Maya Angelou thinks everyone should have guns.
It’s never enough.
Geese are honking up a storm.
It’s always too much.

Coffee up boys,
there’s a bench with three princesses standing by it
and we’re leaving for Missoula Sunday.

They put their collars all up in their hood
and shot a bullet into a tunnel
it ricocheted back into one guy’s eye socket
he lived.
It’s never enough.
He can have his AK47 when he’s 30.

His shirt was soaked.
It was terrible.

Maya Angelou thinks everyone should have guns.
After she’s gone, we have to see what they say.

Brenda Warren 2013

Process Notes: Miz Quickly says, “Out in the world again. This time you’re just listening. Take a notebook and catch some of those random lines of conversation, trying to get the speaker’s exact words. What you do with the material depends on what you get. If you are very lucky, and get lines enough, you can arrange them into something like a cento. More likely, you’ll have been given one or two windows into someone else’s life. Or just a colorful phrase. Wherever you take it, remember that, here, what you see is less important than what you hear.”

Here are the lines as I heard them this morning at the Missouri River Diner(I did take a bit of poetic license in the lines of my piece):

there was a bench with three princesses standing by it
after she’s gone we have to see what they say
he can have his AK47 when he’s 30
it’s never enough
I’ve got my collar all up in this hood
he shot a bullet into a tunnel
and it ricocheted right back
into his eye socket
this soft part bothers me
I’m leaving for Missoula Sunday
those geese were honking up a storm
coffee up boys
it’s always too much
Maya Angelou thinks everyone should have guns
I fell on my nose in the dirt
it was terrible
sitting on a bar,
no hands, swinging down
right onto my nose
there was blood gushing everywhere
my shirt was soaked
it was terrible
It’s a waterslide that goes outside the building

Here’s the scoop on Maya Angelou in a Chicago Tribune article.

Stitch me up with spirit
or my blood will burn snow,
melting molten rivers through your tongue’s silver flow,
Joe Cool atop your doghouse
ripping seams from my soul,
harrowing thin threads
transparent in the glow.

Eating tacos on the promenade
right before the storm,
your aviator spectacles reflect
my broken nose
(on borrow from your fisticles
and shriveled little testicles),
fractured in a second
beneath your mighty blow.

Salsa with cilantro marches
magic through the marrow
of the thin rare stillness
of the calm before your storm–

that second when I understand
there is no either or.

Stitch me up with spirit
while your blood burns slow,
melting molten rivers
that grub tunnels through my soul.
I saw my life flash frozen
and guessed that you should go,
stitch me up with sweet thin threads
transparent in the glow.

Brenda Warren 2013

Earlier this week, the first stanza of this piece came quickly, and then it stopped. I pulled it out again this morning, using the wordle words to finish it.  My goal was a piece that could be “rapped.” It’s day 27!

Luna lowers her full-face glow
beneath morning’s west horizon
as Daystar covers his counterpoints
in clear bright breath.

Brenda Warren 2013

Click on the 26 for Quickly’s prompt.  Four more days!

The shocked aftermath of everything that hasn’t happened yet
forms a vague knot around my solar plexus
boring tunnels that transfer my attention
to improbable possibilities—
mental guests that augment doubt.

Whispered self-sabotage furiously flutters
its stigmata on my palms,
itching for detours that force debate over my value
while I open and close Pandora’s box

with a creaking slide of its slab.

Brenda Warren 2013

Process Notes: Miz Quickly provided us with a wordle today that fed this persona piece.

Click on the wordle or the 24 to go to Quickly’s place to see what other folks did with the words.

Ravens in tandem,
above the hill’s horizon
soaring silhouettes.

Brenda Warren 2013

Extraterrestrials exhibit
Antipathetic “vibes”
Response
Time
Heroic

Detonated suspicion
Annihilates even their
Youth

Brenda Warren 2013

Process Notes: Dark and horrible, this little ditty came quickly. It is an acronym piece. Earth Day was my only prompt (read down the left column). My hope for humanity dissipates before my eyes (on any given day, I am quite happy, even now for instance).

But let me remind you, we are parasites on Earth.  As a whole, we do her little favor.

Grow a garden, make our mother happy.

A shock of chestnut hair
covers dark eyes that thrive
on the promise of struggle.
You disguise us as infidels
twining your hatred
into pressure cookers.
Spent bombs blow cities into lockdowns
and hearts harden against you.

We seek shelter within the confines
of televised reports.
Heat signatures beam up human forms
from backyard boats,
shipped to our living rooms.
We see Big Brother’s vision
land on our TVs.
Our government,
able to lock down Boston in short order
possesses tremendous power.
Homeland Security feeds the beast.

(An ordinary American sees something awry on
his boat, checks it out-finds reason to
dial 911.)

A culprit, apprehended.

***

Dark eyes open in a hospital room
and we wait.

Brenda Warren 2013

This one is for The Sunday Whirl.