Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Sunday, August 9, 2009
My New Novel
My new novel Split Ends is within me complete with missions, high tensions, and soul searching. My characters have been in limbo and transformed several times into well kept "Frankensteins." Not that I have writer's block, but this particular piece of work has been through numerous pitfalls. The first pitfall is that I completed the final draft and saved it to one (eight track of drives) type A floppy disc. I had the first three chapters saved on a another floppy disc and the entire the freewriting rough draft written in a notebook. Sounds safe enough? Well I got cocky and started playwrighting more since my first pieces met nothing but grand reviews from my colleagues. Some how between the unorganization of my files, I lost the floppy drive with the completed rough draft. I looked all over in libraries, coffee shops, bookstores, bedrooms, back packs, briefcases...everywhere! My search was unfruitful. Reflecting back I see that I was a literary nomad venturing one too many places to write. I was devastated to say the least!
A month later I finally got the nerve to start piecing together what I had in memory and in my free writing. Then I noticed something... my characters were more interesting due to the adventures of happenstance and environment. I always thrived off of characterization. My anguish turned to sudden relief and there I was with a new lease on literary life. My characters need more independent depth and realism. However, something happened as I started to write... I was faced with a dilemma I had a whole new idea for the direction of the plot. It was so much better. Many writing instructors would warn from this "scattered brain" approach to writing. The alternative was to stick to my guns and just keep the stories focus so I can get the novel over with!
One year later, after mountains of notes and research I had finally decided to start with the new story plot. Why so? This plot has everything and more to offer; suspense, the warmth of close friendship, tragedy, mystery and adventure. Best of all, it has rich characters. I never thought that this novel would consume so much time and energy, but instead of having my readers share the casualties of misfortune. I'd rather them share the care and riches of redemptive work handled with care and patience. Now my writing is like water in a love affair with gravity. I'm realizing that it's time for it to come because it's ripeness and it's maturity is making me fall in Love with writing again.
A month later I finally got the nerve to start piecing together what I had in memory and in my free writing. Then I noticed something... my characters were more interesting due to the adventures of happenstance and environment. I always thrived off of characterization. My anguish turned to sudden relief and there I was with a new lease on literary life. My characters need more independent depth and realism. However, something happened as I started to write... I was faced with a dilemma I had a whole new idea for the direction of the plot. It was so much better. Many writing instructors would warn from this "scattered brain" approach to writing. The alternative was to stick to my guns and just keep the stories focus so I can get the novel over with!
One year later, after mountains of notes and research I had finally decided to start with the new story plot. Why so? This plot has everything and more to offer; suspense, the warmth of close friendship, tragedy, mystery and adventure. Best of all, it has rich characters. I never thought that this novel would consume so much time and energy, but instead of having my readers share the casualties of misfortune. I'd rather them share the care and riches of redemptive work handled with care and patience. Now my writing is like water in a love affair with gravity. I'm realizing that it's time for it to come because it's ripeness and it's maturity is making me fall in Love with writing again.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Excerpt from "BEHOLDEN" poetry by Water Blakmon
感激--Casts of My Shadow
Did I ever mention this, mention this, mention this.
That I'm here, but I was gone a long time ago.
I'm that ghost you wake up to in the morning.
I'm that wind that makes you cringe
That I'm here, but I was gone a long time ago.
I'm that ghost you wake up to in the morning.
I'm that wind that makes you cringe
When you sniffle in the dawning.
I'm right here baby, but I'm gone
And I was gone a long time ago.
Let your ideas of me be confiscated by the laws of that
Alarm clock that looses it's power every night!
I'm that black ghost you kiss good night and
I'm that terror in your shadow!
Because I left a long time ago and you still find the time to
I'm that black ghost you kiss good night and
I'm that terror in your shadow!
Because I left a long time ago and you still find the time to
Appeal to the stillness of my hollow.
