One Writer's Anthem.

Fiftieth post anyone?

You wore red paint on your face

That day you told me

To ‘just shut up and be quiet,

darling.’

I was quiet,

But I never shut up.

You hopped around in teeming,

Dirty

Ignorance.

As I ate Timshel

Like a breakfast of champions.

The caricature in the mirror

Lives on in terrible swells

Of the heart.

Killing carefully placed centerpieces

In bulk.

Three generations thought Anastasia lived.

And she had

Somewhere in the country of

Sulcus meets gyrus.

That’s where fire

Burns, births, and fizzles.

Either red like your face paint

Or blue,

Reflecting the most dangerous

Of stars,

Darling.

Crazy: Part One.

Hi. Finally back from an amazing vacation, that ran a little longer than a week, sorry. I'm sure you care.

This is my attempt at a love story part one. I'm not exactly clear on the whole part two. I've got a vague idea in what direction to take it in but I'd love to hear if you hve any thoughts. I'd also love to hear your impression of the whole thing. Did you hate it? Did you love it? Did  you not get it?

Oh and also, do you like my new theme? I think I do.

Thank you. (:

“If you’re not ashamed of everything you said at thirteen then you aren’t growing as a person! If this doesn’t mortify me at twenty-five then I have no idea who I am!” she screams it from the pier, all crazy-haired and standing on the ledge and all, perilously close to falling but he knows she won’t/

                Her friend’s sunning herself at her feet, jiggling her cyan painted toes as if she’s listening to music with a strong downbeat; but she isn’t.

                “Hey Carl,” Jeffery leans his head in the little aura of thought bubble and sunblock fumes.

                “Yeah?”

                “Let’s go talk to the crazy bond on the pier,” something in his smile and his floppy dark hair spells hilarious adventure in all caps.

                “Yeah.”

                Their advance is confidently unsure and Carl’s nervous energy is like a dance.

                Up from the beach is a long trek of scorched foot pads and wet bathing suit hems on wet knees. All the while the pillar of tall blond crazy gets nearer and nearer. As they get close enough to touh one another, she jumps down, the blond one that shouted. The other one, whose got really dark, almost black hair just sort of props herself up on her elbows and looks sour.

                It’s a little like two fronts approaching one another; warm and cold, male and female.

                It’s silent for a whole fifty milliseconds before Jeffery tries to be suave and offers his hand to the girls.

                “Hello ladies, I’m Jeff.”

                The blond smiles. She’s weird looking. Her face is definitely not ‘one of those faces’ and she’s been staring at Carl the entire time, the whole fifty milliseconds.

                Her bright eyes break away from the contact as she shakes ‘Jeff’s’ hand.

                “I’m Lexa,” she says so subtly confident it’s shocking.

                The wind circles around all of them, tugging all of their loose ends in the same direction.

                “That’s Kay,” she jerks a thumb back to her prostrated companion. Kay splits her fingers into a lackluster peace sign before lying back once more.

                “She’s been in a bad mood since pre K.”

                “I’m marinating,” says Kay through closed eyes and all that sun pressing down on her.

                Lexa cocks her head and never loses the smile, “She’s marinating.”

                Carl watches Jeffery not know what to do with his hands.

                “Nice to meet you.”

                “Likewise.” Her voice is syrupy because she’s humoring him.

                “And you are?” she asks, turning to Carl, all tall and blond and weird looking. She’s so tangibly confident you could sip it in teacups. It’s like it rubs off on Carl, that confidence. He’s suddenly more comfortable than he’d ever been in his life.

                “I’m Carl J. Sedgewig,” he says, returning her smile.

                After he says this, Lexa’s smile grows bigger than ever. With the ocean to her back, she leans in and kisses his cheek. Only seven words exchanged and there’s a sticky, Lexa-shaped O on Carl’s face that he’ll go on feeling forever.

                “So are we on for dinner tonight, Carl J. Sedgewig?” asks Lexa.

                Kay rolls her eyes and drags a nail over the edge of the pier rail’s sunsoaked wood.

                “Absolutely.”

                “Supuestos. Seven.”

                He saw the tide coming in through the open spaces in the wood planks. The foamy, overachieving waves reaching farther and farther up the beach each time.

                “Make it six thirty.”

