The assignment that is due tomorrow was prompted as such: If x is y then ______.

NEXT-DOOR

If the red stoplight is the sound of
my neighbors skull against plaster,
then she is the junk yard car
with a teenager's brains still
crusted on the windscreen.

If her common law marriage
is the bit in a lame horse's mouth
as it digs into his molars,
then he is to be shot
before Easter.

If my neighbor cries 
as she smokes a menthol,
then she is the fish gasping
in broken glass,
licked clean of fear.

Love from Pullman,

The Blonde and The Bullshit

The second assignment given was to write a poem that is completely a lie.

BLUE WHALE

Gilbert lives in the stream behind our apartment.
We tried to fit him in the bathtub but,
of course, he looked ridiculous.
We found him in the ocean last summer.
He has cool glass skin that shimmers
under water as he glides.
He's grown a couple meters both ways,
he was only a calf when we first met him.
We first fed him peanut butter but now
we just feed him chocolate and tea.
Katie sings him lullabies when
he has nightmares about sharks.
It happens a lot.
But when we go home, he'll go home.
You see, I have a stream behind my house too.

Love from Pullman,

The Blonde and The Bullshit

Second Semester began last week and I have had a few poetry assignments but I have not had time to update until now. I am in a poetry class this semester so the only prose writing will be done on my own time. We have had three poems assigned but they have no common theme. To keep them separate I am going to put the other two in their own blog posts. 

This first one was assigned in the first class. The prompt was to write about the most exciting thing you did over break and I chose to write about the STRFKR concert my friends and I saw.

STRFKR

Pink wool blankets,
Sad-eyed-stuffed-carnival toys
cramp me in childhood.
Get out, night out.
Look up and stare blindly at
stars knit in purple clouds.
Sweat and whiskey tickle my tongue
as we step into the venue;
all black walls, all black floors.
The bass bounces heart against chest,
like the strobe light pulling at my pupils.
Taste the sanctuary
as we find another home
preaching someone else's happy.

Love from Pullman,

The Blonde and The Bullshit 

Today I have created a poem inspired from two segments of my yesterday. Firstly, I read the book 84 Charring Cross Road by Helene Hanff in a single sitting (Google it). Very charming book and definitely brought out the book love in me. Secondly, I saw perfection in a film last night. Saving Mr. Banks was stunning. It has quickly become one of my favorite movies (go see it now!). Anyways, here's one is for the readers:

I refer to it as My Bookshop,
though, of course,
it is not mine.
Nor are the spotty paged
hand-me-down books inside.
Well-worked spines,
worn in characters.
Mine are not the men
who stand, noses crammed
between lines of Ulysses and Yates.
The children who pedal through Poppins
and wander with Winnie,
they too are not mine.
But those, who these books once belonged.
Who caressed the inked pages as I have
and whose fingers urned to turn the pages
when there were none left.
They can be mine.

More later.

Love from home,

The Blonde and the Bullshit

I figured I really should write, even though I am not in any classes over break. Before it gets intensely Christmas-y and I start getting gifts for anything that breathe and I "can't find time" I wrote a quick scene.

MUTT

Breathtaking and fresh. The rain tickles my nose as it drips from the café awnings above my head. Toes of my boots sodden and bleak. A little past one and I walk down the cobbled street to the market in the square.  Vendors produce covered with large red veranda umbrellas, harbored from the rain. Wanderers walk slowly, softly in the rain like me. Others dart, quick steps, navy umbrellas over heads.  Gusts of wind cup umbrellas, tossing hair.

The market closes at four on Sundays, but some vendors already close shop as the gale tosses apples from carts. I look up, tenting my eyes from the rain with one hand. Clouds, grey when I left my flat, now swirl purple. Knitting together, clouds are a tangled mess, knotted and ugly. Water comes in sheets, wind throwing it sideways, howling like a dying mutt.

I pick up speed, sliding into a seat at an outdoor café, and hide under the awning. A blast of wind assaults the furniture, bleating at potted trees. It takes less than fifteen minutes for the square to clear of all people. March, bitterly cold. Hands blotted and blue. I sit and watch as buildings, lost dogs, left over market apples take a beating from the storm. Mesmerized, memory of some teacher eons ago comes to the front of my mind, “We find beauty in the loneliest of places.”

Love from home,

The Blonde and the Bullshit

Well, I finished my portfolio Monday and turned it in. I did manage to lengthen my short story but I don't really like it...probably because I really don't like writing love stories. However, that's kind of the road this one took sooo here it is anyways.

FORGET ME NOT

I left the house, a quarter to five and the sun was just setting. Grasped the old Ford pick-up’s peeling dusk blue handle and swung one leg inside the truck. Using the steering wheel as a balance, I hoisted my other leg into the cab and just sat for a moment, eyes closed, air leaving my lungs heavy. I could remember her sitting next to me. Pale yellow sundress, red bow in her hair, a supple smile turned towards me. Her glittering laugh touched me as if raindrops were kissing my balding head. The cab shuddered in harsh wind. Tired eyes opening slow, without rush. Sighing deeply, I turned the key in the ignition.

The sun had just begun to set. No longer summer, not yet fall. I could feel her long hair tickling my neck as it swirled around her face, strewn about by the wind pouring through the open windows. The radio hummed a few lines of Sinatra. Pretending as if she was with me in the cab, my arm hung over the back. The familiarity of the drive kept my hands turning the wheel robotically. Air still thick with flowery scents of heat and summer.

