I write for the bum on a bike with its missing spokes and the saddle of leather half eaten by rats.
I write for the woman, who bends the sun to her will behind her glasses.
I write for the people in power, who don't know half of the words for poverty.
I write for the children, who don't dare come home with reports red from their teacher's nib.
I write for the humble bumble bee flying clumsily from flower to flower.
I write for the truck drivers taking their love for the road to the streets.
I write for the barefoot men fixing things up for a woman's smile.
I write for the musician shaking and baking scores till golden.
I write for the gurus when they tumble down from their lofty location.
I write for the bricks bellowing verses at the heart of a house.
I write for the deaf, who hear from the mute, who speak to the blind, who see for the lame, who run at the flicker of a moth.
I write for the soldiers in battle drawn by adventure, the go-getter and the meek, the lion and the lamb, all in drag and ready to die.
I write for all of them before sunrise with a quill made of dandelions, and during the day wearing glittering gloves, and at sundown dancing like a dirty dog around a phrase-filled bucket.
I write when I don't write and I don't write when I write.
I'm a tunnel through gridlock and a bridge under water.
I sprawl, I spill and I splutter and when I stop writing the giant wheel comes to a halt for the tiniest time. Then I throw my summersault pen at you and you must continue my story before the bell chimes, before the chalice of God hits the cobble stone floor of my marigold mansion.
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published by [the now defunct] fourpaperletters, january 2010.
One of those flash prose poems that I tend to write when I don't know what to write. My secret, which may not be mine, is then to simply write about the process of not being able to do it, or, as in this case, just hand the reigns over to someone else inside me, but not my conscious self. I guess y'all do that. If not, try it. And don't be afraid of the sentimental bits.
My audio recording is here.
[FF was a pseudonym of Marcus Speh. This story is the epilogue in Speh's collection of short fiction "Thank You For Your Sperm" published by MadHatPress.]
"I write for the barefoot men fixing things up for a woman's smile." - i love this. This is very effective and creative work.
Why, thank you very much indeed, Meg!
I like the voice, and the sense that writing connects the writer to the world. Nice work.
thank you kim! will be published in a forthcoming issue of fourpaperletters, i'm happy to say.
Love it. The call of a writer.
The Writer's Mantra: Write!
thanks h-m - much appreciated.
There is something very Ginsberg-ian about this piece, which is a compliment.
thanks dan - a great compliment - i must check up on ginsberg again. that good old hyppy bard...he'd probably have steered clear of GOD...
love, love, love this piece!!!
thanks laura, really appreciate your support! views of facebokanovians were also quite favourable: http://bit.ly/6fnxFY
This reminded me of Steinbeck. It's wonderful.
thank you lou, what a lovely compliment!
I never saw this before, but I love it.
No, more than that... this is freaking fantastic.
Thank you, Jim. In fact, I donated this piece to my alter ego Marcus Speh who promised to use it as the epilogue to his short story collection "Thank You For Your Sperm" to be published by MadHat Press. Needless to say, I don't agree with this choice of title, much too kinky and cheesy for a gentleman-poet, but Mr Speh is the man I'll never be.
I'll be in love with this poem at least for the rest of today. I love its gold emphases. And gold in it is not money. Gold was geld. The title as I had learned in researching this a little is after the German style: Initial letter of first word capitalized and nouns capitalized (as usual) and since it's English the first-person singular pronoun is capitalized. It is Whitmanesque. (I noticed after I had noticed that for myself that others above suggested it is like Ginsberg and Steinbeck, causing it to be even cooler.) I spoke to a bunny the other day. I made a joke to a bunny about a bunny. Now the bunny visits near my front step, and I gave it organic stale carrots to eat, and I tossed it expensive orange tiny tomatoes, yet untouched by the bunny. I realized that all speech is writing even to a bunny and that thought may even be writing as in: "I hope I did not hurt the bunny with my joke about a bunny to a bunny" when then the bunny came to my front step again. I am sharing this bunny anecdote here because the loving in this poem/manifesto reminds me of it. *
In the book, the manifesto is wrapped as paragraphs. I looked it up earlier today. I like it as lines better! I can see it (as a body of text here) is prose sentences, nevertheless, with the Look of Poem.
@Ann interesting comparisons and the bunny is a common apparition on anyone's doorstep, most notably my own. Strong imagery here, I notice. I still like this piece myself!
@Ann thank you for looking it up in the book. Speh stole it from me. That guy is shamelessly appropriating my literary production. Oh well. I suppose as a nom de plume one has no rights whatsoever.