Choose Happy w/ Little Poems

Choose Happy w/ Little Poems

The Morning After

orange juice

concentrate

romantic

severance

***

Shopkeeper’s Lunch

long uphill

walks for

soba noodles

back in fifteen

minutes

***

Role Model

he keeps lists

of long words

in a notebook

some are

underlined in

red ink for

dramatic effect

***

Archivist

illicit symmetry

existential vertigo

two things that

rebound and plunge

into reticent habits

of mourning

logged for posterity

***

Crush

/w a motorcycle

helmet tucked up

under his arm he

watches a hover

of birds in awe of

how they accept

their own riddles

***

Hope Is A Pleasure

surprise tangents

soft epiphanies

spiritual and literal

turns you toward

excerpted texts for

the lost and the lonely

***

You

you strike me as

someone who is

angry and sad by

the exact way your

conjugated pleasures

suppressions and

ejections reveal the

consequences of your

elegiac engagements

***

Wish

to be one of those

a melancholic capture

perched atop a red round

silver rimmed leather stool

curved over the slender

countertop of an all-night

diner – waiting

***

Guilty

illogical eddies of

assonance become me

***

It felt very ‘Sillyheart’ to be jotting down teeny tiny poems the last day or so. I started a ‘commonplace book’ for this very sort of thing and I do confess that I used the tried and true scraps of paper to scribble them down until they could be typed up. I might suck. In my defense, I had a little too much in my work -bag the last few days and it’s on the verge of ripping. My work bag is my favorite so I’m preserving it for as long as I can, so paper. I have been recording quotes and things inside though. It’s been a great exercise in restraint but I turned to the comfort of scrap paper the past few days. Perhaps we can co-mingle?

I hit a bit of a dry spell after writing ‘French Kissing Freddy Emerson’ so all these little poems felt like little bursts of joy and I’m happy to share them now. I’ve also stalled a little on the ‘Sillyheart’ edit but she’s constantly in my ear. Life gets in the way now and then and that’s okay. Work is work is work, right?

In propinquity,

Nic

As For God

I can’t say for sure where my head is these days. I wrote a thing in 2017. I wrote a page a day for 365 days and ended up with a book – the journal of Sillyheart – a year in her life. When I met her I thought we’d only be spending a month together. The initial premise of the writing exercise proposed to me by a dear friend was to write a page a day for the month of January to get the creative juices flowing. It worked. I completed the month and I felt like a million bucks. One dreary Sunday I’m driving with my big sister in her mini-van along the back road to town for groceries and I’m rambling on like a crazy person about my meager accomplishment. She looks at me and said, “You did a month. Why not go all year? That’d be a book.” It socked me in the eyeballs. I took her suggestion to heart and kept going and just like that Sillyheart was my new best friend, my most important preoccupation. The more I wrote the thicker the stack of paper became. I experienced moments of sheer terror and intimidation by what I was doing. It was the largest piece of work I’d ever worked on and finished. Ever. A poem, easy. A short story, okay. But, a book? Man. What a rush. I wrote one small little piece in the middle but other than that I haven’t been able to write a word. I have a story knocking around in my head but I can’t get it on paper. I’ve tried – first person perspective, third person. It isn’t coming. I don’t want to force it so I’ve let it be. For now. I’ll try back again when my head is clear of cobwebs. I really want to write it though. I hope it doesn’t wander off and pick another writer to dictate.

I miss Sillyheart. I had a dream last night that I started the editing process. It might be her way of telling me to get off my sad sack and get back to work. I thought maybe distancing myself from the binder her life currently lives in would be good for me. I have come to the conclusion that distance isn’t what we need, it’s togetherness. I’m not really finished with her yet, I’m not supposed to be focusing on other stories because we still have miles to go. There are 400 plus pages to tackle and they aren’t going to edit themselves. Now, anyone who loves me will tell you I am no editor and I am brutally aware there are many many pages where I did not do my best work. The point was to get something down. To maintain the rhythm and routine. It was important to me to write even if it was a bunch of bloop. Anything can be fixed. It’s a big job but it has to be done. I’m more nervous about the edit than I was the actual writing. The bonus – Sillyheart entrusted me with a year of her life. I didn’t let her down. She has faith in me. I’ve lost a little of it in myself but the second I regain it, all edits go.  

If anyone has any words of wisdom or advice on editing, I’m all ears.

