Assignment

This is the first semester my classes have been specifically tailored towards my creative writing major, giving me the opportunity to be critiqued and grow in my art with a pen or keyboard. Many people say a pen is more powerful than a sword, I believe this to be true. My grandfather was a journalism major during his college days and still reminisces on his past teachers and experiences from his classes and constantly reminds me that I need to stick to this path because it is what I like and what the Lord has blessed me with. So, the six posts below this are all examples of the different works I am doing in my introduction class. Hope you all enjoy.

The appeal of decay

Assignment: write a poem about sin.

Following her or her kin is death,

A promise of satisfaction and power,

Allure in her scent which no man knows not.

A winding trail downwards,

to summit back is a task olympic.

Lies and power she feeds to all men,

Until the breaking point, reached, lies his decision.

A continuance of relations would strip him of his name,

but re-emboss “hers” on top.

With “hers” comes pleasure and failure,

intricately interwoven so failure lies beneath the shine of her promises.

Her trap’s success now laid,

the old magic forces her to reveal the third option:

To chose not hers or his own but the name of creator.

With it comes grace, with it reprimanding, with it fullness.

When choosing this name he sees her facade falter,

Her caresses and lips, retrospectfully viewed reveal carcasses and absinthe.

Turning from the fruit and choosing the blood.

Covered in it, he is king.

He has power,

he has a name,

he has a future,

he is conqueror because of Him.

Fiction Writing- "Isabel"

Assignment: creative a short story with character development, plot depth, past, allurement, surprise, a hint of disgust, and tension.

She has always been eclectic. Her one room home is full of babble: collages of photos from the old elementary school playground, half melted candles puddling up on the brims of old and shamed wine bottles, cigarette ash stains on her white sheets. It’s a beautiful room. Now she smokes Turkish Golds and always has a neon blue BIC lighter in her front left pocket. It has been a hard year on her. The young girl from the 1990’s in the matching mommy-daughter sunflower dress behind her picture frames would always cough dramatically when passing by a smoker and say, “don’t you know that smoking kills?” I think it was the strength she gleaned from holding her mother’s hand that led her to be so brave.

On her bedside dresser is a blue bible covered in dust and a mason jar filled with a beer caps. Empty orange pill bottles litter the floor confirming her anxiety issues, night terrors, and new lifestyle. Since the incident Isabel has been living on Tobacco for breakfast, pills for lunch, and alcohol for dinner. The rosy cheeked sunflower dress days are long past.

“Isabel you got any real food in here or am I gunna have to go to taco bell?” I shouted to her out the window.

She was finishing a pack of smokes and the porch air was dense with the fog. I could only see her one delicate hand with five fingernails carefully painted yellow resting on her crossed knees.

“I have humus, pita chips, snickers, raisins, and bagels.” her monotone voice answered, muted by the window screen.

It had been over a month since it happened. This is the first time I’ve seen her since. She got a pet cat. Isabel has always hated cats. She named him Edgar and always has him sitting in her lap, silently stroking his long black coat out from ears to tail. Since I got here they have been inseparable, he apparently does not mind her smoke like I do, he is always purring and kneading out the wrinkles in her jeans like some machine.

“You and Edgar wanna humus and raisin sandwich too?” I attempted to converse.

“No, he ate this morning.”

I sigh and start looking around the apartment for knives in all the drawers to cut my bagel in half. Rummaging through the silverware drawer I instantly remembered the reason I couldn’t find any. Thank God I didn’t ask her for where one was.

The door slammed and I turned around to see Isabel and Edgar shutting the door to their den. I noticed she is still barefoot even though the night air is steadily dropping in temperature and increasing in wind.

“Hey, come meet Edgar, I think he’ll let you pet him now.” Her melodic voice broke my reminiscing.

I walked over with my humus-raisin bagel and water, seating myself between them on the scratchy plaid couch and immersed myself into my strange dinner. My wandering attention landed on the portrait above her mantle, which painted a familiar scene seeped in sepia, her smile insanely similar to the man to her left and the woman to her right. The family was so happy and innocent a mere two years ago.

“I know why you’re here Matthew.”

