Improv 8, Week 8

No idea what I just wrote but it was kind of a memory of a trip to NY which the original made me think of and then I was watching American Psycho and thinking about living in California and this just turned out weird.

It’s 2:45 in the morning, were standing in a line

waiting for paper plates, chicken and rice, I’m shaking

California grounds because my boyfriend pushed

my carmine button that fastens to my favorite

Gap cardigan. I’m boiling over the Rocky Mts.

to find myself in New York again.

John Tsoa’s father is a part of the Buddhist mafia,

he operates legally and crimes justifying humanity,

humanity that people have lost faith in.

He bought us three tickets to the city

where we have lost our minds in Bronx.

There is a man cursing in the half closed

half opened, combined, Dunkin Donuts

and Popeyes. Fucking ugly bitch, I want to stab

you to death and play around in your blood.

My boyfriend walked out as tears

drippled down my face and that man

approached me, licking his cracked lips

caked with something white and breathed

steam in my ear, it sounded like scratch

against a chalky wall and smelt like

London fog as his words stuck

to the filmy membrane of my mind.

He made me feel dirty and I cried

spray paint as another sad story.

Claude McKay

The Harlem Dancer

Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes
And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway;
Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes
Blown by black players upon a picnic day.
She sang and danced on gracefully and calm,
The light gauze hanging loose about her form;
To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm
Grown lovelier for passing through a storm.
Upon her swarthy neck black, shiny curls
Profusely fell; and, tossing coins in praise,
The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls,
Devoured her with their eager, passionate gaze;
But, looking at her falsely-smiling face
I knew her self was not in that strange place.

Response 16, Week 8

The pattern I got was 9 8 9 8 8 8 9 8 9 8 9 8 9 8 8 8 8 9 9 10 8 ... but maybe I read it wrong because I only went through once counting because keeping up is hard for me lol. This is definitely a cool outdoors man perspective. I like the way you wrote to compare nature to things in a home like carpet and a quilt and made nature the narrators home. But if I read the pattern right that means you need to go back and check to fix that? so that is my improvement advice! Really cool piece and sounds like a fun exercise I might need to try.

Response 15, Week 8

Kyley,

I really liked this piece. I like how the first two lines play off each other with circularly and repeat itself. One thing about this piece is it felt like the narrative voice kept to one subject and didn't wander enough. I was thinking it would be interesting if you trailed off after the fourth line and returned to the fifth because it looked like those two lines could transition in and out of each other. But this definitely has some cool language. I also liked the practice of reusing words in this piece. The repetitions played quite nicely. Keep them coming :) lol

Inventory 8, Week 8

B. H. Fairchild

Madonna and Child, Perryton, Texas, 1967

A litter of pickups nose into Sancho’s Market
south of town late Friday night rinsed in waves
of pink neon and samba music from some station
in Del Rio spilling out across the highway.
Sancho’s wife dances alone behind the cash box
while her daughter, Rosa, tries to quiet her baby
whose squalls rip through the store like a weed-cutter
shredding the souls of the carnal, the appetitious,
indeed the truly depraved as we in our grievous
late-night stupor and post-marijuana hunger
curse the cookie selection and all its brethren
and Al yells at Leno lost among the chips,
beef jerky, string cheese, bananas for Chrissakes,
that if he doesn’t stop now and forever telling
Okie jokes he will shoot his dog who can’t hunt
anyway so what the hell, but the kid is unreal,
a cry ascending to a shriek, then a kind
of rasping roar, the harangue of the gods,
sirens cleaving the air, gangs of crazed locusts
or gigantic wasps that whine and ding our ears
until the air begins to throb around us
and a six-pack of longnecks rattles like snakes
in my hand. And then poor Rosa is kissing
its forehead, baby riding her knee like a little boat
lost at sea, and old Sancho can’t take it either,
hands over his ears, Dios mio, ya basta! Dios mio,
so Rosa opens her blouse, though we don’t look,
and then we do, the baby sucking away, plump cheeks
pumping, billowing sails of the Santa Maria
in a high wind, the great suck of the infinite
making that little nick nick sound, Rosa
smiling down, then Sancho turns off the radio
and we all just stand there in the light and shadow
of a flickering fluorescent bulb, holding
our sad little plastic baskets full of crap,
speechless and dying a little inside as Rosa
whispers no llores, no llores, mija, mijita,
no llores, and the child falls asleep, lips
on breast, drops of milk trickling down,
we can even hear it breathing, hear ourselves
breathing, the hush all around and that hammer
in our chests so that forty years later
this scene still hangs in my mind, a later work,
unfinished, from the workshop of Zurbarán.

>The piece is 3 sentences long and 44 lines long

>The author uses two languages in this piece.

>The author practices repetition of some words immediately after each other.

>There are 39 commas in this piece.

>It is is one stanza long.

>Only three words are capitalized at the start of a line.

> Most lines are evenly lengths.

Junk Yard 32, Week 8

I wanna let all you female folk out there in the world in on a secret...big hair NEVER went out of style. So grab your hair spray,, curlers, and those big round brushes ladies and put on your heels and tight dresses. It still looks good to me.

I love my sister. She taught me everything about women's fashion I'm ever gonna need to know.

live taping at a bar in Buford Oct. 26th

No matter how bad I may feel sometimes about myself, my mom & sisters still think of me when they see a llama & my adoring husband still climbs in the driver's seat on top of me bc he doesn't want me to go.. I am loved.

Ok Memphis you can breath I made it back..

Oh how I love the opportunity fund! My wallet just got a well needed lifeline!

Annoying things he does: tickle me until I pee my pants. Doesn't let it go for months when he finally is right for once. Lures me into candy and chocolate every day. And makes me happy every day of my life

Work sounds horrible... My arms feel dislocated & I'm still having a hard time getting the glitter out of my hair

Anyone else notice the 'flex seal' spokes guy's daffy duck-esque lisp..."flekth theal

I hate when someone gets a new cat and for the next month all you fucking hear about anymore is their cat and all the ridiculous shit it does. We've all seen a cat.

I'm finally back at my apartment! Back to normalcy

Anyone have a suggestions for an affordable (and reliable) home color printer, that has reasonably priced ink cartridges?

Calisthenic 8, Week 8

Tonight I’m alone, sprawled on the floor
cold under a blanket listening to Charlie Chaplin,
thinking about poetry and the 1940’s noir,
reminiscing 18 year old modeling photos— Pin
on the bulletin board is a gardenia written note
blanketed with words that return warmth to my body
as red wine stains the words my ears wrote

after barrowing words, listening to everybody.

People are tired of repetition, tired of being babies

goose-stepped into misery and bloodshed.

People are impatient about basic language and maybes
they want to lazed luxuries, cigars, and bed.

People in America are spoiled, even the poor

they don’t know poor like the Filipino store.

Ummm I don't know whats going on with the bottom half of this? words won't stay together so ignore.

Junk Yard 31, Week 8

goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed

bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress

Don't give yourselves to brutes

drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder

unnatural men---machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle