There were two prompts for Thursday, giving you a choice of which to do.

Prompt 1: What is the thing in the future that you fear the most.

Prompt 2: Write a homage

I chose prompt 2, though I'll keep prompt 2 in my back pocket for future use. The homage that was read in class, as an example, was dedicated to Walt Whitman. Instead of going for everyone's famous person (Robert Downey Jr. obviously), I chose to do my padre.

PAPA

There are worse things

you could do on a Saturday.

Silly fathers sit in

death's double-wide;

sniffing his laudanum-

laced carpet.

Simple fathers tell

clean lies to

irrelevant wives with

happy pill habits.

Senseless fathers

drink, drag, drug

their way to pretty

nothingness.

Our fort’s lid,

comprised of a

yellow comforter,

dips above our heads,

tickles my ear as

you shuffle the deck.

We sit on the kitchen floor;

legs crossed, deep air

sticking to our lungs,

like honey on toast.

There are worse things

you could do on a Saturday.

More later!

Love from Pullman,

The Blonde and The Bullshit

I know it's been a bit since I have updated but we have been focusing on editing pre-existing work for the past month. We did flash writes today which I will post later, in hopes of making up for my absence. Then again, I think four people are reading this blog, 75% with some blood relation to me, so I think you all will be alright. Here is my most recent:

WHERE THE TILE MET THE WOOD

I was out of place.
There were paisley chintz chairs
and white-teethed wedding albums
and no dusty books.

I stared where the living room
met the foyer
and where the tile
met the wood.

The woman who sat across
was all pointy elbows
and bitter lips.

That woman spat out words,
words that sounded like 
tasting bleach.
Things like, "You are no 
daughter of the Lord and
you are no daughter of mine."

Silence slunk from
the air between us,
cowed,
whimpering in my bones.

And I sat on the 
clinically white sofa and
stared where the tile
met the wood and
hummed to myself
just to make her
mourn.

I'll post the others tomorrow or Thursday!

Love from Pullman,

The Blonde and The Bullshit

This was an in class assignment where we were directed to write a poem from the perspective of a historical (loosely defined) figure who you did not understand. Having recently watched the documentary Blackfish, about the trainer killed at SeaWorld, I took the idea of whalenapping from the ocean. The quotes are not from the movie they are just concepts and ideas that I took from seeing it, with some nonfiction in there as well.

BLACKFISH

I don't even think it
counts as rationalizing
if you have to talk
yourself into it.

"We cornered them
in a bay and did
whatever it took 
to get the babies."

"Whatever it took?"

"Yeah, so we wrangled
nets around the
mamas and the babies
and did 
whatever it took."

And they did.
They killed four mamas
because they were
going to do
whatever it took.

Snatched the babies,
slit open the mamas,
stuffed them with
anchors and pulleys,
like they were the
bird on Thanksgiving.

Then sunk them in
the ocean,
like they were women
who had sinned,
all in the name of
entertainment for the
children of America.

Love from Pullman,

The Blonde and The Bullshit

My poetry class is cancelled tomorrow so I don't have a poem for Thursday. However, we did blitzkrieg poems in class (each given 10 minutes to write) on Tuesday that I am going to post. These prompts came from poems that the prof read in class and took ideas from. I have not edited from the way I wrote them in class as they are quick writes.

The first prompt was to take a color and elaborate on it.
The second prompt was more of a rule: your poem has to start with the line "My love is..." and then from there you could take the poem where ever you wanted it to go.

BLACK

Onyx, that is the
negative of day,
lunges at you
as you turn off
the lights.

Ebony, that gets
close to your throat
and scuttles
across your ribs.

Noir that hugs the
inside of the charred
fireplace, too bare
to burn flame.

You're sweet and cold,
as the bleak black,
dark as death,
dips you in
the fathomless sea
to check if you
can really be
born again.

MY LOVE IS

My Love is broken.
I'm not talking about
a boy or a man.
I'm talking about
a friend.

She's sitting on
our couch, tequila
drunk.
She's crying about
a boy, she calls a man,
who she thinks she
loves.

My Love is broken.
She thinks she's
fixed herself, but
her heart's in her
feet and her
brain's in her
mouth
and she's running on
this thing she
calls love, with
this boy she calls
a man.

And I've tried
to talk, we've tried
to talk to her,
our broken Love.

And she's pushed us
away.

So now,
my broken Love
tries to stand,
thinking she is
whole again,
while we sit,
and we cry,
and we try to
fix.

Love from Pullman,

The Blonde and The Bullshit

The prompt for the assignment due tomorrow is write a poem about your reaction to your favorite piece of art. I chose to do mine based off this piece by Banksy:



BANKSY

Awkward glance at the dirty cup,
next to the broken man,
in the purple sleeping bag.
Loose coins drop,
eyes still on screen.

"Hey, dipshit,"
he said.
"How about looking up
from your internet life
to see the change
you haven't made
in the real one?"

Eyes up,
cheeks pink,
breath dead.

"I don't want to hear
the coins yelp as they
beat the bottom of my
styrofoam bank account."

Maybe it was harsh.
She thought so, as she
cussed out the sleeper,
more awake than she.

But I don't know.
If change was comfortable
and soft,
our generation would
roll it up, breathe it in
and exhale a shift 
in what we see.

"Keep your coins," he said.
"I want change."

Love from Pullman,

The Blonde and The Bullshit

This prompt directed that we take a line or lines from a favorite song or poem and link them into a different poem. I chose lines from Basic Space by The xx and jacked the title. But I used themes from the song Desert Island by Mansions on the Moon.

BASIC SPACE

Basic space, open air,

freckled knuckles

and soft skin.

Decayed bones add

salt to sand

as you grind your teeth

back and forth,

back and forth.

I pull your face up

as you try to drown

your lungs in scar tissue

and cheap bleach

and you roll your head

against the bathtub wall,

back and forth,

back and forth.

The sun cuts out and

your deep sea cold

coils inside, while my

broken bones shake,

back and forth,

back and forth.

Love from Pullman,

The Blonde and The Bullshit

The prompt for February 13 was to write about a turning point in your life.

FEBRUARY 13

"Tell me your turning point,"

he said.

Dammit, I know

what it is, but I 

wish I had to think

about it more.

I wish I had to mull

over my turning point.

I wish I had to debate

whether it was when I

looked in the mirror,

junior year, realizing 

that the ugly duckling

was a little less ugly.

Or maybe, it was

the first day of college;

fresh start and shit.

But it wasn't.

Weird that Whitney was 20.

Maybe it isn't weird;

I'm 20, well, almost.

20, spine cracked,

fragile, coma intensive.

I'm not that kind of 20.

I sit on my bed,

writing about her,

heating pad on high,

peanut pretzels

in a bowl.

I almost want

to ask her

what it was like

on the driver's side.

T-boned, neck split.

Sometimes it hits

me at weird times.

But maybe it's not weird.

Not weird that she left

on the thirteenth

and that this was the assignment

and that I sit here

on hard, black plastic

and tell about her

fucked up death

to people I hardly know.

20, and I haven't done anything.

But maybe she hadn't either.

That's not true,

I know it's not.

She had done things.

But not really, you know?

Not turning point things.

She's my turning point thing.

Whitney sits in a box,

burnt down into a gold urn.

20 years old.

What if she were me?

Maybe it isn't weird.

Love from Pullman,

The Blonde and The Bullshit