Summertime, time to work?

It’s been a while since I actually wrote a blog post that wasn’t a rehash of something I wanted to remember or a book review.  Don’t be discouraged.  The book reviews were to get me to focus on structure and the elements of writing in books… instead of just zipping through them for pleasure.  I don’t intend to make it the focus of the blog, but I do think it’s interesting to read from the point of view that I need to say more than “I liked it” or “I hated it.”

As August approaches, Houston continues to do its Hot thing.  I had the pleasure of being in Southwest Michigan last week and lost touch with that reality when the days didn’t get over 80 and the nights were in the 50s.  Such civilized weather!  It had us out planting flowers, walking in the woods, and cuddling in blankets to watch movies late into the night.  Nights so dark and star studded that we felt we had fallen into the velvet of another world. 

Home though, we are in what my midwestern heart considers the dead of winter, (dangerous to be outside and not fun) or summer if you must. Too hot to do anything of substance outside.  Time to stay hunkered into the A/C and clean closets and think about selling the now way too big house.  And time to read and write, which feels so totally indulgent to me.

I’ve joined a couple of writing groups to try to spur myself into more serious application of my time.  I am tired of work shopping stories written years ago, so it is time to write new ones.  I have lines or titles or images that have been whispering this summer, if I can manage to coax them in to fully realized narratives, I’ll try. 

For now, perhaps a photograph as a placeholder.

More Poems for April

 Prompts from Writers Digest April Poem a Day Challenge


 Self Portrait

Most often I think of myself as
Times New Roman, 12 point font.
With occasional italics or bold
But I’m not an underline type.
As for the exterior
I’m more of a shadows person,
I even walk behind my dogs

But that doesn’t mean I don’t
Know how to Shine
With the glow of hard work
Or the brilliance of joy
Or the polish of Uptown.
I’m a chameleon,
Just tell me what you want me to be.

April 15

The calendar pages scroll forward,
Not like the past when I could x them off
Black marker on paper. Everything now is
Digital.

I put the numbers in the program
Nothing judgmental. I’m just a monkey copying
From W-2 to 1099 and the
Program tells me what to put where.
I don’t need to understand anymore.

But when it gets to that crucial
Tax Due line
I want to pull my physical hair out
And go back to the days
When a little finesse
Could be a tax shelter.

Night

The train whistle is more a blare
Then metallic pounding, wheels on rails,
I know it is midnight
and I’m still awake.
I swallow and my throat sticks together,
All the moisture in my body evaporates,
I’m still so hot.

The shadow at the doorway looms,
I pretend hard I am asleep.
He walks into the room anyway. 
“Are you awake?”
He strokes my hair
and I know
I’ve run out of luck.


Prompt: Violence or Peace

Evacuation

It started with a calm day, hot, humid, summer.
But there was more: an anticipation. A sense of
What was coming.
Get ready, we were warned.  Run from the rain
They said, but hide from the wind. 
We waited until the last minute
When paranoia and the eerie empty feel of the streets,
And the closing of the texmex place around the corner
Prickled our fear.

So we packed up.
We took the dogs and the cats and
Our youngest son, still at home.
We stacked in all the photo albums
And the plastic box with passports medical records
And birth certificates.
“Should we take both cars?” I asked.
“We have insurance.” He said.
It is just stuff and
Stuff is replaceable.

The wind came, and not finding us,
Twisted the trees and played tiddley winks with shingles.
And the rain came, and couldn’t catch us,
but still the carpets were soaked and smelled bad.
Green slime filled the sparkling pool
While the temperature climbed
But the linemen couldn’t.

So we lit candles and perspired
And taught our kid to put together puzzles
Since his beloved Xbox took power.
And when we finally got news
And the count of the dead
We learned that the surge had swept away
Houses, streets, whole villages.
But they didn’t say what everyone knew
That no one would ever know the real number,
bodies might never be found.
Mostly the old ones, who knew that evacuation
Could be like war.