Unconscious Mutterings - Two weeks and Two poems
November 18, 2007 | Filed Under Poetry, Unconscious Mutterings | 1 Comment
LunaNiña gives her readers ten words to use for free association each week as a meme, Unconscious Mutterings: a great exercise, and a quick one! Try it, you may be quite surprised at some of your immediate responses. Once you have written yours, you may wish to go back and se what others came up with, we are all so different.
I take it a step farther and turn each set of words into a poem or short story, just because it is great fun and many times takes me places I had never intended to go or even thought I knew well enough to write about. Personally, I think her meme is a good tool in the arsenal of a writer or poet. I highly recommend it!
If you choose to use her words, whether as part of the meme, or just as a writer’s exercise, please be sure to link back to her site! Give her the credit she deserves for challenging us with such a variety of words. I am playing catchup and have posted two weeks together, I have one more I still have to write the poem for, but no time right now.
November 10th words followed by my immediate responses were:
- Treadmill :: work
- Stroke :: victim
- Exclusively :: yours
- Lash :: mascara
- Red carpet :: treatment
- Credit card:: debt
- Points :: of entry
- Domestic :: violence
- 21 :: years
- Inject :: fun
With these words, in order, tenses the same, I wrote:
Conversation with a Treadmill
Treadmill,
don’t let me down,
work my legs,
stroke my psyche.
take victim from my vocabulary.
Exclusively yours,
I am for now,
though lash coated with mascara,
red carpet treatment,
no credit card debt,
could allow themselves
points of entry into my heart,
now closed by my witness
of domestic violence
for 21 years,
21 long years.
Treadmill,
don’t let me down
work my legs,
stroke my psyche,
take victim from my vocabulary,
inject some fun into this man’s life.
MeeAugraphie
11/17/07
~~~~~
Words she offered for 11/18/07 and my immediate responses were:
- Toasty :: warm
- Allegations :: of innocence
- Herb :: urban
- Bacon :: bits
- Neck to neck :: race
- Simon :: Cowell
- Heels :: step
- Fundamentals :: of learning
- Middle :: aged
- Seasonings :: spices
From those, I wrote this:
Her life at Middle Age
Toasty, warm.
Allegations of innocence,
threats of guilt
all in past.
Life, filled with one herb
after another until flavor
became pungent –
much like an urban loft
with no ventilation
or a salad made by a child,
bacon bits piled high, when
only a few would have sufficed.
Neck to neck, life was a race
to beat the Simon Cowell’s
at their own game
or walk in heels too high
to balance gracefully on while
reciting the fundamentals of learning
you had long since forgotten.
You were meant to be
only middle aged,
not tossed salad, nor lumpy potates
overcooked and water logged
that no amount of seasonings or spices
would salvage.
When did toasty, warm become
burnt, but cold?
MeeAugraphie
11/18/07
Unconscious Mutterings - Corporate Downfall
October 7, 2007 | Filed Under Fiction, Unconscious Mutterings | 2 Comments
LunaNiña offers ten words to her readers to free associate each week as her Unconscious Mutterings meme. Why not play along. Her link is here.
<ol><li>Cluster :: ______
<li>Announcement :: resignation
<li>Respect :: fully
<li>Incident :: of record
<li>Accordion :: player
<li>Drunk :: man
<li>If :: I could
<li>Dexter :: will
<li>Wedding :: bells
<li>Gambling :: man
</ol>
End of meme, beginning of playtime for me… I attempt to use each word in order and tense given in a poem or short story, today is more of a piece of a story, but it is what came to my head…. If you chose to play with NiñaLumina’s words, please link back to her, or preferably ask for permission.
Corporate Downfall
He called it a name, I cannot say in front of mixed company, a cluster ____. We both should have been offended, but after their announcement and the resignation of the director, I was quite sure that all the employees felt that way, in fact, I know of three homes where I am quite sure the same phrase was repeated.
I can respect fully their frustration at being tossed out the door at the mere whim of an executive with more power than brains. There was another incident on record, they later discovered where said executive had done similar on a smaller scale. How did it get past the Board?
Maybe that is it, maybe they (the Board) are all nothing more than bellows of the accordion player, that drunk man fondling his wife’s sister even as we speak. If I could, I would expose them all to become bellowing fools rather than merely the bellows played by Adrian Dexter.
Wait, perhaps I could. In fact, I will. I hear wedding bells in my future, John, a ring of gigantic proportions, followed by a divorce settlement to rival that of the stars. I know you aren’t a gambling man, John, but if you place your bet on me this time, you will win. I am dangling myself in front of Dexter’s wife…. She is not as innocent as she looks… I can put up with bedding her a few months, the few times I will be in town… I will get the proof we need. After all, what is a brother for, but to pummel the bullies who mess with his little sis and her mate?
MeeAugraphie
10/07/07
Now, I cannot imagine anyone wanting to copy this piece of a story, so don’t, please.
Unconcscious Mutterings - Parent Fiction
September 30, 2007 | Filed Under Linked, Poetry, Unconscious Mutterings | 3 Comments
Lunaniña gives us ten words to free associate each week as a meme, Unconscious Mutterings. Why not play along each week? Click here.
- Crook :: no more
- Career :: fanatic
- Freckles :: cute
- Scramble :: golf
- Mistake :: made
- Telephone :: number
- Thank you :: I think
- Obstruction :: of justice
- 24/7 :: nightmare
- SciFi :: movie
I did not like the words much this week, but I do like where they took me, but I wish there were none like he or a mirrored she, but I am sure there are, somewhere, out there….
Now, the meme itself ended with just doing the free association, and that alone was fun. But I like to do something with the words. Today it is a poem. I try to not skip a word and use them in the same order and tense as above.
Parent Fiction
He was a crook no more
if his police record were checked
only a career fanatic
thriving on each step up the
corporate ladder
straight to eternal hell
freckles dotted his cute kid’s nose
but only mom knew the total count
for she counted them out loud each
bedtime
and in silence each sleepless night
his scramble:
to reach the golf course
his play but to close a deal,
to correct a mistake made
by an underling,
to garner the telephone number
of the woman that danced on the bar.
to remember to say thank you
to the doorman who knew
who was what or where
for five or five hundred
depending
those were the counts he knew.
I would say it was an obstruction
of justice that he came home
rather than spend 24/7 away,
for the nightmare
was not that he couldn’t count the freckles
but that he saw parenthood merely as
a Sci-fi movie, something to be watched
not lived, not real
and yet he chose to stay.
MeeAugraphie
09/30/07
Please, if you do the meme, remember to link back to her site, thank you. My words are my own, please do not copy, thank you.