People You May Know: Charlie Haynes

[Bill Floyd]

Ever since he quit smoking, he spends his breaktime at work flying a kite in the parking lot, a near-weightless construct of pastel nylon hovering on the least breeze, strung from the slimmest of tethers.  

His lover lay down to sleep beside him and she never woke up.  But Chuck keeps on rising, for her and for us.

When we were kids he was the older brother turning us on to the wicked jams: Sex Pistols and Talking Heads and Modern Lovers and Ed Sanders and Laurie Anderson.

The kids who found him passed out on the beach one year thought he was a pirate washed ashore after terrorizing steep seas. 

The kite teases the sky itself and returns to earth trailing stories of how we look from up there.  

 

 

[Chip Trent]

I think this is the best thing you've ever written.

" But Chuck keeps on rising, for her and for us."

[Mike Handley]

Outstanding, Floyd. This elevates you from wordsmith to "artist."

[Brad Rose]

Bill, this piece is beautifully written.  I'd commit homicide and take the consequences to have written that last line.

[Jayne Isabel]

A beautifully written story about coping and survival. Simply written with carefully chosen words.

[Judy Thompson]

One final thought: each of these sentences are complete, and have enough information in them to lead us backward and forward in this man's life. By the end, you can knit the six sentences together to form a fairly solid, if not complete, image of who this man was, and is, and will be.

[Angela]

I felt as if I were looking through something like a photo album, or maybe hearing people speak at a memorial service.  This six has a unique texture in that sense; you have engaged us in a certain level of dignified intimacy.  Interesting.

[Teresa]

I love you for this.  It's so sparse, but carries the sky's view.  That last line just knocked me over.  Every time you do a series it's so completely MELPH.

[Gita]

I would like to know any man who is secure enough to wear that hat with that shirt. And he has a rather, mmm,  impressive tongue.  Yes. Well. 

Every line in this is beautifully controlled. It is as if you took deep gulps of pure oxygen between each line.

I like the surprise of the word "steep" in # 5. 

See me, see me faving this.

[Judy Thompson]

Sounds like someone I might like to know, even though I don't...Nicely delineated, given the structure, and of course the killer line is the last one. Love that image, Bill.

[Bill Floyd]