#writing #mywork
The Watch Tower

I woke up without a song, but there was a dream.
I saw myself climbing the metal stairs of a high tower.
The tower was open and the air was cold. A cold wind blew.
I was wearing my green car coat, and a backpack.
I was also wearing my long, blue Winter coat.
It was draped over my backpack and green coat.

I struggled to climb up the stairs.
I stopped at a landing and removed the blue Winter coat,
the backpack and the green coat.
I put on the long, blue Winter coat and left the green coat
and the backpack on the landing.
I continued to climb up the stairs.

I don’t know what was at the top of the tower.
Suddenly, I was in a car, driving down a highway.
I realized I had left my green coat and backpack
high up on a landing of the tower.
Should I turn around and go back?
No. I kept going.

November 1, 2023

Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl
by Diane Seuss

She comes out of the dark seeking pie, but instead finds two dead peacocks.
One is strung up by its feet. The other lies on its side in a pool
of its own blood. The girl is burdened with curly bangs. A too-small cap.
She wanted pie, not these beautiful birds. Not a small, dusky apple
from a basket of dusky apples. Reach in. Choose a dusky apple.
She sleepwalked to this window, her body led by its hunger for pie.
Instead, this dead beauty, gratuitous. Scalloped green feathers. Gold breast.
Iridescent-eyed plumage, supine on the table. Two gaudy crowns.
She rests her elbows on the stone windowsill. Why not pluck a feather?
Why lean against the gold house of the rich and stare at the bird’s dead eye?
The girl must pull the heavy bird into the night and run off with it.
Build a fire on the riverbank. Tear away the beautiful feathers.
Suck scorched, tough, dark meat off of hollow bones. Look at her, ready to reach.
She’d hoped for pie. Meringue beaded gold. Art, useless as tits on a boar.

#poem #poetry #writing #creativity #literature

The story: https://lithub.com/how-diane-seuss-wrote-the-poem-that-matters-most-to-her/

How Diane Seuss Wrote The Poem That Matters Most to Her

It will surprise few to hear poets have a reputation for hoarding their discontents. Call it an occupational hazard for the “unacknowledged legislators,” those who devote their lives to making an u…

#writing #mywork

Several years ago, this wrote itself one night as I was in a world between sleep and wakefulness.

Angel Wings

I’m half asleep in my bed, my eyes are closed.
Must stretch my legs so I don’t get cramps in them.
Lying on my left side, with my hand and fingers in my hair.
Oh. I’m so happy to still have my hair. So many don’t.
I have a little itch, and immediately images fill my mind
of people whose heads are so filled with lice
that their scalp is moving.

Still, with my eyes closed,
with my right hand, I feel my left arm.
Oh. I’m so happy I still have ample flesh and it’s soft.
I’m not just skin and bones. So many are.

I’m happy to feel a gentle breeze from a summer fan.
I smell the scent of lavender and roses.
It could stifling, without a breath of air.
There could be the stench of death, disease and
putrid things lingering in the air.

I roll over on my back and stretch out my angel wings
as far as they will go.
I think of his lips on mine, and our deep, soulful kiss.
I wrap my wings around my beloved,
and we fly away together.
Oh. I’m so happy to still have thoughts of love,
rather than of hunger, terror and hopelessness.

In my bed, I open my legs as far as they will go
and move my feet up and down, and point my toes
like a ballet dancer.
Oh. I’m so happy to have been born in the year I was born.
It could be 1939, and I’m half asleep, lying in
a crowded bunk bed in a Nazi Prison Camp.
Some realities turn into nightmares.
Some nightmares turn into reality.

Effemie

Chatter mouse, could see to the tabled introduction, a plausible metric locating ceramic cabinet stood the parcel, standing in for fortitude, prepaid cabled the surely inactions of one. Risen from bread an tutorials, they condemned those needy, lasted the parcel, unlatched the draws, mismatched indifferences the spokesperson had nothing to speak of. Reread his injustices, they knew about cool climate restates, residential cabinet makers or the trusties across the valley, they were makers of kin.

Kink was delivered by reserving those cool climate words; fashion tears down his words, the service provider wept to the worlds of invitational petroleum. Those mortar shells need his coverage, brought the enclave further south that year, his government protected further escalations, produced carbon emit sample packages, resistors to timely grace.

Thought was reduced that year to have her redeem in returning principality, two wars brewed the final years were, lasting to deliver the unknown parcel. Familiarity was in standing room, intervention withheld the thwart, priceless words felled his standby, justice has prevailed, inherently foreswore disarmament, renewables by the by.

