Taking Stock--Bolton Carley Challenge--New Years 2012

[Brad Rose]

Uncertain whether I’m fleeing a border or approaching a frontier, I’m awake as a collision, my nerves, a theory of knots.  My face looks like an x-ray of an earthquake.  I feel frayed and worn as a smashed Piñata.  I yearn to erase all verbs, to burn my fingerprints, to iron my shoes, and start again.  Time is sacred, a frenzied clock. Its hysterical seconds paraphrase me. No matter how far I’ve gotten in this life’s story, I’m pretty sure the end can be found near the last page. 

[Kristine_ES]

"time is a sacred, frenzied clock...hysterial seconds paraphrase" ... wow, did you say it or what. 

whatever 2012 holds, i know it will bring us more of your fabulous words. 

[Teresa]

Downhill...

[Teresa]

What Gita said.  I don't know how I missed this one.  Things roll too far too fast down the Main Page.  Anyway,  once again, "Fuck me with a catfish rolling dowhill..."  You ROCK Mr. Rose.

[Brad Rose]

Thanks Gita.   This one feels pretty good to me.  I wanted to get somewhere close to incendiary and surreal. The funny thing about writing, I find, is that I always fall short (sometimes way short, othertimes not terribly far) from some imagined ideal of the outcome.  It's like I'm a prisoner of some ideal of perfection.  But if you asked me to deinfe what "perfect" might be, I'd be totally stumped.  Anway, thanks for your very kind comments. 

[Gita]

Fuck me with a catfish rolling downhill if this isn't the best thing you've ever posted here. Or maybe anywhere. This dude can WRITE!!!

[Brad Rose]

Thanks Michelle, Bolton, Angela, Deborah, Toby and Mike.   Sometimes I fell just like this character.

I'm working on a one page prose poem-like thing which will use some of these lines.  It's going to be called, "What I've Learned from Jet Lag."    The Executive Summary =

• For even the experienced traveler, it may be discomfiting to cross the moon’s international dateline

[Mike Handley]

Outstanding. People with unplowed faces and bellies full of candy wish they could write this well.

[Toby Tucker Hecht]

Lots to think about here especially the first line: it's not always clear if one is escaping or plowing forward.

[Deborah Jovan Reed]

beautifully written. :) good luck this year

[Angela]

Brad, I want to start over, too.  Let's both have a good year.