Tiny Tony

snow falls peacefully
cold winds blow gently
coat wrapped tightly around my body
holding in the warmth
christmas eve
time for family
boots clicking on cobblestone
bowler pulled down
shoulders pulled up
pistol in it's holster
One last hit before family
family

Speakeasy.

The streets glow with red,
melted candles cling to cobblestone
and music floats
out brass and gold,

but the black and white
fits us like a glove,
among the sound and haitus
and strange smelling spirits,

streetlights cover us in
shadow, the snow slips under
our feet and slivers of conversation
rise out of the storm drains & cellars,

an avid quiet hum mimics
the distance between our seats
and the spotlit stage,

girls sweep by,
their dresses covered in mermaid scales
pool above their feet like chartreuse
bells,

their feet dragging slowly
over the time they've spent
on dusty wooden floors,
barrels of oak leak their gun powder,

unaware of how much time
has passed,
slipping past
the speakeasy.

storm

Raindrops streaming down
echoing on the roof
an unfamiliar sound.

Thick black clouds
a dark curtain
drifting behind the palm trees.

The typically bright blue sky
and sun that never wanes
now lost in a gray haze.

Noir Christmas

Sometimes when we think of the 1940s we see everything in greyscale because of the cinematic qualities that arise out of this time. Images are retained in black and white, sometimes grainy and old. These are qualities of another time, and see how you can incorporate them into a Christmas scene. It can describe just about any place you’d like, preferably somewhere that people decorate or gather. For example, you could picture a mall or shopping scene and describe it with these noir like qualities. What feelings are associated with this sense of place and what kind of people are there? Is it the current time or are we back in the past in your Christmas scene? What types of sensory experiences does this place invoke? Feel free to observe or be an active participant in what’s going on in your 1940s setting.

Noir Christmas, Graphic1 by Phatpuppy

Christmas Noir by Terry.Tyson, Lemax fans miniature villages

Christmas in Pottersville, Filmsnoir.net

Christmas Noir, L.A. Facing North on Broadway at West 7th Street

The Old Bookstore

Antique Memories

You wipe the dust from the old shelf,
it too having a story.
But that is now why you are here.

You came for whats inside.
Sitting on the bottom
hiding with the dust bunnies.

Black painted metal
worn and scratched
printed words faded to a smudge.
It's finely crafted lenses
cracked and chipped.

Carefully you lift them
so they can sing there song.

Flashes fill your mind
A women dressed in black
sadness fills her heart

You look down to see
the object in your hand
But it is not your hand you see
it's hers.

You sense her life
where she has been.
You see the world
through her eyes.

A whole lifetime
and more
all flooding in.

As quickly as they came
they are gone
and you are alone
holding her past in your hands.

The Candy Cane

You see a 100 year old candy cane.  Biting "Arrrr, Owwww!" You notice it is a hundred years old. You set it down. You are 100 years in the past. You think to yourself,  "Wow, that was no fun!" You see the hundred year old candy cane, but it is not old. You take it, you ruin the future! Spacefoot! 100 year old case...gone. You are a spacefoot candy hundred year old home fneded.

Regal

eyes shut arms extended
flowing energy of times past
amulet floating
still
memories
flashing
by
 entrancing
ancient people of times lost

silence

the beauty of wood
pressed against my hand
warm spirits fill my mind
amulet of a king

Buddha

Round prints are left on its glossy surface,

its pieces round and smooth were once held

in the palm of her hand,

daughter and mother, overseer of small things,

it sits deliberately on the table

with its fists resting gentle on its knees,

a joyful open mouthed grin spread across its quartz face

and exaggerated earlobes that appear like as pliable pears,

but are soft as marble.

His small bald head is as shiny as the rest of him,

wise bushy brows and a lengthy robe wrapped around,

his feet press sturdily into the small box of sand

where he sat a dynasty ago,

a millennia to a small child

whose hands pressed Buddha’s heavy stone body

into her small open-palmed hands,

he signifies change to her,

with small textures of wear chipped away,

and while she grows, Buddha shrinks if only a

small bit,

where he sat,

next to hot clay filled with

Gen Matcha or wooden sticks,

beneath shelves of papyrus or salves of beauty cream

that gives his face its shine,

he has been passed down from the hands

of a strange general, his arms brisk and

his voice loud,

but not to Buddha who sat with him,

in his same posture,

feet pressed

and sturdy,

into the ground.