                “Your eagerness is like a compass.” The wind blew a slew of ripples across her loose-fitting tank top. “Oh and wear a red tie. Please? For me?”

                “Only for you.”

                Carl could feel Jeffery’s dire confusion all along the left side of his body.

                She’s like a goddess. Carl’s thinking as he knocks over the bottle of cologne and snatches it up just in time with a shaking hand. A bona fide goddess with the most interesting face I’ve ever seen.

                His white button down open and billowing, he makes his way into his father’s closet and scans for a tie of a red hue.

                She’s so real. So different.

                He feels this wave of relief after spotting the money tie shoved behind the rack of holiday themed ties.

                He’s got it around his neck when he sees a woman’s figure in the corner of his eye.

                “What are you doing?” she asks.

                “Hey Mom, I was just, uh, looking for this tie,” he says, looping it around his neck.

                She smiles, her forty-something skin wrinkling around her eyes.

                “And why do you need your father’s tie exactly? You know I gave him that particular one about ten years ago.”

                “I won’t ruin it if that’s what you’re insinuating,” he says, trying to button the shirt, but halfway through finds out that the buttons go through different holes.

                He sighs, “I have a date tonight.”

                “Really?”

                “Don’t sound so surprised.”

                “I’m not surprised,” she says stepping into the closet and smoothing down his hair. “Any girl would be lucky to date you.”

                His elbows felt too rough under the perfect linen.

                She’s tan and she’s smart. I know this will work.

                “Thanks Mom,” he says smiling and walking past her back towards his door.

                “Hey now,” she says following him, “You’re not getting away that quickly, I want to know who this girl is.” She’s standing in the hallway outside his room, the pale light coming in from the window makes her truly look her age.

                “No one you’d know.”

                “I can help you with your tie,” she says demurely while he fumbles with shaking hands and struggles with hazy memories of a friend’s bar mitzvah and a cousin’s wedding.

                Sighing, he relinquishes the red silk and she comes forward, feeling like she used to help him dress at three.

                “Her name’s Lexa. I met her on the pier today and we’re going to Supuestos tonight for dinner,”

                Her gray eyes are smiling as she loops the tie into the fold.

                “Does this Lexa have a last name?”

                “Ah… I’m sure she does.” He smiles.

                “Well,” she says, adjusting the fit and smoothing his collar, “Be sure to find that out tonight, hold the door open for her, be polite, and be home by eleven.”

                “I will, I will. Thanks Mom.”

Nightmares, Bath Towels, and Lemonade.

So, I will be out of town for a week again as of tomorrow morning. So that means no posts next week.
Just letting you know. Thanks for reading.



I wake up and my field of vision is alive and teeming with fresh static trying to force me under again. I’m covered in a strangling and liberating sweat from some incoherent nightmare. I must still be straddling that line to the subconscious because the bathtub I’m lying in feels like pins and needles on my backside. Every item on the counter has a sharp edge and every bottle filled up with some sort of solution to break down my insides.
It smells like the light’s been on too long; hours maybe. It’s hot, the air ready to burn me if I move for escape.
My tongue is swollen with the bad taste of bacteria and I fear some deadly cocktail from one of those bottles has already found its way into my system.
There’s that yellow towel, hanging by the door. I carefully slide my hand toward it just to feel its flimsy grittiness and I have this faint suckerpunch of memory about those rivets grating against the skin of my neck, a quiet struggle to scream, to free myself from its malicious tightening. It’s sturdy, made of tight, compact material. It could extinguish me like a candle flame, easily.
Its yellow hue is almost identical to that lemonade that you make in the summertime, the one that comes from the jar of powder and tastes like too much sugar. Some hazy, almost transparent memory of a back porch and sweating glasses comes to me in the midst of the hot light and chill of dark morning. Lemonade sounds like heaven to my parched tongue. Summer calm sounds like salvation to my racing heart.
I think of our stacks of pool towels in cubbies all freshly laundered and ready for June. They’re softer and larger, more colorful than this bath towel. I catch glimpses of them folded around my waist and pressing into my back in my mind’s eye. The towels and memories and sugary lemonade mix into a solution of desire for summer and warmth and thunderstorm security in this half-filled winter.
I make my way downstairs, the steps tripping up my shaky sea legs, to see if we’ve still got lemonade powder stored somewhere in the back corner of the pantry. It’s there. I can see the squatty yellow jar before I start digging through soup cans. Before I’ve got time to think about it, the rising water from the faucet is drowning an island of the yellow powder. The slow gurgle of the stream hitting the pitcher, however quiet, is almost too loud, too disturbing in the picture of midnight.
It gets filled a little too high and droplets splash onto my skin. The slick kiss of water on my arms sparks back my recollection of a towel and a pool and a fleeting summer. The world’s no longer threatening.
I taste a sip of my lemonade and like I anticipated, it’s too gritty and too sweet. I’ve never seemed to manage the proper powder to water ratio. I feel a little bad for the poor souls who paid a quarter for a cup of the stuff way back when.

