Coffeeshop Writers Group - Just the Four of us - My short story: Where are the Rattlers on Rattlesnake Road? - Poems: At the Feet of the Master - Lemon Fusion - My Shore House

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Last nite, I was exhausted but knew I had to work on a new short story. BTW, this woman is not me, but she's sleeping on my couch.

 Why must I write? B/c I had an audience. Four people who would read and critique my short story the very next day.

The hour was getting late.

How do I procrastinate? Let me count the ways.

New York Times, Times videos, staring out the window, Facebook.

Ah, I'll brew myself some tea. My sister Donna, the connoisseur of the Western world, was over yesterday and told me she thought my Bigelow teas were WEAK.

Falling under her influence as I often do - she has an outsized personality - I decided to brew some jasmine tea.

Well, it was delicious! Very flavorful. I had given it up b/c it contains caffeine.

What's a little cafffeine gonna do to me?

I'll be perfectly frank. Within a hour, I was positively hypomanic! 

I had no trouble writing the story. It practically wrote itself. I couldn't have been happier. The whole thing took about three hours - unprecedented - and I thot this story is superb, worthy of being published in a great literary journal.

Bullshit!

That was the hypomania talking.

I print out the story, staple the 14 double-spaced pages, and tuck it in next to me on my bed full of books and New Yorkers.

And fall into blissful sleep. 

I awake at 7, fix up the story and mail it to the Writers' Group. The object is to give em enuf time to read it before the meeting.

I should mention my sugar was 185 when I got there from the peach cobbler, knowing it would gradually decrease and I didn't need to eat anything while there. 

We discussed my story first. They liked it. I asked some questions:

- Was the rape scene realistic?

- Was it believable that her painting was "as powerful a piece of madness and despair as Monck's 'The Scream.'"

- Was it believable when she got the courage to cuss out the rapist?

Since our group now meets once a week, the 'deadline pressure' allows us to write more.

Linda Barrett read us another chapter in 'A Time for Love,' a science fiction novella where age requirements mandate an early death for everyone, on this overcrowded planet hundreds of years in the future. 

 Linda had her poem "The Bipolar Sea" printed on her T-shirt by Artistic Screen Design, who made our Mental Health Awareness Magnet. Her poem was published in last year's Compass.

Discounted copies available for this collector's item for $100 in the trunk of my car.

Laffin' Carly surprised us all by writing "A Short Essay about The Late Miss Virginia Woolf."
It was followed by a poem where a wife of 22 years questions if she still wants to remain married.

Allan Heller left us in terrible suspense after reading only three pages of his ghost story "Nothin' Strange Going On."

When someone gives Allan a suggestion, he sez:  Duly noted.

He gave us all some websites on which to try to get our stories and poems published.

Look! Here's his story "Stones in a Creek."

90 percent of the time, said Allan, his work is rejected.

But, hallelujah, baby, it's the other 10 percent that counts.

The clock was ticking and I still hadn't written any poems this morning.

After procrastinating, I had 50 minutes left to write the poems.

I had five ideas and wrote about four of em.

Ahem, let the reading begin.

LEMON FUSION

On one of those cooking shows

where they do the impossible

and make you go downstairs

in the middle of the night

to root like a rabbit

in your refrigerator

a sensible-looking man

held up a lemon

an ordinary yellow lemon

and cut it to shreds

enclosed it in a glass jar

with salt, sugar and

vinegar 

"Put it in a dark place," he said

looking at me as I rode my

stationery bike

"The chemicals will do their job

Reactions will begin immediately

In half a year your lemon will be

like custard, more delicious than

your palate ever dreamed"

Inside, the explosions begin

one small cell thrown up in the

air like a juggler tossing

bowling pins in a circus tent

the glass sides sprout designs

like a Picasso

noisily, though there’s no one

to hear it,

the center blows apart

a Krakatoa having nowhere to

go, caught in a glass womb,

with an ear-splitting rumble.

So, too, five billion years ago,

the earth was formed, chained

to Mother Sun

Our lemon must wait in  fetal darkness

and await and explosions yet to

come, before she, too, is released,

a captive chrysalis reborn to

life as a dessert

fit for the

discerning palate. 

MY SHORE HOUSE

Long Beach Island

Cape May

Ocean City

A perquisite of modern life

is a visitation at what is known

as a “shore point”

let the sand blow in your face

the ocean lick your wounds clean

and the shells offer you a glimpse
of death made beautiful

I defer.

My house is my shore house.

Devoid, now, of children or pets,

I roam around these sweltering days

of August

The screened-in back porch is where

I take my meals

Meow! says the new stray cat

my daughter-in-law would

instantly bring home

Scat! I call as he peeks

in the screen door

and rushes off under the

unkempt forsythia

I lay down in my reading room

windows cranked open to allow

the halting breeze to find me,

snap on the fan and

pick up Nelson deMille about
spies in Russia but

after two frightening chapters 
I switch to the New Yorker

teetering in two unread stacks
like a collapsible Eiffel Tower
on the carpeted floor.

Too many choices for bedtime.

What kind of night will it be?

A tough one requires the soft living

room couch and a movie on the laptop

Otherwise, unencumbered by sand

in my eyes or the smell of salt water

clinging to my face

I catapault myself into bed

it’s one of those high ones

Princess and the Pea style
sold only at Sleepy's
After a dozen false starts
sleep finally snatches me in its
huge butterfly net.

 

AT THE FEET OF THE MASTER

I was fat then

with my lithium thighs

and double chin

put on my best

fat clothes and drove over

to meet him in the lobby

of the mental health facility

where I counseled people

sicker than I.

Under my arm was

a manila folder I’d

stolen from the agency

filled with dozens of my poems

     When the Hummingbird Hums

     Neighbors

     Houses on the Corner

waiting for a poet famous in our town

I nodded to the new janitor in the lobby

decked out in white longjohn shirt

and huge glasses revealing owl eyes

that bored through my head

Walked over to the window to see if

he was pulling in.

Seven a.m. he said was the only time

he could come

Illicit lovers, I thought, turning back

to the janitor, tall legs ensconced in jeans

our eyes meeting in understanding

I tapped my folder and opened it up

he grabbed it eagerly

my Homer, my Ovid

"I'll look 'em over," he said

in his professorial voice,

"and mail them back."

I watched him mount his truck in

the parking lot. 

When they came back they

were filled with stars and ex-

clamation points.

A poet famous in our town.

Chris Bursk, PhD, born 1943. Read more here.