I
find myself restless
while
the record plays,
get
a charley horse
between
loose seats.
Unable
to do whole books,
I'm
a magazine reader,
a
reader of poetry,
of
grab-and-skedaddle,
anything
stab-worthy
with
plenty of chutzpah
and
ambiguity, like Facebook
or
Mother Goose.
tk/November 2011
Listen to R.A.D. Stainforth's reading of this poem:
Join Magpie Tales creative writing group here.
image from Google images, unknown photographer
Perfect, Tess.
ReplyDeleteI can sooo relate :)
Love this, Tess... I did musical chairs, too!
ReplyDeleteI do this and then beat myself up for not having more depth. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteso true---I chastise myself constantly..one thing at a time..focus..thank you for the reminder;-)
ReplyDelete"with plenty of chutzpah and ambiguity, like Facebook or Mother Goose"
ReplyDeleteI almost snorted coffee at that, listening as I was with my eyes closed to R.A.D. read. Fantastic...I so relate!
Unread books stalk me
Follow me about the house
Undead unread books
(giggle)
You really are magnificent.
I think I'm a grab-and-skedaddle type person.
ReplyDeleteI have the opposite problem. I like BIG BOOKS and I cannot lie....LOL! I'm reading the new Stephen King novel at 849 pages and I don't want it to ever end....xo
ReplyDeleteI'm a pacer and a magazine reader. A book stacker--you should see the leaning tower of Pisa beside my bed!
ReplyDeleteThanks for this, Tess. Haunting image, too.
some vivid and beautiful imagery implied in your piece.
ReplyDeleteenjoyed it.
I just finished a book and papers and magazines have piled up once again...waiting for me. Too much to read, too little time.
ReplyDeleteMichael...the dreaded undead unread books...(!)
ReplyDeleteKay, I have five leaning stacks of books around my head, as we speak!
ReplyDeleteVery clever. I think that restlessness is also part of the digital age. So many choices/distractions. So much mind candy! But you handle very well. K.
ReplyDeleteWonderful, wonderful poem.
ReplyDeleteI can remember Musical Chairs causing me great anxiety as a child. I was usually the kid who fell on the floor hardest!
Musical chairs - love it!
ReplyDeleteStacks of books, you say? I wrote my dissertation while living in a third-floor loft...awesome view, great light for painting, fireplace...near perfect setting, really, except I came to fear that the whole apartment building would come crashing down thanks to the sheer weight of my stacks of books! Well, back to musical chairs...love the prompt!
ReplyDeleteI'm right there fidgeting and pacing with you! Where, oh where, did my concentration go?
ReplyDeleteMichael, the beautiful library at Indiana University is sinking inches every year, supposedly because the architects didn't consider the weight of the books when designing the structure!
ReplyDeleteThis is sooooo good. I have books waiting too and I tend to flick through magazines in the pharmacy! It may say "Please do Not Read' but I do not associate reading with flicking! And when I have a full basket (which is the only time I flick!) I feel safe if the sales assistants dare to glare at me.
ReplyDeleteBee, I flick through magazines at the grocery store check-out...that's what they're there for, right? Only I call it "flip" through...
ReplyDeleteany thing stab worthy....nice....
ReplyDeleteyes i feel like this these days...
I like the image of an actual library sinking under the weight of its own books...c'mon everyone! Check the suckers out!
ReplyDeleteI tell my children: "Focus Pocus!" :) The two-year-old loves Mother Goose, too. When her big brother learned to play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on his clarinet, no one was more pleased.
ReplyDeleteI guess we could add Twitter
ReplyDeleteand Dr. Seuss to the list of
ambiguous reading preferences;
great sense of restless poetic
rambling here, picking the
thanksgiving carcass of poetics,
snagging the choice bits, like
a magpie, or a crow, at the
road kill diner; wary of vehicles,
or larger predators, but in need
of sustenance.
One Day,All Novels Will Be Twitter-Length?
ReplyDeleteTess:
ReplyDeleteYou describe a fate all too familiar to us all. I read "The Shallows" last year and found it very interesting. Although the author takes some liberties when interpreting various studies, it does speak to and about a common experience of what prolonged Internet usage seems to do to a certain way of thinking, often making prolonged concentration difficult.
All that aside, I LOVE this piece. Thanks!
Very unexpected take, but simply beautiful and very relatable...
ReplyDeletewho said brevity is the soul of wit.
ReplyDeleteor maybe nit-wit.
i do hope Twitter novels is a fantasy
But i must say i feel very restless right now in this change of season. flighty and jumping from this to that.
thanks for your poem
"like Facebook and Mother Goose"!
