ugly stage

FREEWRITING EXERCISE #78

Idle, the hands rest on the sides,
in grasp of air, filling pockets
with sands of time and other
vagrants; I am finding a way
to turn the meaningless into
indecipherable monomania,
the repeating-repeating-re-
peating of a long-loved scotch,
and the quiet call of a morning
bird before it flies into glass;
What is life but to run forward
with your eyes closed, and
what is love but to lean in
with your eyes closed, and
feel the rush of twenty storeys
or more beneath your chin;
Stay awake now, the bus is
taking a while to drop its
numerous pilgrims but soon
enough you will be there;
I am afraid of running
out of meaning, my hands
returning to playdoh on
weekends, pink putty in
the head, a dearth of ideas
for a party long-departed,
the spirit of a party still
cleaning up the mess
left by two errant youths
in a bedroom cabinet,
I am worried that I am
actually the world’s most
boring person, who must take
to fiction, lengthy poems and
artsy websites to hide all this,
to hide, to hide; I sometimes
fear I’m losing the plot with
my line breaks, and my
almost-arbitrary use of
punctuation, as though
to say that these periods
no longer hold power
over me, my days
unbounded, limitless
and oh, so dreary.

Freewriting Explanation: Every day, Valen shall use 5 minutes to write completely unprompted and uninterrupted, letting the words lead the way. There is no end purpose to each piece, but rather, the pieces are allowed to develop naturally in their own way. The pieces are then uploaded without edits.

FREEWRITING EXERCISE #77

Photo by Randy Jacob on Unsplash

Sometimes I have little to say / crossing the stream that runs / behind the backs of houses / I watch my self in the puddle / a coin-mirror lying belly-up / a glimpse of what could be / Nowadays my eyes are itchy / and I go into town goal-less / with my pockets full of soot / and my head full of sand / Perhaps I will go to school /don a mantle of education / letting my words bloom / like an elephant’s bum taking a poo / It’s not like I don’t give a fuck about anything / I do give a fuck on the down-low / and when I can afford to / I donate some to charitable causes / It’s more like being trapped / in a cask by an old friend / In every conceivable reflection / I make sure to seek myself out

FREEWRITING EXERCISE #76

Photo by Grant Ritchie on Unsplash

a spine like a keyboard / the blacks
intersecting the whites / ridges like
a bookshelf / tracing the line with
a careful finger / I am brought back
to road trips in Iceland / the un-
certainty of an off-road track /
our wheels caked deep in snow /
the burst tyre / our car a drop of
blood on a canvas / night in
all directions / and the miracle
of another car passing in the
dark / it was a statistical
improbability / how two cars
may meet when neither should
have been / your face a field
covered in tomorrow / your
body a conduit for my body /
there is too much warmth
here / which is to say that I
want more / how we let ourselves
fall into the bank / our shape
imprinted into a book / only to
be slowly filled in again / God
as the slowest writer / what
it must be to see your plot
of sky whited over / correct
this fault / make it even / make
it so / how you are a solution /
to a problem no-one knows

FREEWRITING EXERCISE #75

Photo by Moises Alex on Unsplash

justice sits in the tennis court /
tennis a sport of reciprocity /
returning a salvo barrage /
the broad side of a warship /
sent into a murky water /
one drop of ink dilutes /
the hazy milk of memory /
a fog lifted to be worn /
cloaked in the night I leave /
I leave peanut shells on the patio /
A murder of crows is a church /
A murder is an act of god /
God lives in the hands of men /
My hand is too small to hold /
To hold an opinion, my body works /
This body of politics has not yet died /
To die is to forsake tomorrow /
Tomorrow I will write another poem /
A poem on the back of a cannonball

FREEWRITING EXERCISE #74

Photo by Natalie Ng on Unsplash

I am at the weigh-in / the men
carry my pound of flesh / hung
jury sitting in the rafters / eyes
like pigeons / their faces like
pigeons / the going rate for
excision is silence / the cost
of living is silence / the last
hot-blooded rebel had his
arms pulled off at the hinges /
the house of his boyish body
torn down and auctioned off /
to be served on that silver
platter / for the people who
you think you know own it /
knives knives knives knives /
a shave near the femur /
anything if most of us
can live happy / or at
the very least / quiet

Freewriting Explanation: Every day, Valen shall use 5 minutes to write completely unprompted and uninterrupted, letting the words lead the way. There is no end purpose to each piece, but rather, the pieces are allowed to develop naturally in their own way. The pieces are then uploaded without edits.

FREEWRITING EXERCISE #73

Photo by Nhia Moua on Unsplash

Having given out the last of his
pocket change to the homeless man
sitting outside his house, with his
cardboard manifesto in hand, the
lung came home empty-handed.
The lights were off, because the
eyes did not pay the utilities, having
resigned themselves from their
jobs at the publishing house.
Now they walk about taking
in the dark like they were
hungry for it. Dropping his keys
on the kitchen table, the lung
opens the fridge to find the tongue,
who wanted to simulate how it would feel
to go lonely and without embrace.
On the television, the mouth spits
headline after headline about the
recent crime committed by the
nose, who smelt iron bars
and forged a knife to cut
through a family of hairs.
Sitting quietly in the dark,
the static of the television
filling the room with buzz,
like an errant insect, like
the wilting of a summer flower,
the lung is waiting patiently
to tell the heart to help him.
Recently, he has been losing
his way home. Journeys on
the subway lead to streets
he does not recognise;
Fresh Love on the Chopping Block road,
A Body without Organs street,
Please Hold Me avenue.
The lung feels lost
without the heart.
He can only breathe
slowly now, taking in
all the nothing left in
her wake, all the nothing
there is in a quiet home
in an unassuming suburb.

FREEWRITING EXERCISE #72

Like all love, it happened
at an inconvenient time /
doubling over in the grass /
the whirr of a lawnmower
still running rounds down
the cul-de-sac / lying there
with his half-trimmed lawn /
I wonder what he must have
seen / His nostrils, filled with
the afterglow of shorn blades /
His breath coming in and out
like his daily routine for the
past half-century / I wonder
if there was anybody at home /
when his soul decided to pay
a visit / Somehow thinking of
death, I can’t help but think
of capitalism / I cannot remove
the worker from the cadaver /
Maybe he was happy, then /
retired after working twenty
long years / in the darkest,
sootiest coal mine / or he quit
his job at a local accounting firm
when all the numbers began to
blur / the blades of their edges
growing wild and free / or maybe
he has children / maybe he has
perpetuated the systemic problems
which pervade the earth / maybe
he had a good time / eating barbecue
in his backyard with his various
unmemorable relatives / that does not
matter / Death has come to lie
on the grass with him / staring
at the sky / trying to make out
shapes in the clouds / Thinking
of it that way a date could be
nice / after they found him
just lying there / content /
the fire department with all
their sons of sons / finished
his arduous task / I like to
think of it as being ferried
across the river styx / and
seeing on the other side /
everyone that you’ve touched
and left behind / it will be sad /
but the lawn will be so beautiful