They loved the thought of being around, when retrospect had no positive outcome, members of the kindly type, impaired to his chosen, they remembered his newsstand. Arcane by the world we govern too, producers of staid wither, the founding climate controllers, install of the brightest canvas, worldly to invite fashionable, brotherly love. ©

#writing #writings

#writing #mywork #saltlakecity #utah
October 31, 2023
Three Seasons in The Desert Wind

I woke up in the heat of the building radiator heat ~
hopefully, it should be working in the dead of Winter.
It's still the last of Autumn.
I kicked the sheets and blankets off of me and desired
a breath of fresh air. I heard him saying,
"The indoor air must circulate."
I arose and turned on the large Summer fan.
Ah! Fresh air!!
My sleeping garments blew in the fan breeze ~
like the veils of an Arabian woman~blowing in a desert wind.

So I guess the headline is saying Hemingway is a 'Person of Interest'

https://www.npr.org/2023/10/30/1208533790/dawn-powell-writer-new-york-radio-diaries-hart-island

#books #writing #literature

Her writing was admired by Hemingway. Then her books — and body — disappeared

Dawn Powell infiltrated the writing world by hanging out in bars and taverns around New York's Greenwich Village in the 1920s. What happened after she died didn't go according to script.

A quotation from Bradbury, Ray

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled.
The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) American writer, futurist, fabulist
“The Secret Mind,” The Writer (1965-11)

#quote #quotes #quotation #art #creativity #experience #expression #growth #living #sharing #writing
Sourcing / notes: https://wist.info/bradbury-ray/64248/

"The Secret Mind," The Writer (1965-11) - Bradbury, Ray | WIST Quotations

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out. Reprinted in Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing (1990).

Tim O'Brien takes the Lit Hub questionnaire

https://lithub.com/tim-obrien-on-letting-the-world-decide-what-hell-read-next

#writing #books #literature #authors

Tim O’Brien on Letting the World Decide What He’ll Read Next

Tim O’Brien’s new novel, America Fantastica, is available now from Mariner Books, so we asked him a few questions about his writing, reading, and more.   What time of day do you write (a…

"home of the autumn thoughts"

the rules of the game are simple - choose a photo (preferably your own), edit with gimp and tag #sundaygimp on a Sunday ;-) … and follow the tag.

#sundaygimp

(and also #Sunday-photo-edit )

Note: if you do not use gimp, but still want to play along, just use the tag #Sunday-photo-edit and edit the images with your favorite image editor

#AB, #AB-SG, #AB-29-10-23, #10-23, #gimp, #gmic, #Sundaygimp, #Kunst, #Art, #Bildbearbeitung, #Bildmanipulation, #manipulation-de-photos, #image-editing, #retouche-d-image, #Herbst, #Gedanken, #schreiben, #heimat, #farben, #Füller #automne, #pensées, #écriture, #pays, #couleurs, #plume #autumn, #thoughts, #writing, #home, #colors, #fountain-pen #mywork (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

Good writing advice

#Writing
Findings upon my travels #Writing

Findings upon my travels

dissertation writing advice

#writing
TO WRITE

"I'm not writing descriptions and instructions for bottles of furniture polish."

#writing

NITRO LIFE

I once said, in reply to someone when I was asked if I have read a certain a book -,.

“Thank you for thinking of me, but if I read one more book I’m going to evolve into a new life form.”
Well. I did read one more book, and I did evolve into a new life form. I write.

I’m living my Nitro Life. That’s Nitroglycerin.
Back in the day of blasting tunnels through mountains in America - to forge paths for railroad tracks, certain men had to make nitroglycerin for the blasting explosives. This Miner Man lived alone, far away from the work site, up a mountain road, in a cabin.

Inside the cabin he had a large cast iron pot filed with water and dynamite. A fire was built under.the pot so this mixture would boil. In the process of boiling, the explosive ‘nitroglycerin’ floated to the top. At some point the man had to decide when to stop adding dynamite to the cast iron pot, and quickly, but carefully, skim off the nitro from the top surface. He placed the liquid in small, glass bottles. One wrong move, and the cabin would blow up, with him inside it.

The next step in the process was to place wooden crates full of the little bottles with nitroglycerin in them, on the back floor of a horse drawn wagon, and then drive down the bumpy, winding mountain road to the mining worksite, and deliver the explosives to the miners who were blasting through mountains. Once again, one wrong move, and he, the horse, and wagon would be blown up. Obviously, most of those trips made by such Miner Men were successful.

