2009 08 26 another twitterpoem

You have to write twitterpoems in reverse, which makes them fun.

2009 08 03

Scribbled on the laptop in the Cities.

urgency in motion

 

there exists

in me this fist of discrepancy,

angry and wavering all the same

there is in this ecstatic verdance, the reality of the moment

 

all shiny and slick and sick with your intensity,

your contrasting, pixelated view of reality

 

typetypetyping my way to tomorrow thorough a haze of indecision

 

you are were am the other only one that i want love need now then never

 

and i could and i should and i did and i don’t

ever look back, ever look forward, not ever seeing

now

 

a day will come., a moment, a meme

a song will sing, a silence, a dream,

all patchworked floors and half-hidden things,

and I’ll be waiting there

for you me her them they is what we don’t and do and shouldn’t know

but do.

 

2009 07.07 Down the rabbit hole

short story one (Sisyphonomics)
I submitted this for a contest that the to the Northeast Iowa Writer's Retreat put on.  I missed the bit where it was supposed to start with a thing about a dark hallway.  Ah shite.  Regardless, I stand by the happy weirdness that is this 500 word story.  500 woirds really got me to stop and think and think and rethink what I was after.  I flew it by the seat of the pants, really with only the image of the old man at the beginning, then the ending fell into place. First prose fiction I've written in a long time.

short story two (amandapalmer is dead)

Okay, this needs some explaining.  If you don't know, Amanda Palmer is the singer for The Dresden Dolls.  She is an excellent songwriter and all-around strange and cool chick.  Not that I've met her mind, you.  She released a solo album in September 2008 called "Who Killed Amanda Palmer" which is a reference to Twin Peaks, in case you also didn't know (Laura Palmer)... I'll spare you a link - copy and paste and Google if you're wondering.   There's also a companion book of lovely pictures of Amanda in various death poses, with text written by Neil Gaiman.  At any rate, there's a website, www.wekilledamandapalmer.com that has folks submitting stories inspired by the phrase or pictures and such.  Weird people like, well, me.  I read a post on Amanda's TwitterFeed where she used the phrase Twitchhiking.  I wrote a weird story.  I sent it in.  I didn't get mentioned or anything on the site. F00.  I posted it here.  I put up a lot of links!

2009.01.19 a quick note to eric

Funny how our quick little rambles can turn into words or how our words can turn into quick little rambles rather.  Wrote this as an instruction manual for how to write like me.  silly.  I like.

as or like me (polonious to laertes on the eve of tragedy)

use mumbly syllables
and in all ways alliteration
to describe your innerworld, especially
then maybe use the last word on a line to start a new train of thought
but let it derail if you need to
break rhythm, which
should consist of migratory bird patterns transposed into verse
allow your lines to fly away,
fade into the distance,
growing shorter
like winter days

forgo capitalization
even for effect,
to underemphasize everything,
since everything is the emphasis
and nothing should hit you in the face
but a rush of blood
for lack of
a better punctuation

be vague enough to seem lucid
but never say what you mean
because it’s not what you mean
really
never correct nonsense
always obfuscate
meaning
lie
love
meander
like me

 

11.28.2008
this is a word or two written in quickliness. i am having a good time being me. sixty second free radical write.

deny

appropriate
listen
recuse
accuse
there was one day
lifting the word over my head
i listened abstractly
don't deny it she said
don't deny it

my wife is listening to the cosmos
i can't deny it
there is no reason to write things like this down
but we insist on it
we always do
never denying ourselves

-jakeStephens

The "argument" section of this poem is arguably one of the better things I've written in a long time; i like the notflow of it.  some parts are forced, but i am going to leave them as is.

-jakeStephens
11.06.2008

edgedancer:
a remembrance
in three acts

jagged stumbled
tripped and falled
down flight after flight
can you hear me?

fumbled groped
twist and cold
back over shoulders
in tears she

shook and shook and shook
her head
an animal breaking a dead thing

i know how you
don’t tell me
you know how i
feel i said
don’t say that
you know what
i feel
she said i
don’t even think
that you know how to feel
and maybe
i thought
she was right

an unmade bed
where i slept alone
a darkened closet
silent stone
blood on the floor
and the walls and my mind
where i scrawled
at the time
and i kept
the design

patterns are patterns
if we let them
be what they are
we accept them

building and building
the exception
to values and rules
if we let them

staring down falls
eyes open unfixed
mindlessly taking
their hearts in our fist
dancing on edges
falling from ledges
for the sake
of feeling
alive

no tears

breath chokes and sobs, never quite cries,
a low steady exhalation,
quaky, shivering chin,
tears revolting, a provisional government.

inspiration, expiration, unsteady respiration,
trying to be distracted with thoughts of bleeding,
of pain,
of jesus on the cross,
nails through forearms,
jesus can you move your fingers?
jesus, are you okay?
that face of agony,
those upturned eyes,
father why have you forgiven them for what they’ve done?
one pain cannot carry the burden of many absent minds,
exhaustion and exposure,
alone in the wild expanses of our inner lives,
this modern world without hope of salvation.

a rock is just another soul trying to escape,
gravity, a scavenger god, patient, waiting;
to earth we all return.

she quakes, shakes, breathes and inspires,
continents shift, planets align,
never quite able to let herself cry.

 

 

-jakeStephens
2008.09.09

This one is getting more personal.  I like the rhythm of it, but fear the rhyme, as I haven't rhymed like this since high school.  Regardless, I am enjoying exploring.

keystone   through a hole in reality’s fabric, deep in a pathless wood, there is a church, a table, and a moment in the sun, when i loved her   in a trance, i observe almost convince myself with words what i wanted, i almost say was to miss you every day   almost lies broken reflection sears screeching tire burnt flesh broken heart redolent of spent sex and fragile art bile salty lips weeping drunk tears   notwithstanding, withstanding her, the mortar in which disasters set, constituting my resilience, root of the root, strength of the strength   i weather the storm, build a layer of bricks protecting my heart of straw and sticks i last the winter, my honeycombed dreams, guiding instincts to you, my queen   some build bridges, others walls i’ve built a house on the banks of your heart; in reality’s fabric there’s a hole in a wood, strange to realize it’s done us good.               -jakeStephens 07.08.2008 -for laura