Coachella Erasure Poem

(one of my pro-trainers just returned from the Coachella Festival, so I had a particular interest in the NYTimes/Style Section article 4/28/16 "Where Coachella is a Playground and Muse" by Sheila Marikar)

It was just after 1 a.m.

Over the next few hours

Kylie beamed and bounced

as if on a tiny trampoline:

"I just wanted to have the feeling

of when I am in the fields."  

Erasure Poem and 19 Word Story

“Don’t You Forget about Me” NYTimes/Styles 4/21/16 note: Erasure poem genre inspired by Austin Kleon, author of "Steal Like an Artist" and "Show Your Work!"

Six nights and two afternoons a week

Thumping a book like a Bible—

That year has never left us.

Their strange things are creeping back:

Music and lyrics ripple.

Writer’s Digest May/June 2016 p. 53

Those words, burnt into the sand will be washed away by waves as our conjoined bodies float on foam. (19 words)

The Big Question

(Writing prompt response to “write a 1, 3, 5 minute story Poets & Writers, March-April 2016).  This is a 2 minute-to-read story).

They had been sharing his L.A. loft condo for only two months, but Brad was ready to ask the big question.  He had liked being married, and seeing the kids for the weekends wasn’t much of a life.   But would Carrie be ready to make their relationship permanent?  There was a risk in asking too soon.

“Go out and get a dog,” his best friend Charlie had suggested.  “If she agrees to that, you are halfway to engagement.”

“Maybe.  But the other half is what I am worried about,” Brad lamented.

Following Charlie’s advice, they had gone to the animal shelter and gleefully brought home Juno—a six-month old, crate-trained yellow lab who could play ball twenty-four hours a day.  Carrie loved Juno.  She took her in the car to go to the doggie beach, to the grocery story, even to their favorite café.  The three of them would sit on the café’s patio, drink a latte and watch the Ferrari’s drive by on Highway 1.

So another two months passed.  Then, one day, after a yoga class at the gym, Carrie came out of the locker room in her t-shirt and leotard pants, shaking her ponytail loose.

“I want to go home and shower before dinner, not take time to shower and change here.”

“Home?”  Brad was stunned.  This was the first time she had uttered the “h” word.  Usually, she would say, “the condo.”

“Home?  The condo?” he repeated.

“Yes, silly.  Home is where the heart is.”  Carrie nuzzled her nose into Brad’s neck.  “Don’t you know that by now?”

“Guess I didn’t.” Brad paused, pulling back to look at her, face to face. 

“But now that I do, I have a big question to ask.”

“Ask away.  I am a gal full of ‘yes’ today.”