Hands.

I'm really not sure about this. It was just one of those, 'Hey, I've got an idea and I'm just going to go for it here at two o'clock in the morning.'
Do you hate it? Do you like it? I'm not sure what to think.

Shed perfume in a baby’s

Mouth as it teethes,

Swim and flourish

In theme park bacteria,

Find refuge under latch-hooked wool,

Trusted a twin and

Fumbled for more than a football.

Been around the edges of

Everywhere

Worth printing.

Scraped, scratched, and smacked

To carve or redden

A place in this world.

Have stolentreasuredcoddledsacrificeddismembered.

Cracked and tinted

From self tanner.

Adorned and

Will be taken for granted

Every Tuesday

Til the end of never.

Headed Nowhere Fast.

               Red, irritated lines were starting to form under the plastic straps of her flip flops as Portia drug her feet through the water. The alley’s concaved cement ground was overflowing with rushing rainwater that anchored her shoes and strangled her toes as she waded through it.

                “Marcus!” she shouted through the rain, “I hate you!”

                A rat darted across the street in front of her. Her heart started and she suppressed a scream. “Very much!”

                She’d almost made it to his door, the third one down and laced in chipping graffiti, when it popped open and he poked his head out.

                “Get in here, you’re a half hour late.”

                With one last yank of foam through the draining water she was in. She shivered as Marcus slammed the door and latched the deadbolt.

                “It smells,” she said.

                “It’s fine. And temporary,” he responded, leading her up a couple steps and into the carved out hole he was trying to masquerade as an apartment.

                “Yeah, I know it’s temporary because you need to go home.”

                “This is my home and if you are referring to my previous place of residence, sorry that’s never happening. I am eighteen, I can do what I want and nothing you can say will change my mind. Soda?” he offered her a can of Coke that had been sitting on a crude end table. She waved him off and tugged at the neckline of her tee shirt.

                He plopped down on a disgusting, muddy-colored couch and motioned for her to sit next to him. There was a sixty watt flashlight propped up in the corner, casting everything in a harsh, secret clubhouse kind of lighting.

                “This conversation is not over,” she said, carefully sitting beside him, cautious not to expose too much of her body to the threadbare fabric.

                He held up an envelope.

                The nervous energy started in her heart and fizzled out into her limbs.

                “That’s it?” she asked.

                Marcus nodded.

                She reached for it as a crash of thunder reverberated through the room.

                Smoothing it out on her thigh, she could see ‘Portia Linley’ printed in cold block letters over Marcus’ parents address. The Foltz Art School logo revealed nothing from its spot in the corner.

                Portia slipped a shaking finger under the sealed flap and ripped. Something about the paper made it tear in little spurts and fray unsatisfyingly.

                A single piece of paper and a Foltz brochure were snug inside.

                Portia’s clumsy hands scooped them out and almost tore the single sheet out of its folds, letting the envelope and colorful brochure flutter to the floor.

                The words ‘Dear Ms. Linley, we are sorry to inform you…’ burned into her eyes hotter than that misplaced pinky had on her father’s grill last July. The effect on her insides was almost immediate.

                “I- I…” she couldn’t say it, her throat refused to form the words.

                “Did you-?” asked Marcus.

                The bad lighting and the itchy fabric of the couch and the rainwater rings around her ankles and her armpits and the back of her neck coupled with the feeling of fresh new failure in her veins.

                Some instinctual shame caused her to stand up and turn away from Marcus, swaddled only in the wet comfort of her own twiggy arms.  With only the sliver of light under the door to witness it, she started to cry a little.

                “I’m sorry Portia.”

                She tilted her head back as if trying to keep the tears inside through gravity.

