Sarah Black's Blog: Book Report, page 15
September 3, 2012
Music and Memories
One of the ways I get ready for a new story is to feel my way into the tone, hear the sounds, see the colors, feel the mood. I collect songs and pictures and quotes and sort of saturate myself in music and memories before I start writing.
I even, I’m sorry to say, tend to eat the same food as my characters, so my house smells like their house. My son is not too happy with these cowboy stories when I pull that old iron skillet out and start frying eggs in bacon grease! I think he’s hoping for a story set in a pizza joint.
But this new story, The Legend of the Apache Kid, is set up in Taos, and smells like homemade corn tamales and pinon pines with their sap running and red dirt stirred up by horse’s hooves.
I’ve been feeling my way into father-son relationships with some of my books, exploring how fathers and sons find each other. I’ve also been thinking about obsession, how it develops and how a sane person reacts when they find themselves becoming obsessed. Thinking about these two ideas, I collected the ephemera for the new story-
Judge a moth by the beauty of its candle--Rumi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aur5KE... The Maker, Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris, from Teatro
True love stories never have endings- Richard Bach
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJA4TG... Desperados Waiting for a Train, The Highwaymen
What was silent in the father speaks in the son--Nietzsche
http://tinyurl.com/9gk5jwk image of the Carson National Forest
On the green they watched their sons
Playing till too dark to see,
As their fathers watched them once,
As my father once watched me
Edmund Blunden
The Legend of the Apache Kid out Sept 5 from Dreamspinner
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/stor...
I even, I’m sorry to say, tend to eat the same food as my characters, so my house smells like their house. My son is not too happy with these cowboy stories when I pull that old iron skillet out and start frying eggs in bacon grease! I think he’s hoping for a story set in a pizza joint.
But this new story, The Legend of the Apache Kid, is set up in Taos, and smells like homemade corn tamales and pinon pines with their sap running and red dirt stirred up by horse’s hooves.
I’ve been feeling my way into father-son relationships with some of my books, exploring how fathers and sons find each other. I’ve also been thinking about obsession, how it develops and how a sane person reacts when they find themselves becoming obsessed. Thinking about these two ideas, I collected the ephemera for the new story-
Judge a moth by the beauty of its candle--Rumi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aur5KE... The Maker, Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris, from Teatro
True love stories never have endings- Richard Bach
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJA4TG... Desperados Waiting for a Train, The Highwaymen
What was silent in the father speaks in the son--Nietzsche
http://tinyurl.com/9gk5jwk image of the Carson National Forest
On the green they watched their sons
Playing till too dark to see,
As their fathers watched them once,
As my father once watched me
Edmund Blunden
The Legend of the Apache Kid out Sept 5 from Dreamspinner
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/stor...
August 31, 2012
I blame Jackson Browne
Koro 1
I’ve been in a state of rigor mortis for the past two weeks. What am I doing? I’ve quit my job and booked a one-way flight to Fiji? Are we talking clinical insanity, or have I just spent too much time listening to Jackson Browne this summer? How many times does one have to listen to The Pretender before one is moved to desperate action?
I don’t blame Mr. Browne; after all, I’ve done this sort of thing before. Truthfully? It’s been about 50-50 great experiences v disasters, so this new Fiji experiment could go either way. The thing is, I’m 52! There will come a time when, if I ditch a good, well-paying, and fairly easy job, I won’t be able to get another. (Duh!) This last thought was the cause of my recent rigor mortis. I anticipate spending about ten thousand dollars on a couple of waterless, non-electric composting toilets. Delivered to Koro Island, Fiji.
So I took a day off work and moved my paperwork out to a table by the pool. So I could dunk my head into the cold water if I started to hyperventilate. My friend Jay came by and told me a story about a film he had seen with the baby penguins all crowded together on the edge of the cliff. No one would jump, until one brave little penguin took the leap. Jay was trying to cheer me up, having recognized the look of frozen horror on my face. I strongly suspect that one brave little penguin felt a sharp kick in the ass from someone behind him in the crowd before he took the plunge.
But today the plans arrived in the mail from Nelson Treehouse and Supply. Yes, the plans for the treehouse. Not only am I moving myself and the kid to Fiji, but we are going to build a treehouse. I say this with a straight face, knowing I’m still not able to fully work my touchscreen Ipod, the one with only two buttons. But the kid is really psyched, and has the plans spread out over the table. He’s talking about spanning struts and knee braces and K-nut and suspender units- called the ‘dynamic triangle.’ He’s passed over the instruction book for me to read called Treehousing: The Instructional Guide. It starts off by saying: ‘Trees are among the most complicated and fascinating organisms on the planet…They are delicate, beautiful, and exist all over the world…It is imperative that we treat the tree with respect, and climb up into it with knowledge and a friendly mind.’ I’ve got the friendly mind already. Hey, we’re not alone! Yeah, baby! We’re going to Fiji!
I’ve been in a state of rigor mortis for the past two weeks. What am I doing? I’ve quit my job and booked a one-way flight to Fiji? Are we talking clinical insanity, or have I just spent too much time listening to Jackson Browne this summer? How many times does one have to listen to The Pretender before one is moved to desperate action?
I don’t blame Mr. Browne; after all, I’ve done this sort of thing before. Truthfully? It’s been about 50-50 great experiences v disasters, so this new Fiji experiment could go either way. The thing is, I’m 52! There will come a time when, if I ditch a good, well-paying, and fairly easy job, I won’t be able to get another. (Duh!) This last thought was the cause of my recent rigor mortis. I anticipate spending about ten thousand dollars on a couple of waterless, non-electric composting toilets. Delivered to Koro Island, Fiji.
So I took a day off work and moved my paperwork out to a table by the pool. So I could dunk my head into the cold water if I started to hyperventilate. My friend Jay came by and told me a story about a film he had seen with the baby penguins all crowded together on the edge of the cliff. No one would jump, until one brave little penguin took the leap. Jay was trying to cheer me up, having recognized the look of frozen horror on my face. I strongly suspect that one brave little penguin felt a sharp kick in the ass from someone behind him in the crowd before he took the plunge.
But today the plans arrived in the mail from Nelson Treehouse and Supply. Yes, the plans for the treehouse. Not only am I moving myself and the kid to Fiji, but we are going to build a treehouse. I say this with a straight face, knowing I’m still not able to fully work my touchscreen Ipod, the one with only two buttons. But the kid is really psyched, and has the plans spread out over the table. He’s talking about spanning struts and knee braces and K-nut and suspender units- called the ‘dynamic triangle.’ He’s passed over the instruction book for me to read called Treehousing: The Instructional Guide. It starts off by saying: ‘Trees are among the most complicated and fascinating organisms on the planet…They are delicate, beautiful, and exist all over the world…It is imperative that we treat the tree with respect, and climb up into it with knowledge and a friendly mind.’ I’ve got the friendly mind already. Hey, we’re not alone! Yeah, baby! We’re going to Fiji!
August 23, 2012
Good Bye to the Beautiful Southwest
Good Bye to the Beautiful Southwest
By the time a person is a mother and a responsible adult, the opportunities for running away from home to become a cowboy are fairly limited. Not that I’ve let that stop me. It was ten years ago when I sold the house, put all our possessions in storage, bought a pickup and a camper, and headed out to the beautiful Southwest. If I remember correctly, we had a CD of the Dixie Chicks singing Wide Open Spaces when we pulled out of Orlando with a bead on…out there. Way out there. Indian Country. Cowboy Country. I think my son had some idea that out west, the other kids wouldn’t drag you into the bathroom at school and kick you in the stomach. I had the idea that, in the big empty west, you could at least see the bad guys coming for you.
Which proved true. Navajo boys live by a code, and that includes telling the truth. When my son was punched in the face by a school mate in seventh grade, they both showed up at my clinic to confess- my son to confess it was his fault, and the other kid to confess he did it.
When we left Florida, I was feeling slightly desperate and wondering if I was going insane- a fairly typical response for a single mother when told her beloved son has autism. I didn’t believe then, and still don’t, that I was running away- I needed those wide open spaces. I wanted some room to see the bad guys coming for me. In the last ten years, since we’ve come out here, we’ve lived on the Navajo Nation, in Alaska for 6 months at an Athabascan Village, in Boise, and for the last year, we’ve been travelling around New Mexico for work. There are bad guys out here, I’m sure, but I haven’t run into very many of them. My experience has been open doors and open arms, people who live by a code, hard work and hard lives. Cowboys, in other words. And, as any fool knows, the best cowboys have always been Indians. It has been my great pleasure to take care of them.
But the urge to roam is still strong and I’m getting ready to go again. Still West. We’re going to Fiji, and the story about to come out from Dreamspinner, The Legend of the Apache Kid, is my last beautiful story set in this land I love. I hope the next adventure is as rich and full of colorful people as this one has been. If not, well, it’s a big world. I still haven’t seen Petra, or Hong Kong, or Iceland. I’m not much on vacations; I have to go live there. I’m not just having a psychotic break, as certain members of my family believe—I’m looking for a place for my son and me. I know if we keep looking, we’ll find a place where he can be at home, where people will like and accept him. I think the warm and happy people of Fiji will welcome us, and we can make a home with them. If not, I suspect I’ll get a few stories out of it before we move on!
The new story is coming out on Sept 5, and we’re leaving on Sept 6—I think that’s a good sign. I hope this new story will give you a little taste of Taos, and The Greater World, and a bit of the beautiful Carson National Forest. I drove through the Carson, and went camping and hiking in April and May—with a tiny bit of snow still on the north side of the mountains, and the wildflowers blooming and the bears snuffling around in the underbrush. So good bye to the beautiful Southwest. Thanks for all the memories. I’ll check in from Fiji.
