Elan Mudrow
Smidgens
Arc Eternal
Arc Eternal
Emily Dickinson’s Refrigerator
‘Twas the vinegar that tippeth
Toward the leftover quiche
Oh, lonely empty bottle, recycler boon
When sun meets to kiss moon—
And mustard, your yellows bold
A bit old, but still at play—
Mummified lime, plastic lined
Awaits blessed water of the fizzy kind—
Four salad dressings,
Daughters of the virgin oil—
Bright Wednesday’s sauce
Must find solace at all cost
Before the scourge of poisoned moss—
A couple of red jellies
To keep a merry belly
Harvested during the sweetness
Of His grand spring—
A dire few leaves of spinach
Must be eaten in a pinch
Or thrown into a stew anew
Cat food can, oh my love be content
Yet, small miracles abound
In these cool vestiges—for—
Behind the onion skins
And forgotten slice of apple
My hand moves with assured fate—
Look at what Providence hath left!
A cold beer is found no less!
O, wonderous workings, I’m blessed.
The View
If I hike alone, I can only tell you what you missed.
If we hike together, we’ll see the view.
Here, the wind whips beachgrass, stinging our legs through cotton jeans, a grass that rattles its voice, a scolding, chaotic rustle. Our bare feet run across their roots to reach the soft sand.
There, we’ll see the side of the wind waves know, lulling us into a dreamer’s state, a duet with the flapping of our jackets, a rhythmic trance. We dig toes deep into sun-drenched sand, feeling the same heat, ‘til cooled by the night’s tide.
The grass settles into quiet view.
(Click on image to enlarge. More of Elan’s photos here.
Gilligan’s Soliloquy
TV or not to TV, that is the question
Whether ‘tis nobler for the stomach to suffer
The future of outrageous coconut cream pies
Or take bad dialogue from character actors
And by opposing, end them, and get cancelled after three seasons
To flee, to fly
To be rescued? We say the end to
The heartache, and the thousand bad jokes
That television is heir to, ‘tis a consummation (hopefully)
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to get canned, to sleep,
Perchance there are reruns?
Ay, there’s the rub
For in that cancellation and reruns, paychecks may come
When we have shuffled off our bad wardrobe
And should give the Skipper pause? There’s the respect
Who makes calamity of typecasting
Who would bear the whips and scorns of reruns?
The reviewer’s wrong, the insulting abuse
The pangs of being despised, or loved, and fan websites
The insolence of the network, and the spurns
The patient merry of th’ unworthy takes (over and over and over. Hey, this isn’t Shakespeare!)
When he, (that’s me,Gilligan) might his quietus make
With bare contract, burdens and little cash
Clueless and sweating under a weary L.A. set
But that the dread of cancelation
That rediscovered country of joblessness
Typecast emerges, puzzles, the agent
And makes us rather bear those ills of doing info-ads late at night (or candy bar ads in the afternoon)
Than to fly to others, like mom and dad, asking for money
Thus conscience, does make cowards of us all
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er the entire cast of Gilligan’s Island
Our enterprises, of great pitch and moment
With this regard our currents run awry
And lose the name of “action” — soft you now
The fair Ginger and Mary Ann, nymphs of my hammock
Be all my sins remembered
Leaf Finder General
She rakes leaves as if she’s in a battle with fall
With those pranksters of maple, oak, alder, and all
Who best be off elsewhere, staying clear from her home
Or sticking fast by autumn’s mist to the garden gnome
Better not sneak under her feet, returning to haunt the grass
I swear she’ll burn them like witches if they reappear in mass
Me?
I think her lawn looks nice, with a little extra spice
But I wouldn’t dare give her any advice
You see, I’m only her 8-year-old son
I just want to play in the leaves for fun
T.S. Eliot Bumps Into A Second Person
The voiceless have built a city within this city, structures embedded within the grid, pulled together by patchwork—cloth, tent, sawdust floor and plastic sheet. You’re there, measuring your life in coffee spoons, on that same street, right next to them. You see them working on bicycles, bus passes, rides. You see them through half deserted streets, a forager still intact in their genes. They hunker down with their wildness, lingering in pools that stand in drains. They follow you like a tedious argument. And what do you do? You come and go talking of Michelangelo, with the evening spread out against the sky. No worries, there will be time. You’ve still time to prepare a face for those you meet. You’re perfectly fine with disturbing the universe and asking “Do I dare?” You’ve time to settle your head on a pillow and say “That’s not what I meant at all.” Not a problem. It’s perfectly OK to be misunderstood. Nothing will come of it, except some literary theory.
But wait…You think you hear them.
Bite it off with a smile.
Soundness
He’s moving to a song he knows and it’s a song we’ve heard before but can’t place.
As he moves, the sweat, sores, and scratches stay in place. What’s inside him is externalized.
He doesn’t care about our inner secrets, our inner fears, our hates, our loves that set us howling upon each other. It’s out/in him.
He’s howling, loudly, to someone that isn’t there, but we recognize his attempt to get through. At times, we think he’s trying to get our attention. We hear, but don’t want to hear. We shake it off, thinking he’s outside us.
His voice seems primal, an odd sort of desire. We recognize its motions.
Shirtless, he scares us. He slams the metal lid of a garbage can on the sidewalk, a sidewalk he will sleep on, a sidewalk we walk upon…every day.
We don’t help him.
We expect someone else to talk to him, clean his face, recognize the song and put it in a playlist, so when it plays, text pops up, telling us what it is.
We must move to a song we know. It’s a song he’s heard before but can’t place.
A Writer’s Guide To Revision
I peek out from the analog…paper skin, bone and water…hue, saturation…body tweaked with vibrance, a layering of edits, revision…revised with dark lines, shades on skin, adjustments…adhered, affixed.
Fixed.
My face, my story, a template, structure of desire, rouge of action…series of alignments…light and color, words to squeeze into a promising book with the softest palms upon its cover.
Truth has eyeshadow on, fiction in a fig leaf…never completely naked. My breath as sweet as apple, hair aglow, you’re reading all the signs, recite. The mirror is surrounded by the brightest lights, in the act of making things up.
My real pixel lips, wet primary colors, loose yarn, no day, no night, no image, words bare
Only a deep, deep spinning
Orbits…
Eyes…
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