Reflections in the Water bowl

Cleaning out my car, I ran across a horoscope I tore from the Orlando Weekly a little over a month ago.

Aquarius: (Jan. 20- Feb. 18) Here’s a preview of the accomplishments I expect you to complete in the next four weeks. Number of karmic debts paid off and canceled: one. Bad habits replaced with good habits: two. Holes blasted in your theory about why you can’t do more of what you love to do: 300. "Necessities" lost that turn out not to be necessities: one. Psychic wounds successfully medicated: one. Confusing messes that evolve into interesting opportunities: two. Romantic obstructions eliminated: one and a half.

  

Interesting time for a telling horoscope. 

Ivory Peonies

Somewhere in the dark corners of my mind

The places we go to hide

I wish I were four and still a child

You say grow up, be a little more mild

 

I never asked you to stay and wait

In fact I think I warned you I’d be late

Flowers only bloom in the spring you see

And it’s been winter for eternity

 

Explains the cold shroud around my heart

And you thought i was just playing tart

No babe, but dessert sure is sweet

Yet haven’t you learned that I ain’t

 

I made you a pie, you baked me a cake

We spent that whole winter down by the lake

Trying to fix, to forgive, to forget

Strangers out of season, frozen with regret

 

I told you I did, I warned you I would

Get bored with gardening in the cold wood

He thawed my ivory peonies one magical night

Now from you I run with fright

 

Back to the comfort corner of my mind

Very safe place to go and hide

I’ll pretend I’m four, a prodigious child

I can’t hear your screams, your call of the wild

 

Some say a cold-water death can be euphoric

For your sins, I know you will burn for it

You and your dreams, now locked in a hard cell

I hope I haunt them from my cold watery hell

Change

“It’s coming.” Said you

 

“What’s that?” Said i

 

“Change.” Said you

 

“Change? Change has come and gone and come again. It’s the only constant. You’ve been busy. Haven’t noticed.” Said i

 

“But I’m afraid of change.” Said you

 

“The hardest part is waiting. With change you skip-the-line. It’s a VIP pass straight to the ride.” Said i

 

 

 

With desperation you looked at me

I could see adequate fascination in your deep blue eyes

You questioned my actions

An intensity only you could deliver.

 

Remember the only constant in time is change

and only change is constant

I warned

 

Trying desperately to make you understand

the future is not something I can tell

nor do I know if I can give

what you want

if I only knew what it was

 

And if I did know these answers would I relinquish them so willing?

 

So time lingered

as predicted

adequacy became waning

as I warned

 

Parting company was easy, no hard feelings

except for a slight loneliness we had both dealt with before

with others we cared only too little about

 

It’s too bad we felt this way

for we too

remain constant

as changes always do

GLITTER GULCH

Out-of-date neon signs, long past retirement age, line Fremont Street. Their colored bulbs radiate an unwavering glow on the downtown Las Vegas streets. It is close to seven o’clock but the day’s heat clings to the air, stinging her eyes, as she exits from the back seat of the of the Town car. She gives a wave to the driver and quickens her pace entering the Horseshoe through one of the revolving doors lining the entrance. The cigarette smoke hangs in the air, like a cirrus cloud, causing her to wince. The room is low ceilinged and buzzes with ample fluorescents and gambling euphoria. Tourists, digging for gold, clutch metal coin buckets in the crooks of their arms as the clink of their booty echoes. They are permanent fixtures, screwed to row-after-row of slot machines. That’s Sin City, she thinks.

 

Benny Jr. insists that you can still ‘smell the chips’ in the Old Vegas Horseshoe, on account of them being the same since Grandpa Binion opened the place in 1951, forcing the other houses to change from sawdust joints to classy, carpeted casinos. Benny always tells her, ‘they don’t make em like this anymore.’ Roxy wishes he would change the forsaken, threadbare carpet, but old cowboys seldom change.

 

"Would you radio Benny and let him know I’m here and will meet him in the Steakhouse?" She says brushing past Amanda the thin, freckled clerk at the registration desk. She checks her watch; three minutes until seven. She learned over the years you did not make Benny wait, you waited for Benny.

 

"Sure thing, Roxy." Amanda calls after her as she enters the elevator she hears the ting of a slot machine bell, a lucky winner screams at a jackpot win.