By the time a person is a mother and a responsible adult, the opportunities for running away from home to become a cowboy are fairly limited. Not that I’ve let that stop me. It was ten years ago when I sold the house, put all our possessions in storage, bought a pickup and a camper, and headed out to the beautiful Southwest. If I remember correctly, we had a CD of the Dixie Chicks singing Wide Open Spaces when we pulled out of Orlando with a bead on…out there. Way out there. Indian Country. Cowboy Country. I think my son had some idea that out west, the other kids wouldn’t drag you into the bathroom at school and kick you in the stomach. I had the idea that, in the big empty west, you could at least see the bad guys coming for you.
Which proved true. Navajo boys live by a code, and that includes telling the truth. When my son was punched in the face by a school mate in seventh grade, they both showed up at my clinic to confess- my son to confess it was his fault, and the other kid to confess he did it.
When we left Florida, I was feeling slightly desperate and wondering if I was going insane- a fairly typical response for a single mother when told her beloved son has autism. I didn’t believe then, and still don’t, that I was running away- I needed those wide open spaces. I wanted some room to see the bad guys coming for me. In the last ten years, since we’ve come out here, we’ve lived on the Navajo Nation, in Alaska for 6 months at an Athabascan Village, in Boise, and for the last year, we’ve been travelling around New Mexico for work. There are bad guys out here, I’m sure, but I haven’t run into very many of them. My experience has been open doors and open arms, people who live by a code, hard work and hard lives. Cowboys, in other words. And, as any fool knows, the best cowboys have always been Indians. It has been my great pleasure to take care of them.
But the urge to roam is still strong and I’m getting ready to go again. Still West. We’re going to Fiji, and the story about to come out from Dreamspinner, The Legend of the Apache Kid, is my last beautiful story set in this land I love. I hope the next adventure is as rich and full of colorful people as this one has been. If not, well, it’s a big world. I still haven’t seen Petra, or Hong Kong, or Iceland. I’m not much on vacations; I have to go live there. I’m not just having a psychotic break, as certain members of my family believe—I’m looking for a place for my son and me. I know if we keep looking, we’ll find a place where he can be at home, where people will like and accept him. I think the warm and happy people of Fiji will welcome us, and we can make a home with them. If not, I suspect I’ll get a few stories out of it before we move on!
The new story is coming out on Sept 5, and we’re leaving on Sept 6—I think that’s a good sign. I hope this new story will give you a little taste of Taos, and The Greater World, and a bit of the beautiful Carson National Forest. I drove through the Carson, and went camping and hiking in April and May—with a tiny bit of snow still on the north side of the mountains, and the wildflowers blooming and the bears snuffling around in the underbrush. So good bye to the beautiful Southwest. Thanks for all the memories. I’ll check in from Fiji.
August 14, 2012
A Story about Corn Pollen
I’ve been reading the excellent memoir by Chester Nez called Code Talker. Mr. Nez was one of the original Navajo Code Talkers who devised the code, and his memoir about growing up in Navajo land is wonderful and heartbreaking. His grandmother saying the blessing with corn pollen reminded me of something that happened when I had first moved out to Navajo country.
The boarding school built a new clinic, and the first week a snake came up through the duct. This was a very bad sign, so a medicine man was called. He brought some bear weed and mixed it up in a water bottle and squirted it around the clinic. (I was hoping for something a bit more vigorous, like a rifle).
It was a very relaxed and casual sort of blessing ceremony. After he finished with the bear weed, he looked around at me and said, “I need some corn pollen.”
Corn pollen? What? Where was I supposed to get corn pollen? “What, you mean like corn pollen? From corn plants? It’s April. Corn doesn’t grow right now, does it?”
The women around me were giggling and digging into their purses. The lady who sold the burritos handed the medicine man some pollen, then she looked over at me. “Everybody has corn pollen.”
My new EMT nodded. “Navajo women never go out without corn pollen in their purses. Traditional women, I mean.”
“They do? Who would have guessed.”
The fire chief gave me a nudge. “Hey, Dorothy, you’re not in Kansas anymore.”
The medicine man gave me the rest of the bottle of bear weed and we put it in the cabinet with the controlled substances.
The boarding school built a new clinic, and the first week a snake came up through the duct. This was a very bad sign, so a medicine man was called. He brought some bear weed and mixed it up in a water bottle and squirted it around the clinic. (I was hoping for something a bit more vigorous, like a rifle).
It was a very relaxed and casual sort of blessing ceremony. After he finished with the bear weed, he looked around at me and said, “I need some corn pollen.”
Corn pollen? What? Where was I supposed to get corn pollen? “What, you mean like corn pollen? From corn plants? It’s April. Corn doesn’t grow right now, does it?”
The women around me were giggling and digging into their purses. The lady who sold the burritos handed the medicine man some pollen, then she looked over at me. “Everybody has corn pollen.”
My new EMT nodded. “Navajo women never go out without corn pollen in their purses. Traditional women, I mean.”
“They do? Who would have guessed.”
The fire chief gave me a nudge. “Hey, Dorothy, you’re not in Kansas anymore.”
The medicine man gave me the rest of the bottle of bear weed and we put it in the cabinet with the controlled substances.
August 12, 2012
Meet Raine Magrath
Meet Raine Magrath
I’ve been playing around with first person POV characters this last year, and I’m amazed at how different a story becomes with just one difference- the first person v. the third person POV.
For years I hesitated because I was a woman and felt like it was somehow not appropriate for me to write first person male characters. Ha. As Raine might say, fuck em if they can’t take a joke. Raine Magrath is the slow-talking cowboy who falls in love with Johnny Bravo and nearly screws everything up.
The Peaceful Bean was quiet for a Tuesday morning in early winter. JJ sat just inside the door, a clipboard on his lap. He looked up when we walked in. “Hi, Dr. Magrath!”
“JJ, you can call me Raine. You’re not my student anymore.”
“Oh, sorry, right. I keep forgetting. Hey, would you like to sign my petition?”
“Is that the one to get the McRib back on the menu full-time?”
“Yeah. I’m not giving up until—”
“I think I signed that one already.” JJ was looking up at me with his wide blue eyes. I gave him a long look back, and his cheeks turned pink. He stared down at the clipboard on his lap. He was a sweetie with a soft, round chin and a curvy, smiling mouth. There was a time I would have snatched up a boy like that and taken him for a slow two-step and a ride on my horse. Now I was happy just to watch the sweet curve of his cheeks turn a pretty pink.
My daddy was right behind me, and he leaned on his cane, studying JJ through his new glasses. “What in the hell? Raine, I don’t think these new glasses work for shit. That boy looks like he’s got cotton candy on the top of his head.”
I was used to JJ’s hair. I walked up to the counter to get our coffee. “Daddy, you want black, or I can get you a Mexican coffee with chocolate and chili pepper.”
“Yeah, that sounds good.” He was studying JJ over the top of the new glasses.
JJ’s face was turning as pink as his hair. “It does look like cotton candy, sir. I lost a bet. Football game. You would think Boise State was a sure thing, right? I’ve got three more months to go with the hair pink. Hey, would you like to sign my petition? I’m trying to get McDonald’s to bring back the McRib full-time.”
The Legend of the Apache Kid out Sept 5 from Dreamspinner
I’ve been playing around with first person POV characters this last year, and I’m amazed at how different a story becomes with just one difference- the first person v. the third person POV.
For years I hesitated because I was a woman and felt like it was somehow not appropriate for me to write first person male characters. Ha. As Raine might say, fuck em if they can’t take a joke. Raine Magrath is the slow-talking cowboy who falls in love with Johnny Bravo and nearly screws everything up.
The Peaceful Bean was quiet for a Tuesday morning in early winter. JJ sat just inside the door, a clipboard on his lap. He looked up when we walked in. “Hi, Dr. Magrath!”
“JJ, you can call me Raine. You’re not my student anymore.”
“Oh, sorry, right. I keep forgetting. Hey, would you like to sign my petition?”
“Is that the one to get the McRib back on the menu full-time?”
“Yeah. I’m not giving up until—”
“I think I signed that one already.” JJ was looking up at me with his wide blue eyes. I gave him a long look back, and his cheeks turned pink. He stared down at the clipboard on his lap. He was a sweetie with a soft, round chin and a curvy, smiling mouth. There was a time I would have snatched up a boy like that and taken him for a slow two-step and a ride on my horse. Now I was happy just to watch the sweet curve of his cheeks turn a pretty pink.
My daddy was right behind me, and he leaned on his cane, studying JJ through his new glasses. “What in the hell? Raine, I don’t think these new glasses work for shit. That boy looks like he’s got cotton candy on the top of his head.”
I was used to JJ’s hair. I walked up to the counter to get our coffee. “Daddy, you want black, or I can get you a Mexican coffee with chocolate and chili pepper.”
“Yeah, that sounds good.” He was studying JJ over the top of the new glasses.
JJ’s face was turning as pink as his hair. “It does look like cotton candy, sir. I lost a bet. Football game. You would think Boise State was a sure thing, right? I’ve got three more months to go with the hair pink. Hey, would you like to sign my petition? I’m trying to get McDonald’s to bring back the McRib full-time.”
The Legend of the Apache Kid out Sept 5 from Dreamspinner
August 8, 2012
The Legend of the Apache Kid out Sept 5
The Legend of the Apache Kid by Sarah Black, out from Dreamspinner Sept 5
Check out this beautiful cover by Paul Richmond!
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/stor...
I think this is one of the most deeply romantic stories I’ve ever written- here is a little bit of Raine and Johnny:
Johnny was drowsy against my shoulder. He slid one hand down the length of my chest and settled his palm over my belly. “When I first saw you without your shirt, sitting in that hot tub, I thought, man, look at that! I bet he works out. Then I saw the callus on the palm of your hand and said, no, he doesn’t work out. He just works. Gave me a thrill to think of those callused hands moving across my skin. When I was home, taking care of my old man before he died, I would take a few minutes to myself, go for a walk, and dream about the way your hands would feel.” He turned his head until his mouth found my skin. “It’s been better than I imagined. I wasn’t expecting you to be gentle. You’re reading me, the way a cowboy reads the clouds on the horizon. Like it’s important to you to get it right.”
