayed
in perfect glinting moments,
tiny and shifting and
full of a strength won in blood. Layering
muscle onto frame,
never ask for less of a burden,
only wider shoulders.
We beat the steel of our hearts new,
pounding and pounding in flame,
re-forging with every loss.

When life cracks you one across the jaw,
it is only to remind you that men
don’t go down easy.
That anyone can be strong on a good day.
I save my strength for the days
when the only thing you can do
is to stand back up and stare life down,
to yell through clenched teeth
and blood sweat,
“You god-damned son of a bitch!”

Life is determined to keep breaking me down
to the fiery knot inside my gut that pulses
and reminds me why I choose to live life
honestly. To love,
and never be ashamed.

Life is a rainstorm through clenched teeth –
We drink down what we can keep.

95

So here's a poem that got posted earlier, but which has been completely re-worked. This is another of the poems which came out of this semester's poetry class. Fairly sums up how I feel about Connecticut most days.
So, 95:

I.
These days, I’m too familiar with the blazing track of
a summer sun on my face,
setting over this asphalt welcome-mat --
Interstate Ninety-Five, roaring north.
This state makes my blood roil.
The setting orange light
flares between the lost trees
and dark forests. The grey lanes
fly to the horizon, and all I can think
is how close I am to losing myself again.
Kept inside this rotted tree,
I am sick of scrabbling for cracked open acorns -
fallen crabapples.
Driving as fast as I can,
all of the pretty Connecticut girls are going north,
wrapped in sunglasses,
passing me by.

II.

Ninety Five, into the harsh spawning sun
glaring on westernmost Connecticut,
Ninety Five down the dagger bright strips of asphalt
crossing through the strange no-man’s land
of almost ordered forests -
The four miles where nature seems to hold her breath
and huge dawn arcs above -
Ninety Five quivering on the speedometer as I’m banging
sleep-numbed fingers against the steering wheel,
grimacing my way through a song,
Ninety Five down Ninety Five, ripping across a road that’s never meant
anything to anyone.

III.

These days, writing myself dry in the dark mornings,
I am finding my way clear of
the stench of déjà vu.
Breathing heavily to empty lungs,
All of the air I’m holding
spins out to stop and slow,
harden into concrete.
These days, lifting and carrying,
straining with all I have,
I’m building up again.
Finished with living in the rubble of a home.
Finished picking through debris and
calling it justified.
Kept between and around each slow beam of sunlight,

I am running south.

Another Dream

So it's been a while since anything got posted here. I'm finished with the first semester of sophomore year, and I'm happy with how it went. I wasn't as productive with poetry as I'd hoped to be - the class I took let me down significantly in that regard. Over the next couple of days, I'm going to post what I developed, and hopefully get some new things churning.
So, here's a poem.

A Retelling

Walk in circles long enough,
and you’ll always find yourself in the center.
My feet trace the path of my thoughts,
winding the sidewalks of my city.
Under the bright lights spawning
the mad drunk energy of Saturday,
out through the deep calm and hidden tunnels
of patient Tuesday night Charleston streets.

I wait in my quiet way for
a breeze off the river,
some serene thing to lift me up.
The night holds its breath
until I find myself
leaning against a dark rail on the dark edge of Charleston,
watching a ponderous behemoth silhouette itself
from across the bay. White light shines
through the cracks in stacked shipping containers.
The wind is blocked. All I hear is my own
quiet breath, in time and tune with the waves. It leaves me tired,
exhausted – I find a song
on suddenly numb lips.
It is enough to carry me home.