 

She presses the button for the twenty-fourth floor giving herself a once over in the floor to ceiling mirrors that adorn the elevators antique interior. Her lips are shaded Dangerously Red, matching her dress, complete with a low-plunging neckline and killer curves, all courtesy of Benny. She steps off the elevator and into Binion’s Ranch Steakhouse where Benny is waiting at the vintage mahogany bar. He slides his rocks glass across the bar and signals to the bartender, Petey, for another. She checks her watch again, noting it is one minute after seven o’clock. Her stomach muscles tighten as she gauges the expression on Benny’s face. He smiles at her tipping the brim of the cowboy hat covering his jet-black hair. The tension releases in her gut and a sheepish grin spreads across her face.

 

"Rox, the usual?" Petey asks polishing a wine glass.

 

Roxy nods and turns her attention to Benny planting a kiss on his left cheek. "Hi baby, sorry I’m late."

 

Benny retrieves her Chardonnay off the bar and takes her by the elbow leading her to their corner table overlooking the Vegas valley. Her breath catches in her throat as she gazes out over the cornucopia of shimmering lights. Benny and the Vegas lights brought her from Dallas and they are the reasons she remained after leaving she stopped performing each night on the strip.

 

Roxy hangs her purse on the back of the chair and takes her place at the table. "Benny, you said you had something important to talk to me about." Benny, opens his mouth to speak, their lanky waiter, James, brings over their salads.

 

"Mr. Binion. The usual for you. Caprese salad and the Pear and Gorgonzola for you madam. Your porterhouse and lobster will be out soon." James says sliding the dishes in front of them.

 

Benny stacks a thick piece of mozzarella on top of a ripe, red beefsteak tomato and slices into it. "Wanna bite?" he asks.

 

Roxy shakes her head and pushes a candied walnut around the plate with a fork. Her palms are sweaty. James returns and slides the tables candle towards Roxy. He places a steaming, twenty-one ounce Porterhouse, Au Gratin potatoes with a crisp, golden-brown crust, a bright orange Australian lobster tail, and a heaping mound of sautéed baby asparagus in the middle of the table along with two extra plates. The flame catches her eye, it orange, blue and white colors dancing the white wax. Benny prepares her plate, selecting tender morsels from each category. The converging smells assault her making her light-headed. Roxy reaches across the table and grabs her glass of ice water. She takes a big gulp, stifling the urge to vomit. She pushes her plate out of the way.

 

"What’s the matter?" says Benny.

 

"Oh, it’s nothing. I haven’t been feeling too good lately. I’m not too hungry anyway. Didn’t you want to talk to me about something?" Roxy says changing the subject.

 

"I do. We’ll get to that." Benny signals to James. "We need a bottle of champagne and two flutes. Bring only the best in the house for my girl here." James returns and pours the bubbly into two glasses. "We’ve been together for some time now ya know Rox," he pauses reaching into his pocket, "I’d like you to marry me." Benny extracts a golden ring topped with a three-karat diamond from its velvet home.

 

Roxy gasps, exhaling as she reaches for the ring, the dancing flame exhausts itself. "It’s beautiful." She says admiring the brilliant stone.

 

"Sorry uh, boss, I don’t mean to bother you but uh we got a shark we took outta the pit. It ain’t his first time neither." Bruno the head of security for the casino interrupts.

 

"Bring him on into the kitchen. I’ll meet you there." He turns to Roxy, "I gotta show a friend some cowboy hospitality. I’ll be right back."

 

Roxy stands. She feels her ears grow hot the fire spreading over her face. "Benny, I’m warning you…we have been over this a thousand time…"

 

"Roxy, sit down, shut up, and don’t’ move." Benny exits.

 

She hears Benny’s booming voice over a clatter of pots and pans, followed by a man pleading. The pleading turns into a wail of pain before silence. Two Horseshoe security guards pull the sobbing man through the dining room. He clutches his hand in a blood soaked linen.

 

"What did you do?" Roxy says in a whisper a look of horror on her face. "What did you do?" She says again raising her voice.

 

"You know we don’t play with fish in my house. If I were Grandpa Binion that fish would be two feet under in the middle of the desert, instead of missing a finger." Benny says as he dips his linen napkin in water to extract three dots of crimson from his shirt.

