Hello friends,
It seems we have all grown up and forgotten the past and we were wont to do. I am still writing and I hope you are too. I am going to starting posting again and would love to be read and read others work. I hope you are all doing well and moving forward. After we cannot go back.

Love,
Madge

Will I miss them?

This is my post graduation poem. It still needs expansion but tell me what you think so far.

I wonder

I wonder if I will miss them

the boys I never dated but always liked 

the grades I sometimes got but never really struggled for 

the teachers I never really knew and will probably never appreciate

I wonder if I will miss them

the loud librarian 

the science caretaker and the art teacher who wears a skirt

Some of them have left 

the english teacher speaking italian 

the only german teacher to understand teaching german 

the dance teacher who didn’t understand

Others I only just met

The human who is both more and less than me but gave me a gift so precious i can’t describe

the woman who freed my words

the liberal who opened my eyes and told me everything is right

The man who listened to me and who I believe won’t talk down

But will I miss them 

The 53 people I have spent a lifetime with

they made me jaded and small and fragile 

and showed me how strong and durable i am 

they drive me crazy and awe me all at once 

I watched them grow up 

and they watched me 

and somewhere in between

we all stopped talking and looking and listening and then one day we turned around

and everything was white and everyone was looking and listening and they were all talking 

to us 

and It was over 

and I just wonder 

Will I miss them?

Massive Dump of Robby's Stuff

Here's a massive dump of my stuff to get this going again. This should be plenty of reading material for you all...

Firstly, you can read my longer story here: http://ataleofgassad.blogspot.com/2014/03/prologue.html
Up through Chapter 5 has been written so far, although they're certainly not final versions.

Now, for the poetry...

First up, a couple Zuniga mimics:

Prayer for the Lazy

Hard Drive of Time, Great Expedient Printer, Most Radiant Digital Clock,

I have been lazy.

I had to teach myself three months of physics in two days.

I have not practiced my monologues. Or my violin.

The Olympics, Mighty Lord, I missed them and now they’re in my living room!

I have not had free time for so long. To have twenty hours a day of freedom

I am not ready for it. I sleep in four parts!

I come to you tired, though I do not think you know what it is to be tired.

I ask you for motivation, the kind that comes at noon, not sundown.

Herd me back to that great clock flock. Set my own gears spinning with others.

Mighty provider, I need a revelation.

I need a brain full of your eternal truth.

Feet that push me up towards your glory.

Thank you for never for forgetting me, even when I forget you.

And so it is. Amen.

Prayer for the Aloof

Celestial Eyeglasses, Mighty Bringer of Semi-Trucks, Cosmic Creator of Colloquialisms,

I have been aloof.

I judged them for their hair. All of them. They’re strings that come out of our heads!

Great Sky Dog, why do we put goop in our head-strings? I did not judge them when they were two-faced. I doubted their existence, Mighty Life Fork. I do not eat breakfast. I come to you not in shame, as I know you do not wish shame on us, but asking for shame all the same. The kind of shame that graces the bright cheeks of the Rockies in autumn.

Let me know that kind of subtle indignance. Those choppy time slots. The giant flash of lightning. The quiet chortle of leaves.

Release me in this moment from my height and let me see no other moments. Release me from my aloofness. My nonchalance. My unflappability in the face of humans. In this moment, let me judge more often for things that matter and less often for things that don’t. Let me see all of us as more normal and more weird. Weird like piles of favorite newspaper clippings.

Thank you for your limitless benevolence, for portable space heaters, for moments that I can feel, and as always, for Pokémon.

And so it is. Amen.

 

Random Short Sad/Melancholy Thing

Oh, is that what happiness feels like? Like the ground I have been running on all my life? I always thought this would feel like something, but it doesn't. This is just where the ground runs out.

Now a couple prose poems/flash fiction...

I'll Stay

The other day I wanted to play pirates or Pokemon, except it was cold and the air hurts, and I don't think anyone would have joined me anyways. I think I'm standing in the Acheron. I think I was on the ferry for a while, but I jumped off and swam back towards shore. But you can't leave. Not really. So now I'm wading in the waters black and blue watching all my friends head to the Lethe. They're calling me, but I'm staying. I'll stay. Are you sure you don't want to come? Charon asks. Yes, yes I am I mumble over the coin still settled under my tongue. All right, maybe next time, he says. Maybe next time. Maybe next time. I think we're becoming friends, though. I think he likes it when someone remembers him. I don't think he wants me to go. I won't. I'll stay. I just wish everyone else realized they all have someone who remembers them, too. Who remembers them when they were alive, not trudging through Hades. But at least I can remember them. At least I can remember to forget sometimes. I spit the coin out. I'll stay.

