Concrete Prompts
I feel this gnawing feeling that something needs to change. I need inspiration. Some I imagine bring their gaze upwards. Lately my eyes have been getting caught down and around town landing on the sidewalk. I have been noticing fossilized words that are there because concrete was fresh and someone was eager, or because someone had spray paint or chalk even. Something to scribe a message that has an indefinite expiration. It is like initials carved into a tree trunk, except the tree trunk is a city sidewalk. A lot of these concrete graffitied words are names, dates, and years. I wonder if the authors are alive or if they do not live here anymore (or even if they did in the first place). However, most importantly I wonder if they remember taking to wet concrete. So, here are as follows my attempts to break the writing rut of my psyche make something with other people’s words and leftovers. I have landed at being a copycat and that is okay.
C.C. Butch
Me when I climb a mountain.
Me when I eat a steak.
Me if I shoot a gun.
Me if I fix a flat tire.
Me when I fix a good meal.
Me when I tie my own shoes.
Me when I take myself places.
Me when I screw in a light bulb.
Me when I buy copies of keys.
Me when I know an Allen Wrench by name.
My initials next to (if my last name was) Butch.
Me if someone tried to call me a bitch, but misspelled the word (I am sure someone has).
Moist!
Ed needed a job and so he got one.
He tried being a stonemason once. He was not very good.
Before that he was a plumber, but his brother-in-law poured concrete.
Ed wanted to be a mailman. He wanted to wear a hat, don the uniform, and bring people things everyday. He never quite figured out how, but he wished for days spent in and out of a truck pulling a trolley full of envelopes.
Every time Ed needed postage he found himself choosing a new post office. It was fieldwork on determining which Post Office would suit him best. He liked to send his Mother postcards once a week and he never bought a roll of stamps because it would defeat the purpose.
There are 12 US Postal Service Offices throughout San Francisco. Ed has been to everyone three times. He has his favorites and his not so favorites, but this close study of the inner workings regarding communication and distribution is not supposed to be about surveying a favorite. Every week he visits a “new” one. So in one month he goes to one third of the city’s post offices. Every consecutive three months he visits the offices at the same time.
He likes the post office in Nob Hill because there are pink walls and counters (as opposed to the common gray and blue color palette of most post offices). The Nob Hill post office also has complimentary pens to use, that are the kind with the artificial flower on the end. It is these small touches that make Ed excited to ride the 1 bus–which is also another point for the Nob Hill Post Office, because he gets to take something called the 1, which means something to Ed because he is a middle child.
However, Ed is not a Post Office Mailman. He just started pouring concrete for his Brother-in-law. He got sent on a project and poured concrete to repair a cracked sidewalk. Down the street he saw a white box truck with red and blue racing stripes. He was pouring concrete in front of a mailbox. He forgot warning flags and saw the Mailman approaching.
So Ed did what he thought he should do, warn the Mailman about the wet concrete. Instead of staying to tell the Mailman, Ed found a stick and wrote in the wet concrete, “Moist!”
He hoped this got the point across.
The next day he mailed his Mother a postcard, telling her about his new concrete gig and how it is sticking really well. He went at 11:30 to the Post office on Geary. He noted,
“Relatively short line for a Tuesday. Dusty interior. Complimentary pens are out of ink.”
She Got Me Tangled Up
It was her hair,
and her legs,
and even her fingers.
(You could describe her smile as lanky)
She was languid.
She was lovely.
She was loved.
She was lost.
He thought about her on days when he was alone and days when he wasn’t.
He started frying eggs because that is how she had them.
So when he was at the grocery store and saw a dozen there she was again.
When his stove clicked and ignited she started to unlock a door she only had the key to.
When he cracked the egg she showed up.
She was more than eggs.
She was languid.
She was lovely.
She was loved.
She was lost.
She left him tangled in eggs, in thought, and expired souvenirs–like the singular sock of hers he found under the bed that lost its other half that made it a pair. There she goes again…
E+B
Eleanor loved Ben.
Ben loved Eleanor.
They loved each other so much it was set in stone.
The stone being wet concrete on a dry fall morning and time was of the essence.
So, it was said in stone that they loved each other.
No year or smileys.
Just E+B on the corner of Willard North in love.