 

Roxy looks out the window at the glitter gulch below. In the distance, she sets her eyes on a thunderstorm bypassing the valley, illuminating the black horizon with flashes of lightning. Her eyes go wide. She looks at the ring on her finger, up to Benny and back down to the ring and takes it off.

 

With a slow, trancelike movement, she bends gathering her handbag. She pauses, touches her abdomen, and drops the ring into her full champagne glass. "Mr. Binion, I have to let you go." She says as she backs away from the table before fleeing from the restaurant.

 

She does not stop for Benny’s angry cries. She does not stop on the stairs for twenty-four flights. She does not stop during the two-mile walk down Fremont to her apartment. She does not stop through an hour of frantic packing or through eighteen hours and twelve hundred miles of desert driving. She does not stop until she gets to her Mother’s door, and rings the bell.

 

"Mama, I’m home." She cries, bursting into tears.

WRITER’S BLOCKS

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It is no secret; Authors such as John Updike, Ernest Hemingway, and George Bernard Shaw sat down every morning, without fail, and wrote. Some counted pages, some counted words. Some stopped mid- sentence, mid-process, mid-flow when they reached their daily goal. Others did not. James Thurber said, “Don’t get it right; get it written.” How did the literary geniuses do it, when getting started is the hardest part? Since the beginning of Creative Writing 2001, I have discovered a brave new world in fiction writing. What I think, I thought I knew I did not. I knew nothing. Writing is damn hard and the line between art and cliché is as thin as the line between love and hate.

Realizing the only way to start is to start. We are a conflicted group. How do you start with the constant barrage of interruptions? The tea calls from the cupboard. Make me. The cat purrs. Scratch me. The dishes pile. Wash me. The phone rings. Answer me. It is procrastination. Finally, you sit down to write and nothing happens. You want to smash your computer into smithereens, bash your head on a gritty sidewalk…anything would be less painful. Then you get an idea. A glimmer of hope emerges. You are tossing it around when your critic shows up. He tells you it sucks and so do you. You tell him he is not welcome, that is he who sucks, not you. You are a writer, an artist. You toss him out, but he is a persistent bugger. Joe Schuster chair and associate professor in the Communications and Journalism department at Webster University believes: “The fear is the disease, the block just the symptom.”

Shuster among others believe in order to combat block a process must be employed. Free write, journal, blog; write anything and everything that comes to mind. Go ahead; explore and experiment. Write about the things you know, research what you do not, but keep in mind that research does not replace experience. The blank page is not your prison; it is your playground. There is more reality in fiction than you think. Use everything; nothing is sacred. Be furtive, no one is looking. You have an immense power called revision. Earnest Hemingway said, “All first drafts are shit.” Hemingway is right, but do not let it stop you. Through first drafts, I have learned as much about myself, perhaps more, as I have about the process.

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If we look at art as our design and craft as the execution, how do we bridge the gap? How do we take a killer idea, a rambling of free writes and shape them into a gripping narrative? Art defined is as the creation of beautiful or thought-provoking works, produced through creative activity, skill or the ability to do something well using a set of techniques in a particular field or a superior skill that is learned by study, practice, and observation. It is the process or product of deliberate arrangement of elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions encompassing a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression. A craft defined is a profession or activity that requires skill, training, experience, or specialized knowledge to produce or create something with skill and care. As artists, we break out our drafting tools. We study the process. We invest time in learning how to structure a story and design a grabbing plot. How to use point of view and show character nuance while creating time, space and place details that ignite the five senses. We evoke theme using metaphorical comparisons, symbolism, and allegory. We strive to manufacture tense conflicts; crises converge, and offer resolution in blinding twists.

Writing is damn hard. Good writing is even harder. Learning the art of storytelling is not simple, but it does have a formula: read, write, revise, and repeat…read, write, revise, and repeat. So, if you are going through Hell now, keep going because writing is less expensive than therapy. In the words of Joe Schuster, “I can learn to write badly until I learn to write well.”

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….and Nostalgia Came Creeping In

Do you remember the time when you glanced at me

…and I swear I could see right down to the bottom of your soul

…and it felt so good

a moment captured in time, when all was good and right

…and you knew it too, you felt it same as I

and we thought it might last, we said it always would

but moments like these seldom do

for fear he captures our souls and he whisks us away before our very eyes

before we can recognize that life is too short to let these moments pass us by

…but so often they do