My Tail

This is your chance to show us who you are all. Be honest! What's your favorite thing to do with your tail?
Well I don't have one-
No, what's your favorite thing to do with your tail?
Nothing.
You have to answer the question. Be honest.
I'm being honest.
No, answer the question.
I can't.
You have to.
I don't have an answer.
Everyone has an answer to this question!
I don't have a tail. The answer does not exist.
Well, then you must not exist.
But I do. I'm real. I'm here.
What's your favorite thing to do with your tail? Be honest!

Where I'm From Mimic but better than before

 I am from leashes,
from Lysol and Febreze.
I am from that room of papers.
(Rolling, dull,
they slept like cats.)
I am from leaves
like zippers
that could only zip down
over by the yellow handles.

I am from chocolate milk and guitars,
    from Disney on New Year’s with the dogs.
I am from beds with hiding spots
    with animal cracker curtains and my sisters’ toys.
From the crannies too small to be hidden in.
I’m from movies with swords and spears,
    and 90s boy bands’ songs
    with words my sisters made me know.

I’m from Wawa and Hoy’s,
cookies and cream and hermit crabs.
From the tail my dog lost
    to the blade,
the door my father closed to let things flow.

Outside my glass box the wind howled
and blizzards turned trees into their own catacombs.
I stayed up at night playing catch
with the imp in my dresser.
I am from those moments--
snatched from the sixteenth rung--
leaf riding the wind.

A couple if my __ were a ____ mimics

If my shoes were people,
they'd be bigger than they feel.
Long-backed, relaxed, a little worn.
They'd wear their hair the way the weather chose.
They'd be like siblings, only closer. Like twins,
only they don't come from the same place
and they write with different hands
and they kick with different legs.
They'd be little orphans
who smile and twinkle through the grime
who aren't actually little
or orphans.

If my house were an animal,
It would be fat, but not too big,
and one side would be shaved
except for three little patches.
It would be brown like a bear
and sit like the moon.
It would be one of a kind,
genderless, like a legendary
pocket monster.

What a Croato-Serbian/Serbo-Croatian Poem Sounds Like to Me

You trust gnome roo, who press a dinner,
saw cousin is pawed by seed
A neater star and curtsy,
press and see rats close in the bead,
Tea, stow seem loudest prose and vellum knock you,
you zagger llama best brother,
written you to see you hammock,
is made you center see the vote, yeah.
Press to say dad, no! Set and you, you curse you,
uniqe and gone, my date was violent,
all in a rut and a code to Mr. New,
below the other cow nasty.
No doberman to cat can party
blister have zumba you to promised as me.

This Random Unfinished Thing

When I'm alone, I don't think I need to breathe sometimes. When no one else is anywhere around. When there's no one to hear me breathe. And sometimes I feel short when I'm alone. When there's no one else to see and make me realize that I grew in my sleep. I'm smaller now than I've ever been to me. That's what happens when you drink and don't eat.

This Seussian world I live in sinks into the mud sometimes. It leaves me, and it never makes sense how much sense things make without it. There, it's good sometimes to tie a noose around your neck. Somehow, tip-toeing out on the gallows, it's... comforting being held up like that. People like that it stops them from falling. I guess they haven't figured out how it does that yet. But come, that too shall pass, and we'll hardly know it happened.

I don't recognize my shadow sometimes. (Words words words.) I could be anything anywhere anywhen, but not some. Not one. Or I too shall pass, and we'll hardly know I happened.

The noose doesn't catch me right sometimes. It doesn't break my neck like it breaks others'. I dangle, wrists bound and lungs free, me and the moon, over the ocean, gazing back and forth. But the moon passes, and I don't know what happened. But I have a hanging tree now, leaning over the cliff. Hush, hush, the waves tell me, wait, wait, till he comes and lifts you up and makes you breathe, breathe, breathe...

For now, I'll sit like the moon, cloaked in black, marvelling at marbles and stars, and I'll walk like the stones and bear my mossy hide. Slow, languid I'll trace my line. And never shall I pass, and I'll hardly know what's happened.

On New Year's Eve

Okay, this is a flash fiction piece for a writing contest. The prompt is: New Years and the prompt words  are: Firework, party, mahogany, pebble, and phone.

Also, I'm looking for a better title.
_____________________

            There’s this old mansion on 17^th East and 2^nd South that’s built out of a cruise ship from the 1920’s. It stands there, on the end of the street, dark and empty and gathering dust all day and all night.

            But once a year, on New Year’s Eve, the lights come on. Music and laughter –the sounds of dancing and meaningless chatter– fill up the empty expanse of the old house. Crystal glasses clang together in a toast for the New Year, and the aromas of turkey and roast beef cling to the windows where silhouettes appear of people long since dead.

