Vague Idea Notes

When the roommate gets drunk, he reverts to the habits of a bartender/server, bringing anyone in the room the exact thing they want, magically.  The last thing he does before he passes out is put the chairs up on the on the table.

Fifth Beginning - Part Three Nanowrimo 2014

Over-ripe banana, Sums decided. The smell was composed of over-ripe banana and . . . dog food? Yes. Dry dog food that had been moistened and left to sit. Sums forced images of her sisters' parts of the house out of her mind. There was also something that was almost a faint armpit smell, but it was somehow bringing up an image of microscopes.

Perhaps she was thinking of microscopes because she had thought of research earlier. And perhaps she was getting ahead of the evidence in assuming research. Just because she had never heard of cobweb/body magic didn't mean that it was new. Still, she had said research to Charles and there was no reason to gainsay that until there was reason to.

No. Thinking of research wasn't the reason she was thinking of microscopes. There was an intuition guiding the image. If she had been talented enough to do systems monitoring, she'd be able to tease out the subliminal impressions that lay behind her intuition.

But she wasn't a system monitor or a system operator or a system designer.  She only had enough talent to measure and chart energy flows and to use manufactured devices.  Most days she was completely comfortable with that.  She was talent heavy for an analyst and relied on her intuition to guide her through odd patterns quickly.

Some part of her intuition was saying 'research'.  In a normal situation she would be content to trust her intuition but verify the flows.  Standing in a factory full of dead bodies, though, she wished that her intuition could be more forthcoming about what was happening here.

Sums slowed as she approached the first entry.  The entire first floor was wooden walls up to slightly more than waist height, then windows up to a high ceiling.  The entry, which had no doors, was not quite wide enough to drive a delivery truck through.

Charles bustled past Sums.  "Department of Permits.  Routine inspection.  Mr. Asmundson?"

He seemed not to care about what was in the room besides the fact that it wasn't Mr.  Asmundson.  Mr. Asmundson must have made quite an impression.

Sums stood in the doorway and scanned from left to right.  This was a delivery and storage area.  There were bolt holes in the floor and discoloration in the concrete indicating that this used to be four rooms.  Now it was one open area.  The support pillars had been painted in the regulation stripes required for areas where fork lifts and mover wands were used.  There were stacks of bags and bins and boxes on wooden pallets.

Sums lifted the L-rods and rotated.  Nearly nothing.  She frowned.  There had been more.  She heard clanking and looked up.  Charles had found a set of very open metal stairs and was tapping up them quickly.  Sums had a brief impression of a child running with a balloon.  

It's Nearly Time for NaNoWriMo

It's Nearly Time for NaNoWriMo, otherwise known as National Novel Writing Month.  If you plug NaNoWriMo into the search field, you'll see that I've participated several times.  Pre-meetings have started in the Stockton area.  I'm heading for one in just a second.  I'm going to have to decide which Beginning to continue, because starting another one just to start another one would be depressing.  

Not that I won't start another one if I get an idea, just that I won't force it.  

Wish me luck.  I think I have it narrowed down to two choices.  
__________________

The planning meeting was fun.  There were eight NaNoWriters there and four of them were new to the group.  I still need to decide which story to work on.  

Sixty-Third Beginning: Cache of Old Poetry

I have to warn you that most of these are old and most of them haven't been edited.  I do not post them here as an example of good writing.  They're here so that I can throw away the paper copies and give me a bit more room in my file cabinet.

See, I like you well enough to warn you.  I'll also try to put the shortest ones first.  
-----

Small brown footprints walk

     across the red tiles and up

          the carpeted stairs.

[counts out as a haiku]

-----

Ohio trees

Caught season-short and

Full of life at winter's start

Tremble with rage before,

Screaming crimson,

They die.

[I forget the name of this form.  The syllable count is 2-4-6-6-4-2.]

-----

.Start


     the book from both ends - - - Write

                       inward


                        c
                        r
     when the words begin to
                        s
                        s


     you are


                                                 finished.

-----

My lover smiles, his eyes still closed,

With a lazy ease

Exemplified

By pools of warm cats

Spread

Like melted crayons on the summer sidewalk;

And the hammock sways

As he moves

His arm to pull me close - 

- deep into his delicious

Drowsiness.

-----

Buster did it right.
[My father's words.]
He died in his garden
While his wife was out.
Just sat down in the
Upturned wheelbarrow to  nap
And never moved again.

A neighbor noticed
Two hours later.
The coroner's boys
Didn't push the gurney
Down the gravel drive,
Just wheeled him round
To the front.
Quick.
Neat.
Convenient.

Father didn't get
A wheelbarrow, but
Did get his wish to
Die in his sleep.

-----

I can meet you now
I am ready
and I have
a good
Idea
of what we'll say
and what we'll do

once we meet.

