Posts (page 2)

So I have come full circle. Two years after writing my first story after at least 8 years of putting the pens and paper away, I have submitted another story to the Washington Post Magazine's annual love story contest. This time around - the story is 10 times better.

I have revised it - with the help of a number of gentle readers. I am blessed to have readers who will be honest with me ;)

I really like this story. It is a departure for me. I pushed myself with this one. I read it for those who attended the Naked SunFish read-a-loud and frankly that was the idea I have had to date. To ready stories out loud. I could hear it and because of that experience, I made some changes, to verbiage and the like.

So now - I do what I have learned to do best. Let it go. It is in the hands of the editors and the committee who will read the submissions and they will either like or not. Or they will like it, but they will like someone's work better. The important thing to me is - I wrote a solid story and I am pleased with the advances I have made in my craft and I am determined to continue writing and improving day after day.

After all, a writer writes.

Coward Blue

Just take your lies

And your alibis

Back to your side of the world

Just pack them up and be gone

What a fool was I to play along

To think true, your vision of the world

Leave me now, Oh Coward Blue

In months past that was so easy for you

Just be who you will be

For you are safe here with me

Be proud, stand tall, for yours is the world

For perfection be ours in this dimension

But wait – baby – there might be a few issues I neglected to mention

Just sayin’, maybe all is not right in my world

Be gone from my heart, oh Coward Blue

For you not be the man whose words I thought true

Don’t you feel it, we are held together cosmically

You explained it once so simply

Then one day – you say it was all me – I ever was alone in the world

Your reasons are real, no over slight

But still in the darkness of night

I am painfully aware – off axis remains my world

I ache and I seethe for you, Coward Blue

Layers and Layers of truth and lies, who knew?

What am I to think, feel, believe dream

Nothing is as it should seem

Holes ripped through my heart, my mind, my world

Angry that you cared so little

As to be honest & true, instead you belittle

All the gifts – the bounty of my world

Oh much I still love you, Coward Blue

Even though I don’t want to – I really do

If I could but erase you from my head

Instead I choke daily with words unsaid

A gaping hole in my world

I am a lost soul, a scared little girl now

Feeling abandoned and alone, finding my way back from the unknown

Empty promises, hopes vanquished clouding my world

I feel both love & foolish, Coward Blue

You were given so very much, and in the end squandered more than you knew.

Strangers on the Street

Who knows how Fate divines that they meet

Car crash

30^th birthday bash

Over plates of sweet potato hash

Strangers on the Street

Who knows how Fate divines that they meet

In line at the grocery store

Over endless cups of coffee more

Never knowing what they are in for

Strangers on the Street

Who knows how Fate divines that they meet

Eyes locking across a crowded bar

On a trip to a land far

While walking from work to the car

Strangers on the Street

Who knows how Fate divines that they meet

Until one day – a smile, a nod

And it is no longer odd

Together – like peas in a pod

Strangers on the Street

Who knows how Fate divines that they meet

Until one day – they become strangers in arms

And love a dangerous poison & no longer charms

Horror the ripples on the pond – sounding alarms

Strangers on the Street

Who knows how Fate divined that they retreat

It is out... the latest edition of the Naked SunFish.

This month I have a wonderful poem featured in Hopscotch and I have a little travel piece in the travel section :)

It is a great issue once again. You should check it out...

From my editor.....

I know I have been posting sporadically at best. Busy, Busy, Busy... I am focused on my full length novel and other bits of short fiction. The Naked SunFish is proving a great place to feature some of my shorter pieces.

The poems come to me as they do. I do not try to force them and I am playing with some different styles and forms and I have been reading some modern and poets of old - to learn about style and form and generally improve my craft.

I have also been freelancing or trolling for more projects.

In addition to all of that... I have schedule a poetry reading and will be participating with other contributors to the Sunfish in a read- aloud!

The biggest announcement - I have been accepted to the Kenyon Review's Summer Poetry Workshop! I am very excited about the workshop! I applied on a whim, after seeing it in the Poets & Writers magazine.

Write On!

Went out to dinner on Saturday night. The place we went encourages you to write Haikus... so I did...

Haiku #1

For the truth is
in the eyes, tis true
tongues do lie

Haiku #2

Say hello to Love
open your heart wider
Love is what matters

Once
you swore
to hold me close
evermore

Now
I am
doomed to not knowing
anymore

The little
girl
laid waste, beaten & broken
upon the floor

The promise -
the promise
forsaken
stupid girl went back for more

Love's
enduring
flame
burns bright

Despite the
cruelty
of the dreams
each night

Bits
and pieces
of my heart
tattern

Pinned back
together
with delicate bits of glass
in pattern

I hate what
I allowed
to be
done to me

The fault
tho be mine
for this
I offered up the key

Cold as stone now
My heart in small bits
all alone I sit

I may never know
what happened that day
silence evermore

Be dead to me
or to the world also
In darkness lost

I worry not for
me or my broken heart
but for the three

I will heal somehow
But the beauty lost now
will haunt us all

It is a big celebration over at the Naked SunFish. Seven years! Seven Years of great writing and great pictures and just all around greatness.

I contributed a great little story! I hope you enjoy it. I loved this issue! I love them all, but this one is special!

Happy Reading!