by john | Dec 23, 2009 | Poems, Poetry, Writing
So I’m trying to write something, anything, every day, and damn if it isn’t hard to get back on that horse. So tonight I locked myself in my hotel room at the lovely Marriott Century Center in Atlanta and cranked out a couple of first drafts. And these are truly hot-off-the-presses drafts, finished just a few minutes ago. So give me a little feedback on them, and then in a little while I’ll probably yank them off here to maintain their “unpublished” status for submissions and tweak them a little bit.
Yeah, I’m travelling right before Christmas, but I get Thursday and Friday off, so it’s okay I guess. I’ll probably blow out of here a little early tomorrow and head north so as not to get trapped in Atlanta’s hellish traffic. I think I’ll download Episode 4 of the Gambling Tales Podcast to listen to on the road. If you haven’t heard it yet, get your ass over to the website or to iTunes and check it out. I think Special K and I are really starting to hit our stride, and we’re working on getting some more great guests for upcoming shows. This episode features poker author, online card room manager and all-around prince of a human being, Lee Jones.
In the meantime, here are a couple of new pieces I’m working on. And if you’re in Charlotte on January 23, I’ll be hosting another Writer’s Showcase at Story Slam on Central Avenue. I haven’t locked in the lineup yet, but it’ll definitely be me and Steve Stoekel of the Spongetones fame. I’ll let you know more details as they become available.
EDIT: Can’t get both of them to post right so I’ll toss the next one up in a separate post. I would enjoy feedback on both.
EDIT: All unpublished poems have been taken down until I get through submitting them to various magazines so they’ll maintain their unpublished status.
by john | Sep 24, 2009 | Poems, Poetry
Sometimes things work out in odd ways. I did the Story Slam reading a couple weeks ago, and after the Friday night session, Gina Stewart and Brenda Gambill, better known around Charlotte as the ringleaders of Doubting Thomas, played a set. Gina told a great story about walking through New York City and seeing a guy sitting in the doorway of the Chelsea Hotel cutting himself, and the conflicted feelings she felt before she went over to him to see if he was okay. It shook loose a chunk of poem that I’ve had locked up for a while, and I pounded this out the next afternoon. I read it that night and it got a good reception. I haven’t named it yet, maybe I’ll just call it Chelsea. The filename I saved it under was Wet Concrete, but that doesn’t feel right.
I don’t see him dragging a stolen Food Lion grocery cart uphill
loaded down with a hot water heater and cans picked up
off the side of the road
heading for the recycling center hoping for just enough
to get another bottle of get me through the night.
I don’t see her pay for a corn dog and cup of complimentary ice
with pennies and haul the seven mismatched garbage bags
that make up her whole world out into the heat of the August afternoon.
I don’t see him sitting in the rain mumbling at nothing
and carving names into his wiry limbs with a rusty jacknife
while his own blood drips pink
and runs off down the sidewalk,
puddling for a second around my Ecco loafers.
But I see you
kneeling in front of a wild-eyed Walt Whitman madman
to say “hey man, you alright?”
I look at you
in your duct-taped Doc Martens
thrift-store Dickie’s work shirt
maybe a dollar and a half in your own pocket
while you kneel on the wet concrete
to touch the face of a stranger
and for a minute
before the world washes my vision away again
I see.
by john | Aug 15, 2009 | Poems, Poetry
I’m sitting on a 3.99 plastic Wal-Mart chair
on a concrete balcony
on the third floor of a Courtyard motel
in Eastern North Carolina
watching rainbows smear the asphalt
across the parking lot
as oil and water play stubborn
through the summer thunderstorm.
I’m drinking a lukewarm Miller Lite trying not to notice
the fat woman testing the superstructure of her halter top
and the suspension of her ’93 Yellow Geo Tracker.
Her flip-flops thwack-splish thwack-splish
across the parking lot looking for a vacancy
and maybe a little shelter from the storm.
I put a little Jessica Lea Mayfield on the in-room iPod rig
and prop my bare feet up on the wet wrought iron railing,
letting the dog-daily 4 o’clock shower
wash 300 miles off my tired feet.
A dragonfly wanders by for a sip of my beer.
I share.
He doesn’t drink much, but it looks like enough
’cause he flies off in a meandering besotted path
beating his wings in time to the music
and dancing between the raindrops.
That’s kinda what the last half of my week was like. I put in somewhere around 1,500 miles from Sunday to Friday, and had more than one project crisis to deal with along the way. All in all it was the kind of week that you’re really happy to see the back side of. So now that I’m looking at the back side of it, we’ll see if there’s any ammunition for stories or poems in there.