            On New Year’s Eve, the Nameless Ghosts of Forgotten People dance across the mahogany floors. They sing and talk and eat and laugh. They shoot off lights into the sky and call them fireworks. They attract the attention of the Daylight People (living, I mean), with whom they chatter in a language that we can’t understand. And, they think they’re speaking English, but they’re not. They’re speaking Stones.

 On New Year’s Eve, it’s become the tradition of Little Children to throw pebbles at the windows of the mansion to grab the interest of the Nameless Ghosts in hopes of being let inside. The Children play games with the Ghosts. They play hopscotch and checkers and hula-hoop, if they are permitted.

The Ghosts make jokes with the Children, and the Children understand. They laugh. The Children speak Stones: Life hasn’t beaten that out of them, yet.

The bell tolls midnight. The party will continue until daybreak, but it is time for the Little Children to return to bed. The Children and the Ghosts share their final words with each other. They make promises and eternities. Promises they will try and will not keep.

Promises are forgotten.

And eternity –Eternity is lonely.

The clock ticks on, and the night grows steadfast. One such Ghost, a child, makes conversation with the woman who, in life, she would’ve known as her mother. Neither party remembers the other. Neither party remembers the grief, the sorrow, the pain. Neither party remembers names. Neither party remembers the words they would’ve said in life; instead, they talk about the weather. For one night a year, these Faceless Ghosts gather together to laugh and sing and make small talk with people they might have known in life –or maybe not; they can’t remember, anymore.

By three am, the Daylight People have gone home.

By four am, the dancing has stopped.

By five am, the music fades.

By six, the mansion is silent: they’ve forgotten how to make noise.

By seven, they’ve begun to look the same.

By eight, a phone rings. No one answers. The house is empty.

There’s this old mansion on 17^th East and 2^nd South that’s built out of a cruise ship from the 1920’s. It stands there, on the end of the street, dark and empty and gathering dust all day and all night.

But once a year, on New Year’s Eve, the lights come on. There’s a lively little party for people who have been abandoned by Time. People without names or faces, who think they’re alive, but they’re not. They’re dead.

And one day, we’ll be there, too. One day, we’ll join the Ranks of the Forgotten. And, on New Year’s Eve we’ll travel to this old mansion on 17^th East and 2^nd South and we’ll throw a party.

Burning

There once was a man

            and we thought—

because he can

This place could be different

and things might change.

The sun wouldn’t spill

and the faces

could re-arrange.

His hands were like gold,

            they sparkled,

and were

cold.

His eyes were dusty

and like chains

                        he got rusty.

This man held our cores

            and he burned us like hell.

Something different—

            something new—

We wanted to change.

                        from clumsy chores to anything more.

We wanted to go places.

            Go places—

            See faces.

So he told us we would

            and he burned us like hell.

We blazed like gold

            so he melted his hands.

We shone like dawn

            so the dust blew away.

We roared like God

            so the rust faded gone.

And the man was changed

            Changed—

Re-arranged.

            Something different—

Something new.

Then he flew away.

And the sun began to leak

and the faces melted in.

And we blazed and blazed

                        and burned like hell.

Dream Song 29 Mimic

Mimics are funnn. I tried to copy and paste John Berryman's Dream Song 29 here but it wouldn't let me...I've done a few Dream Song mimics and they are great, I highly recommend trying it out.

There sat down, once, a thing on Henry's heart só heavy, if he had a hundred years & more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time Henry could not make good. Starts again always in Henry's ears the little cough somewhere, an odour, a chime. And there is another thing he has in mind like a grave Sienese face a thousand years would fail to blur the still profiled reproach of. Ghastly, with open eyes, he attends, blind. All the bells say: too late. This is not for tears; thinking. But never did Henry, as he thought he did, end anyone and hacks her body up and hide the pieces, where they may be found. He knows: he went over everyone, & nobody's missing. Often he reckons, in the dawn, them up. Nobody is ever missing. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15208#sthash.aVac7c6R.dpuf

There sat down, once, a thing on Henry's heart
só heavy, if he had a hundred years
& more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time
Henry could not make good.
Starts again always in Henry's ears
the little cough somewhere, an odour, a chime.

And there is another thing he has in mind
like a grave Sienese face a thousand years
would fail to blur the still profiled reproach of.  Ghastly,
with open eyes, he attends, blind.
All the bells say: too late.  This is not for tears;
thinking.

But never did Henry, as he thought he did,
end anyone and hacks her body up
and hide the pieces, where they may be found.
He knows: he went over everyone, & nobody's missing.
Often he reckons, in the dawn, them up.
Nobody is ever missing.

---

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15208#sthash.aVac7c6R.dpuf

There sat down, once, a thing on Henry's heart
só heavy, if he had a hundred years
& more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time
Henry could not make good.
Starts again always in Henry's ears
the little cough somewhere, an odour, a chime.