                She shrugged and only turned back halfway. “I guess my parents win after all.”

                “Maybe it’s for the best,” he said.

                She completed the turn feeling raw and pliant in her vulnerable exposure. “What are you saying?”

                He dropped eye contact and ran a hand through his dark hair. “Just what I said.”
                “You don’t think I’m a good artist, do you?” she asked feeling both sick and suspicious at the same time.

                “No. No, I think you’re a good artist,” his hazel eyes scrunched and pleaded.

                “But not good enough to make it.” She slapped her damp hands against her jeans and hooked her thumbs through the beltloops.

                Marcus sighed and looked away, “Portia…”
                Portia scrunched her face and cried a little more.

                “It’s not like that, I just-“

                “Go home Marcus! God, just go home,” she said, jumping down the two steps and fumbling with the deadbolt.

                “Cause if you don’t then both of our lives are headed for shitsville.” She pried the door open, and with a fleeting half-second of hard eye contact, walked out into the storm. The resounding slam shook the walls and tipped over the flashlight, spilling all sixty watts onto the molding corner.

Book Review: Dead Souls

How about another book review?

Recently I finished reading the Russian classic Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol.

The story takes place in Russia during the mid eighteen hundreds, a time when the country was quickly making its way out of the Dark Ages and into the current era. However this was also a time when Russian society was at its most vain and hypocritical and the feudalistic style of government was still very much intact.

The novel follows Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov as he travels the Russian countryside. Essentially he is taking part in a con operation, attempting to buy up all the dead souls (or serfs) listed alive on the last census in order to mortgage them and make a profit. Throughout his episodic journey, Chichikov meets dozens of vivid, colorful characters that truly make up the heart of this wonderful story.

While Gogol can come across as excessively verbose and his sentences can sometimes take up an entire page, his storytelling is the work of brilliance. I often felt myself getting utterly lost in the story and marveling at the craftsmanship of the plot. The author often goes on long winded tangents, talks directly to the audience, and gives abrupt and extremely detailed backstories all of which would be absolutely unacceptable today, but I ended up really loving such eccentricities.

I also found myself loving the fact that Pavel Ivanovich is not the fautless hero that a lot of classic lit employs. He is sneaky and manipulative and selfish and also really real to the point where the author can make the point of “maybe we all know that there’s a little Chichikov in each of us,” or something to that effect.

My only severe complaint was that huge chunks of the manuscript were missing. And while I know this is nineteenth century classic literature and you get what you get, I couldn’t help but feel a little cheated. I know that Gogol could have provided a really impactful ending as well as write those holes in the story with the same raw, imperfect power that every other scene abounds in, and yet they were never completed.

If you couldn’t already tell, I would recommend this book. I am also quite surprised that it isn’t widely known. When people think of the Russians they think of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Crime and Punishment. Dead Souls is a work of sloppy brilliance that truly deserves a place among the greats.

I don't have a title!

So sorry I didn’t post back on Thursday, but let me remind you that the dates are subject to change as long as I get my three posts in. Summer is crazy, and I love it.
So here’s your triweekly dose of pretentious literary attempts a la Jade.


You lie in sheets of glory
Echoing and sweating
The confetti of your superbowl victory
And notes of a jazz night triumph
Spilling from your saxophonic ears.
Cheers and hoofbeats
Reverberate just under a milling epidermis
As long as Apollo reigns
And China’s dreaming.
After two
When the heavens reflect soft charcoal
And your trophy wife
Croons fluttering German under down blankets.
The support groups
And sycophants dissolve in sweaty palms
Like oyster crackers,
Every facet
Specifically identical in lonesomeness
Like a pair of twins never were.
The bite-sized hours of the morning
Simply demand such inevitable nostalgia
In all its sorts.
Ghostly coos
And the pumping of your mind
Are the only sounds to
Ring out over the crooning German.

Double Dosage.

Both a poem and a people watching description all in one blog post.
I'm too kind, yes I know. ;)

He’s a stout new father who doesn’t quite know how to hold his daughter. Italian with a cheek-skimming beard and a graduated hipster affinity for pageboy hats. Heartbreakingly social and outgoing with a spontaneity that won him his beautiful wife. His daughter’s named something like Delilah or Isabella and he kisses her goodnight every night with a “Goodnight baby girl,” thinking about pastrami.