The transition from empty farmland to suburbia and townhouses was sudden. Houses all the same sat like dollhouses side by side. Each wearing a different shade of blue and boasting white fences. The truck’s engine too loud as I passed Prius after Prius. Gone as quick as they appeared, replaced with trees. Drove like that for some time, trees lining the road. Still wishing her head was on my shoulder. The sun bounced reds and oranges off the sky as the sun set. City buildings, each taller than the other begin to appear. I swung the truck into staff parking lot behind a white building, with hundreds of windows.

Still buckled, I looked to the empty seat next to me. I took out the keys and set my hands in my lap. Three deep breaths, eyes closed. Time seemed to drift between wanderlust and fantasy as I felt her soft lips graze my cheek. Eyes still closed I whispered, “Miss you, Ev.” One of her small fingers traced my jaw line and I sighed, my breath fluttering her out the open window.

            Hand still resting on the door handle, I pushed it open and stepped outside. Heavy air, evening heat clinging to skin. The day’s heat rose from the pavement in steam. I walked up the short path; different colors of greenery decorated the sides. The automatic sliding glass doors of the hospital lobby rushed open when I approached. The blast of air-conditioned sickness stung my nose.  My body went through the paces of finding the elevator, my mind in a different realm. I joined the morning shift cue that waited for the large metal doors to open. Most of us got off on the third floor, heading for the locker room. I nodded a ‘good morning’ to the few other doctors already changing from their street clothes into blue scrubs. I took off my regular clothes and replaced them with the periwinkle scrubs. I felt my motions quickening, it was now almost 6:45, I had a few minutes before I needed to do inventory. By the time my leathery, nobbled knuckles had finished a sloppy job of tying my black tennis shoes I could feel my breath quickening. Quick to the sink, water bathed my hands. Soap foaming between fingers, rinsed and dried.

            I slipped out the locker room door, with the agility of a younger man and headed for the elevators. Alone this time I reached for the wall of buttons, my fingers finding the familiar number 5.  The doors slid open and I was greeted by the nurse’s station. Next to the desk, in bold, red print, ALZHIMER’S WARD. Slipping down the hallway to the left, steps quick.

            I reached room 526 where a small plate below the room number read EVELYN MARLOW in chicken scratch doctors writing. The nurse was just setting breakfast down on the table. Doctor Vlist, checking Evelyn’s vitals looked up at me. She was roughly my age, somewhere in her seventies, with close-cropped grey hair, “Hey Charlie,” she says softly. Neither of us says it but I look at Evelyn pointedly. The nurse leaves the room while I stare at the sad, wispy smile on the doctor’s face.  Hand on my arm and we go into the hallway.

            “Evelyn’s been here awhile, Charlie,” She starts in, no preamble. “When she first came in she was at Stage 4, which is moderate decline. We ran tests her memory tests again this morning.”

            Opened my mouth to speak when she cut me off, hand raised, “The same tests as normal, Charlie. We just added to them a bit.”

            “Meaning?” I said, feeling nervous.

            “Charlie, Evelyn is now in Stage 6: severe decline. Her bodily health is also a concern to me. Last week’s test results came in. Her heart is failing, Charlie.”

I breathed slowly, in and out. Memories rushed through my brain as my body went numb. As if I had my personal slide show playing in my mind of the life, that Ev and I had before all this. She had been spry and beautiful when we met. We met at Shelton High School, and dated for two years. Ev wanted to get married right after school but her parents put her in the nursing academy. We tried long distance for years, though every time we saw each other something new was different between us. I thought that was it, nothing left to be salvaged.

Evelyn graduated nursing academy in the spring of 1932. We didn’t see each other for over a decade. I had been married once already and divorced, she had been sent to England during the second world war to help the Red Cross.

It wasn’t until 1952 that we saw each other again. I sat in the Blackbird Café three blocks over and two up from my small apartment in lower Manhattan. Meeting a friend who was frequently late, hopelessly forgetful. Evelyn walked in the door, bundled in more layers than an Eskimo, whisking in flakes of snow with her. She was with two other similarly clad women, who babbled about stitch work patterns.

They three ordered and sat at a table three away from me. The two women left after a small cup of tea, each kissing her on the cheek as they left. I could not help but to stare at her, it had been more than two decades since I last saw her. She looked older, red hair now dabbled with silver.

Lost in my past life, I couldn’t pin point when things had gone so sideways. Evelyn had always been the healthy one, strong. When the Alzheimer’s first crept in, I denied it. Now looking into Doctor Vlist’s pitying eyes I realized, I was losing her again. The doctor looked at me expectantly, waiting for some kind of response. I let my breath seep out trying to find the appropriate words. All I managed was a curt nod, a check of my watch and I turned away.

            I stood in the elevator for a few moments, without pushing buttons brain fuzzy, mind numb. Finally, I pushed for level A, where my rounds were to take place. When the elevator doors opened into the morgue, the rush of loneliness and death greeted me as I began my night shift of tagging the freshly dead bodies.

We are on Christmas break now so maybe I will do some non-school writing (I know I should...). 

Love from home,

The Blonde and the Bullshit