She had caught me staring. I had nothing to say, no false surmise could be pushed to my lips, I took a breath and began, “Isabel you know you can’t come back yet, it’s still to soon. Its just not safe…”
Edgar stood and left Isabel’s familiar fingertips and cautiously stepped onto my lap. I reached out, attempting to fill the silence, and scratched his ears. He hissed and swatted at my hand, ravenous claws stabbing into my left thumb. I yelped and jumped up, the glass plate, cup of water, and remains of the bagel that had been resting my knee shattered on the carpetless floor under our feet. I froze, not knowing whether to apologize or leave or clean up the mess on the ground. We sat in awkward silence, the sound of the glass dinnerware hitting the floor still ringing through our ears.

“I’m sorry ‘bell, I guess let me clean it up. I don’t know what I did to that ca…what are you…?” I couldn’t finish my sentence because Isabel stood up and had started dancing on her wooden floor. Pirouetting around the broken glass, humming and looking down.

“Funny how small the pieces break into, don’t you think? All of a sudden something so whole is broken forever, repairable sometimes but never the same. The shattered pieces are just so damn small, it’s the littlest slivers of the break that can be the sharpest and stab in the deepest.” Isabel responded, stopping her dizzying show and standing at the edge of the wrecked glass.

Edgar was still in the corner mewling with hair bristled and ears flat on his head, trying to burn holes into me with his huge black eyes. I sat in silence not knowing how to respond to this strange performance. Isabel was just staring at the broken glass, pushing around pieces now with her toes, I thought she was going to clean it. She picked up her right foot and arched and pointed it in perfect form above the broken glass. She took ballet for years as a child and was always the most graceful one on the stage.

“Matthew I know I’m not ok, I think you know it.”

Her beautifully curved foot suddenly flattened into a hard line and slammed onto the sharp white shards of broken glass. Before I could react she slammed her left foot into the same chaos of razor-sharp glass shouting and laughing, “This is what it felt like! There was nothing I could do until the cops came but watch them bleed out on our floor! The blood was everywhere Matthew it was still running and warm when I touched it! I didn’t know whether or not to take the knives out of their chests, I didn’t know what to do and I still don’t!” She was shaking, “I accidently stepped into a puddle of it, that’s how I found them,” she was crying now, “that sick monster who killed them still hasn’t been caught and I have to live hidden in this apartment because the cops think he wants me too! I can’t mourn, I can’t move on, I can’t even feel anymore trapped in this box. These pictures, my allergies to little Edgar, and the cigarettes are the only things I can see or feel anymore. I died that night with the rest of my family.”

She was sitting in the pile of white glass with her red shredded feet bleeding out as her eyes desperately and hungrily stole up into mine.

“This is how the floor looked when I came home. I didn’t even notice at first until the warm wetness on my feet. He broke in through the window in the living room.” Her voice was breaking down from the screams to a shaking whisper, “Same room we used to watch ABC family classics in, it always seemed so safe ya know? I always knew Dad could protect us from anything. I just can’t ever get the feeling of the blood off my feet now.”

She lost control and began to sob as she looked down at her own feet. I slid off the couch and sat by her side, cautiously putting one arm around her shaking back. Our hands touched and our thighs brushed, she leaned into my arms and dissolved into tears. We sat like that for an eternity, intertwined and avoiding eye contact. We looked around at the pictures on her walls, the crystal and cobwebs that filled the empty corners, desperate for anything to take us away from this reality. When she looked up I could see it in her eyes as well as feel it her trembling fingertips.

“Isabel, it’s not your fault. It’s a blessing you are alive. It is not your fault. No look at me,” I grabbed her face and drew her in closer, “your family knew you loved them all. They loved you and you know that. This will not last forever, I promise you will get through this.”

We sat together on the floor a while longer in silence, watching Edgar bathe himself in the corner.
After midnight passed and we cleaned her feet, she instantly fell asleep on the couch. Edgar helped me clean up the mess with his moral support and then he too curled up on the couch exhausted by the day’s activities.

That was the last night I saw her. When I came back the next day to check in on her I was excited about the breakthrough we had the night before. When I opened the door to the apartment and eagerly looked around all I found was Edgar. I waited with Edgar until the coffee I brought got cold and grew a film of sugar skin on its surface and then I decided to call the police.

“Sir, please come into the station immediately,” the operator from the police station told me, “we need to ask you a few questions.”

My blood turned to ice, I grabbed Edgar out of blind instinct, and ran to my truck flying as fast as possible to the police station. In retrospect I think I brought him alone because he was the last living thing I could associate to her, it was definitely not because liked him.