Drowning in a glass of water,
too cold for a schizophrenic
mirage in Flagstaff,
wishing for a double dose of
July and a dog snout on my cheek.
Nightmares like the
crazy love of a serial killer
and shattered ice melting in the
desert.
Careful, fake books and lamps and treasures.
I’m convinced they’re unconvincing.
Maybe not convinced but hoping.

Red, White, Blue, Brown.

Her knuckles were an iridescent white as she scrubbed out the pots in the sink. Tiny water droplets peppered her blue, cotton dress.

                Midmorning glinted off the silver body of a half-submerged saucepan while a continuous loop of shrieks and laughter wafted in from the open window. Children were starting to conglomerate on the streets playing, fighting, imagining. 

                The small joints in her fingers rejoiced as she relaxed them, finished with another round of scrubbing. She ran a hand through her red tresses and sighed, eying the work still left to be completed. 

                Her son sat in the living room where she could see him. Content to play with his toys, Michael was uncharacteristically quiet this morning, enthralled in the train set his father had made for him, his pride and joy. Its track lay in a blocky, t-shaped fashion along the carpet and Michael loved to spend time with the shiny silver cars and bright red caboose. He loved to enthrall himself in the gleam of the polish, the intricateness of the design, the wholesome attractiveness of the set.

                The doorbell went off in the house with a resounding ding dong. Michael’s mother glanced up from the dishes and rung her wet hands out on a dishrag. Her bare feet padded on the floor as she went to answer the door on the east side of the house, shooting her son a smile on her way there.

                She opened the door to find a small, brown face looking up at her.

                “Hello Jay,” she said.

                “Hi ma’am,” returned the little brown boy with a little, toothy smile upon his lips.

                “Won’t you come in?” she asked, opening the door wider so that Jay could enter.

                “Michael,” his mother called into the house as her eyes took Jay in, standing quietly and reservedly in the corner of the rug. “Jay is here to play with you.” Her voice climbed in octave near the ends of her sentences.

                Michael quickly stumbled in from the adjacent room to greet this new playmate. Their initial greeting reminded her of a pair of dogs greeting each other for the first time, testing boundaries, establishing territories, exchanging high pitched small talk in place of explorative sniffs.

                In a matter of seconds, they scampered off to play and she slowly meandered back to the kitchen. The pots taunted her as she mused upon Jay’s influence over Michael. She’d heard enough of the neighbors talk about how his brothers had become somewhat of a terror in their neighborhood. The most infamous instance was purposely kicking over the beautiful mermaid fountain in Nina Ying’s garden. Still, it was not her place to judge Jay on the actions of others.

                As the day wore on, Jay and Michael seemed to be getting along fine enough.

                “Do you boys want a popsicle?” she found herself asking as they emerged from the backyard, rosy cheeked from exercise. Their small faces nodded in eagerness and she made her way to the freezer and pulled out a box. She reached a hand in only to discover only one icy package in the corner of the cardboard.

                “Oh,” she said, pulling it out by the edges of the white plastic, “I guess there’s only one, kids.”

                She looked at both boys, each already salivating at the thought of frozen cherry flavoring between their lips.

                “Well,” she screwed up her lips and then smiled at Jay.

                “Jay, would you like the last popsicle?”

This or That?

So this first poem is an original piece I had worked on and polished. And then afterwords I had a creative writing mentor look over it and make comments, so the second piece is my revisions based on his review. I'm not sure which one I like better.

Which is your favorite?

Seven basketballers plain and cloudless

Understanding the pull

And the twist

And the cascade of hormones on concrete.

It’s black today.

Falling into something like favorite jeans

That the world stains and satirizes and epitomizes.

Tomorrow is trying.

Taking Alka Seltzer

In air conditioned offices.

Tomorrow is maddeningly, incandescently jealous

Of the aqua promise of today.

Seven basketballers, almost an octet of sweat covered faces, plain and cloudless. Understanding things like pull and twist and instinctually feeling the cascade of hormones on concrete. It’s black today. There’s a collective trip, stumble and fall into favorite jeans, stained in world views like fry grease and blood lynched from human cracks. Satirized, epitomized.

Tomorrow is trying, toil, and discomfort. A swollen hand pops Alka Seltzer in air conditioned offices. Tomorrow is maddeningly, incandescently jealous of the aqua promise of today.