Give me a warm bed to rise from,
A guitar to write songs with,
A pad of paper for my poems,
A ham and cheese sandwich for lunch,
A mid-day walk around my neighborhood,
A friend to talk to on the phone,
A something sweet to eat,
A clean and tidy room,
A midnight walk up to the deserted campus,
And I will be content.
TS
What happens when you write a song,
Is all your life comes flooding back,
All the life you forgot,
All the life you’d like to gather up,
All your life that fell on the floor,
All your life.
What happens when you sing that song,
Is all your life comes out your mouth,
And whoever is around,
Will know you better,
Even if it’s just you.
I don’t want confusing love,
the kind that stabs at my stomach.
I want peaceful love,
the kind that scratches my head
and understands.
I don’t think it can rain hard enough to wash all my sins away.
The-last-great-goodbye came without so much of a wave.
There was no yelling like one might expect.
There was no final stand.
There was no reaching out and calling you back, dripping in sweat and tears.
I memorized your dark gray silhouette; watched it leave.
Watched it never come back.
I miss you.
That’s all I really wanted to say.
In fact, everything I say these days is just code for,
I miss you.
Important!
Right in the middle of the story.
Followed by moving and touching.
G-R-I-P-P-I-N-G.
Metaphors that are unclear but will soon be deciphered.
Personal story from before the great war.
Pull quote from General about power hunger.
Explaining the quote with more personal story, but this time, during the war.
Those sneaky metaphors are beginning to take shape…
A map showing the impacted region.
A scale to compare to your thumb nail.
Bold Text!
Denouement
(Inside your head there are violins playing)
THE NARRATOR IS ACTUALLY THE YOUNG BOY!
Pan all the way out.
“We are all tiny specks falling like snow over Chernobyl.”
Fin.
It’s so American it hurts your teeth
So laid back but without the beach
So 1950s that Elvis ain’t dead
So Midwest see the back your head
The steel toed, blue collar poetry
The kind that shit talks and winces-through-sore-forearm-fuckery
Been doin’ it since I was 9, that’s a lie
I’m just a wanna be – that never has
Well, I has a little
(Stammering) I – I – I can hang drywall now!
I can’t grit my teeth like they can yet
I don’t mean it and they know it
Green around the edges with the familiar fishy smell
I walk into the deli,
Tape on my hip, like some
Hollywood “cowboy” that can’t even ride a fuckin’ horse
It’s the kind of sonnet
That always has ragged lines –
Never so neat and orderly
Wait, what am I talking about?
Poetry? Construction?
Cause I do both like it’s my first time
Language, and the ever expanding volume of words, is a collection of venn diagrams. From one thousand feet up it looks just like a storm cloud. At the smallest scale, it seems like cells in a state of mitosis; splitting and fragmenting – all from one original idea. One day, I hope I’ll get to meet the speaker from whose lips came the great, indelible origin of it all. Now I’m not a betting man, but I’m guessing the first word sounded something … like love.
(Pulls fancy stationery out)
Pens a chicken scratch letter.
It starts, “I promised I would write you…”
But “promised” is misspelled.
It’s pretty much downhill from there.
He’s no romantic.
He barely knows his times tables.
But you were the prettiest girl at summer camp.
And he doesn’t want to lose you.
His best line is, “You’re a real swell dancer.”
And you giggle a bit and remember.
You think you’ll keep him.
Even if you’re a foot taller.
He signs it, “All the best, Ace.”
Which is what you called him,
When he missed the archery target by 10 feet.
Hold on to these never ending years,
Hearts held together by scotch tape
And friendships forged in blood.
When every day is new,
And every night is forever.
Tyler Strittmatter 