Bill Floyd's Blog – March 2011 Archive (11)

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The Guy in Room 441

The DO NOT DISTURB sign has been on the door for days.  Rails of coke lined up on one side of the bar, sticky lemon wedges and liquor spills on the other, constant hum of the A/C.  Security cameras in the hallway record him going back and forth to the ice machine no less than twelve times at 4 A.M.

 

The money is almost gone.  He stands on the little deck outside his room as the sun goes down beyond the ocean, scanning the crowd at the poolside bar below.  The middle-aged…

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Added by Bill Floyd on March 22, 2011 at 11:36am — 9 Comments

A Story of One Thousand Bridges

We tell ourselves we'll cross them when we come to them.  They burn behind us when we're too ashamed to look back.  Always another span ahead of us, narrow suspensions over rivers, gorges, freeways.  All the peril of empty spaces.  The fear of crossing bridges is called gephyrophobia.  A long one separates me from you but I will pay that toll even if I know in my empty spaces that it will prove a bridge too far.

Added by Bill Floyd on March 19, 2011 at 3:38pm — 5 Comments

Colorfast

He was in line at the grocery store when the black howling disruption unfolded right above his head.  He promptly abandoned his cart, crouched and crawled at waist level for the doors, but a kid poked a stiff finger into his neck and a surprised woman aimed a knee at his forehead.  By the time he made the parking lot the air had spun into a scarlet rippling that pulled him upright like a buoyant halo.  Onward into--God help us--his car, where a localized hurricane was taking place in the front… Continue

Added by Bill Floyd on March 18, 2011 at 2:04pm — 9 Comments

Ture Vloe

You got it all mixed up.  It's supposed to be a given thing but you just want to take.  OK, we shared some laughs, and, yeah, maybe there were moments when I thought it might come to more.  The way you get unsure and inadvertently honest, moments like that when you look like some brave kid.  But you say love is always a cage and I'm telling you no one is ever born free.  Now put that thing away and let me go.

Added by Bill Floyd on March 11, 2011 at 7:04pm — 7 Comments

S0loist's Lament

The world didn't end when I died, so I had to toot my own horn on Judgment Day.  A tinny sound it made, too, tentative where it should've bellowed, shallow where I'd hoped it would resonate.  I reached out my hand and my fingers made the shape of branches against the blue, lightning against the black.  But in such a desolate silent plain, that lone brass sure was something.  Far off at the edge of my event horizon, a voice answered.  Together we harmonized the outlines of heaven.…

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Added by Bill Floyd on March 9, 2011 at 3:00pm — 9 Comments

Cutters in Love

They first hooked up when they discovered what it was they shared.  Long sleeves in July.  Bloody bandages hidden at the bottom of the wastebasket.  She used erasers under her bra straps so her mom wouldn't find the wounds during nightly skin checks, and he carved her name ornately into his arm.  This is the pain we can control.  This is us taking our lives back in blood.    

Added by Bill Floyd on March 8, 2011 at 9:50am — 8 Comments

Utopia (Challenge)

Aspiration.  Work.  Accomplishment.  Serenity.  Restlessness/Conflict.  Aspiration.

Added by Bill Floyd on March 8, 2011 at 9:30am — 5 Comments

Mrs. Jensen

* This is a companion piece to "Clara Jensen", posted by Jamie Hogan on 3/1/11.  

 

Of my four children, Clara was the most emotional, the most willful, loud and brash, so very desperate for attention.  She shone at the center of our lives like a fireplace stoked high against the cold, but in the end it was that same degree of passion that undid her; when Marcus Wendell rejected her affections, she was driven to make the most grandiose of gestures.

 

The…

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Added by Bill Floyd on March 7, 2011 at 10:28am — 10 Comments

Totem Animal Challenge--Menagerie

In his youth he dashed and darted among the newly planted rows with Fiver and Hazel-rah, tender rabbits bounding high.

 

Next a fantastical thing, the robust and randy adolescent satyr, horned mantle plowing heedless.

 

The hysterical hyena ranged far afield of home in early adulthood, spotted and snarling, shedding coats, howling at the half-eaten moon.

 

A fattening lizard sunning upon a stone in middle age, forked tongue contemptuous of the world…

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Added by Bill Floyd on March 4, 2011 at 3:50pm — 6 Comments

Trash Culture Remix

Conceptually, it was a no-brainer for the network suits: Steven Seagal and Glenn Beck starring in their own reality series where they accosted "real" people "on the street" and demanded to know, "What are you doing for America?"  Of course, two monstrous egos like that, they were just bound to die with their hands around each other's throats, but who could've guessed they would do that shit live in real-time?  The ratings broke all sorts of records and even the people who didn't see…

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Added by Bill Floyd on March 3, 2011 at 10:42am — 2 Comments

Gold Statues

Sandra Bullock won an Oscar, The Wire never won an Emmy, and Public Enemy was right about the Grammys.  

 

But sometimes it can be fun to watch the ceremonies with the sound muted, thereby disabling the breathless acceptance speeches, the tedious jokes (self-referential, politically smug, tone-deaf), and leaving only the discomfited flailing of the presenters as they try (unsuccessfully) to maintain some shred of dignity.  

 

Middle America may wax…

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Added by Bill Floyd on March 1, 2011 at 11:14am — 13 Comments

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