At a certain point in my life, I decided that it was time not to add anymore sticks of dynamite to the large cast iron pot of boiling water, and to skim off the nitroglycerin at the top… I’m living a Nitro Life, and writing Nitro things.

True Story

On The Road

we're in the van
the road is long
undoubtedly
we're going somewhere

a tyre pops
the van, it stops
right here
along
the verdant roadside

there is no spare
nor hope
of one
since, yeah
today it is a Sunday

we might as well
then have
a cuppa
seeing
we're just sitting here

we get some sticks
a match
and paper
and now
there's fire in the stove

the water boils
the teapot
brews
the mugs
they have been found

the tea's been poured
the milk
is added
we are
content we are content

it seems to be
the perfect time
to roll
a joint
and slowly while away the time

where is the hash?
you know
the stash
someone
must have put it somewhere

William, in the driver's seat
he turns
around and,
um, he says
'twas in the stove i hid it

#creative #writing

There’dn’t’ve

Tom Scott on Clitics

#Language #Zibaldone #TomScott #Language #EnglishLanguage #Writing

#writing #poetry #mywork #2018

Where The Woodbine Twines

I long to be back in time ~
A girl standing in front of
where the wild woodbine twines.
O, bring me my Chinese fan
embroidered with birds,
butterflies and peonies.
Take me by my hand.
Lead me away from the
asphalt, tall buildings
and concrete.
Lay me down where
the woodbine twines ~
..and kiss me goodbye.
We shall meet again in another life.

The exercise of writing down unfiltered thoughts enhances self-knowledge

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/know-yourself-better-by-writing-what-pops-into-your-head/

#writing #journaling #psychology

Know Yourself Better by Writing What Pops into Your Head

The exercise of writing down unfiltered thoughts enhances self-knowledge

Bird by Bird
by Anne Lamott
Highly recommended by me as well. :)

Last but not least is Anne Lamott’s instructional guide that could be used for writing motivation or, more generally, for life at any time. She begins the book by telling an anecdote about her brother who once procrastinated an ornithological research project until the night before, and her father’s response was to “take it bird by bird.” Lamott uses this philosophy to guide the reader through the process and pains of writing and how to view it not so much as a chore, a routine, or a block in one’s schedule, but rather as a spiritual exercise that satisfies and uplifts the soul. Her humor and biting sarcasm throughout the book is another reason to dive into it and to enjoy the pages, above all.

“Because this business of becoming conscious, of being a writer, is ultimately about asking yourself, How alive am I willing to be?”
from https://electricliterature.com/books-craft-of-writing-tips-mfa/?mc_cid=85ea8d3fca

#books #writing #craft

7 Craft Books to Help You Become a Better Writer - Electric Literature

Instructional guides from groundbreaking writers who are changing the industry from the inside

“Like the dead‑seeming, cold rocks, I have memories within that came out of the material that went to make me. Time and place have had their say.” So begins with an intense, undeniable beauty the memoir of one of America’s great writers, Zora Neale Hurston. I read her 1942 autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road, for the first time years ago, shortly after I got sober, when a black‑haired Irish opera student turned movie ticket-taker and occasional junkie pulled it and a Tom Waits CD out of her torn army‑surplus knapsack and pressed them into my hands for safekeeping.

https://lithub.com/understanding-zora-neale-hurstons-loneliness

#literature #writing #writers #books

Understanding Zora Neale Hurston’s Loneliness

“Like the dead‑seeming, cold rocks, I have memories within that came out of the material that went to make me. Time and place have had their say.” So begins with an intense, undeniable beauty the m…

Jon Fosse Is awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature

The Norwegian writer was honored “for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable.” The prize is awarded for a writer’s entire body of work.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/05/books/nobel-prize-literature

#writing #literature #NobelPrize #Nobel

After thirty-five years, The Gettysburg Review, Gettysburg College’s quarterly literary magazine, is ceasing publication. We encourage everyone to continue to read and SUBSCRIBE to literary magazines and journals, where you can find great pieces like this essay on time in life and in fiction (The Gettysburg Review), an essay on passing in America (New England Review), Héctor Tobar on California smog (ZYZZYVA), a piece on personal and environmental grief (Conjunctions), a story by Morgan Tatly (TriQuarterly), a conversation between Margaret Atwood and Rebecca Solnit (Orion), fiction from Christine Schutt (NOON), and this essay on whale dildos (The Common). SUPPORT LIT MAGS, SUPPORT LITERARY CULTURE!

https://twitter.com/GburgReview/status/1709557701737316407

#poems #poetry #writing #authors #stories #essays #flash #literature