And you entertain the empty echoes of my "I Love you“
And you entertain the empty echoes of my "I Love you“
But it brews in the stew of your soul as sweet food,
But leaves you so hungry.
But leaves you so hungry.
And baby its all for nothing
Because I am the ghost of a lover's past
Loved passed by once
And I never gave it another chance
感激—The Literary Heavy Bag
Extend the five fingers on my right hand
Contemplated the grace of peace
Forsook my fist and released my strife with an exhale
Literature beat downs over my brow
Felt like Rakim...nobody smiling
Smile at what?
What forewords that curve
Like right hooks on a notion
Left jab strokes of inhibitions
If I mentioned her name it'll stain my page
Raged that that counterfeit set my stage
I thought it was complex like chess moves
Restricted by moral logic
After that Toc Tic clocked my heart hit the bricks
After that Toc Tic clocked my heart hit the bricks
Sticks and stones don't break bones like these
Saw you squeeze out that last bit of malice in intrigue
To author my anger and watch me
Re-percuss with a disgusting discussion
Over your harvest that begs me to reap it
Did I mention that I'm no longer hungry
For what we planted together
Weathered a storm with nothing to eat
Feet sore had my pains poured on in secret
Freak in you...lol...not enough
Got me twisted like a twissler
'Cause I still remain sweet
Done learned what it takes for those words
To Lurk around in a premature puzzle
And not bless it with a familiar figure
I don't stress it...I just let you forget I got the cure...
Part @ 2
Woke up with clinched fist
Tisk tisk tisk...risk talking to walls last night
(Read the rest in the book Beholden)
Monday, April 20, 2009
An excerpt from the book The Nappiness In My Soul ...
Acirema! A cry for Unity!
America’s million-man march was not televised…
Not televised like My Lord Jesus when he was crucified
Nobody is stopping the presses today whomever they slay
Just keep praying for life to appear before you like a late episode of Happy Days
Gone astray from Massa’s whip equipped our minds with proper propaganda
We each one teach one
Entertainment gigs bloomed, assumed we finally got a piece of the pie
Relied on a math crafted for fun
Laugh everyone the camera is candid
Demand minorities produce… they call a truce
We spend they rent, don’t’ relent your idea
Don’t have backbone like Madea
Flee the whip, bust down that glass wall
Bust in that glass door fly through that glass ceiling
Quit acting as if you are too cute to be cut
Quit sitting silly with a sprinkle of your Massa’s bling
Too much pride and too fat a check
To let your people know we are not as free as you think
The lie has gotten so old it stinks
That the waters your great grandfather’s drank taste sweeter,
Than the bottled swallow laid comfortably by heated tweeters Beat me down like 60’s Bronx…
Flaunt my ice pop my Cristal
Massa’s cold steel fits all of my brother’s wrists
Still we fight ‘cause after all we are rich
Like that hooker working and jerking from 2 to 10
Stretching up a morning yawning
Snoozed and snoring through noon
Assume the mornings pouring but oh my darling
Clementine sold that dandy for that candied nose
She wrote her own prose taming her song with rhyming O’s
Like dominos she falls for Uncle Sam’s peep show
Here’s the Negro w/ more cash than poor white trash
He can eat, he can sleep, and he can work
He can eat, he can sleep, and he can work
He can eat, he can sleep, and he can work
Some Negro took time off for the struggle
Rapper’s got jerked for work
Got work in Hollywood
Who sent them goods? Who signed that check?
Who called you hood?
Who winked that eye on American?
And said I wish you would…
Freedom is what your mind deems
Cream controlled…Cash Ruling Everything Around Me How did making money become so funny? Hilarious
Greedy grins come equipped with grills and shiny trends
Bends the light we work strife and kill our own
And completely stopped visiting granny’s tombstone
Left your own stepping stone…forget being taught Love.
