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I have always felt the need to write.  Sometimes it is on a fictional novel.  At other times it is short pieces that are little vignettes of fiction, poetry or prose.  Sometimes I write about personal experiences.  I hope you enjoy what I have to offer.  

©All pieces are copyrighted as of the posting date.  All rights reserved. 

Son of the Road 

Travel is my redemption, my desire, my sermon, my demon, my hymn.
It is my secret, my memory, my awakening. my dream, my consciousness and my sleep.
The blue roads whisper come, come, come.

Travel is my mother and my father.  I am a son of the road.
A son of a son of the Dust Bowl who himself was a travelling man, a Gypsy
a wanderer, restless, moving, exploring, experiencing, dreaming
Teaching sons the way of the road. Castles in the sky.
New highways forged alongside old ones leading West
Land of the great big empty.  Tumbling weeds. Cacti. Mountains.
Burma Shave. Bumper coolers. Big Rocks, park benches. camp fires
a Chevy truck.

I am the offspring of the church, related to ministers and missionaries,
those that  raised tents in the hills of Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri.
Kin to healers, hells fire and brimstone proclaimers, gospel callers,
shunners of dancing, short hair, short skirts and keepers of the faith.
I am the son of Germans, Indians, French and English.  Descendent of explorers.
Red dirt, Mississippi mud, swamp water flows in my blood.
The tales of Kuralt, Steinbeck, Least-Heat-Moon and Twain beckon me
 to the next turn in the road or bend in the river.  

I am a son of the road, the highways,  byways, gravel and dirt.
Worshiper of land that has never felt the touch of my foot.
I am in love with movement, the feel of the wind
 the sucking up of the center line.
The sensation of  wet lips, dry tongues,
the way my voice echos off the canyon walls,
the comfort of a shade tree, the warmth of the sun,
 the cool of summer rains, and the rhythmic sound of waves as they lap against the shore,  palms, psalms. white sand, the sight of grain swaying in the breeze
 the crush of thunder in the sky. lightning cursing,
white streaks on blue,  mountain backdrops


Sights and sounds and smells, a part of me from the beginning,

since before I knew they were there. Like unborn children and lovers not yet known,

always there  waiting for me.


I must experience these things because my head would be too cluttered otherwise,

because I need to remember, to linger and to forget.

Each site, each sound  stays with me,

leaves an imprint of where I was and what I felt as it came.

The taste of travel lingers in my heart, on my tongue. years pass quickly .

Ghosts visit me from days gone past, images sans skyscrapers.

Not meant to view abandoned shopping carts, alleys, one ways

building, after building after building after building

I am a son of the road,  a traveling man


©  4/2014  Guy Scrivner - All rights reserved

Night Things & Daydreams

There, in the night

in the early hours of the mourn

I looked over at you

by my side

I smiled in the silence

I sensed the warmth of your body

love swelled up in me and I choked 

back tears of joy

The curtains were open

moonlight filled the room

the open blinds cast its shadows 

over your body

the covers were off

revealing

I visually traced your femininity, your face, your breasts, your hips

I was tempted to wake you

with kisses, and touches, and whispers

to tell you how much I loved you

needed you, wanted you

But, I did not want to interrupt those feelings

tomorrow would come

then I would hug you, kiss you, love you

tell you how much I cared

Tomorrow I would remember the night things

that led to daydreams

about you

and how you lay next to me

in the moonlight

 ©  4/2014 Guy Scrivner - All rights reserved

A Visit With George

“I was thinking about this recently,” George said to Kelly.  “Remember that picture?  The one of the little old lady who was just a pile of dust except for one leg from the knee down, her foot still in her old shoe, her opaque old lady stocking rolled down below her knee, a victim of spontaneous combustion.  That’s what they said it was.   Well, at least she escaped that one crucial step in dying.  She did not have to endure being messed with by the morticians and seen after she died laying there in her coffin.”

“Would that really bother you that much, George, the viewing in the coffin?”

“Sure it would.  I don’t want anyone at the funeral home painting me up like a puppet and putting me on display when I am dead.  Do you?”

“Not really,” Kelly replied.  “But why, George, do you think about such morbid things?  You seem so preoccupied with death.”

“I try not to think morbid thoughts.” George said. “I’m trying to find other interests.  I have stopped visiting the cemetery every day like you asked me to.  I used to do that a lot.  I always felt a little uneasy when leaving the cemetery with a bucket of dirt taken from a freshly dug grave.  I used to put that dirt in the flower pots on the balcony, but I stopped because one day a ghost followed me home.”

Kelly looked into her friend’s eyes and tried to take his conversation seriously while she ignored the comment about the ghost.  “Your doctor said it wasn’t helping your depression any either.  Have you been following his advice and trying to develop new interests?”

“Something I have been doing recently is getting up early in the mornings, grabbing a cup of coffee, and reading the newspaper,” George replied with a pleased look on his face.