Check out this beautiful cover by Paul Richmond!
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/stor...
I think this is one of the most deeply romantic stories I’ve ever written- here is a little bit of Raine and Johnny:
Johnny was drowsy against my shoulder. He slid one hand down the length of my chest and settled his palm over my belly. “When I first saw you without your shirt, sitting in that hot tub, I thought, man, look at that! I bet he works out. Then I saw the callus on the palm of your hand and said, no, he doesn’t work out. He just works. Gave me a thrill to think of those callused hands moving across my skin. When I was home, taking care of my old man before he died, I would take a few minutes to myself, go for a walk, and dream about the way your hands would feel.” He turned his head until his mouth found my skin. “It’s been better than I imagined. I wasn’t expecting you to be gentle. You’re reading me, the way a cowboy reads the clouds on the horizon. Like it’s important to you to get it right.”
August 3, 2012
Meet Johnny Bravo
I’ve been in love with this kid, Johnny Bravo, since he rustled some goats and sold them for cabrito across the border in Mexico in my book Lawless. Lawless is one of two stories I wrote about Colton and Diego, hard-headed and difficult men who were always screwing and screwing up. Johnny Bravo was something else again, and he’s been sitting in the back of my mind, patiently waiting his turn. When I wrote his story, The Legend of the Apache Kid, he surprised me for being smarter than I remembered when I first met him at age 16. The scene below is from Lawless, when Johnny first makes his appearance.
Late afternoon in Arizona, and the light turned the landscape a strange, brilliant gold, making the tumbled sandstone and scrubby brush beautiful just for a moment. Colton was feeling the light warm his face, happy to be in this peaceful valley with Diego, who was finally in a good mood. He’d taken all the tags off Samuel’s new clothes, folded them and put them in the trailer, drank a beer and made burger patties, studied the goat in the pen and sat on the porch steps, watching Colton wrestle with the barbeque pit.
Colton nearly singed his eyebrows off with an excess of lighter fluid when he lit the charcoal, but then he sat down next to Diego on the steps, felt his warm thigh snug against his. Diego handed him a beer and they sat together in the golden afternoon light. This was good. They were okay.
“You’re the one gets happy when you go shopping, not me. You’ve been happy since you bought that monster barbeque pit.”
‘Well, we’ll see the proof in the burgers, if the pit is as good as the old man’s barbeque pits. I’ll tell you what I think. I think you bought enough new clothes for two boys. You just guessing they’re the same size?” Diego nodded, and Colton reached for his thigh, ran his hand up and down, let it rest on his knee. “Some days I wish we could just stay out here. This seems a peaceful life, but ranching is hard. A hard life. At least it was for my granddad. Seemed like things were always on the edge of disaster.”
“That’s the truth of it.” Old man Weaver was behind them on his sofa. “One bad storm, one bad infection in the herd, and your taxes for that year are gone. Long as I’ve been working this land, I never really got ahead. I think the best I can say is I wrestled it to a draw. That’s not bad, for a lifetime’s work.”
“No, it’s not.” Diego was quiet, his face thoughtful. Colton knew he had plans for his life that included doing more than wrestling his world to a draw. But what control did they really have? Maybe not as much as they thought they did, when they were young as Samuel.
“It’s worth the hard work,” Samuel said. “See how beautiful this land is, Colton?” Samuel gestured toward the mountains, where the little valley opened up. “I just want to get to know land like this. To learn it in all the seasons. To find a way to take care of it, and let it take care of me. That’s the best life, I think.”
Colton turned around and looked at Joshua, who was leaned back on his sofa, rocking a little. Joshua nodded his head. Colton could see it in his face. This boy, Samuel, he was a man like them, a man with a passion for the land.
Diego stood up, went to the barbeque pit and stared down. “How can you tell if the coals are ready?”
Colton stood up and studied the coals. “They’re ready when somebody wants to put their beer down and throw the burgers on, Big D. I would say right about now.”
Diego put the burgers on the grill, stood over them with a spatula while the smell of cooking beef spread out across the valley. Colton looked around. “Now, Samuel, this is a fine idea, but don’t get discouraged if he don’t come in tonight. We can always go look in the mine in the morning.”
Samuel shook his head. “He’s not in the mine. He’s with his horse, and he wouldn’t put the horse down there.”
“Colton.” Diego gestured with his chin. The boy was walking in from the east, leading his horse, the setting sun full on his face. He looked like something out of an old western movie, dusty jeans, long, black hair spilling over his shoulder, leading a beautiful horse the color of caramel, with a soft ivory mane.
“Joshua, this your boy?”
Joshua struggled up from the sofa, looked hard across the pasture to where the boy was walking in. “Yeah, that’s him. Where the hell’s he been?”
“The hot springs are up that way.” Samuel blushed when Colton turned and studied his face. “I just thought... that might be where I would camp out, if I had to camp somewhere on the ranch. And I did see some tracks up there. I left him a note, you know, just in case, telling him we were having burgers if he wanted to join us.”
Diego was grinning. “You did good, Samuel. Well, Mr. Weaver, he looks just like you described him.”
Johnny Bravo gave them all a nod and bypassed the group without a word, leading his horse back to the stable. Samuel walked back and joined him. Colton studied his retreating back, then turned to look at Diego. “Why do I get the feeling Samuel...”
Diego shook his head, flipped the burgers. “Leave it, Colton. Let him settle a bit first.”
“He looks Apache. You think a face like that belongs on one of those old timey photographs, those sepia-colored pictures from 1870, buckskins and Navajo saddle blankets on the horses and a boy with that proud face.”
“He’s too proud,” Joshua said. “That kind of pride just leads to trouble.”
“He’s just sixteen. He needs some work to do, settle him a bit. You think he’s a ranchman, like you?”
The old man shook his head. “I don’t know. I can’t recall I ever met a dreamer knew how to do a lick of real work.”
Johnny and Samuel came back from the stables, and Johnny climbed the steps up to the porch and stood in front of Joshua, his arms crossed over his chest and his chin nearly pointing at the sky. They stared at each other for a long moment, and Colton was reminded that Joshua had known this boy since he was born.
“Go throw your stuff in the house if you want.”
“Samuel said there’s another bunk in the horse trailer. I’ll stay out there.”
“Fine. Do whatever you want.” Joshua reached for the bottle next to his foot, just came up with tropical fruit juice. “Goddamnit! Where’s my whiskey?”
Johnny turned and marched back down the porch steps. He held out his hand to Colton. “I’m Johnny Bravo. I heard you were looking for me.”
Colton shook his hand. “I’m the law, if that’s what you mean. And I was investigating a crime and your name came up.”
Johnny looked surprised at his tough voice. He looked over at Samuel, then straightened his back and faced Colton again.
Colton nodded down at him. “In the old westerns, we used to call it cattle rustling, like it was something romantic. Nowadays we call it grand theft. And if you do it again I am going to throw your sorry ass in jail. I don’t care your reason for doing it. Do you understand me, Johnny?”
“Yes.” He was speaking through clenched teeth. Colton looked over at Diego. Oh, very proud.
Johnny was holding his hand out to Diego now, obviously hoping for a warmer welcome. “I’m Diego Del Rio. I hope you’re hungry, Johnny. I put three burgers on the grill for you.”
Johnny looked over the food. “I could eat three burgers.”
Colton felt a bit irritated that he had been so worried about this kid, and he came strolling in with his horse, ready for supper. No blood, no wounds, he didn’t look tired or miserable or in any way needing to be rescued. He wasn’t even very dirty. Samuel must have been right, and Johnny was camping at the hot springs. Weaver seemed to share Colton’s feelings of irritation, and Johnny, with perfect teenage intuition, stayed very far away from them both, tucked up safely between Diego and Samuel.
Colton listened in while Diego got Johnny talking. “A film maker? That’s interesting, Johnny. What kind of films?”
“Westerns. I want to make films that tell the truth about how things are in the West. How things really are for Natives, and for Mexicans. And for the people who live on the land, like him.” He gestured toward Joshua on the porch. “It’s deadly out here, but people don’t see. And it’s been exploited so much, the minerals, the uranium. I think it’ll take a Native filmmaker to tell the truth about this place. You want to see some film?”
“I sure would.”
Diego was being so nurturing and kind, Colton made a gagging gesture, a finger down his throat. Diego ignored him. Johnny climbed up the porch steps and stopped in front of Joshua again. “Can I borrow the TV? I can hook a cable up from my video camera and show you some of the footage I’ve been shooting.”
Joshua waved a hand. “Sure, boy. You go on ahead.”
Johnny ran out to the horse trailer, got his video camera from the backpack he’d tossed in there earlier. He went up the steps and into the house, and a minute later he was back out on the porch, standing in front of Joshua. “You don’t have a TV.”
Joshua rubbed his chin. “Well, now, let me think. You know, I meant to buy a TV. I was thinking about selling a calf and buying one down at the Sears and Roebuck. But then something happened. You stole that calf, so I couldn’t sell him.”
They stared at each other for another long moment. Johnny’s cheeks were flushed red, but Colton didn’t know if it was mad or sorry. Joshua looked like he was thinking about breaking into tears, he was hurt so bad. Johnny dropped down to one knee in front of the old man. “I’m sorry I stole your cows and goats.”
“That’s all you had to say, boy. I was just waiting for you to say it like you meant it.”
“I mean it.” Johnny had his face turned a bit away, studying the dusty porch. “I bought the video camera with some of the money, and I bought some food, but I have the rest.”
