Stranger Danger

This is an excerpt for a larger story that I'm writing. This weekend, I'm going to a good friend's Halloween party and everyone has to contribute a scary story to read aloud. This is a short-ish part of what I am writing. I'm hoping to finish it up today.


He was quiet at the table, we all were, the three of us chewing our cereal. Only the dog noisily snorted his approval of breakfast. As my son fished the final Cheerios out of the milk, I grabbed my keys and his book bag. Our daily routine.

“Alright pal – time for learning.” I used my post-caffeinated singsong voice. He stared at his cereal bowl.

“I don’t want to go,” he said as if to the milk.

“It’s Thursday, little man. Only two more days and then we can party on the weekend. We’ll do forts on Saturday. Promise.”

“I hate it there, Dad. They hate me.”

“Who hates you?”

“Everyone. They pick on me.”

“They don’t pick on you.” My wife shot me one of her looks. This was a lie. His kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Keely, had already phoned us on several occasions, because he couldn’t play at recess without being ridiculed. I know how hard it is to fit in, but I figured he had to learn to fit in. We all do.

“They call me Scotty Potty.” I bit the inside of my cheek -- it was so minor, so nothing, but that must be horrifying to a five year old kid. My five year old kid.

“Don’t let it eat at you, Scott. Ignore them or go play with someone else.” I walked towards him – put my hand on his shoulder. At that moment, he transformed into a whirring vehicle of rage. He screamed, kicked, windmilled his arms.

“I donwana donwana donwana donwana--” He screamed those words over and over, a stream of syllables. I had never seen him like this, not in five years of baths, bed times, and vaccination shots. This was more. He was a stranger to me then, someone else’s child full of rage.

We did what we could. I grabbed him by the pants, she hoisted him beneath the armpits, until little by little his voice grew hoarse from screaming and we somehow managed to squeeze him into the car. He finally stopped.

The entire drive to school, he never looked up.

When we arrived, I pulled Mrs. Keely aside. Told her about the tantrum, the nickname, the favorite stuffed animal face down in the snow. She smiled one of her wan, kindergarten teacher smiles.

“Paul, it’s natural for a boy of his – sensitivities – to dislike school. To fear the large groups of kids. I’ll keep an eye of him today, I’ll call you if anything happens.”

I left the classroom, the peeling posters on the wall, the cliques of kids already forming around the plastic house play sets and coloring books. I waved to Scott from the window; his face was still flushed and red. A group of boys sat in a circle around him, surrounding him. He did nothing and I left for home.

Sleep Cycle

This poem stemmed from a prompt for Writers Island. The theme this week was renewal. I struggled with it a little bit, at first, but happened upon this image at the last moment.

Sleep Cycle

My body is a miracle, when it works.
Each night, it renews itself, replaces
dull skin with fresh, recycles

old blood with new. All while I sleep,
legs pressed to my chest, arm slung
over my eyes, shielding my face

as if from attack. Mouth slack
and snoring. My unconscious mind
discards old thoughts, shuffles memories:

my grandmother is still alive, six years
after her death, cooking me eggs.
My boss from two jobs ago hires me back,

asks me why I’m so late. I want to scream
that it’s Sunday, but my jaw is glued shut. My mind
rewinds and recoils and I call these dreams.

I ponder their significance, wonder why
I remembered this person, after so many years. I never
really notice all of this, until it stops working,

until I spend one night singing the same
old Indigo Girls song to myself, in one unbroken
verse, or I watch my cat chase the same

phantom moth in the corner. After nights like these,
I spend my days shaky and awake, crushed
inside my rumpled clothes. I stare too long

at my computer screen with caffeine jittery eyes,
replay memories of fourth grade heartbreaks and yesterday’s
mistakes, my heart pumping last night’s tired blood.

Someone Else's Journey

This poem is part of a project that I am trying to transform. I originally wrote about 60 pages of a novel, set in the 1920's, about a girl who moves to LA from MN to be an actress, just as the talking movies began production. I couldn't sustain the novel, so I figured I would try writing her story in poem form. Enjoy!

Carrying Everything I Own
Train Ride from Minneapolis, MN to Los Angeles, CA
December 1, 1927

Sixteen hours ago, I took my seat
and faced my reflection
in the darkened window. Sixteen
hours and counting of rolling icy plains
and I’m not yet halfway there.

I haven’t slept yet, afraid
of losing my luggage or missing
the moment when frozen yellow grass
shifts to brown rock and the patches
of gray ice become muddy puddles.

I’ve never been further west
than North Dakota, but once I stepped
off the platform and into the train car,
I felt the rhythm of wheels
clacking against steel tracks
seep into my skin.