“That’s good, very good George.” Kelly smiled as she said this thinking there might be some room for hope for her friend.  She and George had known each other since the sixth grade.  They had gone to college together. He was very bright but  George had never quite fit in with the crowd and over time he had started abusing drugs.  She was visiting him today, as she did frequently to have coffee and see how he was doing.

“Yes, Kelly,” George said, “I read the newspaper and cut out all the obituary notices.  Everyone that dies I say, now that they are gone their carbon footprint won’t be counted. So I assign these to friends and family members so they don’t have to worry about their carbon foot prints.  Well, these folks that died aren’t using up things any more -  are they?  That means we can live without any feelings of guilt or concern for the environment because we have their foot prints too.  It’s all accounting!  You’re probably thinking I’m such a sicko and I would do you in just to cash in on your carbon foot print… but, I wouldn’t do that Kelly.  Hell, 

I ’ve got enough obits for you and everyone else I know to last our lifetimes.   You don’t have to worry about driving that big SUV of yours anymore either.  That’s good, ain’t it Kelly?”

“Well, I guess that’s good,” Kelly said trying not to chuckle, “At least you are focusing on helping others.” 

“After that,” George continued, “I try to find out if anything good has happened to  Priscilla - like a good car wreck, a fire or something.   You remember her.  She was the girl that wouldn't go with me to the prom.  I sent her dead flowers you know.  Then, and this is the fun part, I search to see who has died on the national level.  This is good stuff.  People buried in shallow graves, bloating bodies, missing parts.  Nancy Grace on cable television is my hero.  She keeps track of all the good stuff. My favorite stories were about that Casey girl in Florida and that teenage girl in Aruba.  Ever watch that show Kelly?”

“No, George,” Kelly said, “I tend to watch movies or listen to NPR.”

“Oh, I like movies,” George said, “my favorite is Harold and Maude and I like NPR too.  One of my best qualities is that I can identify with what others have to say.  Everything they say triggers a memory and my mind just goes there… I heard a girl on NPR who had it even worse than me.  She could tell you what day of the week it was like on March 3^rd, 1982.  She could even tell you every detail of that day, what she was wearing, what she did in school, what everyone said and did that day, what the weather was like, everything.  They said she was a savant.  She said she was cursed.  I understand her.  One difference between me and her is that I only remember the bad things and I can’t remember any of the good things.  Is that crazy, Kelly, Is that crazy?  There must have been good things that have happened?”

With a few exceptions, Kelly thought, George was right.  Not too many good things had happened for him.  Well educated and talented, here he was at twenty-eight in a squalid apartment in Seattle overlooking the Puget Sound.  If not for family money he would be homeless and living in a box in Pioneer Square maybe. As for friends, from what she knew she was his only remaining real friend.

“Sometimes I feel like I have been fighting a war,” George ranted, “a war to hold back feelings when I need to hold them back.  I say over and over…I am a warrior…I am… a warrior…I… am… a… warrior.    At other times I think I grew up wild, like the kid raised by wolves.  I was totally free once but they caught me and made me wear clothes and go to school.  I never fit in though.  I was the last kid to be picked for anything.  The farmer in the dell…the cheese stands alone…that Catholic school!  George grimaced.  They forced us to parade by the old dead nuns you know… laying there in the caskets with their wrinkled faces and rosaries around their necks. You remember that don’t you Kelly?”

“George, they didn’t mean any harm by that,” Kelly said trying to be of comfort and to calm George down, “That was just the way things were done.  It was a way of paying respect.”

“Respect,” George almost shouted!  “Why in the hell would you want to pay those old bitches respect?  What did they ever do that deserved respect?”

“But you’re doing better,” Kelly said, wanting to change the subject before George got any more excited, “look at this place.  Look out there.  The water… isn’t it beautiful?

“I feel like I am perpetually camping,” George said after taking only a moment to look out the window at the water and the ferries and the Olympic Mountains in the distance.  “ I always wanted to live in a cabin deep in the woods of Alaska and learn to survive on nothing.  I’m a very frugal person you know.  Every bill I don’t get that means I’m winning the game.  But I would probably freeze to death and they would have to thaw me out before messing with me.  Maybe me being frugal has something to do with me throwing things out.  It’s so cleansing.  It keeps things simple.  You know what you have and where it’s at if you don’t have much.  It’s like when people die.  You don’t have to worry about what they think of you and you know where they are.  Simple… huh Kelly?”

Kelly’s cell phone rang and her conversation interrupted her discussion with George.  After the call she said, “I’m sorry George I have to go now.  But I’ll be back, thanks for the coffee.”  She bent over and kissed him on the forehead and added, “That really was an urgent call.  I have to leave right now.”

“Somebody die?” George asked.  

© 2014 Guy Scrivner - All rights reserved.