THREE HOURS!

I had to write another one of those infuriating “constraint” exercises for one of my writing classes.

This was the prompt:

Mapping the world:  Take David Shumate's micro-narrative/prose poem, The Bible Belt (below) and replace each of its words with one of your own (and of the same kind—nouns for nouns, verbs for verbs, etc.) using a title taken from your neighborhood of Los Angeles.  

It has taken me THREE HOURS to get through the 135 words. I am not a happy camper right now. I have many very important other things to be doing right now!

Anyway, Shumate’s piece is below (his is actually quite good) and mine is in the next post (it is not very good and yet still required a whole lot of grammatical cheating.)

The Bible Belt

By David Shumate

It's a vast and fertile land. Soybeans and corn grow in this soil. Wheat and tobacco. A little sorghum. It's not dramatic terrain with ocean waves crashing against the cliffs. It's mostly gently rolling plains. Long stretches of prairie. You know you've entered it when the signs along the highway begin telling you what God wants you to do. Those who live here regard it as their duty to make these things known. Otherwise the rest of the country would be left in the dark. The bibles in this region are larger than elsewhere. Most weigh over a hundred pounds. It takes two strong men to lift them into a pickup truck to haul off to church. All the women dress up on Sundays. And all the white men shake hands.

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An Adjacent Metropolis.

An Adjacent Metropolis

by james bezerra

We are the hot and cramped stipmalls. Spray tan and mascara smear in this heat. Asphalt and concrete. The thick 101. This isn't Hollywood dreamscapes beneath palm trees swaying over our success. We’re usually quietly mourning something. Potential pornstars among the homeless. She thinks she’s making it because her agent down in Studio City starts convincing her that directors need her to strip. We that survive this scab over as our penance and exploit the amateurs casually. Patiently a anxiety in the periphery will be pushing on the heart. A BMW on these streets is better than grace. Many fuck away the empty feeling. We drive three clogged freeways to move ourselves through the gaping Pass while going broke on gas. All the water disappeared down into pools. But all the starving potential lies here.

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How great is my mother?

The other day I got an envelope in the mail. I sliced it open and inside I found a bunch of paint chips from some one of those places that gives out paint chips.

It was from my mom and she had selected her favorite paint chip names. The post-it she send just said, “The Home Depot/Lowes version of poetry.”  How profound is that?I How fucking cool is that?!

She also drew a smiley face on the post-it, but that’s just because she’s great at being a mom.

Poetry: GIRLS' NIGHT OUT, LINGERIE, URBAN PULSE, INDULGENCE 

Poetry: SOOTHING SLIPPERS, SWEET DREAMER, LAVENDER CALM, INHALE, POETRY IN THE PARK.

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Obviously I am Not a Car.

Obviously I am Not a Car

I wake up with the feeling that I may have murdered someone. This is not uncommon. A former therapist of mine says it is about guilt. I said that I thought being chased was about guilt. He said he wasn’t the kind of therapist who knows much about murders or chases or dreams but that he knows a lot about guilt and so it must be that. When I wake up with the feeling that I may have murdered someone I’m certain it isn’t about guilt. Then I wonder about Tyrannosaurus Rexes and how they most certainly murdered things and did they wake up with this feeling of guilt that I have? Certainly not! But certainly they did dream because I have seen Sebald dream - poor fat lazy dumb Sebald who is so fat he just sits there on his haunches like a dumb fat German boy in lederhosen waiting for me to feed him - and Sebald always kicks his legs and out when he dreams, probably because he is dreaming of being a Tyrannosaurus Rex running down Brontosauruses in the jungle. Obviously Sebald was dreaming because there was never such a thing as Brontosauruses. But back to my former therapist: wasn’t he supposed to fix this feeling? If I were a car and I took myself to a mechanic to fix some annoying mechanical clanking inside me, I would expect him to fix it. I am certain I have not murdered anyone today though because I have only just woken up and wouldn’t have had the time to.

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