June Road Trip and "found" poem

At Starbucks: Haiku

Grab something: yum, yum—

The icy side of cold brew.

A splash for summer.

Road Trip to La Encantada

My Saturday tasks are done.  Time for a bit of fun and mingle among the foothills crowd for a summer road trip.  Up and down curvy Campbell Avenue, I easily find a parking spot.  The moneyed class is in California or Colorado and Tucson’s plebes benefit on the less trafficked streets and open parking lots.

AJ’s is air-conditioned chilliness and bustling with kids in soccer shorts, punk teens with studs in their tongues, and seniors cradling shivering Schnauzers in baby strollers.  I head straight for the “grab and go” counter and buy a slice of vegetable pizza.  In the shade and under misting sprinklers, I am at a table by a fountain and potted blue flowers.  Picking the onion off the cheese, the pizza is savory, but dry from too long under the heat lamp.

Sucking on a dessert chocolate with sea salt, I go for a mini-shopping spree and leave Crate & Barrel with a cruet rubber stopper and a single glass from Italy that fits precisely to my hand.  Up the escalator to browse in a bohemian clothing store.  I pick a bar of soap on sale that is wrapped in pink paper and smells of peonies. When I use it at home, I will be reminded of my mom who loved her late spring peonies that grew in our Illinois back yard.

Succumbing to the temptation of clothing racks on sale, I find a light cotton blouse that could match a navy pair of linen pants I already have.  I have never ventured into the dressing area before and am surprised to be greeted by Angela who asks my name.  I wonder why she wants to know my name, but see that, as I tell her, she writes it on the small blackboard sign on a dressing room door that, for the moment, belongs to me.  The blouse “fits” in the style of summer-loose, but it is beyond my weekly budget.  Indulge: yes or no?  Well, I am alone all week and no one to scold me, so I decide to buy it, too.  As I give Angela the clothes hanger she waves me to the treat table: lime-flavored water and tiny chocolate cupcakes topped with a red raspberry.  I sip the water and skip the cupcake.

After my purchases, I decide: enough!  It’s time to head down the hill and go to Starbucks to write.  So, with a smile and a song from Keith Urban, my Subaru glides through the turns and I savor my Tucson townie road trip on a Saturday in June.

Stack of Books Poem

inspired by a prompt from Austin Kleon's Steal like an Artist:

A stack of books at Bentley's

begins with a foundation: Fortune Rocks.

As if to make a joke, the next title is 

The Penny.

Even a penny can be a fortune, too.

An optimist sees

Breaking Dawn as a chance to live

another day and 

discover Sanctuary in a local coffee shop.

A coyote named Slim Part 1

Once upon a time there was a coyote named SLim.  SLim scoured the neighborhood looking for fat bunnies who had gorged on mesquite seeds.  One day, SLim was spotted by 12 year old George who was out for adventure on a warm, but not hot, May afternoon.

George decided to follow SLim through the neighborhood and catch him with a rope.
George had just taught himself how to lasso by watching a video on Youtube.

While SLim was chomping on a bunny's hind leg, George threw a noose around SLim's neck and dragged him home.  He fed SLim crisp bacon twice a day.

SLim became his pet for a week and then George let him go.

After that, SLim always ate on the run.

[Note: this short piece was written as part of a simple exercise from Austin Kleon's "Show Your Work!" book.  The exercise was to "fill in the blanks" and write a story].

Erasure Poem: Keeping Calm

(words 5/19/16 NY Times/Arts Section, article by Ben Brantley "Keeping Calm and Carrying On Until Doomsday")

The forcast tomorrow--
noise of rain on the roof is steady.
It is a soothing sound.

The couple
have made the choice:
of course, there are no children.

What's the point?
The crystal balls
do not
glow.

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.”