And there is another thing he has in mind
like a grave Sienese face a thousand years
would fail to blur the still profiled reproach of.  Ghastly,
with open eyes, he attends, blind.
All the bells say: too late.  This is not for tears;
thinking.

But never did Henry, as he thought he did,
end anyone and hacks her body up
and hide the pieces, where they may be found.
He knows: he went over everyone, & nobody's missing.
Often he reckons, in the dawn, them up.
Nobody is ever missing.

---

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15208#sthash.aVac7c6R.dpuf

A little something crouched there on Charlie's inside
a little something so big
no nothing of everything ever
could he make something go.
Churning always behind Charlie's teeth
the something itched and scratched and ached.

And there is another littlebig something latched to the roof
of his mouth like sunken gold glued to the ocean
that no time could pull free. Blankly,
with cheeks bulging, he sits, stopped.
The sizzle of singed skin says: gone. This
goes on as something crawls.

When did Charlie, when he thought he didn't
dig it up and tear it apart
and with his teeth store it away.
He checked counted cold all gone.
It drags him awake to see such empty.
Something pulls free and in.

Philosophy

I wrote this during philosophy. Don't get me wrong, I love that class. It just sometimes feels tedious and I pity Dr. Bennet and how much effort he puts into pulling us along.

Blank stares like fresh cut ham frame
the naked circle.
Plato weighs down my left
shoulder watching the limp discussion
of his life's work drag
itself through our fleshy
fingers leaving a
trail of faint recollection.
Someone tries to pick up
the sweaty mess and
toss it into
action but the unlucky receiver
fumbles
and the tangle of
philosophy careens into
the whiteboard with a wet
slap and
we watch it slip to the
granola carpet ground
and settle.

Mr. Peter Pan

       Peter Pan was my favorite movie as a kid. I loved the impish Peter and the caricatured pirates. It’s still my favorite movie as an adult. But now I love it for the wishing children and the bumbling Lost Boys. It might be a kids’ movie, but sometimes as I look down at my professional black high heels and my colleagues’ manila folders I realize that I’m the one following the leader. 

       We are the Lost Boys. I know exactly how to get to the bookstore but I forgot how to get into the book’s story. We are ageing children, old but never grown up, pretending to be adults to hide the fact that we’re still Lost and that we’ve always been Lost. Past the secretary’s nametag there is a secret heartbeat drumming out I won’t grow up I won’t grow up I won’t grow up, trying to block out the constant ticking crocodile clock that has an alarm set for every possible mistake she’ll ever make. The boss is Mister Peter Pan, shadow stapled to his feet, dragging dejection behind him with every step he doesn’t fly. In our endless, desperate quest to find the buried gold, we ignore the treasures in our lives—we make ourselves grow old. We fight with politics, not pirates, and mermaids fade in the face of our paycheck. It doesn’t pay to check for interesting clouds when you could be playing Angry Birds. I no longer look up. I walk with my head down and my heart down and my voice down and my dreams down, past more people with eyes on their shoes and no wishes to use on even a lucky penny.  Professional black heels click-clack-splash in puddles, muddling all reflections of the daydreams adulthood stole from us. We never look up, at rooftops or the sky, let alone the second star to the right.
       I don’t believe in faeries.
       But sometimes I clap anyway (to turn on my remote-activated ceiling light) and when the light flashes on as if by magic I secretly hope that someday, I can take the never out of Neverland and remember that to live is an awfully big adventure. And someday, I can go from the second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning—and I won’t get lost on the way.

TCAS

I'm thinking of using the stuff in italics as my Flash Fiction piece and then the rest of it is just me dabbling... Let me know. This is kind of a rough rough rough prose version of a poem I found in a long lost journal from 2008, I think, and I like the concept, but I'm not sure I like the presentation if that makes sense? Just comment :)

The Cloud Appreciation Society meets every Monday and Thursday at 1:28 p.m., unless it’s too sunny. We meet on the hill behind the ice cream shop that still serves Classic Bubblegum. You may bring your dog or fish, but cats and lizards are not allowed. New members are always welcome, but if you don’t believe in fate, don’t come. You must be able to make two paper airplanes in under 95 seconds. They don’t have to be able to fly. Contradictory statements are allowed to be said, but don’t expect The Society to truly understand you.

The woman that ran The Cloud Appreciation Society, or TCAS for short, always smelled like hot glue. None of us knew what she did for a living and none of us asked. We didn’t care about jobs or relationships outside of TCAS. We weren’t there to bring outside life in The Society, we were just there to be.

TCAS fizzles out in the winter, when it gets too cold to lie on the ground, and when it is too cloudy to really appreciate them all individually. But we all could tell when it started again. So we’d leave our jobs, our homes, or classes, and we’d all convene on that hill, some of us holding Classic Bubblegum ice cream, others not. We’d all lie down on the grass and then start again.