Forget so often you couldn’t remember her face
From the aunty that died on last September
Remembered my brother’s face and the bad taste in my mouth
We saw something
Granny got old running for something
Even with Altzimer’s she reminded us we are Loved
Some argue that we’re other
And couldn’t have been had by a mother
But rather in a mind frame of color
On a canvas of an order and segregation enforcers
Did that great Love of a GRAND-mother reach her grandson’s daughter?
Let’s ask her?
Katrina, little black girl where did you sleep last night?
Where did you eat last night…what is your big gripe?
Catch your answers in top flight security…
Protecting whose interest?
Whose race comes first?
Whose demographic dispersing poisonous airways?
Whose…dropping down diseases bringing people to their knees?
Katrina became that sleaze with a bad rep
Reputations across the nation
New Orleans had their Negro placements
But they never took J. Edgar Hoover off the throne
Never got Hitler off the phone
Shot Martin Luther King Jr. off the throne
People saw his dream among the stones
Gandhi’s body was battered a bag of bones
For the place he would claim to be for his own kid’s home
Now compare a Pick to a fine tooth comb
And ask Katrina if she think they will take her home
Can’t make us a home
Can’t break our bones w/ labor
A dollar will do you till the scales tip
We snort, we rip, we cool we grip Caddy’s
Got daddy’s money…now being poor is funny!
Everywhere you go you’re slaves… Clock, don’t watch me watch TV and they tell you to…Clock!
Watching us flee the scene who’s calling the cops?
Who’s roaming the blocks watching who’s not punching a clock?
Abraham Lincoln’s civil war, who’s calling the shots?
Who’s punching the clock…whose clocking the rocks?
Who fell asleep on a high thread count sheet and twill socks?
Who fell asleep in concrete cages and animal slops?
Nah, America’s million man march was not televised!
Until we conform to the storm and be born free
A new culture is born and we count our ki’s
We bank our green we please our boss
Though the cost of your soul may trace your breed
How fast we flee, they saw that need?
Bounced you a ball and had the balls till say chuck-em’.
Our women would gold dig to the pigs come bust-em’.
A few decades ago they’d hand the women too.
Hang your sons and hire someone else who’d sweat their due.
Who wrote these diabolic rules to hate?
Make no mistake…A Loving God caused a vicious plot to dissipate.
America owes black people more respect than minimum wage and a hot plate.
America’s million-man march was not televised…
Not televised like My Lord Jesus when he was crucified
Nobody is stopping the presses today whomever they slay
Just keep praying for life to appear before you like a late episode of Happy Days
Gone astray from Massa’s whip equipped our minds with proper propaganda
We each one teach one
Entertainment gigs bloomed, assumed we finally got a piece of the pie
Relied on a math crafted for fun
Laugh everyone the camera is candid
Demand minorities produce… they call a truce
We spend they rent, don’t’ relent your idea
Don’t have backbone like Madea
Flee the whip, bust down that glass wall
Bust in that glass door fly through that glass ceiling
Quit acting as if you are too cute to be cut
Quit sitting silly with a sprinkle of your Massa’s bling
Too much pride and too fat a check
To let your people know we are not as free as you think
The lie has gotten so old it stinks
That the waters your great grandfather’s drank taste sweeter,
Than the bottled swallow laid comfortably by heated tweeters Beat me down like 60’s Bronx…
Flaunt my ice pop my Cristal
Massa’s cold steel fits all of my brother’s wrists
Still we fight ‘cause after all we are rich
Like that hooker working and jerking from 2 to 10
Stretching up a morning yawning
Snoozed and snoring through noon
Assume the mornings pouring but oh my darling
Clementine sold that dandy for that candied nose
She wrote her own prose taming her song with rhyming O’s
Like dominos she falls for Uncle Sam’s peep show
Here’s the Negro w/ more cash than poor white trash
He can eat, he can sleep, and he can work
He can eat, he can sleep, and he can work
He can eat, he can sleep, and he can work
Some Negro took time off for the struggle
Rapper’s got jerked for work
Got work in Hollywood
Who sent them goods? Who signed that check?