“You can turn it over, then. We gonna live together, we got to have straight dealing between us, you understand? Otherwise this won’t work.”
“I’m not living with you if you’re gonna drink yourself into a stupor every night.”
“What the hell’s a stupor?” Joshua waved this away. “Never mind. I know what you mean.” He gestured toward Diego with his chin. “My doctor has got me on fruit juice.
Lawless on Kindle http://tinyurl.com/d378ulv
The Legend of the Apache Kid, coming in September from Dreamspinner Press
Late afternoon in Arizona, and the light turned the landscape a strange, brilliant gold, making the tumbled sandstone and scrubby brush beautiful just for a moment. Colton was feeling the light warm his face, happy to be in this peaceful valley with Diego, who was finally in a good mood. He’d taken all the tags off Samuel’s new clothes, folded them and put them in the trailer, drank a beer and made burger patties, studied the goat in the pen and sat on the porch steps, watching Colton wrestle with the barbeque pit.
Colton nearly singed his eyebrows off with an excess of lighter fluid when he lit the charcoal, but then he sat down next to Diego on the steps, felt his warm thigh snug against his. Diego handed him a beer and they sat together in the golden afternoon light. This was good. They were okay.
“You’re the one gets happy when you go shopping, not me. You’ve been happy since you bought that monster barbeque pit.”
‘Well, we’ll see the proof in the burgers, if the pit is as good as the old man’s barbeque pits. I’ll tell you what I think. I think you bought enough new clothes for two boys. You just guessing they’re the same size?” Diego nodded, and Colton reached for his thigh, ran his hand up and down, let it rest on his knee. “Some days I wish we could just stay out here. This seems a peaceful life, but ranching is hard. A hard life. At least it was for my granddad. Seemed like things were always on the edge of disaster.”
“That’s the truth of it.” Old man Weaver was behind them on his sofa. “One bad storm, one bad infection in the herd, and your taxes for that year are gone. Long as I’ve been working this land, I never really got ahead. I think the best I can say is I wrestled it to a draw. That’s not bad, for a lifetime’s work.”
“No, it’s not.” Diego was quiet, his face thoughtful. Colton knew he had plans for his life that included doing more than wrestling his world to a draw. But what control did they really have? Maybe not as much as they thought they did, when they were young as Samuel.
“It’s worth the hard work,” Samuel said. “See how beautiful this land is, Colton?” Samuel gestured toward the mountains, where the little valley opened up. “I just want to get to know land like this. To learn it in all the seasons. To find a way to take care of it, and let it take care of me. That’s the best life, I think.”
Colton turned around and looked at Joshua, who was leaned back on his sofa, rocking a little. Joshua nodded his head. Colton could see it in his face. This boy, Samuel, he was a man like them, a man with a passion for the land.
Diego stood up, went to the barbeque pit and stared down. “How can you tell if the coals are ready?”
Colton stood up and studied the coals. “They’re ready when somebody wants to put their beer down and throw the burgers on, Big D. I would say right about now.”
Diego put the burgers on the grill, stood over them with a spatula while the smell of cooking beef spread out across the valley. Colton looked around. “Now, Samuel, this is a fine idea, but don’t get discouraged if he don’t come in tonight. We can always go look in the mine in the morning.”
Samuel shook his head. “He’s not in the mine. He’s with his horse, and he wouldn’t put the horse down there.”
“Colton.” Diego gestured with his chin. The boy was walking in from the east, leading his horse, the setting sun full on his face. He looked like something out of an old western movie, dusty jeans, long, black hair spilling over his shoulder, leading a beautiful horse the color of caramel, with a soft ivory mane.
“Joshua, this your boy?”
Joshua struggled up from the sofa, looked hard across the pasture to where the boy was walking in. “Yeah, that’s him. Where the hell’s he been?”
“The hot springs are up that way.” Samuel blushed when Colton turned and studied his face. “I just thought... that might be where I would camp out, if I had to camp somewhere on the ranch. And I did see some tracks up there. I left him a note, you know, just in case, telling him we were having burgers if he wanted to join us.”
Diego was grinning. “You did good, Samuel. Well, Mr. Weaver, he looks just like you described him.”
Johnny Bravo gave them all a nod and bypassed the group without a word, leading his horse back to the stable. Samuel walked back and joined him. Colton studied his retreating back, then turned to look at Diego. “Why do I get the feeling Samuel...”
Diego shook his head, flipped the burgers. “Leave it, Colton. Let him settle a bit first.”
“He looks Apache. You think a face like that belongs on one of those old timey photographs, those sepia-colored pictures from 1870, buckskins and Navajo saddle blankets on the horses and a boy with that proud face.”
“He’s too proud,” Joshua said. “That kind of pride just leads to trouble.”
“He’s just sixteen. He needs some work to do, settle him a bit. You think he’s a ranchman, like you?”
The old man shook his head. “I don’t know. I can’t recall I ever met a dreamer knew how to do a lick of real work.”
Johnny and Samuel came back from the stables, and Johnny climbed the steps up to the porch and stood in front of Joshua, his arms crossed over his chest and his chin nearly pointing at the sky. They stared at each other for a long moment, and Colton was reminded that Joshua had known this boy since he was born.
“Go throw your stuff in the house if you want.”
“Samuel said there’s another bunk in the horse trailer. I’ll stay out there.”
“Fine. Do whatever you want.” Joshua reached for the bottle next to his foot, just came up with tropical fruit juice. “Goddamnit! Where’s my whiskey?”
Johnny turned and marched back down the porch steps. He held out his hand to Colton. “I’m Johnny Bravo. I heard you were looking for me.”
Colton shook his hand. “I’m the law, if that’s what you mean. And I was investigating a crime and your name came up.”
Johnny looked surprised at his tough voice. He looked over at Samuel, then straightened his back and faced Colton again.
Colton nodded down at him. “In the old westerns, we used to call it cattle rustling, like it was something romantic. Nowadays we call it grand theft. And if you do it again I am going to throw your sorry ass in jail. I don’t care your reason for doing it. Do you understand me, Johnny?”
“Yes.” He was speaking through clenched teeth. Colton looked over at Diego. Oh, very proud.
Johnny was holding his hand out to Diego now, obviously hoping for a warmer welcome. “I’m Diego Del Rio. I hope you’re hungry, Johnny. I put three burgers on the grill for you.”
Johnny looked over the food. “I could eat three burgers.”
Colton felt a bit irritated that he had been so worried about this kid, and he came strolling in with his horse, ready for supper. No blood, no wounds, he didn’t look tired or miserable or in any way needing to be rescued. He wasn’t even very dirty. Samuel must have been right, and Johnny was camping at the hot springs. Weaver seemed to share Colton’s feelings of irritation, and Johnny, with perfect teenage intuition, stayed very far away from them both, tucked up safely between Diego and Samuel.
Colton listened in while Diego got Johnny talking. “A film maker? That’s interesting, Johnny. What kind of films?”
“Westerns. I want to make films that tell the truth about how things are in the West. How things really are for Natives, and for Mexicans. And for the people who live on the land, like him.” He gestured toward Joshua on the porch. “It’s deadly out here, but people don’t see. And it’s been exploited so much, the minerals, the uranium. I think it’ll take a Native filmmaker to tell the truth about this place. You want to see some film?”
“I sure would.”
Diego was being so nurturing and kind, Colton made a gagging gesture, a finger down his throat. Diego ignored him. Johnny climbed up the porch steps and stopped in front of Joshua again. “Can I borrow the TV? I can hook a cable up from my video camera and show you some of the footage I’ve been shooting.”
Joshua waved a hand. “Sure, boy. You go on ahead.”
Johnny ran out to the horse trailer, got his video camera from the backpack he’d tossed in there earlier. He went up the steps and into the house, and a minute later he was back out on the porch, standing in front of Joshua. “You don’t have a TV.”
Joshua rubbed his chin. “Well, now, let me think. You know, I meant to buy a TV. I was thinking about selling a calf and buying one down at the Sears and Roebuck. But then something happened. You stole that calf, so I couldn’t sell him.”
They stared at each other for another long moment. Johnny’s cheeks were flushed red, but Colton didn’t know if it was mad or sorry. Joshua looked like he was thinking about breaking into tears, he was hurt so bad. Johnny dropped down to one knee in front of the old man. “I’m sorry I stole your cows and goats.”
“That’s all you had to say, boy. I was just waiting for you to say it like you meant it.”
“I mean it.” Johnny had his face turned a bit away, studying the dusty porch. “I bought the video camera with some of the money, and I bought some food, but I have the rest.”
“You can turn it over, then. We gonna live together, we got to have straight dealing between us, you understand? Otherwise this won’t work.”
“I’m not living with you if you’re gonna drink yourself into a stupor every night.”
“What the hell’s a stupor?” Joshua waved this away. “Never mind. I know what you mean.” He gestured toward Diego with his chin. “My doctor has got me on fruit juice.
Lawless on Kindle http://tinyurl.com/d378ulv
The Legend of the Apache Kid, coming in September from Dreamspinner Press
July 22, 2012
What the hell were they thinking? The story idea in genre fiction
It is confusing and more than a little distressing to be a writer in a day when the quality and value of one’s work is equated with sales. The idea of sales does not just imply lots of readers, but lots of money. Success and failure is understood to have a cash value. We want access to our box-office take when our little ponies go flying out of the gate, and the thought drifts across our mind that, when the book hits its stride, a pool out back would be really nice, and no more than we deserve.
When I realized my friends and family thought of writing as some big money tree you could shake, I could hear my wimpy voice in the wilderness: But I have something to say! I want to write a story that has meaning. Which is understood by the larger world to mean: piss-poor sales. But even those of us writing on the lunatic fringe, (which is my secret name for my genre) want to say something with our stories.