When I arrived I was taken to a room where they told me that when they went to check on her early this morning she was gone and had put the tracking bracelet onto Edgar. The following hours were spent discussing our conversation from the night before and I repeatedly had to promise my ignorance of her whereabouts.

She left everything behind; all the cobwebs, pictures, and even her neon blue BIC.
Now, I feel like I'm pulling out shards of glass from my feet, like I'm stepping in a pool of her blood saying, "It's not my fault."

Blue Morning

Assignment: Write a 4 line stanza in iambic pentameter.

The rain and wind giggle on my window

Warm, cavernous blankets protect me peace.

Thunder seasons the air with a slow roar

Wistfully yawning, blue morning I greet.

The Fall of Mother Nature

Assignment: describe something mundane in a beautiful way in a poem.

The Fall of Mother Nature

Mother Nature is swaying in the breeze, her branches strong.

Her life full and alive she sings with flowers and dances with the bees,

But her mind is boorish to the oncoming threat of November.

The startling entrance of Fall is like fire to her leaves,

New electricity attacks her arm’s protectors; prepared with strong green shields.

Yellow, orange, then deep red bleed into a burnt, crackled brown and black ash.

As her melodic hum of green vanishes, a starling yellow spark leaps,

Ablazed chaos now runs on her twisted, knotted, and wise branch-arms.

Eruptions of heat and confusion Mother Nature is seen screaming,

Raptured coldly, her green peace is painfully and hollowly attacked.

Her first shiver yesterday revealed her weakness,

Her shade flees, no longer able to stand the icy-sharp stabbings of winter.

Her annual sigh of defeat inevitably followed, thus beginning her hibernation,

Her tired arms creak and break, letting down their burnt sheaths,

Slowly spiraling down, down, down to the hungry ground.

Closing down to mourn Mother Nature is unclothed and shamed.

Her once green body now dried, bare, and cracked.

Withering winter brings blue death and ice to her brown skin.

Naked she shivers and freezes for three months to come.

But Spring will bring her a new strength and humility.

Mother Nature’s momentary fall will only chill, not kill.

Benjamin Blue Jazz

My fingers ache, pulsate, and I clench with tangible apprehension.

Again, I push the rusty harmonica to my lips and the pack is hushed.

My pinky fingers are twitching as I play my starting notes.

The melody is hollow but I mean for it to be,

They’re all glaring with their innocent eyes, now I sigh and sing:

He’s a-comin’ sinners,

The trumps’ will sound,

A-riding the silver cloud,

Ain’t no one can hide.

The final notes shake, employed hurriedly for my purpose.

My dry fingers nervously sliding and pinching together,

I know these college kids have money, I know they do, I know they do.

Ammm Lord I’m-a sing,

Blue dawns a-breakin’

Ammm Lord I’m-a weep

Broken soul you’s takin’

They judge me because I’m homeless,

Because I lay crack, my skin, the white-powder, my sin.

My cracked nails and red eyes are thirsty for more,

They don’t know me, no, no, no I’ll prove they are wrong:

My sistah’s brother a-broken,

Cocaine hunger claimin’ this; his soul.

To the devil or against it He, I stand

Lord help me mend our broken soul.

Last note completed, I look up and see these college kids ensnared,

Now they’re thinking I need their pity, their money.

I don’t need it, I don’t need you, I don’t use drugs.

I am a drug.

Poem for my wife

Assignment: Freewrite a poem

Desire, depth of which plucks into my utmost guarded string,

Wholly definition of self I hear in the reverbial melody it booms.

Louder than my name, this cantor I find that I find in all that I sing,

Yet so guarded I hold it, woven deepest into my darkest solitary room.

Knowledge of its name eludes even myself, its captor and creator,

A fear of its power cripples my hands from playing this chord.

Yet, I hear it’s echo afloat in music and mountains, this power greater,

I feel the harmony in union with these and those who too remain unexplored.

Held onto so surely, so rigid and taunt, I slip,

With her, the melody rings loud yet without any sting.

It sings in my laughter, it tastes on her lips,

This defining secret note weaves us together and we sing.

This harmony is not pure, or true, nor real

This chord is alone and searching out her who too sings this tune.

One day when I find you and my chord’s song you steal,

I will join you in concordance, our song at last not concealed.