I know the way
your eyes will fold
when a small thought
brings you laughter,
and

once we meet

I have a 
good idea
and
I am ready
for good ideas:

I can meet you now.

-----

And the girl found the hawk
in her fourteenth year - 
the hawk with the broken wing.

But the healing was fast
and she set it free
on the noon of her fifteenth birthday.

And it flew away
without looking back
and her eyes scanned the hawkless clouds.

And the old woman's voice
sang behind her ear:

     That is the way of flying - 
     It wears no roads in the sky

     That is the way of flying - 
     It wears no roads in the sky.

[This one is a chant, rather than a poem.  It came with a tune, although, being a chant, it wasn't a very melodic one.  I think that's why the sentences start with conjunctions.]
-----

You know, 
    it should be gone by now,
Melted down 
    to a blunt nub
    from so much use
    in such a warm, wet place.
But there it is
    right on his hand
    if you can see it:
Eric's thumb,
   which slips, pop, into his mouth
A perfect fit,
Damming so much noise
    in
    where it rattles itself still
    with the help of some busy sucking
    and a
    sigh.
-----

For David - - 
     - - who shows lies

forget that stuff about
wrapping him up to
remind him
of the perfect place he'd known.
he'd had enough of
that cramped space
had longed
to s t r e t c h.
just try to bend that kid
in half.

and just try to quiet him
or tell him
he's supposed to be
some other way.
he won't believe.
he's know himself 
since long before
you breathed.

just try - - 
     - - but beware
I won't have him harmed
to protect
your rules.

that's right, David,
rattle your presence
loudly.
-----

[there are multiple versions of this one]

See her sit
so sure and smug
just sit and smile
look at her sit
see there?
she sits
look at her chin
just see her sit
just sit and smile
just smugly smile
just look
her chin, she lifts
stare straight at her
she lifts her chin
stare at her smile
she lifts her chin and smiles
so stare right back
when she smiles
stare straight into the
pock-eyed faith
of the moon.

[That one's full if sibilants.  I like the words for the sounds of language:  sibilants (s, sh, z, zh), plosives (p, b), dentals (t, d, th), nasals (m, n, ng), fricatives (f, v).  There are others, I'm sure.] -----

Poetry as a Hologram

The poet - - 

     gathering Words,

     polishes some

     mirror-bright  and  Arranges them

     in Exact Pattern;


     stacks and shrinks

     others

     to a grid of fine lines

     which He places

     carefully

     among the mirrors;


     folds others together,

     compressed tight and ruby-dense

     These (stimulated with reading) emit

     a thin, bright Thought

     that bounces

     in a tangled dance

     among and through the other words


     to form (from their dissonance)

     hanging softly sudden and three dimensioned

     above the page


     (a poem)

[This one was written back in the old days when I was in junior high and National Geographic had articles explaining what these new things called lasers and holograms were.]
-----
[This one needs editing.  It was done quickly to snag an idea.  I had ridden on a bus at night and the driver had left the inside lights on.  That made the windows into reflective surfaces, so that unless you really worked to look beyond the windows, all you could see is reflections of the inside of the bus.]

Night bus
     lit inside, the windows are dark mirrors
     reflecting unplugged faces
     mute as angelfish
     in dormitory pews.  

     click of announcing sign
     button fireflies in unison  
     a football card section
     Yay!  A-Line!  Go, Downtown!

     hiss of brakes,  squeak and rattle
     as the door folds and unfolds.
     heads bob in unison as tires flex,
     grain-heads in a field of wheat

     cardboard ads above
     not, as in Sac, of contraception,
     prenatal care, foster care,
     but of votes and theater.

     in our blind aquarium
     we trust we are going home
     and not riding that other bus
     the one we've seen whose sign reads
Nowhere in Particular.
-----

     

Sixty-Second Beginning: Ribs

Unexpectedly,
I stand
Antecoarctate, shivering,
My father's ribs broken, bloody on
My feet, 
A lumpy road to walk.

My mother moans,
Scrambling to reshape
The cage of him, mourning,
As the air congeals the stickiness
On my skin.

He looks away,
Sulking.
He would have saved the world
If I had not broken
Him,

Ungrateful.  

Sixty-First Beginning: Kaleidoscope

Does 

the

Kaleidoscope

mourn

the passing pattern

or

rejoice

in

the jeweled dance

?

[I keep changing the form of this one, while keeping the exact same words.]

Sixtieth Beginning: Quiet Bones (poem)

Quiet bones
they beat no drums

Quiet bones
have no regrets

Quiet bones
they mouth no curse
accepted bad
accepted worse

Quiet bones
they spread no pain
they spill no blood
in search of gain

Quiet bones
get no parades
enforce no dreams
lead no crusades

Quiet bones