MSN Home  |  My MSN  |  Hotmail
Sign in to Windows Live ID Web Search:   
go to MSNGroups 
Groups Home  |  My Groups  |  Language  |  Help  
 

Important Announcement Important Announcement
The MSN Groups service will close in February 2009. You can move your group to Multiply, MSN’s partner for online groups. Learn More
The Poets' Place[email protected] 
  
What's New
  Join Now
  Migration Message  
  Migration Message  
  Home  
  Message Boards  
  
  General  
  
  Metacriticism  
  
  Sound Poems  
  
  Slate Board  
  
  Member Help  
  
  Collaborations  
  Poets'RadioForum  
  Word Artist  
  Project Nexus  
  Encore Works  
  Previews  
  Pictures  
  Intuitions  
  The Collective  
  Poetic LifeLines  
  The Poet's Poet  
  LIvVE Chat Meet  
  Recommendations  
  Calendar 2008  
  Documents  
  Diversions  
  Search Engines  
  Dictionaries  
  Translators  
  
  
  Tools  
 
General : a declaration of war
Choose another message board
 
Prev Discussion  Next Discussion  Send Replies to My Inbox 
Reply
Recommend  Message 1 of 5 in Discussion 
From: wrongsideoftheroad  (Original Message)Sent: 10/22/2008 2:12 PM
Every time I sit down to try to finish this one story I’m writing, she takes que from the silence – my back is temporarily turned to her – and climbs up on the chair, and from the fruit bowl on the counter, steals an apple.

I hear her coming and I hear how she takes her time finding the finest, juiciest, and best- looking apple. Only the finest, juiciest, and best-looking apple will do. Then I get angry because I will never get to finish this story. The one I’m writing. I turn around and tell her that she can’t have an apple and to get down from there.

“No, no apples. Get down at once.” I tell her. She doesn’t listen. She wants her apple. I try to tell her again. “We don’t climb on chairs. We don’t get apples without permission.” She doesn’t care. She wants her apple. Damnit to hell. I don’t say that, I think it. Then I go over and lift her down myself. I take the apple from her hands and put it back in the bowl.

“For the last time. No apples. You had an apple earlier and so you don’t get one now.” I say. Maybe I’m being harsh. Maybe it would be better to let her have an apple. As many apples as she wants. Eat apples until she doesn’t want apples anymore. Maybe then she will find something else to do and I get to finish my story.

But that would be a cop-out. That’s what I know and that’s why I can’t budge. There have to be some rules. Some basic principles. This is not just about apples, or a stupid story I can’t finish. This is the business of serious parenting. You start slip-sliding and make compromises of convenience and it all goes to shit.

She gives a stern look and goes off and finds a book that she sits down on the floor with. She flips the pages. She has a serious look on her face. But that’s just an act. It’s play and it’s pretend but also something serious. It’s a declaration of war. I sigh. I return to the table and my story.

I have the ending all in my head and I just need a few minutes to put it down. A minute or two, that’s all I ask. I've been mulling it over for days. This ending. It's a fine ending. It's right there. All I need is a little time. A little time and a peace of mind.

As soon as I sit down and turn my back to her, I can hear her putting the book down. Then little feet moving across the floor. She’s in no hurry. She takes it slow. I hear her climbing up the chair. This is how it will go down. I will never finish this stupid story and she will never get that apple.


First  Previous  2-5 of 5  Next  Last 
Reply
Recommend  Message 2 of 5 in Discussion 
From: gypsySent: 10/22/2008 5:28 PM
. . . And the apple from the seed knows not where it ends.  it's not like the tomato field which crops up in slush near the waterplant, red, ripe, a variety of delicious treats directly from the 'pooey' department.
 
An apple tree is kind to host a cousin fruit grafted in its trunk.  An apple bitten is the way the curse comes to an end--temptation then becomes another apple shining through the eye.  Always keep a basketful--it's best that they don't taste the same, if you remember to forget how you expect it to feel inside your mouth, if your memory is kind enough to delete that which was once your delight. 
 
I came in to babble and talk of signatures and baptisms, of days when fingerprints give way to concavities through the belly button.  I swallowed the raindrop, yet I see it dripping, repetitiously, under the kitchen sink.  It must wait until Sunday, the day assigned for spending hours on my knees--its sacrilegeous to spend a weekday wearing a plumber's hat--and Wednesday is when the mountain peak waves from within but there's no earth to kiss that wasn't spit on with unkown viruses like resistant strands of tuberculosis.  The problem is I left my volleyball kneepads North of the border of possibilities, as an excuse to venerate procrastination. 
 
If she takes a bite from one apple, will she eat the whole apple, or will she go on to the next apple?  Signatures or compare and contrast?  Maybe corroboration?  A mean parent may put together one red sweet apple and one very green green apple, sour and ready to surprise.  I knew a sick couple that enjoyed confusing their dog pretending they were fighting--the dog did not know to whom of the two to go or what to do.  Their kids grew up to be an improved version of themselves, meaner and smarter in their cunning way to inflict pain under the guise of mensa sense of humor. 
 
When the child becomes the apple, will she be up on a shelf studying ways of rolling down to rock and roll?
 
Stop.  No, not you, I stop, here, now. 
Boo!

Reply
Recommend  Message 3 of 5 in Discussion 
From: MSN Nicknamepipedreamslayer1Sent: 10/22/2008 8:26 PM
simply lovely hermanito

...nail shut the vents---monkeys with apples spotted!!!

Reply
Recommend  Message 4 of 5 in Discussion 
From: _susan_Sent: 10/23/2008 6:55 AM
i read this somewhere...maybe in a type of book. :)
 
hokay. minor pik.
But that would be a cop-out.
lego 'cop-out' - 'tis copping out.
 
little time and a peace of mind.
typo?  no 'a' before peace. noooo.

Reply
Recommend  Message 5 of 5 in Discussion 
From: MSN NicknamesumthinunxpectedSent: 10/24/2008 11:28 PM
this is why I can't be arsed with real poets

First  Previous  2-5 of 5  Next  Last 
Return to General  Prev Discussion  Next Discussion  Send Replies to My Inbox 
Notice: Microsoft has no responsibility for the content featured in this group. Click here for more info.
  Try MSN Internet Software for FREE!
    MSN Home  |  My MSN  |  Hotmail  |  Search
Feedback  |  Help  
  ©2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.  Legal  Advertise  MSN Privacy