While I am waiting for my head to level and my life to stop veering sideways I wrote a poem. I don’t know if it’s anything special but it felt good to clack a little.

In propinquity,

Nic

***

As For God

As for God, you see he was

just too busy interpreting the

all the sounds and silence of

appearing and disappearing

            … meanwhile

I am left to my own devices

to eulogize the gray page

the space I can no longer fill.

It once was the busy intersection

of my humanity and the practice

of storytelling – it’s sudden stop

staged as a singular defiance …

if you want the cold hard truth

it was the eventual death of my father

that halted my life’s (un)important work.

How could I contend with a meaningful

existence in the wake of such an absence?

It’s a daunting task for anyone I suppose

crippling for those who are tasked to make

something out of thin air.

As for God, you see he was

too busy claiming my loved one to consider

the domino effect down here, the gray page

the head-buzzing astral angst dulling down

my thunderous heart.

I long for the acoustics of metaphorical

impulses, premature departures, episodic

hard joys, a glittering nocturnal view,

            subliminal motifs, in place of a rose

ostentatiously placed at the tomb of my sadness.

It all leaves too much time to interrogate the past

and little time for telling tales by heart.

            As for God, you see he paid no mind to

it all because he told me once, maybe in a dream,

he’d never give me more than I could handle.

            This gray page is proof he is capable of

fiction too.

Syntax of a Serial Prose Poem

Syntax of a Serial Prose Poem

I endorse it

the act of

transmuting

words into gold

the cut and paste aesthetic

qualifies a very lovely engagement

between

writers as allies

poets as paradoxes

when the native tongue

of a serial prose poem

is singing syntax

is singing syntax

I endorse it

the unadulterated awe

the translucent undertow

the formal element

when the native tongue

of a serial prose poem

is mellifluous

a traditional piece

outlined with fidelity

outlined with perception

all entries in this volume

are true accomplishments

from

acrostic to sonnet

privileged poems

potent storytelling

the book takes its title

**

On all levels, yesterday's artist date was magnificent.  Despite the wet snow showers, I maneuvered my way around downtown Halifax.  I started at The Wooden Monkey.  I enjoyed a mimosa and a Mexican brunch while pecking away at the edits on 'Half Windsor Knot'.  I didn't accomplish a lot in terms of actual edits but I thought a lot about him and some of the feedback received by the few who peeked at it.  I confess, early feedback got me a little off track with conflicting likes/dislikes but after a good bit from a fellow writer today I was able to re-focus my energy, correct some of the things that irked me and even added a small paragraph further explaining things (I hope).  While I was at The Wooden Monkey, eating and editing I was inspired for another story.  A little boy was sitting with his family behind me and his conversations with someone called Jennifer sparked something in me.  Next thing I knew I was jotting notes down and again dis-engaged from HWK.  I did get back on track, my pages are full of scrawled notes and red scratches and strikes.  After brunch, I took myself for coffee at Paper Chase and did a little card tag and got lost daydreaming, waiting to go to Neptune Theatre to see Glace Bay Miners' Museum.  And, just as I suspected, the show was absolutely stunning.  Just as wonderful as it was back in '93 when I was working at the theatre.  Every single thing about it was perfect.  The cast was riveting, the set was all-encompassing, the music pitch perfect and the lights expertly lit.  The direction and production was top notch.  I was in tears as I stood for the standing ovation at the end.  The story, originally a short story by Sheldon Currie and adapted for the stage by Wendy Lill, isn't a happy story but it's rooted in truth and honesty and heart.  It's painful at times but rings true for so many people connected to the mining industry.  I laughed and cried and I was completely covered in goose-bumps for the whole two plus hours.  If you live in Halifax and you have some time between now and March 17th, go see it.  It's masterful.

It's Sunday now, my first blog of March.  I went for a long peaceful walk today and came home to my stories and pages of poems.  I finished this one this morning drinking my tea so that's what you got today.  I also worked more on HWK and have been formally introduced to my new characters for the story inspired by the little boy yesterday.  I'm excited to put HWK to bed but I'm also excited to move on with something new.  I still have this one character nagging me but that'll have to be for something else because that character isn't right for what's next.  I'll stew a little and see what happens.

I'm going to let my noodle rest for the night, maybe watch something meaningless and do some relaxing.  

However you spent your day, I hope you spent it well.

In propinquity,

Nic