Pretend You're Psychic! Prompt

pg. 1

pg. 2

pg. 3

Lost treasures

"If you should find this box, 
my life's treasure you now hold. 
I spent so much time searching, 
my life is past..."

Soft sad word spoken
by someone long gone
telling you his story
and the story of this box.

You take hold of the pouch
and gently pry it open
dust floats out like memories
of a man long forgotten

Someone else's memories,
things you'll never know.

Hands gently find
the contents of the pouch,
with fingers like feathers
soft and delicate,
grasp the thing inside.

 A shinny silver trinket
with vines and leaves of gold
a woman's name inscribed
a date from long ago
faded

I wonder how something so small
could mean so much.

Skeleton Key

Samantha found a magic box. "Wow, what is this?!" Samantha remembered "The key. The skeleton key!" Samantha opens the box. She thinks for a second, but someone swishes by. It's the thing! "Where is my box?" He grabs her. She is dead.
End.

Erin M.

-Thanks

Samantha found a magic box. Inside are some things she will look at. Samantha thinks highly of herself. She is proud of all the things she has in her box. The letter is probably some bull shit. Samantha should not read other peoples mail. She needs to worry about her moldy box. I think the story ends with Samantha signing up for I-tunes.


D.M.

Davy’s Box.

Davy Jones' locker,

I know your heart is inside

I can hear it beating hollow and quiet,

just an empty space in its cage,

bronze and mallow

with bone and marrow,

the remnants linger just under

its sinewy surface,

here under water

while the dirt is below,

a hundred years it's been waiting

in its soft green grave,

lychen and shallow

your arms reach for branches,

only leaves will resort

to your fingers in the earth

the embrace of,

roots and copper,

your lungs’ only

bedfellow.

Treasure Prompt

House

What secrets she reveals to you
this women standing here
Underneath the floors
hidden down below
She hides away in shadow
with the others yet unseen

Secrets about people,
Places
Things
the world will never know

The protection of these walls
have kept her family safe
Generations come and gone
hiding from things in dark places

She can never leave this place
And now you too, are bound to this house.

P.S. Leave me alone

Dear secret ghost
You are not dead

Do you watch me poop
Fuck you

The house is my cup
Don't spill the rent
My screaming banjo

Where are all the sleeping kittens
They bite me
Holiday vampire treadmill

Bon Voyage
Baked goods
Grama

Your Face

-D.M.

Beep, fell to Death

I'm new in town. I saw a house.
I looked up, a girl screamed.
It was so loud I fainted.
I smelled a horrible smell.
I went up the stairs. I fell to my death.
I am a ghost now.

Erin Murphy

Robert Frost, Colloquial & Rural Depictions

Poet Robert Lee Frost is a part of the Modernist poet's movement. He was born in San Francisco and has a Scottish ethnic background. Frost is known for his mastery of American colloquial speech which signifies his eased, conversational and lyrical writing tones. He is also known for his realistic depictions of rural life, and spent a good portion of his own life in rural settings.

 

A Boundless Moment

By Robert Frost

He halted in the wind, and -- what was that
Far in the maples, pale, but not a ghost?
He stood there bringing March against his thought,
And yet too ready to believe the most.

"Oh, that's the Paradise-in-bloom," I said;
And truly it was fair enough for flowers
had we but in us to assume in march
Such white luxuriance of May for ours.

We stood a moment so in a strange world,
Myself as one his own pretense deceives;
And then I said the truth (and we moved on).
A young beech clinging to its last year's leaves

A Line-Storm Song

By Robert Frost

The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift,
The road is forlorn all day,
Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift,
And the hoof-prints vanish away.
The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,
Expend their bloom in vain.
Come over the hills and far with me,
And be my love in the rain.

The birds have less to say for themselves
In the wood-world’s torn despair
Than now these numberless years the elves,
Although they are no less there:
All song of the woods is crushed like some
Wild, easily shattered rose.
Come, be my love in the wet woods; come,
Where the boughs rain when it blows.

There is the gale to urge behind
And bruit our singing down,
And the shallow waters aflutter with wind
From which to gather your gown.
What matter if we go clear to the west,
And come not through dry-shod?
For wilding brooch shall wet your breast
The rain-fresh goldenrod.

Oh, never this whelming east wind swells
But it seems like the sea’s return
To the ancient lands where it left the shells
Before the age of the fern;
And it seems like the time when after doubt
Our love came back amain.
Oh, come forth into the storm and rout
And be my love in the rain.

