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.
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
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 3rd,
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.
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