We write because we want to say something. We need something, and we try to get it by writing stories. Maybe part of what we need is money and the respectful acknowledgment of a world which has, for some inexplicable reason, failed to recognize our genius. Be that as it may, I believe that what many writers need to say is something about being human. What it means to be human, to live in the world, to live in society, even if that society is on an alien planet and even if your humans are not, in fact, human. We want to explain ourselves. We want to know what the hell we were thinking.
Many writers, like myself, are educated, but not educated to be writers. We bumble along trying to find our way, reading books about how to become a novelist in 52 weekends and working our issues out on the fictional page. When we publish our mistakes, we do not have the consequences of a good Greek tragedy. No eyes are plucked out; the crew does not lash us to the mast of the ship; we do not wander, lost, for ten years while powerful men drink our mead and eyeball our wives. Worse, our sales are affected and our ranking on Amazon is visible to the entire cynical world. How do we explain to ourselves that our darling has 327,402 stories that are ahead of it in the hearts of readers?
Fools. Impossible. But in truth, I don’t care much. (Really)? What I really care about is writing a better story. A great story, a masterpiece that will resonate in the heart of generations. But how to start? How does our current idea of quality equaling sales affect how a writer thinks about a story, how a writer begins to write a story? (Now, finally, we come to the theme of this essay.)
I suspect that both capitalism (see above) and religion are diluting the power of our fiction to the point that we are publishing watery tea. The lure of sales, which causes thoughts of marketing to seep into our brains like noxious chemicals into ground water, and the notion of good and evil as the organizing forces in the world are not complex enough ideas to really represent the world in a way that feels truthful and real.
We start by assuming that the world is divided into good and evil, then we sort our characters into either box, like some underpaid woman from El Salvador sorting mangoes in a sweatbox of a fruit factory. We are committing an error right from the beginning that will leach all the truth out of our story and all the interest from our characters. If, on the other hand, we start by assuming that human behavior is a complex and rich gumbo of culture and motivation and dreams and failures and interesting weaknesses of character, then those mangoes are suddenly passing through the hands of somebody we would like to know. And she is working for someone we would like to know. We want an explanation. I want the owner of that sweatshop to explain to me what she thinks she’s doing. And then I can judge for myself.
A dichotomy of good and evil is simple to write and easy to sell, especially in genres that rely on the comfort of the familiar and the drowsy, poppy-field slumber of a happy ending. (I love a happy ending myself, and I should say that, in the first grade, at St. Joseph’s, I was a poppy in the poppy field when we put on The Wizard of Oz, and I fell asleep on the stage. I seem to remember looking up Dorothy’s skirt when she came dancing by me. She had lots of petticoats.)
What I would like to suggest is that we writers ignore two things when we begin a story. The first is the lure of sales and world-wide acclaim. Don’t start out scribbling notes on your acceptance speech when you step to the podium, clad in an elegant tux, to accept your award. The second thing we should dismiss is the easy lure of the good-evil dichotomy. Not every story needs to have an antagonist and a protagonist.
Even as I typed those words, I pictured a legion of writing teachers massing a posse to run me down and kick my ass. But as I high-tail it into the woods, here is what I suggest we do when we start a new story:
Decide: What is the story idea you want to explore?
Sometimes I’m ¾ through and rapidly approaching the conflict and I’m not entirely sure what the point is. What am I trying to say? The point of writing is to work your way through an idea by writing about it, and the plot should help you do that. But for those of us who do not write outlines, sometimes it helps to organize our thoughts by being clear what our story idea is before we start writing.
The story idea is not the plot. I would use the word theme but that word brings up horrible images of high school and the smell of chalk dust. (Or the slightly intoxicating smell of dry-erase markers). Some writers revise to clarify the story idea. That is also a valid way, for those mature enough not to become tearful at the idea of cutting beautiful metaphors when they don’t advance the plot. For me, I like to think a story idea through before I start writing.
Even if you’re writing genre fiction, and the plot is a given- the murder is solved and justice is served, or the two lonely boys find love that will last a life-time, or the ship has landed, and chaos follows- even with the plot and the ending understood to be sacrosanct, a writer can explore ideas. How does culture affect different character’s ideas of justice? How does age change the dynamics of two lovers? What is the effect of losing one’s voice, when freedom of expression is denied? Or, one of my favorite story questions, what the hell were they thinking?
When I realized my friends and family thought of writing as some big money tree you could shake, I could hear my wimpy voice in the wilderness: But I have something to say! I want to write a story that has meaning. Which is understood by the larger world to mean: piss-poor sales. But even those of us writing on the lunatic fringe, (which is my secret name for my genre) want to say something with our stories.
We write because we want to say something. We need something, and we try to get it by writing stories. Maybe part of what we need is money and the respectful acknowledgment of a world which has, for some inexplicable reason, failed to recognize our genius. Be that as it may, I believe that what many writers need to say is something about being human. What it means to be human, to live in the world, to live in society, even if that society is on an alien planet and even if your humans are not, in fact, human. We want to explain ourselves. We want to know what the hell we were thinking.
Many writers, like myself, are educated, but not educated to be writers. We bumble along trying to find our way, reading books about how to become a novelist in 52 weekends and working our issues out on the fictional page. When we publish our mistakes, we do not have the consequences of a good Greek tragedy. No eyes are plucked out; the crew does not lash us to the mast of the ship; we do not wander, lost, for ten years while powerful men drink our mead and eyeball our wives. Worse, our sales are affected and our ranking on Amazon is visible to the entire cynical world. How do we explain to ourselves that our darling has 327,402 stories that are ahead of it in the hearts of readers?
Fools. Impossible. But in truth, I don’t care much. (Really)? What I really care about is writing a better story. A great story, a masterpiece that will resonate in the heart of generations. But how to start? How does our current idea of quality equaling sales affect how a writer thinks about a story, how a writer begins to write a story? (Now, finally, we come to the theme of this essay.)
I suspect that both capitalism (see above) and religion are diluting the power of our fiction to the point that we are publishing watery tea. The lure of sales, which causes thoughts of marketing to seep into our brains like noxious chemicals into ground water, and the notion of good and evil as the organizing forces in the world are not complex enough ideas to really represent the world in a way that feels truthful and real.
We start by assuming that the world is divided into good and evil, then we sort our characters into either box, like some underpaid woman from El Salvador sorting mangoes in a sweatbox of a fruit factory. We are committing an error right from the beginning that will leach all the truth out of our story and all the interest from our characters. If, on the other hand, we start by assuming that human behavior is a complex and rich gumbo of culture and motivation and dreams and failures and interesting weaknesses of character, then those mangoes are suddenly passing through the hands of somebody we would like to know. And she is working for someone we would like to know. We want an explanation. I want the owner of that sweatshop to explain to me what she thinks she’s doing. And then I can judge for myself.
A dichotomy of good and evil is simple to write and easy to sell, especially in genres that rely on the comfort of the familiar and the drowsy, poppy-field slumber of a happy ending. (I love a happy ending myself, and I should say that, in the first grade, at St. Joseph’s, I was a poppy in the poppy field when we put on The Wizard of Oz, and I fell asleep on the stage. I seem to remember looking up Dorothy’s skirt when she came dancing by me. She had lots of petticoats.)
What I would like to suggest is that we writers ignore two things when we begin a story. The first is the lure of sales and world-wide acclaim. Don’t start out scribbling notes on your acceptance speech when you step to the podium, clad in an elegant tux, to accept your award. The second thing we should dismiss is the easy lure of the good-evil dichotomy. Not every story needs to have an antagonist and a protagonist.
Even as I typed those words, I pictured a legion of writing teachers massing a posse to run me down and kick my ass. But as I high-tail it into the woods, here is what I suggest we do when we start a new story:
Decide: What is the story idea you want to explore?
Sometimes I’m ¾ through and rapidly approaching the conflict and I’m not entirely sure what the point is. What am I trying to say? The point of writing is to work your way through an idea by writing about it, and the plot should help you do that. But for those of us who do not write outlines, sometimes it helps to organize our thoughts by being clear what our story idea is before we start writing.
The story idea is not the plot. I would use the word theme but that word brings up horrible images of high school and the smell of chalk dust. (Or the slightly intoxicating smell of dry-erase markers). Some writers revise to clarify the story idea. That is also a valid way, for those mature enough not to become tearful at the idea of cutting beautiful metaphors when they don’t advance the plot. For me, I like to think a story idea through before I start writing.
Even if you’re writing genre fiction, and the plot is a given- the murder is solved and justice is served, or the two lonely boys find love that will last a life-time, or the ship has landed, and chaos follows- even with the plot and the ending understood to be sacrosanct, a writer can explore ideas. How does culture affect different character’s ideas of justice? How does age change the dynamics of two lovers? What is the effect of losing one’s voice, when freedom of expression is denied? Or, one of my favorite story questions, what the hell were they thinking?
May 13, 2012
The Legend of the Apache Kid
My new story, The Legend of the Apache Kid, is going to be published by Dreamspinner. They are a very open-minded publisher, and always let me try new things with my stories—with both form and content. I really love this ability to experiment with language and story-telling.
I’ve been thinking about conflict more in the last year than any other aspect of craft. Conflict is the heart of the story, or maybe I should say it is the fire in the heart of the story. The fulcrum upon which everything else turns. But I’m not that interested in having a man with a gun burst out of the alley, spraying random gunfire like a tomcat. I love to read those stories, but when I try and write them, I feel like a cheat. Because external conflict is so easy to manufacture, and it doesn’t get into the meat of the thing. Real, human conflict develops when a person makes a mistake that comes out of a character flaw, or a plain old human being screws up because of greed, or laziness, or jealousy, or envy- those conflicts I can believe in. I’ve screwed up plenty myself, despite my best intentions to live a good life. Even good people can have lust in their hearts, lust and sin and crime. Those are the conflicts I really love to write about.
