NaNoWriMo

"Blood of the Garlic" : Almost 17k from 27 pieces entered on-line with approximately 28k (48 pieces) written so far. I'm over halfway there.

Thirteen orange shirts

         for Mark and Richard Neuner

the suffocating heat
the slow twang of soft voices
hard walls bare of adornment
until I placed flowers in the windows
a view of the campus far off in the distance
a ten minute walk
what few things I brought
thirteen orange shirts
my winter jacket
now long forgot
two narrow beds we pushed together
later pulled apart
in the atrium
a norfolk pine reaching the ceiling
in the cafeteria
eggs for breakfast
who knew what for lunch
something for dinner
each day with the same hungry folks
youth gathered round the television
wayne gloating when nixon won
not gloating when a plane crashed
three dead in my home town
concern and relief when making a call to a friend
my brother saw it aim for our house
lift for a second
turn over
miss

© Kåre Enga [166.272] 2009-10-23

Sketching it out:

Based on actual memories from autumn, 1972. Richard was delivering papers down the street; his brother Mark was a close friend. It crashed into a house on the next street. Their mother saw it from her kitchen window. I knew the folks next door too and I believe my sister knew the family whose house was plowed into (or next door; it's an old memory).

I had transferred to U Kansas and was doing well that semester, healing in fact. I remember I had a bunch of orange shirts (orange was definitely not in in 1972) probably my entire wardrobe... thirteen does stick in my mind as I remember someone commenting on my shirts and I went to count them. I had a yellow one and lavender one around that time too. I was "allergic" to blue.

Looked it up on line. Apparently it was on December 16th.

The lack of punctuation and capitalization is on purpose. I do prefer I to i though as i comes off as "cute" and this poem is not. It was written at a Virginia Woolf workshop last month.

Thou:

No new babies, weddings, funerals to report today... yet...

Me and Mine:

I got 4 sketches written yesterday. I'd been in the doldrums for two days. No movement is bad. Today is bright at the moment. I've promised myself that I need to get out more.

Putting what I wrote on line is also creating a minor problem. It takes time and energy and amounts to a light edit. This is good, but NaNo does have a time limit "imposed". My total on the last day will have to show words written rather than words on line. More work two Mondays from today...

Montana: 33º in Missoula at 10 a.m.