It’s too nice to take a nap,
so I go outside and look at the clouds
for inspiration,
but it’s too sunny to write,
and I’d rather lie down
where the wind doesn’t reach
and enjoy the red and orange
heating my eyelids as I turn my face
and listen.
You’re a continent away
as your voice breaks the ambiance.
Out of reach,
but tempting me to grasp-
though my hand remains empty
in the end-
and yet, for a while,
I can feel your softness
as it slides away.
This one is included here by request. I undoubtedly would have gotten around to putting it on here anyway, but having someone actually like my poems enough to request one pretty much trumps whatever else I might have done. So let this be a lesson to you, dear reader. If you have any interesting ideas for a poem, just comment on my post. It can be as vague as “write a poem about a piece of jewelery,” or as specific as “remember that time we were hanging out and the television wouldn't work so we played cards instead and even though the cards were really bent and you could tell when the jack of spades was coming it was fun? Could you write about that?” I'd be delighted. (That never actually happened, but it's a pretty specific example.) Or if you are familiar with any of my poetry, you can of course let me know what you like.
Observation:
I just saw a commercial for a VW Jetta that highlighted its intelligent crash-response system. Now, I'm generally all for technology doing things for us, but is it really that necessary to have your doors unlocked for you when you're in a crash? I'm oblivious to the details required to make this a feature, but obviously there's something tied into the door's locking mechanism, so isn't that just another thing that could go wrong with your door's ability to open at some point down the road? And that's really a small gripe compared to the issues I have with the commercial in general. Maybe it's just me, but the commercial seems to be taking it for granted that whoever buys this car is going to crash it. I would really like to think that the selling points of a car could be things that make the driving experience better rather than implying there's a good chance you're going to be in a life-threatening situation.
It's gotten to the point where any feature a company can think of to stick in a vehicle automatically becomes something they think will make buyers want to spend thousands of dollars on. I can sort of see the logic with truly interesting ideas, like when all-wheel drive was invented, or integrated GPS/MP3 technology, but this seems to have gone a bit off-target. Just to reiterate, the company is saying, “Now, we know our car might poor handling and could exhibit brake failure at any moment, but don't worry. We've thought of that. No, we haven't tried to prevent crashes. But when you do find yourself closely acquainted with whatever tree, lamppost, or pedestrian happened to be in your way, we have this really swell technology that will make sure you can get out and start running from the cops right away.”
Exercise:
"Shelly's Scene Objective"
Actors identify their characters' overall objective, as well as their scene objective. Applying this to writing, assume your character is "Shelly"; her overall objective is to get married; her scene objective is to get "Kyle" whom she has just met, say, in a coffee shop, to ask her on a date. Write the scene from Shelly's point of view.
Kyle would do nicely. He seemed to be of an appropriate age, his build suggested moderate physical activity, and the computer in front of him demonstrated both means and intelligence. In short, there was nothing wrong with him. Good enough. Shelly carefully looked just past him, making sure there was no way she could be mistaken for staring, just waiting for him to make a move. While she was prepared to stay like this for hours, she was sure the coffee she had noticed him drinking (at a not-displeasing rate) would necessitate locomotion of some sort in the near future. And she would be ready. Her napkin was all set at the edge of the table, just waiting to be blown slightly by an inexplicable breeze, and she was poised just as precipitously, ready to retrieve it. It would be no fault of hers that Kyle might be passing her table just as she leaned down, and certainly she couldn't be held responsible should she require him to introduce himself after such a rude oversight. Yes, it was the waiting, the stalking, Shelly enjoyed the most.
Me:
I might be letting television back into my life. It's astonishing the way it doesn't seem important until you look to see what's on. After that, there's almost no resisting. Luckily, most of what I'm watching right now is sports, and since I can't stand the commentators anyway, I can mute them and do something else at the same time. Today that activity was biking with a basketball game on in the background. Unfortunately, I noticed immediately that there was a decrease in my form on the bike while I was trying to watch the action on screen. Perhaps I should have shut off the game and focused on my riding, but I told myself that there will be things happening during a race too, and I will need to maintain good form through distractions all the time. So I came up with a compromise. I took the commercial breaks as a time to focus on form and do a bit of an interval-style workout and just focused on keeping my cadence up while the big people on TV were doing interesting things. I'm not sure how I did, but I think if I can use this to develop the habit of maintaining a good cadence no matter what is going on around me, that will be significant accomplishment.
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