I worry a bit at the lack of excitement in internal conflicts. There must be a good bit of introspection for any conclusions to be drawn and decisions made. Introspection is not as exciting to read as a boat chase, during which the protag is in mortal danger. There is a danger from not resolving mortal sin, of course, but it is not as fast paced as mortal danger from a man with a gun.
So the conflict in the new story is even more subtle and quiet than my usual conflicts. It came out of introspection, again, but this time my own, about how we tend to assume we know what is best for other people. Especially when we are around people younger than ourselves. The main characters in the story, Raine Magrath and Johnny Bravo, have to deal with this conflict. Raine is ten years older than Johnny, and he is smart and experienced and pretty smooth, and he nearly screws things up for good when he assumes he knows what is best for the handsome young Johnny Bravo.
Here’s an excerpt from the first chapter:
The sere New Mexican wind blew a handful of snow down the back of my neck. The snow was gritty and dry as sand, and it melted in an icy stream down my spine. I pulled the sweatshirt over my head and dropped it on the deck chair, skimmed out of my sweatpants and climbed into the hot tub. A hundred and five degrees, and the steam poured into the cold night air, reaching into the sky, melting the falling snow before it had a chance to reach the ground.
Nothing like sitting in a hot tub during a snowstorm. An outdoor hot tub in the winter, in the mountains of New Mexico? You were practically guaranteed some beautiful privacy. I stretched out, propped my feet up on the far side of the tub. I’d found a couple of beauties for my collection this trip. There was a house up in the foothills with the garage door painted white, and in huge, scarlet letters, the homeowner had sent a message: SHOVE IT, HEINRICH. I didn’t know who Heinrich was, but my guess was he’d gotten the meessage loud and clear. Down in Southwest Albuquerque I’d come across an old adobe church turned into a boxing club, and the plywood door had been painted by a graff artist in devil’s colors, black and red, BAD BOYS BOXING CLUB, with little horns sprouting from the B’s. That sign must have driven the grandmothers and priests crazy. My favorite, though, was a message written in soap on the back window of a Bronco speeding down the interstate with a giddy couple inside: JUST TIDE THE KNOT!!
I collected language, words, messages shouted from billboards and t-shirts and windows and sometimes garage doors. Nothing could stop people from communicating. I was happy when they communicated with words instead of weapons. I taught English at the community college up in Taos. The classes on Weapons of the Middle Ages always filled up before Intro to English, even though I was required for graduation. But that was cool. Everybody listened to their own music.
An old man came out of one of the hotel rooms fronting the pool and made his slow way over to the table next to the hot tub. He was wearing a plaid snap-front shirt, the snaps covered in old fashioned mother-of-pearl. The shirt was thin, worn from years of washing and careful ironing, but he didn’t seem to notice the cold. He sat down and opened his tobacco pouch, started rolling himself a cigarette.
“What kind of a damn fool sits outside in the bathtub in the middle of a snowstorm?”
I gave his cigarette a pointed look, but he just took a long draw, the end sparking bright orange.
“Come on in, partner. The water’s fine.”
“I think I’ll pass.”
A young man came out of one of the rooms, looked around for someone, then he hurried our way. He was carrying a jacket over his arm. He looked Navajo or Apache, his long black hair streaming down his back.
“I think you’re busted,” I said. He turned around, looked at the boy hurrying toward him.
“I put your coat in the chair right next to the door. How could you miss it?” He wrapped it around the old man’s shoulders, then pulled up a chair. “Don’t you know enough to put a jacket on when you’re going out in the cold?”
The old man made a dismissive sound. “This ain’t cold.”
He wasn’t a boy, more early twenties, with a dark, proud face and a nose sharp and straight as a hatchet blade. He looked over at the hot tub, studied the rising steam, and me, with interest. The old man barked out a laugh. “I should say, this ain’t cold unless you’re sitting in a bathtub, then you get out soaking wet and stand in the snow like a damn fool.”
“Why do you have to leave tomorrow? Can’t you stay another day? The film festival’s just started.”
The old man shook his head. “You know I don’t like to leave the stock. That weather channel said there’s a storm heading my way.” The boy just stared at him, waiting. “Johnny, I’m real proud of you, you know that, right?”
Johnny nodded. “I know that.”
“Good. I liked your movie. Film, I mean, though I don’t know what the hell difference there is between a film and a movie.” He raised a hand. “That’s okay, I know you told me once. Son, you’ve done a fine job with it. You don’t need me to stick around when you show it to the world. You might not have noticed, but I don’t exactly fit in with this movie crowd.” He hesitated. “I don’t want to slow you down.”
“I don’t care about any of that. I wanted you here.”
“I know that, son. I was thinking today about when you bought your first camera. You remember?”
Johnny was grinning. “When I rustled your goats and bought a camera with the money?”
“That would be it.”
“I fell in love with Western movies, watching John Wayne on your old TV. That’s why I wanted to make Westerns.” The old man gave him a silent look, took a last drag of his cigarette and stuffed the butt into a can of sand. “I know you don’t think I’m getting it right yet.”
He shrugged. “You make any movie you want and I’ll watch it and tell you it’s fine. Maybe I’m just too old to get this new moviemaking. My time, a Western had a basic plot. The bad guy rode into town and caused some trouble. The sherrif locked him up. Then the brother or father or uncle rode into town with his gang to get him out. It was the good guys against the bad guys. There was a shoot out. There was usually a pretty girl who could sing. There would be some fine looking horses, and a threat of Indian attack. The Apache in those films—what a joke. Damn Italians wearing Cheyenne feathers on their heads and Sioux moccasins.”
“They weren’t real Apache. And the film makers didn’t even bother to try to get the language right. But times are changing. That’s what I want to show. How things are changing. How the land shapes people. Maybe how it breaks people. I don’t know that I’ve got it, not yet.”
“The old Westerns, they always had quite a bit of singing. Guitar playing, or maybe a fiddle.”
“I don’t know that much about country music. What…”
“Not country, boy. The old stuff. Folk music. Blues. The songs the poor people sang. You need to find you a girl who can sing like a bird with broken wings. A bird who remembers what it felt like to fly. That’s the kind of singing you want in your movie.”
“I’ll keep looking, then.”
The old man hesitated, fiddling with his tobacco pouch. “Johnny, that man helping you with the movie. Why’s he calling you Shadow?”
Johnny shrugged, looked down at the table. “Drama, I guess. It’s a marketing thing, to help sell the movie. He thinks it sounds mysterious, and that’ll cause some interest…”
“He looks at you like he’s thinking about the casting couch. Like you’re some exotic little pet he’s got on a nice, shiny leash. Can’t you get your movie out in the world without that?”
Johnny was staring at the concrete beneath his feet. “Maybe. I surely don’t know how.”
“Why don’t you come home with me for a while? See your old horse. This ain’t your world.”
He shook his head. “I can’t. But I’m happy to know he’s with you, and you’re looking out for him.”
“I could look out for you, too, if you’d let me.”
Johnny stood up. “You did. When I needed it.” He pulled the sweatshirt over his head, dropped it on the table. “I think I might take a dip in this hot tub.”
“You don’t even have a towel! You’re gonna give yourself pneumonia.”
“I’ll run back to the room when I’m done. You let me in when you hear me knocking, okay?”
The old man stood up, left the jacket on the table. “Put this on when you get out.” He stuffed his tobacco pouch in the front pocket of his jeans, turned to watch Johnny get undressed.
I was watching, too. He leaned forward, pushed his jeans down over his hips, and his black hair slid over his bare shoulders, lay against his cheek and fell into the cold night air like a dark cloud. The old man frowned at me, but I just grinned back at him. Johnny was giving me a good, slow look, and I was enjoying his smooth brown chest, elegant shoulders and flat belly. He climbed into the hot tub in his plaid flannel boxers, and the old man went off to their room shaking his head.
He reached across, offered his hand. “Johnny.”
“I’m Raine Magrath,” I said, and let his smooth palm slide against mine.
He pulled away, his smile twisting a bit. “Shadow and Raine. Very cool.”
“If you’re a marketing weenie, I suppose so. What name do you prefer?”
“My name’s Johnny Bravo.”
I sat up, looked at him a little closer. “Really?”
“Long story.”
“You’re here for the film festival?”
He nodded. “It’s my first one. I’ve got a sponsor. I’m not really sure how that happened.”
“The casting couch?”
His face darkened. “Maybe. No. I don’t know. You a film maker?”
I shook my head. “I teach English up in Taos at the community college.” He was quiet, waiting for the rest. I studied the bright stars. “Pretty sky tonight. You don’t usually see the stars when it’s snowing.”
He pushed back and studied the sky. “You know anybody who sings like a bird with broken wings?”
“Willie Nelson? Oh, wait. I do know somebody. Gram Parsons and Emmy Lou Harris. Just before he overdosed out in the desert. You know him? He was a Western sort of man. Beautiful and talented and self-destructive. He went up in flames when he was still too young to know any better.”
“I don’t know that I’ve ever heard him sing.”
“He had a band called the Flying Burrito Brothers, among others. You should listen to them sing Wild Horses on Youtube.”
“What, the Stones’ Wild Horses?”
“His is better. You can hear his heart weeping in his voice.”
“Is that what it means to be a Western man? Beautiful and talented and self-destructive?”
I thought about this a bit, gazing up at the sky. I slid down until the hot water was lapping at my shoulders. “Maybe it does. I’m not sure. My daddy, he’s about the same age as that old man you’re with.” I nodded in the direction he had gone. “He was more than fifty when he met my mama. He had a code he lived by. Rules that meant his honor, you know? That honor was more important to him than his life. Still is, though he doesn’t remember so good anymore. He still remembers that. That’s what I think of as a Western man.”
