In A Family Of Artists
She's parsing pieces of old magazine pages into odd collage (for my wife)
An eye for detail, and cinematic focus; he threads each story (for my eldest son)
Switching to vinyl, the Brooklyn club DJ spins his grandfather's jazz (for my middle son)
Beats and loops and rhymes - broken signatures of time - he builds songs, slowly (for my youngest son)
for #OpenWrite
Moose became the moniker Murph taunted me with - me, always the bigger one - but eventually I got even on our hard-scrabble sand lot football field, tackling him a bit harder than I should have - I could have used more restraint - and yet there we are, stuck in the photograph, the two of us kids, laughing with our bodies crooked, years of friendship and music still ahead of us
for #OpenWrite
He's a string-strummer idea-generator music-maker harmony-finder chord-creator bandmate and friend
for #OpenWrite
Between rows of trees, branches weighted with apples - the scent of decay - yet there's sweetness on our tongue as we sample the season
for #OpenWrite
A few too many words, wouldn’t you say, sit inside the bins of this rather long, ramble-on mess of words and lines and bent rhymes and something’s bound to be wrong when you just keep on writing, fighting the urge to edit away, to parse away, to cut away what needs to be cut, but you can’t even trust your gut anymore, because you know how it is when you’re writing your way out of a rut; everything tumbles loose like an avalanche, and only later, when you force yourself to sift through, to rescue, if only by chance, the thing you need the most; the verse that sits inside the mess of the poem
for #OpenWrite
I remember the time she told me I was doing it all wrong
Not a careful steeping, but a mad rush of hot water
She took my hand, and we let the kettle sing its song
then waited for the tea to make magic a little bit longer
for #OpenWrite
It's the fold between night and day - Am I even here?
Very Doubtful
I hear the rush of something in the leaves - Should I even care?
Ask Again Later
A car approaches, and I pull the dog aside — Should I wave?
Concentrate And Ask Again
Shall I wave?
Yes
I did as you told but there was no response - How shall I behave?
Better Not Tell You Now
The sun begins to climb and morning breaks — Is this the end of an all-nighter?
Signs Point To Yes
I'm talking to a voice of a object from childhood - Does that make me a writer?
Without A Doubt
for #OpenWrite using this Magic 8 Ball site https://magic-8ball.io/
Something sweet sounds like a cupcake with licked white frosting on our fingers, forever in that remembered moment of closed-eye deliciousness, when quiet contentment turns into loved laughter
for #OpenWrite
but (something) beautiful - the way the sound of the night plays against the echoes of the stage, notes bending in the light of each fading day
for #OpenWrite
The muskrat, Chuchundra, trembles as he relays the news - his cousin, Chua, reminded him: snakes are everywhere - Can't you hear? Can't you hear?
for #OpenWrite Riff off Rikki Tikki Tavi