word wednesday

Word Wednesday’s Everybody

Today’s poem has just stepped out of the Wayback Machine from 2011, so please be gentle with it as the acclimation process concludes. There was some minimal editing, but it amounted mostly to line breaks and a couple strategic spaces.

everybody’s everybody
 
nobody wants to die 
to get to heaven
 
living in the past 
& planning for tomorrow
 
one foot here and another over there
 
one good swing and you’re on your back
 
everybody’s everybody
doesn’t know nothing but a thing
 
a thing is no thing 
and every thing
 
to everybody, 
everyone 
is an everybody.

Word Wednesday Time

Here’s a little something for Word Wednesday that I wrote back in early February.

a time piece
 
the ticking
of my parent’s wall clock
is still with me:
 
as it used to echo
through a darkened house,
vibrating through wood floors
& joists, it echoes through
years & miles covered -
 
still present with its
steady Tick
(the sound of Death’s tapping foot)
& its maddening sibling Tock
(the mocking jester
with sociopath’s grin),
 
it’s all there waiting
whenever i close
my eyes.

City Life Word Wednesday

I’ve always been fascinated with cities. To me, they’re as magical in their manic noise and movement as the country is in its quiet and emptiness.

 weeknight in the city
 
 dirty town with wave after wave
 of windows, cascading over each other,
 walls of concrete & stone
 stained with evening sweat -
 
 hungry doorways wait for visitors,
 ready to devour & deliver them within,
 
 a steady throb of traffic
 flowing like blood: red & white 
 tail light blood cells
 in two neat rows - a pulse
 never ceasing, palpitations
 of sirens and shouts.
 
 drawing curtains, keeping ourselves
 to ourselves: millions of hermits
 sectioned off in our own compounds,
 waiting for daylight.

Adjustment, page 21

It’s been a little while since I’ve shared any blackout poems… because it’s been awhile since I’ve done any. However, this one seemed to jump out at me this morning, so I’m letting it loose on the world before I think better of it.

Endurance

Bit of a rough week adjusting to some new glasses (progressives because… age), so since my life is basically feeling like one big adjustment, I didn’t have much inclination to work on Adjustment. However, since I don’t want to leave anyone hanging (especially myself), how about a poem that I go back to from time to time called “The Secret of My Endurance” by Charles Bukowski?

Word Wednesday: Reflections

For those who might be tuning in via my Facebook post and my post about Facebook from yesterday, welcome to Word Wednesday! Each week, I post poems that I’ve been working on in place of a more traditional blog post.

If you click on the category, you’ll see lots of blackout poems – where a newspaper article is used as source material to create a poem through blacking out or redacting all the words that aren’t used (a concept stolen from writer Austin Kleon). You’ll also come across something called Adjustment, which is a project I’ve started this year where I’m creating poems from the pages of a book called Adjustment Day by Chuck Palahniuk.

Adjustment, page 15

It’s been interesting working on this project and trying to find a story or poem on each page of this book without getting tied up in the context. One of the things that I’ve had to make peace with is that every page has the potential for success and failure.

There’s definitely some pages that I feel good about and some where I’m almost positive I’ve blown it. That’s not to blame the raw material available, it’s my ability on that day to sift through and find the pieces that will result in a poem.

Adjustment, page 13

Here’s another one from my blackout poem experiment using a book as source material rather than a newspaper or magazine.

One of the toughest things for me to overcome has been re-reading the pages for the story as I’m working on them. I’ve found that the poems make themselves clear more easily if I’m looking for words rather than the context of the overall page or article. Trying to find that first word or phrase and then the next one that connects – that’s the fun part and it brings a degree of clarity. Re-reading just muddies the waters.

adjustment, page 1

So this should be an interesting project…

Somewhere in 2019, I picked up Adjustment Day by Chuck Palahniuk and decided to give it a try. It might have even been in the 50-cent bin or it might have been discounted down to a couple bucks – either way, I didn’t pay full price.

I really liked Fight Club and Survivor, thought Diary was pretty good too, and then wandered away from his catalog. And so here I was several years later thinking I ought to check in and see what he’s up to these days.

Maybe someone out there likes this book, but I didn’t. In fact, the only reasons I kept reading until the end was that: 1) some hope there’d be some big twist at the end that would redeem everything that came before it, and 2) to see just how bad it’d get. At some point, it turned into a re-watch of Showgirls. There’s confusion, shock, horror, humor, and then just sadness for everyone involved. I’d throw shame in there, but since I’m publishing this on the internet, I guess that one can be safely scratched off the list.

Anyways… I was looking to create a new blackout poem for Word Wednesday and realized I’d neglected to buy a newspaper. Being January and snowing, I started looking around the house for something to use. Then it came to me in one big, beautiful, vandalistic thought – I’m totally going to ruin Adjustment Day. Well, maybe not ruin it since Chuck seemed to do a fair job of that in the first place, but at least cross a bunch of stuff out.

So my idea is this… I’m going to take the 316 pages of this novel and try to turn them into 100 some odd poems (depending on blank pages). Only one side of the page can really be used because the permanent marker seeps through, but I’m thinking of some other ways I can work the backs of pages too. At the very least, I’ll get back my investment in paper, right?

So here it is, page one. Enjoy.

Optimistic, Though Threats Lingers

Fresh off the presses, or should I say, permanent marker.

I’m still working the kinks out of my morning creative routine, trying to find something that feels natural, feeds my creativity, is easily repeatable, and is something I actually want to do. Maybe a daily blackout poem would be a good addition to the mix?

As usual, thanks to Austin Kleon for the intro to this particularly type of poetry.