I’ve always been moving like this,
a faint reflection hovering
over half-lit houses and fenced-in yards,
ramshackle outhouses and neglected
corn fields, children bundled
in bulky black coats, playing outside.

This is the first time
I’ve seen myself so quickly, so clearly:

the empty landscape I’ve always known
flapping past me like a stiff white sheet
left out to dry in the winter wind

and me, smiling as I watch it go. I know
I’ll never miss it, after I arrive.

Presents? Oh Jack, You Know I Love Presents!

Those lines (or something similar to them) were uttered by the best soap opera diva *ever*, Erica Kane. Ever since then, when I think about gifts or presents, that's the first thing that comes to my head. Not very poetic.

Writers Island's prompt for the week was "The Gift." Since I clearly couldn't write about Erica and Jack, I was stumped. That is, until I took a walk this weekend to the Walker Art Center Sculpture Garden and had a shift in focus. This poem is what resulted.

Present

Unable to escape my own stink
(last night's slick, oily residue
still clinging to my skin)

I decide to go outside.

Strap on my shoes, grab
my keys, and push my body
down the long hill, beside
my home. I burn

past the empty bar, the smoky
sour taint of pork ribs and cheap rum
flooding the sidewalk; past

the old man wheeling
a garbage can filled with crushed
soda cans, as he curses
no one in particular. I sprint

beneath the overpass, checking for lurking
vagrants and flocks of gray pigeons;
bus exhaust fumes float past me. Cross

the footbridge, a checkerboard
of morning sun and shadows, and hop
down the steep steps, into the park.

There, in the shadow of the fountain,
a flock of Canada geese
root for food. There must be
twenty or thirty at least, nipping

and nesting in the dew damp
grass. I walk quietly, stunned
at their silence, their elegant
movements. A pantomime. Sidestep

their green turds, their white tufts
of feathers, walk towards
the lavender and purple flowers
blooming on the trellis. I touch
their soft petals, their fragile
stamens, and hear

only my steady breath. I still
smell my own sour stink, know
I can't escape it. Still,
right now, every cell in my body
sings gratitude.

Weekly Word Count, September 9-September 15

Last week, in my weekly word count post, I complained about the writing drought I've had for the past month. Well, it's raining now! Thanks to sites like Writers Island and the new Traveling Poetry Show (nee Poetry Thursday), I've been writing up a storm!

This week, I wrote two poems, two revisions, and a haiku. So all told, that's 1700 words this week alone! That brings me up to 22,217 for the year.

I should be careful, because I don't want to jinx it, but when it rains...

What I Fantasize About

Here is my inaugural post for the new online community, Writers Island. This site was started by Rob Kistner as a way to fill the void for our dearly departed Poetry Thursday.

The first prompt was a doozy: My Imaginary Life. I had so many half-formed thoughts running through my head when contemplating this one. I think it is because I am always engaged, simultaneously, with the life I lead and the life I want to lead. I know if I just work hard enough and do enough, I will have that elusive perfect life, but it always seems just outside of my reach. When writing my poem for this prompt, I had to really confront the reasoning behind this type of thinking. Why do I focus so much on the future when I have so much going for me in the present?

If this first prompt is indicative of the type of work we'll get to do on the Island, I'm excited for the project!

To Do List

38 Items

Light more candles in my home, feel
their warm glow spread across my face. Watch

much less television, spend less time
seeing that dull light flicker behind my eyes.

Clean the bathroom regularly; scrub
the bathtub until I can see myself reflected

in white porcelain. Worry less often and waste
less energy asking what if, why, and when.

Write more regularly. Stain my fingers
black and blue with ball point ink, smear my words

on clean white pages and find myself
within them. Meditate daily, before bed and

unwrinkle my mind, until it is fresh
as a blank white page. Lie

to myself less. Cradle myself in forgiving
arms and let go of everything I should have,

would have, could have, today. Rip
pictures out of magazines. Assemble slick

jagged collages of meaning. Find the one
word to paste in the middle, the one that explains it all.

Build a fort, using all the books I read
this year; feel safe in my constructed

storybook cottage. Wait for the bricks
to loosen and tumble on top of me. Pick up

the heaviest, open it at its center, and read
what’s written on the yellowed page. Do

whatever it tells me. Stop constructing
perfect endings before their time.

Wait until the necessary one emerges.
Record everything I eat, read write. Write

down every time I sleep, exercise, and breathe.
Do more, do less, think more, and think less

Spend time inside, then outside, then inside
again. Be louder. Be more silent.

Write this list daily in my journal, tear
out the page – swallow it. Discover

the perfect combination of word and intention, action
and inaction, that unlocks this heavy, deadlocked door.