(Forced) Sex on the Beach

Burped gin again
Warm worm of vomit abates
Wash the stars and moons from
Around my eyes
The too-strong stink of sex and drink
My stiff, scratchy towel
Won't scrub away

A sham of a date in the dim
Din of beach waves
Passing over me
His hands mashed
The tips of my tits raw

The riotous ride I tried
To flee
But groggy and smashed
I sunk like a stone
Washed by swells of lust
And amid the dunes, cold
And alone, I awoke

Yeah, I Play Around With Words Sometimes

It's fun to put words together and see how they sound. Lately I've been putting Boggle words together as poems and seeing what they make. It makes me happy.

Romance in the Rubble

He shat atop a tire,
A homemade toilet seat
As I talked with him of friends
Of money and of better things.
We two enjoyed the setting day
In our sheltered garbage heap.

"Bring me the rosiest and broadest
Of those leaves in yonder spray,"
He said,
"And I'll finish up and take you
To the Old Country Buffet."

So our evening plans were made,
In the scarce autumn shade,
As he shat atop a tire,
A homemade toilet seat.

After a Grope

Stout and sweaty
She nods her head
To the beat
Dry, dirty snot on her lip
Beer slosh to each
Bump to her hip
Soot on her ass
From the rub
And riding on the den
Hearth cold and
Clothes flung
Minutes ago now

Leering through the
Smoky blue music mire
She slaps her thigh
And bats her eye

Shallow Grave

Fuck a slob
Deep in the woods
Suck the fat lobes
The vogue love-beat

Handing the goods
With a slap
Snapping the log and
Gushing wet sap
The still wood goes
To bed

I crunch the nuts as
Tripping back in
Dark passages bated
With the beating of
Wings like breath
I helm your death

Boggle Poem

I've been writing poems from my Boggle words a lot lately. I don't strictly limit myself to the words I found in the game, but they highly influence the words I choose and determine the direction the poem takes. I don't claim to enjoy poetry or even try to write good poems, but it's fun to write bad ones. Here's my latest:

A fox like Joe
Sleeps beside the sofa on the floor
Weeps crocodile tears with a grin
And jests to get more
You can't win shat
With this rat

Bite and tear he shall
This brat will still dupe
You to do what you refused before
The task that you asked
Still undone

But complete is his ease
With a snort you know he's
Fast asleep on his face on the floor

I was angry with Joe last night, so that actually might have influenced the direction of this poem a little more than the Boggle words.

Editors Ruin Everything

I have another article in print, and just like the last one, the editor made it sound worse than it did before! She took out the dramatic intro, cut things that worked and actually removed the first reference to the playwright at the beginning, leaving the second and only reference -halfway through the feature - as the first and leaving it just the last name! Just "Treadwell." I know this is confusing and you don't know what I'm talking about, but here, just see for yourself.

It's awful, I know. I used the word "electrified" as a cute pun (OK, I know that could be tasteless since the protagonist was killed in the electric chair, but I don't think it is.), and the editor removed it. There's something off about it and I haven't yet compared it to my draft, but it used to flow and now it just blows. This kind of stuff makes me almost want to give up, but I won't. It's too much fun to pick up a paper and see my name above a story.

Plays, Puns and Burning Out In the End

I turned in my Echo feature about the theater department's play. I think it was OK, although I struggled to make it in time for the deadline. I love writing, but sometimes it's hard coming up with the words. I'll get another chance to improve after next week. (There's no paper during Thanksgiving week.)

My sister said she liked how I used "newspaper puns" in my Pulse story. I thought about that and I noticed that I was drawn to using them in my piece about the play. It's funny, when I read stories that use corny puns it annoys me, but I go ahead and use them in my writing.

I registered for spring classes and all I can say is it's going to be rough. I have some notoriously tough classes with notoriously tough professors. I'm sure I'll make it through just fine, but I'll have to push through some major burnout. I'm struggling through it now and I can just imagine how bad it'll be during my last semester.

I have to stay for the summer, sadly. The internship and a computer class are the last things I have to complete before I graduate. It occurred to me that I won't be able to take another class with Rebecca Cook or Jennifer Beech and that makes me sad. They are the two writing professors that have influenced me the most and I really loved being in their classes. If they both offered writing classes in the summer I'd be in them for sure, but I don't think that's going to happen.

Boo Hoo

I want to make people cry. I've been trying to do that for a couple weeks now and I don't think I've even come close yet.

I want people to cry at my story. I'm talking about the one I adapted from the news story about the executions. I think I mentioned this one on here before. Anyway, I think it's come along very well in the last week, but it doesn't have the tension and the emotional gravity that it needs.

Today in workshop one of my classmates had the satisfaction of hearing that she caused one person in class to cry, and others were saddened by her story. It made me want it even more. I want them to weep.

I'm not mean, and I think you all know that (although, I was taking a great deal of enjoyment from my cousin, Joe, getting a root canal today).

Oh, and I'm now volunteering to write feature stories for the school newspaper, The Echo. I'll be turning in my first story on Sunday to be printed in next week's paper.

Networking

For one of my classes I have to write a column for a newspaper. I thought boo! I don't have anything to write a column about. But I'm finding that it's more fun to write than it sounds. Out of sports, life, entertainment, politics, international, and business, I chose life. My column is about off-campus life, and in it I discuss the things that make life different for a student who has never lived on a college campus and never will.

In the first column I wrote about parking, roommate problems and having my cat, Puppy. It's kind of rough, though, so I want to write another column today to see if I can get it smoother.

I haven't been sticking to my schedule. That may be because I've been fighting off a cold for most of this week, but next week should be better.

While I was interviewing a source yesterday, it occurred to me to see if I could get a client, too. The subject I was interviewing works at one of my former jobs and I asked him to pass my card along to a man in the office I thought might have some work for me. I'll be following up on that next week.