Who called you hood?
Who winked that eye on American?
And said I wish you would…
Freedom is what your mind deems
Cream controlled…Cash Ruling Everything Around Me How did making money become so funny? Hilarious
Greedy grins come equipped with grills and shiny trends
Bends the light we work strife and kill our own
And completely stopped visiting granny’s tombstone
Left your own stepping stone…forget being taught Love.
Forget so often you couldn’t remember her face
From the aunty that died on last September
Remembered my brother’s face and the bad taste in my mouth
We saw something
Granny got old running for something
Even with Altzimer’s she reminded us we are Loved
Some argue that we’re other
And couldn’t have been had by a mother
But rather in a mind frame of color
On a canvas of an order and segregation enforcers
Did that great Love of a GRAND-mother reach her grandson’s daughter?
Let’s ask her?
Katrina, little black girl where did you sleep last night?
Where did you eat last night…what is your big gripe?
Catch your answers in top flight security…
Protecting whose interest?
Whose race comes first?
Whose demographic dispersing poisonous airways?
Whose…dropping down diseases bringing people to their knees?
Katrina became that sleaze with a bad rep
Reputations across the nation
New Orleans had their Negro placements
But they never took J. Edgar Hoover off the throne
Never got Hitler off the phone
Shot Martin Luther King Jr. off the throne
People saw his dream among the stones
Gandhi’s body was battered a bag of bones
For the place he would claim to be for his own kid’s home
Now compare a Pick to a fine tooth comb
And ask Katrina if she think they will take her home
Can’t make us a home
Can’t break our bones w/ labor
A dollar will do you till the scales tip
We snort, we rip, we cool we grip Caddy’s
Got daddy’s money…now being poor is funny!
Everywhere you go you’re slaves… Clock, don’t watch me watch TV and they tell you to…Clock!
Watching us flee the scene who’s calling the cops?
Who’s roaming the blocks watching who’s not punching a clock?
Abraham Lincoln’s civil war, who’s calling the shots?
Who’s punching the clock…whose clocking the rocks?
Who fell asleep on a high thread count sheet and twill socks?
Who fell asleep in concrete cages and animal slops?
Nah, America’s million man march was not televised!
Until we conform to the storm and be born free
A new culture is born and we count our ki’s
We bank our green we please our boss
Though the cost of your soul may trace your breed
How fast we flee, they saw that need?
Bounced you a ball and had the balls till say chuck-em’.
Our women would gold dig to the pigs come bust-em’.
A few decades ago they’d hand the women too.
Hang your sons and hire someone else who’d sweat their due.
Who wrote these diabolic rules to hate?
Make no mistake…A Loving God caused a vicious plot to dissipate.
America owes black people more respect than minimum wage and a hot plate.
An excerpt from the book The Nappiness In My Soul ...
All Odds & Fat Frauds
Behind enemy lines, trials of terror/
With every essence of an error, clues raid the sector/
Afraid of the alleyways of the city streets of grief/
Offering heaps of ruckus, stuck in cells and digitized so we never sleep/
We reap madness kindled passions are forsaken/
Aches from our fruits crying lakes for paths never taken/
Raped by society and shamed by our visages/
The flames of our radiance are spotted by colossal grimaces/
Forsook and pressure-cooked by our own compassions/
We were hooked in and sunk, drunk with dregs and ever dancing.
Behind enemy lines, trials of terror/
With every essence of an error, clues raid the sector/
Afraid of the alleyways of the city streets of grief/
Offering heaps of ruckus, stuck in cells and digitized so we never sleep/
We reap madness kindled passions are forsaken/
Aches from our fruits crying lakes for paths never taken/
Raped by society and shamed by our visages/
The flames of our radiance are spotted by colossal grimaces/
Forsook and pressure-cooked by our own compassions/
We were hooked in and sunk, drunk with dregs and ever dancing.
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