ReplyDeleteTOO wonderful, Tess.
Kay, Alberta, Canada
An Unfittie’s Guide to Adventurous Travel
Standing or seated, I like the idea of musical chairs, Kincaid style.
ReplyDeleteI always ended up on the floor!
ReplyDeletethis is fine writing. a wonderfully imaginative take on the prompt!
ReplyDeleteMusical chairs.....love this Tess!
ReplyDelete:-)
I wonder if everyone's attention span is getting shorter...
ReplyDeleteI still like a big thick book to read but I'm trying to write shorter paragraphs in the ones I write.
Absolutely killer ending!
ReplyDeleteI am becoming less this way as I grow older. But it used to fit me perfectly.
ReplyDeleteAnd the reading was wonderful, especially the way he said "stab-worthy."
What a treat.
=)
Enjoyed…. Have been doing the same lately…
ReplyDeleteSue, yeah, I love the way Stainforth put the stab into "stab-worthy"...but my favorite part of this reading is his "magazine reader"...
ReplyDeleteI suspect you've got a lot of company! I can hardly sit through a movie at all anymore.
ReplyDeleteI love the image. It reveals much.
ReplyDeleteYour poem's a wonderful match for the image.
ReplyDeletelove the word, "chutzpah"
ReplyDeleteperfect for the image tess - love these lines:
ReplyDeletea reader of poetry,
of grab-and-skedaddle,
Your grab-and-skedadle and anything stab-worthy are super expressions that lift my soul...I relate to these more often than is good for me.
ReplyDeleteYes you would get terrible cramps from those shoes- even a broken ankle in the grass.Thanks
ReplyDeleteI too must get organized...tomorrow! What a list...
ReplyDeleteit's a perfect poem for that photo - i love that you saw a kind of metaphorical musical chairs in it :)
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sukipoet. This time of year makes me jittery...which chair to pick? Remember entering the classroom for the first time in September to establish your spot? Which seat, which book, which project, 'tis the season of "pickiness" The musical chairs of life...how wonderfully wonderful!
ReplyDeleteanything stab-worthy
ReplyDeletewith plenty of chutzpah...i like and oh i can feel this..wishing me into a red wooden house in sweden with snow and a fire burning and just time to read...whole books..smiles
What a delight, the photo and your write.
ReplyDeleteAnd never enough time. Books began, waiting, for my return. Loved the prompt.
ReplyDeleteambiguity ... sucks me in every time
ReplyDeleteLoved hearing the reading of this. Great take on the pic.
ReplyDeleteVery satisfying reading. Thank you.
ReplyDelete"a reader of poetry,
ReplyDeleteof grab-and-skedaddle,"
You said it and I relate but it isn't how you really feel, Tess Kincaid!
Perfect - timely and universal!
ReplyDeleterestless indeed.
ReplyDeletewow.
I like this:
ReplyDelete"anything stab-worthy
with plenty of chutzpah"
"grab-and-skedaddle": I'm smiling at that. Intriguing poem!
ReplyDeleteThe band played Aulde Lang syne
ReplyDeleteLike a cold wet blanket draped
and heavy
Unwanted
Nobody came to hear them play
Seats for ghosts
long past
I turned to remember
seeing they were
gone.
Lovely Tess, really lovely.
Cheers!
How appopriate that Facebook should be uttered in the same breath as Mother Goose!
ReplyDeleteSuperb. I really appreciated this - I'm fast going that way myself.
ReplyDeleteWhat a new way of evaluating Musical Chairs, and how it translates into our "real" lives, as a sociological statement!
ReplyDelete(btw, Musical Chairs scared the heck out of me when I was a kid!)
can so relate to this love reading and getting stuck into a book but so love also flipping through a trash magazine ...thanks x
ReplyDeleteDear Tess: Par excellent! "I find myself restless" pretty well sums it up for me too! Hahah! Funny!
ReplyDeleteI'm at both ends of the spectrum depending on what, I have no idea...
ReplyDeleteNice one!
" Grab-and-skedaddle"…my kind of reader! My Magpie this week is Goldilocks.
ReplyDeletebeautiful poem
ReplyDeletecan feel the underlying restlessness and yearning
lovely
ReplyDeletesense the ambiguity
and the stunning picture
PBTG, thank you...coming from a talented poet such as yourself, that means so much...
ReplyDeleteThanks, again, everyone...you make sharing my poetry so very rewarding...you're the best!
ReplyDelete"anything stab-worthy with plenty of chutzpah
ReplyDeleteand ambiguity..."
Like this poem. Perfect, Tess. Thank you.
a perfect one yet again ... loved it.
ReplyDelete