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Sunday, December 13, 2015
Friday, December 11, 2015
Writing the Short Short Story: Tips from Writer's Digest Judges
Some points on short short story writing from a couple of veteran judges (myself and Debbie Mayne) at Writer's Digest.
Betwixt
Betwixt
Diametric of a cardiac broomhead,
no lettuce in this, no rutabaga,
no osteothrombosis. Sometimes,
I wonder why we bother.
Jared walks the streets with a
spool of yellow string,
playing his life like a kite:
dentist, pawnshop, chowder hall,
cobbler. At the end of the
day, he retraces his route,
winding it all back.
Candace smiles,
stripe of snow in a ruby sandwich.
Jared, you marvel of a man.
Passersby freeze at the inequality,
this blatant mismatch,
tennis shoe, designer pumps,
insult to good sense.
But they have no idea.
Deep in a grumble,
Jared scuffled the sands of
San Gregorio, following the
flight of a raven spied
Candace in a kaftan the
salmon of eastern
clouds at sunset.
A single loose thread,
trailing all the way down the cliff.
He ran to the base and
pulled, and pulled and pulled,
till she stood atop the
bread-dough bluff a
naked Aphrodite, holding the
last of the thread in her fist,
a capillary of fierce intent.
She scratched her number in
the hollow of a clamshell,
tied the thread to a
hole in the edge and
flung it over.
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Batbeat
Batbeat
There is a whack and a thuck about this place
circular percussion, metal on leather
leather on leather
claws on baked white soil
scratch yourself a symphony and beware the bad hop
The men in fashion glasses don’t understand
the game is cloth on dirt
no Fred Astairing into third but a
decrescendo sled across the gravel
one hand cupping the perfect white corner
There is nothing more oddly beautiful than the
smile of an umpire
no point more tenderly treacherous
than the turn in a double play
hack yourself a concerto and beware the mute outfielder.
Notes: From an afternoon at Twin Creeks Softball Complex in Sunnyvale, CA, listening to the sounds produced by ten diamonds' worth of players. The love of sliding is two-sided: as a runner, I loved performing it; as a shortstop I loved leaping over it, attempting to make the throw to first.Monday, December 7, 2015
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