Johnny nodded, looked back toward the hotel. “It makes for a hard life, living by a code.”
“That old man, he raised you?”
He shook his head. “He knew my mama before I was born. He gave me a horse when I was a boy, and he gave me a home when I needed one. He loved me when I was pretty damn unlovable. He’s tried to teach me what it means to be a man. So, yeah, I guess he raised me.” He paused, raised a hand to cover his eyes. “He doesn’t have much longer. He’s got cancer, and he’s too hard-headed to get any treatment.”
“I’m sorry, Johnny.”
He studied my face for a moment, like he was trying to figure out if I was being straight. Then he reached out and lifted a piece of hair off my shoulder, gave it a tug. “Your hair’s curling up like Shirley Temple’s in this steam. So you live in Taos? I’ve been meaning to drive up there, look around.”
“It’s a real different piece of New Mexico. Still pretty wild. Look me up, you ever get up that way. I’ll take you for a horseback ride into the Carson National Forest.”
“Maybe I will.” He still had my hair curled around his finger. “I like your moustache.”
A man walked around the side of the pool. He was older, fifties, maybe, with elegant silver hair combed down slick. He frowned when he saw Johnny sitting in the hot tub. “Shadow, I told you I had people coming by I wanted to introduce you to. Did you forget? Come back to the room. See if you can dry your hair, okay?”
He was wearing a black cashmere turtleneck with a silver scarf around the neck. He looked spoiled rich. Johnny opened his mouth to speak, but the man cut him off. “Just hurry. They’ll be here in ten minutes.”
He turned around and walked away, and Johnny leaned close to me, his mouth an inch from my neck. “Casting couch?”
He nodded, looked up at me, and I felt the power of his dark eyes down in my belly, proud and tender and as dark as the night sky, full of stars. He leaned forward and kissed me, light as a hummingbird on the side of my mouth. “Later, Raine.” He climbed out of the hot tub, grabbed his clothes and pulled the old man’s jacket over his shoulders. The snow was falling on his hair, but he didn’t hurry, just followed the man, wet bare feet on frozen concrete.
One little kiss, and hunger rolled through my belly. I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to watch him walk away.
I was up early, before the sun, anxious to be on the road. When I walked out of the hotel, I saw Johnny Bravo throwing his duffel bag in the back of the old man’s pickup truck. He was dressed in a plaid flannel shirt and jeans and moccasins. He walked around the driver’s side, and the old man gave him the keys. They climbed in to the cab, and he gave me a two finger salute and a grin when they pulled onto the highway, heading west. It was a year before I saw him again.
I’ve been thinking about conflict more in the last year than any other aspect of craft. Conflict is the heart of the story, or maybe I should say it is the fire in the heart of the story. The fulcrum upon which everything else turns. But I’m not that interested in having a man with a gun burst out of the alley, spraying random gunfire like a tomcat. I love to read those stories, but when I try and write them, I feel like a cheat. Because external conflict is so easy to manufacture, and it doesn’t get into the meat of the thing. Real, human conflict develops when a person makes a mistake that comes out of a character flaw, or a plain old human being screws up because of greed, or laziness, or jealousy, or envy- those conflicts I can believe in. I’ve screwed up plenty myself, despite my best intentions to live a good life. Even good people can have lust in their hearts, lust and sin and crime. Those are the conflicts I really love to write about.
I worry a bit at the lack of excitement in internal conflicts. There must be a good bit of introspection for any conclusions to be drawn and decisions made. Introspection is not as exciting to read as a boat chase, during which the protag is in mortal danger. There is a danger from not resolving mortal sin, of course, but it is not as fast paced as mortal danger from a man with a gun.
So the conflict in the new story is even more subtle and quiet than my usual conflicts. It came out of introspection, again, but this time my own, about how we tend to assume we know what is best for other people. Especially when we are around people younger than ourselves. The main characters in the story, Raine Magrath and Johnny Bravo, have to deal with this conflict. Raine is ten years older than Johnny, and he is smart and experienced and pretty smooth, and he nearly screws things up for good when he assumes he knows what is best for the handsome young Johnny Bravo.
Here’s an excerpt from the first chapter:
The sere New Mexican wind blew a handful of snow down the back of my neck. The snow was gritty and dry as sand, and it melted in an icy stream down my spine. I pulled the sweatshirt over my head and dropped it on the deck chair, skimmed out of my sweatpants and climbed into the hot tub. A hundred and five degrees, and the steam poured into the cold night air, reaching into the sky, melting the falling snow before it had a chance to reach the ground.
Nothing like sitting in a hot tub during a snowstorm. An outdoor hot tub in the winter, in the mountains of New Mexico? You were practically guaranteed some beautiful privacy. I stretched out, propped my feet up on the far side of the tub. I’d found a couple of beauties for my collection this trip. There was a house up in the foothills with the garage door painted white, and in huge, scarlet letters, the homeowner had sent a message: SHOVE IT, HEINRICH. I didn’t know who Heinrich was, but my guess was he’d gotten the meessage loud and clear. Down in Southwest Albuquerque I’d come across an old adobe church turned into a boxing club, and the plywood door had been painted by a graff artist in devil’s colors, black and red, BAD BOYS BOXING CLUB, with little horns sprouting from the B’s. That sign must have driven the grandmothers and priests crazy. My favorite, though, was a message written in soap on the back window of a Bronco speeding down the interstate with a giddy couple inside: JUST TIDE THE KNOT!!
I collected language, words, messages shouted from billboards and t-shirts and windows and sometimes garage doors. Nothing could stop people from communicating. I was happy when they communicated with words instead of weapons. I taught English at the community college up in Taos. The classes on Weapons of the Middle Ages always filled up before Intro to English, even though I was required for graduation. But that was cool. Everybody listened to their own music.
An old man came out of one of the hotel rooms fronting the pool and made his slow way over to the table next to the hot tub. He was wearing a plaid snap-front shirt, the snaps covered in old fashioned mother-of-pearl. The shirt was thin, worn from years of washing and careful ironing, but he didn’t seem to notice the cold. He sat down and opened his tobacco pouch, started rolling himself a cigarette.
“What kind of a damn fool sits outside in the bathtub in the middle of a snowstorm?”
I gave his cigarette a pointed look, but he just took a long draw, the end sparking bright orange.
“Come on in, partner. The water’s fine.”
“I think I’ll pass.”
A young man came out of one of the rooms, looked around for someone, then he hurried our way. He was carrying a jacket over his arm. He looked Navajo or Apache, his long black hair streaming down his back.
“I think you’re busted,” I said. He turned around, looked at the boy hurrying toward him.
“I put your coat in the chair right next to the door. How could you miss it?” He wrapped it around the old man’s shoulders, then pulled up a chair. “Don’t you know enough to put a jacket on when you’re going out in the cold?”
The old man made a dismissive sound. “This ain’t cold.”
He wasn’t a boy, more early twenties, with a dark, proud face and a nose sharp and straight as a hatchet blade. He looked over at the hot tub, studied the rising steam, and me, with interest. The old man barked out a laugh. “I should say, this ain’t cold unless you’re sitting in a bathtub, then you get out soaking wet and stand in the snow like a damn fool.”
“Why do you have to leave tomorrow? Can’t you stay another day? The film festival’s just started.”
The old man shook his head. “You know I don’t like to leave the stock. That weather channel said there’s a storm heading my way.” The boy just stared at him, waiting. “Johnny, I’m real proud of you, you know that, right?”
Johnny nodded. “I know that.”
“Good. I liked your movie. Film, I mean, though I don’t know what the hell difference there is between a film and a movie.” He raised a hand. “That’s okay, I know you told me once. Son, you’ve done a fine job with it. You don’t need me to stick around when you show it to the world. You might not have noticed, but I don’t exactly fit in with this movie crowd.” He hesitated. “I don’t want to slow you down.”
“I don’t care about any of that. I wanted you here.”
“I know that, son. I was thinking today about when you bought your first camera. You remember?”
Johnny was grinning. “When I rustled your goats and bought a camera with the money?”
“That would be it.”
“I fell in love with Western movies, watching John Wayne on your old TV. That’s why I wanted to make Westerns.” The old man gave him a silent look, took a last drag of his cigarette and stuffed the butt into a can of sand. “I know you don’t think I’m getting it right yet.”
He shrugged. “You make any movie you want and I’ll watch it and tell you it’s fine. Maybe I’m just too old to get this new moviemaking. My time, a Western had a basic plot. The bad guy rode into town and caused some trouble. The sherrif locked him up. Then the brother or father or uncle rode into town with his gang to get him out. It was the good guys against the bad guys. There was a shoot out. There was usually a pretty girl who could sing. There would be some fine looking horses, and a threat of Indian attack. The Apache in those films—what a joke. Damn Italians wearing Cheyenne feathers on their heads and Sioux moccasins.”
“They weren’t real Apache. And the film makers didn’t even bother to try to get the language right. But times are changing. That’s what I want to show. How things are changing. How the land shapes people. Maybe how it breaks people. I don’t know that I’ve got it, not yet.”
“The old Westerns, they always had quite a bit of singing. Guitar playing, or maybe a fiddle.”
“I don’t know that much about country music. What…”
“Not country, boy. The old stuff. Folk music. Blues. The songs the poor people sang. You need to find you a girl who can sing like a bird with broken wings. A bird who remembers what it felt like to fly. That’s the kind of singing you want in your movie.”
“I’ll keep looking, then.”
The old man hesitated, fiddling with his tobacco pouch. “Johnny, that man helping you with the movie. Why’s he calling you Shadow?”
Johnny shrugged, looked down at the table. “Drama, I guess. It’s a marketing thing, to help sell the movie. He thinks it sounds mysterious, and that’ll cause some interest…”
“He looks at you like he’s thinking about the casting couch. Like you’re some exotic little pet he’s got on a nice, shiny leash. Can’t you get your movie out in the world without that?”
