Calisthenics 1, Week 9

I've always been obsessed with this painting. I know, I'm a little sick.

Olympia

Olympia's Lover

Beauty challenges opportunity.

Beauty refuses to be home-bred.

Beauty would rather flower fingers

over chastity than accept bouquets

from wheezing suitors. Beauty, what blooms

in the hydrangea between your thighs?

Beauty, your chalk skin sweats me.

Take my heat like carnations, Beauty.

Let roses curve their petals to match

the floral mounds of your pillowed

divinity. Beauty are you a deity?

I could choke you better 

than any little black string.

I could skin you better than the milky

highlights Manet paints you with. 

I should wear you--

an engraving in the flat plate

of the little gold bracelet

you got from me last Tuesday.

I know how long those legs stretch.

Dirtied sheets, not by wooden slippers

but by the sweated anxieties of a business 

woman. When is your promotion?

When do your night hours come

to a close? Let me change you 

to a housewife or let me embalm

your night dreams to last forever.

My longing reflects in the vulgar

way you eye me, stab me.

Defy me. Dog no fidelity.

I want to hear you purr

the final phrases of a siren dismembered

from her redlight home in Greece.

Turn away the gifts, Beauty, then tell 

your niggerish woman to close

those jaded curtains from the saints.

And when my breath trembles on the linen

tell your cat to hiss the climactic ships

into the rocky bellows of the sea.

But before you're gone you tell them both

though the slippers cast there is no way

to keep your whorish, seeping vows 

anywhere away from me.

Classmate Response 2, Week 9

In Response to Kyley's Freewrite, Week 9:

Yeaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh. Holy shit, Kyley. Haha. When you said you were going to write a sex poem I had no idea it'd mean this. Ok, on to the seriousness.

This exceeds shock factor. This explodes it into tiny little pieces and then reassembles it, only to shove inanimate objects into its holes. I think we need some major toning down here. I love the contrast between the hilarious baby Jesus lines (which I never even thought of one of us including into a poem so I hate you for thinking of it before me--but I love you anyway) and the disturbing quality of what happens. I also like how you did not reveal they were brothers until the last few lines and you did it in a natural matter so that it wasn't too glaring. To continue on with that, remove the line that even says the speakers are brothers. Let the last name at the end imply everything and freak some readers out. I like that idea.

Now what is going on is major in the explicit area. I think what you need is more of that comedic tone here. Make it seem funny. The situation itself will bring all the disturbia. So avoid heavy words like cunt, pistol, and whores. Make the images seem funny. Try putting some of that corny silent comedy music track behind this scene and describe it that way. And I forbid you to use swear words. Forbidden! Manipulate the letter format some more too, while I'm on a side note.

Reconsider "rightful." I have a feeling this image is going to live with me for the rest of my life. I'm laughing so hard right now. Hope this helps, Diamond.

Classmate Response 1, Week 9

Now into stuff I didn't do in my notebook this week. I shouldn't neglect you guys (as I have) so I decided to go ahead and do responses next. Sorry again guys.

Angela's Freewrite, Week 9:


First off, I like the colors you're working with in this piece. These colors alone reflect a mood you're trying to portray--very stoic but also natural. I like the several ways you portray white--plain, pearled, egg-shelled. A nice variety which I assume is what you're going for.

I would say that "Enveloped perspective" is a little too multisyllabic to open with. Though I like the word "enveloped". Consider using it as a verb and instead of stating perspective, how can you illustrate the "you" in this case--which I assume to be the reader-- and his (her in my case) perspective. Convince me, as a reader, that this is the perspective I have. For that, I need detail.

Position of power is somewhat cliched. I like that you describe that position using the clothing though, that is refreshing. Perhaps go in deeper into how the clothes represent the job and the position of power might be assumed. Did
I mention I like the words "thick brained" here? And whoopie-cushioned.

Overall, consider reigning in words with more than two syllables. And manipulate line breaks.
There's a inconsistent variety in the measure of lines here that disturbs the meter. Also consider playing up on the nostalgia you included at the end. I want to know more about these circles.

