The candelabra

This is the second piece I wrote in that evening at The Art Factory.  I enjoy it when this kind of writing happens - it's a response to the flow of the moment; for a place in time and the people inhabiting it.  I don't know if it has any further reach than for that evening, but I thought I'd share it anyway.  It's written down more or less like a poem, but I don't know if I'd call it that...

It drops from above

This rain of wax

Coating

Melted from the whole

Hanging just above

Within reach but secure

The candles spend themselves

To coat what lies below

The burn felt

Being only a fraction

Of the process from candle to wax

All sacrificed

To prepare itself to creat

A protection

Taking perfect shape

Over that which it covers

Individual

The cracked window

This is the first of two short pieces I wrote during a really great evening while on the trip to the Art Factory in Kandern, Germany - written really quickly, and for the most part it was for the people in the room.  But I thought I'd share it here as well...

A cold wind rushed in at the crack in the window.  She had intended to fix it all summer and all fall, but had never gotten around to it somehow.  It had happened that spring, an accident – of sorts.  She’d wanted to throw it, a heavy object – heavy enough to smash a window.  She wasn’t mad at the object, but it had the necessary weight.  So frustrated.  She thought it would make her feel better, and she thought it had; and maybe it did, for a time.  But now, as the winter has come and the east wind whips past the pines on the hill, it hits hard her exposed east wall.  Where the window, designed to let in the suns morning beams, now gaping, allows the chill to seep through.  Morning after morning, she’s tried it all – warmer coffee, thicker socks, more layering, a ceramic warmer, a snuggly blanket, a hat, a coat, 3 different shades of masking tape, a piece of cardboard, foam, duct tape, a board and a disastrous attempt at caulk.  But what it needs, what it’s built for, is a whole window.  Until then, she cannot warm herself.  It takes a window, to hold out the wind and to let in the sun.  That is what a window is for.

The Singer/Songwriter

Another free-write. I like to go back and find these things in old notebooks. I was actually listening to someone sing a tribute song like this - but this is not their story (or my opinion of them...).

She sang a song for him, piano and voice, to remember him. He had always hated her songs, her voice. He didn't have the courage to tell her - he didn't trust that she liked him enough to survive telling the truth. But now she sings what she calls 'his song,' thinking it is a tribute to him, to their relationship. But really it is a tribute to her own perception of their relationship, which has little to nothing to do with him, or reality. If it had been up to him, the best tribute might have been moments of silence, pure silence, expectant silence which is more full than empty absence of sound. That is how he would have remembered them, who they were together.

But she. She remembers them by covering over that silence with her words, her voice, her playing the piano, her thoughts, her attempts at poetry. And she remembers him with her own creativity, which has little to nothing to do with him, with reality. It is only her, covering over their perfect silence with herself, afraid that in the silence he will disappear. And that she will as well.

She sounds the siren...

This is a short free-write I did a few months back in my notebook, writing to the song "Stay (Faraway, So Close)" by U2. Not sure what it is, really, except that I've come back to it time and time again as I flip through the notebook. Something about the character, I like. If you want, listen to the song while you read...

She sounds the siren. The cry for help. Supersonic, and only the dogs come running. She's been beaten before and expects each embrace to end that way. It's all temporary, she's learned, but it doesn't mean she lives that way. Each meeting is a desperate goodbye, each loss the dawn of a new morning. When he passed, she half expected him to walk in the door the next morning. She opens the door every day expecting the same.

She's a walking invitation to a party in an empty room. Her hair flows down in front of her shoulders. She's long since given up pretending to be attractive, which has only made her more alluring. Do the men that approach her want to be her savior or her damnation? She gives none of them the power to be her either. What can make a girl lose this much of her soul? Where has she given it away - where is it hidden now?

She's the girl who when she wants something, puts her hand in her pocket and, no matter what when or how much, the money is there - in crumpled bills and change - and she's learned to keep her wants to that scale. To want more is only disappointment. To want more is a luxury she can't afford. It costs more than her pocket can provide.