Johnny was staring at the concrete beneath his feet. “Maybe. I surely don’t know how.”
“Why don’t you come home with me for a while? See your old horse. This ain’t your world.”
He shook his head. “I can’t. But I’m happy to know he’s with you, and you’re looking out for him.”
“I could look out for you, too, if you’d let me.”
Johnny stood up. “You did. When I needed it.” He pulled the sweatshirt over his head, dropped it on the table. “I think I might take a dip in this hot tub.”
“You don’t even have a towel! You’re gonna give yourself pneumonia.”
“I’ll run back to the room when I’m done. You let me in when you hear me knocking, okay?”
The old man stood up, left the jacket on the table. “Put this on when you get out.” He stuffed his tobacco pouch in the front pocket of his jeans, turned to watch Johnny get undressed.
I was watching, too. He leaned forward, pushed his jeans down over his hips, and his black hair slid over his bare shoulders, lay against his cheek and fell into the cold night air like a dark cloud. The old man frowned at me, but I just grinned back at him. Johnny was giving me a good, slow look, and I was enjoying his smooth brown chest, elegant shoulders and flat belly. He climbed into the hot tub in his plaid flannel boxers, and the old man went off to their room shaking his head.
He reached across, offered his hand. “Johnny.”
“I’m Raine Magrath,” I said, and let his smooth palm slide against mine.
He pulled away, his smile twisting a bit. “Shadow and Raine. Very cool.”
“If you’re a marketing weenie, I suppose so. What name do you prefer?”
“My name’s Johnny Bravo.”
I sat up, looked at him a little closer. “Really?”
“Long story.”
“You’re here for the film festival?”
He nodded. “It’s my first one. I’ve got a sponsor. I’m not really sure how that happened.”
“The casting couch?”
His face darkened. “Maybe. No. I don’t know. You a film maker?”
I shook my head. “I teach English up in Taos at the community college.” He was quiet, waiting for the rest. I studied the bright stars. “Pretty sky tonight. You don’t usually see the stars when it’s snowing.”
He pushed back and studied the sky. “You know anybody who sings like a bird with broken wings?”
“Willie Nelson? Oh, wait. I do know somebody. Gram Parsons and Emmy Lou Harris. Just before he overdosed out in the desert. You know him? He was a Western sort of man. Beautiful and talented and self-destructive. He went up in flames when he was still too young to know any better.”
“I don’t know that I’ve ever heard him sing.”
“He had a band called the Flying Burrito Brothers, among others. You should listen to them sing Wild Horses on Youtube.”
“What, the Stones’ Wild Horses?”
“His is better. You can hear his heart weeping in his voice.”
“Is that what it means to be a Western man? Beautiful and talented and self-destructive?”
I thought about this a bit, gazing up at the sky. I slid down until the hot water was lapping at my shoulders. “Maybe it does. I’m not sure. My daddy, he’s about the same age as that old man you’re with.” I nodded in the direction he had gone. “He was more than fifty when he met my mama. He had a code he lived by. Rules that meant his honor, you know? That honor was more important to him than his life. Still is, though he doesn’t remember so good anymore. He still remembers that. That’s what I think of as a Western man.”
Johnny nodded, looked back toward the hotel. “It makes for a hard life, living by a code.”
“That old man, he raised you?”
He shook his head. “He knew my mama before I was born. He gave me a horse when I was a boy, and he gave me a home when I needed one. He loved me when I was pretty damn unlovable. He’s tried to teach me what it means to be a man. So, yeah, I guess he raised me.” He paused, raised a hand to cover his eyes. “He doesn’t have much longer. He’s got cancer, and he’s too hard-headed to get any treatment.”
“I’m sorry, Johnny.”
He studied my face for a moment, like he was trying to figure out if I was being straight. Then he reached out and lifted a piece of hair off my shoulder, gave it a tug. “Your hair’s curling up like Shirley Temple’s in this steam. So you live in Taos? I’ve been meaning to drive up there, look around.”
“It’s a real different piece of New Mexico. Still pretty wild. Look me up, you ever get up that way. I’ll take you for a horseback ride into the Carson National Forest.”
“Maybe I will.” He still had my hair curled around his finger. “I like your moustache.”
A man walked around the side of the pool. He was older, fifties, maybe, with elegant silver hair combed down slick. He frowned when he saw Johnny sitting in the hot tub. “Shadow, I told you I had people coming by I wanted to introduce you to. Did you forget? Come back to the room. See if you can dry your hair, okay?”
He was wearing a black cashmere turtleneck with a silver scarf around the neck. He looked spoiled rich. Johnny opened his mouth to speak, but the man cut him off. “Just hurry. They’ll be here in ten minutes.”
He turned around and walked away, and Johnny leaned close to me, his mouth an inch from my neck. “Casting couch?”
He nodded, looked up at me, and I felt the power of his dark eyes down in my belly, proud and tender and as dark as the night sky, full of stars. He leaned forward and kissed me, light as a hummingbird on the side of my mouth. “Later, Raine.” He climbed out of the hot tub, grabbed his clothes and pulled the old man’s jacket over his shoulders. The snow was falling on his hair, but he didn’t hurry, just followed the man, wet bare feet on frozen concrete.
One little kiss, and hunger rolled through my belly. I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to watch him walk away.
I was up early, before the sun, anxious to be on the road. When I walked out of the hotel, I saw Johnny Bravo throwing his duffel bag in the back of the old man’s pickup truck. He was dressed in a plaid flannel shirt and jeans and moccasins. He walked around the driver’s side, and the old man gave him the keys. They climbed in to the cab, and he gave me a two finger salute and a grin when they pulled onto the highway, heading west. It was a year before I saw him again.
April 16, 2012
The Trouble with Poets
The Trouble with Poets
1. They say poets dance on bars and drink mescal out of dirty glasses, while prose writers stand by the exit sign with a travel size Germ-X in their pockets, worrying about twisted ankles and the likely head injury when someone takes a tumble and hits the concrete floor. Poets do not have health insurance. (The lanky hank of a she in the inn over there, nearly killed me for asking for the loan of a glass of beer…)
2. Poets wake up from their head injury/hangover and the one remaining profound thought in their pickled brains comes out in perfect iambic pentameter. (The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, and his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; and the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, when the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee…)
3. Poets never have to be concerned about what happens next. In poetry, the answer is always sex or death. (April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain...) In prose, the answer is also sex or death, but we are forced to come up with a plausible plot to get from here to there.
4. Poets can justify their ridiculous love affairs as research. (Why should I blame her that she filled my days with misery…)
5. Poets finish work by 11:30 am, having crawled out of bed around 10. They count time in the shower and drinking coffee as work time. They think in rhythm and rhyme and awesome alliteration. (He holds him with his skinny hand, “There was a ship,” quoth he. “Hold off! Unhand me, grey-beard loon!”)
6. Poets do not take their medication, since the manic phase is so much fun. (In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree where Alph the sacred river ran through caverns measureless to man, down to a sunless sea…)
7. Poets can ask questions for which there are no answers, and do this without annoying anyone. (What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?)
8. It is impossible to hold a grudge against a poet. (This is just to say I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox…)
9. The trouble with poets is they say what we didn’t know we were thinking.
Poem in Praise of Menstruation by Lucille Clifton
if there is a river
more beautiful than this
bright as the blood
red edge of the moon if
there is a river
more faithful than this
returning each month
to the same delta if there
is a river
braver than this
coming and coming in a surge
of passion, of pain if there is
a river
more ancient than this
daughter of eve
mother of cain and of abel if there is in
the universe such a river if
there is some where water
more powerful than this wild
water
pray that it flows also
through animals
beautiful and faithful and ancient
and female and brave
1. They say poets dance on bars and drink mescal out of dirty glasses, while prose writers stand by the exit sign with a travel size Germ-X in their pockets, worrying about twisted ankles and the likely head injury when someone takes a tumble and hits the concrete floor. Poets do not have health insurance. (The lanky hank of a she in the inn over there, nearly killed me for asking for the loan of a glass of beer…)
2. Poets wake up from their head injury/hangover and the one remaining profound thought in their pickled brains comes out in perfect iambic pentameter. (The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, and his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; and the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, when the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee…)
3. Poets never have to be concerned about what happens next. In poetry, the answer is always sex or death. (April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain...) In prose, the answer is also sex or death, but we are forced to come up with a plausible plot to get from here to there.
4. Poets can justify their ridiculous love affairs as research. (Why should I blame her that she filled my days with misery…)
5. Poets finish work by 11:30 am, having crawled out of bed around 10. They count time in the shower and drinking coffee as work time. They think in rhythm and rhyme and awesome alliteration. (He holds him with his skinny hand, “There was a ship,” quoth he. “Hold off! Unhand me, grey-beard loon!”)
6. Poets do not take their medication, since the manic phase is so much fun. (In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree where Alph the sacred river ran through caverns measureless to man, down to a sunless sea…)
7. Poets can ask questions for which there are no answers, and do this without annoying anyone. (What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?)
8. It is impossible to hold a grudge against a poet. (This is just to say I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox…)
9. The trouble with poets is they say what we didn’t know we were thinking.
Poem in Praise of Menstruation by Lucille Clifton
if there is a river
more beautiful than this
bright as the blood
red edge of the moon if
there is a river
more faithful than this
returning each month
to the same delta if there
is a river
braver than this
coming and coming in a surge
of passion, of pain if there is
a river
more ancient than this
daughter of eve
mother of cain and of abel if there is in
the universe such a river if
there is some where water
more powerful than this wild
water
pray that it flows also
through animals
beautiful and faithful and ancient
and female and brave
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