No Title

you look at me with an awestruck expression
you know what you must do to help me.
"But what about my friends. My family?" you ask me.
"None of them matter anymore," I say to you as your face grows grim.
You know what I have asked of you is a one way road, but you have the courage to continue.
"I'm ready," you say hesitantly.
"Good, let's begin," I say coldly.
I'm sorry it had to be this way, but you stepped foot in this house.
You slept in this bed and you must make the sacrifice.
You follow me glumly into the deep, dark passage.
Your hand brushes against the wall and you feel the moist sticky moss and hear the dripping water.
The pungent odor of mildew fills your nose.
I show you to a large wooden door with old iron ring handles.
You feel a sudden sense of dread and stutter at me.
"I...I don't know if I can do this. It's to much."
I look at you blankly and push the door open.
The cold night air blows past your face and the scent of mildew assaults your nose.
We step out on to a raft floating on an endless lake.
You look at me and ask me one final question.
"Is this what I think it is?"
I reveal my true form and answer you flatly.
"This is the river styx. And my name is Charon."

Muses in Old Houses

Grey eyes behind a curtain masked

show me they’ve always been here—

these muses,

their thoughts a slurry of simple

things turned awry and over,

an admittance of vague

ideas presented in dark rooms,

each under a small moment

severed,

silk webs spun under

the brightest light in the corner of

those damp rooms

show that light still leaks over;

like burnt linen seeking

solace in oiled lamps and

soft beeswax candles--

a seal so differential

to a time they’ve always been there;

Here;

waiting.

Modernist Poetry & poetry by T.S. Eliot

Modernist Poetry

The modernist movement began around the early 1900s. It began as a revolutionary response to the Victorian poetry that came before the Edwardian era, a time during which modernist writers were born.  Modernism developed in associated to traditional lyrical expression and emphasized one's personal imagination, culture or social context, emotions and memories.This type of poetry contrasted the ornate and excessive diction used by Victorian writers, and textually explored ontological meaning even until the point of unsure abstraction. As a result, reading Modernist poetry can often be bewildering—I often find poetry from this era to search for intellectual and psychological meaning in its own attempts for understanding the “self,” instead of it holding a straightforward cut & dry analysis.The poetry that I include in the handout, especially Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot often explores ontological and emotional themes that expand upon the theory of poetic social consciousness that predates confessionalist writing. The poem mentioned surveys frustration, repression, love, isolation and its speaker creates a memorable and thoughtful character for us to behold as “Prufrock.”

Things occurring during this time including fundamental changes:

Early 20th century, a great contrast to Victorian & Romantic poetry
World War I, the aftermath of it

Women’s suffrage, an acknowledgment and assessment

Planes, trains (subways), & automobiles as discovery and use

After the Beat Poets (50’s), contrasting with Eliot’s position of objectivity

Here’s a poem by T.S. Eliot, published in Chicago in June, 1915. He began writing it in 1910. Read through it and don’t try too hard to understand a concrete message; just enjoy the words and their connection to each other on the page.

T.S. Eliot, word mapping & structuralizing.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero, Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo. Translation: If I thought my answer were to one who could return to the world, I would not reply, but as none ever did return alive from this depth, without fear of infamy I answer thee. The words are spoken by Count Guido da Montefeltro, a damned soul in the Eighth Circle of Hell in Dante's Divine Comedy (Inferno, Canto 27, lines 61-66.)

LET us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats         5 Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question….         10 Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,         15 The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,         20 And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, Rubbing its back upon the window panes;         25 There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate;         30 Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. In the room the women come and go         35 Talking of Michelangelo. And indeed there will be time To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—         40 (They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”) My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin— (They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”) Do I dare         45 Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,         50 I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room.   So how should I presume? And I have known the eyes already, known them all—         55 The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?         60   And how should I presume? And I have known the arms already, known them all— Arms that are braceleted and white and bare (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) Is it perfume from a dress         65 That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.   And should I then presume?   And how should I begin? .      .      .      .      .      .      .      . Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets         70 And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?… I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. .      .      .      .      .      .      .      . And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!         75 Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep … tired … or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?         80 But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,         85 And in short, I was afraid. And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while,         90 To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it toward some overwhelming question, To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—         95 If one, settling a pillow by her head,   Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;   That is not it, at all.” And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while,         100 After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— And this, and so much more?— It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:         105 Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say:   “That is not it at all,   That is not what I meant, at all.” .      .      .      .      .      .      .      .         110 No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use,         115 Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool. I grow old … I grow old …         120 I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.         125 I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown         130 Till human voices wake us, and we drown.