Overall, good job, and I hope this helps.

Free Write 1, Week 9

Did another madlib. Was listening to Three Days Grace and decided to change it up so that it wouldn't be so angsty and cliche. I removed most of the song to avoid repetition. I think you'll find them pretty different though I fear the angst remains in a degree.

Original lyrics:

I’m not sober all the time
You bring me down at least you try
Until we see this eye to eye
I don’t want you

I must be running out of luck
Cause you’re just not drunk enough to fuck
And now I’ve had it up to here
I don’t, I don’t want you

It took so long to see
You walked away from me
When I need you
Wake up I’m pounding on the door
I’m not the man I was before
Where the hell are you
When I need you
Wake up I’m pounding on the door
I won’t hurt you anymore
Where the hell are you
When I need you

(Cut here)

My version, still untitled:

I’m not face-value, I'm bargain brand.
You shop me up from a barrel, dust me
Until we eye the competition, partnered
but I don’t want you.

I must be destitute. I must be drunk. 
There's no dregs of you left 
in the clear-moss bottles on the shelves.
Consumed what's left because I don’t want, 

I don’t want you.

It took so long to rock the faults
You cracked away from me, flatline
and jagged the nipping need

I had for you.
I wake up pounding the insides of a fourty,
chugging ashes of the man I was before.
There's no you at the edge of the glass.
I taste hops.

I wake up throwing
guts and trophies on the bedroom floor
and where the hell are you
to clean this mess?

Clean your mess
you left me swaddled in.

Improv 1, Week 9

Ok, yes, this is Dr. Davidson's calisthenic. But while I was writing it I wanted to practice juxtaposing different language together-- a la Fairchild so you can say this is my Fairchild's Madonna and Child, Perryton, Texas 1967 improv. It also branches out from that sestina I wrote. I think I like recycling ideas. Is that a sign of laziness?


How to Pick Up Women

It is from here on you must consider yourself a fisherman

who catches, devours, or mounts a woman’s hips, as if she’s

a prized bass from the Chilean Sea. Consider me

or this, brotherly advice. The wisest

I’ve ever given before I morph tongue-tied on the altar

in anticipation of the moment my tongue’s supposed to perform

in the sanctity of nuptial situations. Which could suck.

So beforehand, I relent those women you meet in bars, meet at parties,

meet in cars—backseat, toe-to-toe,  are less kosher than hillbilly ham salad,

despite how supple,  despite how chaste, despite how cherried her lip gloss tastes,

and no matter how many more legs she has than tables at Rockefeller’s,

you might profit looking for a woman in more spaced rooms.

In case you are confused, a girl with legs more crossed

than Christians is great, but avoid sneaking your dirty

loins into chapel on Sunday. One half of churched girls slip

drawls of sexed sin from Saturday night goblets , and the rest

are more interested in studying Jesus in red letter format

than deciphering the underlying message of your anatomy.

Take it from me, that girls like men who know curves

in the rims of pots and pans. They think a man who babies

orchids, has the same potential of blooming

two lips in his apartment. Women love sentimental shit.

And on her worst days that bitch might be a bitch,

but never is she a bitch by name unless you’re cool

with the hematoma to the left temporal area

of your head to be found fatal—which reminds me,

make sure she doesn’t own a bat. In fact, women are a job--

full-time, minimum wage. No union. Marriage is your promotion.

and when the vows are done, you know that sweetie snookum honey buns

will finally be scrubbing your nasty drawers until death do you part.

Apologies and Junkyard Quotes 1-4, Week 9

Yeah, sorry, I've sinfully neglected my blogger. I'll make sure it never happens again. I'll post those things I wrote down in my class notebook for my journal this week, and then move on from there.

1. "Me likey bouncy." Lois-- Family Guy

2. "Don't look so destitute."

3. "A life lived is a life lived rabid."

4. "a spell-screaming generation"