Let's Speak The Same Language

Thursday, December 29, 2016

REMEMBERING A CHILDHOOD WITH TIGE IN THE BASEMENT

"That's My Dog Tige, He Lives In A Shoe. I'm Buster Brown, Look For Me in There Too" When I was a kid, I had to do chores in the basement frequently, and I listened to a radio show as I worked. Buster Brown shoes advertised on that show. Froggy the magic frog who twanged his "magic twanger" was also on that show. No double entendre intended. 

HO HUM, HO HUM, IT'S OFF TO REWRITE HO HUM I GO. I must admit that my writing energy is at low ebb. Part of the decline is because we were out of town over the Christmas holiday, and I'm trying to get myself back into harness, but it keeps slipping off my back. Some of my lack of interest is a hangover, I believe, from the cancer scare. For many months, I lived in a bag or sack, a psychic state of existence for sure. No certain future lay ahead for me.  

To compensate for my low energy, I'm enclosing a poem I wrote for the poetry chapbook Up Your Ass about my prostate cancer. Perhaps the last piece of original writing I've done. I'm not happy with it so it ends with an ellipsis that suggests future work? Perhaps also I need to rethink the title.

Friday, December 16, 2016

BEATNIK BOOMER DOESN'T DIE. NOW WHAT?

Nothing could be more boring than hearing about another damn Booming rewrite. Right? But that's all I have to report. I'm rewriting Ghoul World

I've had a couple more rejections come in of work I'd submitted only to the most prestigious and paying markets. What do I expect? My work is nothing like what passes for writing these days. It's not young enough and it's style, of necessity, does not ring true in a youthful mind. As I think of the style of my writing, I realize how cosmopolitan most young writers are. I'd class my story as appealing to a Richard Hugo or James Welch audience of old. One of my best stories, and I know it's well written, is from the pov of a drifter and blue collar dude who finds himself working in boom town Gillette Wyoming. He befriends a naif young veteran who gets himself involved with a very troubled and promiscuous female. How it works out must remain a mystery as the story is a mystery that never gets solved.

Another writing problem is how to finish the poetry book [more likely chapbook] Up Your Ass about the 8 month cancer bout I just finished dealing with. I have no interest currently to write a concluding poem, but I feel the series requires one. It's almost a disappointment that it won't end in my death. I know...how could I say that? Well, writing requires a conclusion, and I'm not ready to conclude yet. Happy trails to you...so Roy Rogers would say. 

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

REWRITE REWRITE, RIGHT?

Hello! Hell, times fly and seniors stumble. According to blog aficionados, I've been too many days between entries, but blogdarnit, I'm not an aficionado of blogs. Here's the latest news. I'm on my 4th? my 5th? or my 6th? rewrite of Ghoul World. I don't know. Each time I rewrite I attempt to cut away dross, make my sentences more straightforward. I did this morning have an idea for a new story appear from the hidden realms of my brain into consciousness which, it so happens, is only capable of holding 7 thoughts or words or images at any one time. Such is the fragmented nature of human reality. I also strongly intend to got to Ghost Town open mic where I've been absent for all the 8 months while I learned of and had my prostate cancer irradiated. I'm going to read four poems from my cancer chapbook. Each day I feel my strength returning, and I push my exercises to more intensity. Have I mentioned that before treatment I used to do 20 to 25 sit ups, but now can do but 3 or 4? Stopping here. Gotta dash home and make spaghetti for supper.