Author: johnlmalone

It Gets Physical

/ johnlmalone / 21 Comments

It Gets Physical

You know you’re in a good story when you see it.

It gets physical.

It slaps you across the face

like Adele’s mother does to her daughter

in Jonathan Franzen’s ‘A Talent For Seeming’

in the current Fiction issue of ‘The New Yorker’.

I have never met a story this potent.

……………………..

It is set in Buute, Montana

after a terrible accident, briefly described,

where we meet two of the main characters , Louanne & daughter, Adele

reduced to a two-some.

………………………………………

‘… with her settlement, Louanne ‘bought a larger house in Butte and devoted herself to dressing well and chasing after good-looking jerks’.

& there

the story takes off.

‘when her mother, for reasons not obvious to Adele, fell in love with a former rodeo rider, Dean Bixby.’

That slap comes later & knocks you sideways.

……………………………….

There are other colourful characters too:  a renegade hippy who fills in as Adele’s regular teacher in Drama Classe

It is a gripping well told story,  

Didn’t Franzen write ‘The Corrections’?
That was a slog.

This is a walk around the lake.

As nourishing as a Cornish pasty.

A night in front of the tele watching two bracing love stories

going awry.

It will be filmed !

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Raspberries

/ johnlmalone / 19 Comments

‘Raspberries’

          You don’t see them much anymore: ‘raspberries’, the mulberry birthmarks you sometimes saw on faces, and tried not to look at. Maybe they’re a thing of the past like people limping from childhood polio.

          Peter Hessler, the journalist, wrote about a few he saw as a paperboy doing the rounds in Colombia, Missouri, I like what he said: ‘Like all physical deformities, raspberries were a sign of inner goodness, or at least that was an idea I picked up from the Bible and from things the priest said in sermons’.But Mr. Wood, baseball coach, Boy Scout leader and active Methodist church member —- red flags anyone ? — sank that theory,

          Reminds me of my mulberry stain story from my ‘Back roads’ collection during a jaunt through the back roads of SA. Hop in and join us.

**********

Okay I Looked But I Didn’t Stare

We were talking about that Miranda July tale

 where a woman pays $2000

to get

a port-wine stain removed

when we pull up at this café in the mountains.

A young barista serves us

with a raspberry stain on his left cheek

the shape of Africa.

Is that a birth mark, I ask him. We were just talking about them.

Yes, it is, he smiles.

It is just another feature on his face, like his nose,

or a mole.

It is nothing special.

Yet it has a strange sort of beauty.

almost a relic from the past.

He pours me the greatest cup of coffee.

I’m glad I asked him, that I didn’t wuss out.

It’s okay to be curious.

Pigeons on a Podium

/ johnlmalone / 30 Comments

A Podium of Pigeons

A podium of pigeons sun themselves

on the railings

of a bridge

like Sunday sheets drying themselves

on the clothesline.

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Shaily noted a white one in their midst. That led me to share an older post about the albino pigeon, a true story which still holds:

There’s This One Albino  …….

I went down to the river, under a crotchety grey sky

and there’s this flock of wild pigeons winging in from the west

all in their shabby grey attire, but when the sun

comes out, some flash teal, some magenta,

all rainbowy as a peacock’s tail but when it

goes in, they’re all drab again but there’s this one,

a petite albino, mixed in amongst them, and when they

descend on the grass patch and start pecking away,

happy diners like people in a food court, you could just tell

 these guys all hung out together, weekends, whenever,

them and their albino mate and I ask  Daz, ‘cause he knows

everything, why can’t we do that, Daz, coloureds and whites,

one happy family and he says because we’re not pigeons, that’s why.

Cleavage

/ johnlmalone / 22 Comments

Cleavage

I look at the V shaped slit

between the two curtains and can see the leaves of the honeysuckle rustling

but more importantly a slice of sky robin egg blue.

The heart lifts like a small bird.

An Update

/ johnlmalone / 31 Comments

What I’m into now

I keep busy. I’m working on a book. Details later down the road. And I’m into my reading again: the 50th anniversary edition of ‘Slaughterhouse 5’ , about, well, you know what it’s about. Into profiles too. A ’74 one from ‘The New Yorker’ on Georgia O’Keefe’ and a more recent one on the actress Mariska Hargitay , Jayne Mansfield’s daughter, who told Daniel Radcliffe ‘I’m the real Harry Potter’ then pulled up her bangs and showed the lightning bolt scar on her forehead from the crash that killed her mum.

Love discovering little gems like that. Vireen, from ‘The Stunned Mullet’ tells me he loves the positive energy that flows from me. Apart from giving great compliments he and his team produce great takeaways, my favourite the Atlantic Salmon dish.

Did I tell you I’m working on a book, hence my absence from blogging. This is to keep in touch. And you may have noticed I duck in and out making comments now and then. Cheers

Basho of the ‘burbs

/ johnlmalone / 32 Comments

Basho of the ‘burbs

My grand-daughter sent me a text a few days ago [published with permission].

Except for the setting out, Basho could have written it:

‘I was having a bad day

at work until I saw a tiny

bush mouse hopping

around the courtyard.

SO CUTE.

turned my whole day around’.

and I said, after saying I love it and thanks for sharing

‘your poem captures a fleeting, fascinating moment

as haiku do’

Of course, Tina had never heard of Basho or haiku but she is trawling the net now finding out.

I hope we hear more from this poet

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Caught Short

/ johnlmalone / 22 Comments

Caught Short

          The weather’s all over the place, the sort of day where anything could happen.

          Don’t feel up the gym so go for a walk a few streets down.

          Approaching the place where the wrecked and rusted cars squat, I see a bloke, the owner, I assume, having a piss by the old lemon tree.

          Gidday, I say, in greeting. I used to do that in the backyard at Lavender Cottage, but only at night. Wrote a poem about it. Want to hear it.

          No thanks, mate, he says, a little pissed off and then, like weather, changes his tune. I was caught short. Sorry about this and he hoikes up his jeans and walks sheepishly ‘round the back.

,

Slash

/ johnlmalone / 21 Comments

Slash

          Heading off ‘round the hood, going for a walk ‘coz it’s a nice day, too nice for the gym. Bit cool though, but I’m a big boy now, throwing a jacket over my old flannelette shirt with the slash down its back so people don’t ask me.

          Waddya tell ‘em anyway? Oh, that’s where the knife went in coz that’s what people want to hear. Not , o that’s just a tear. People don’t want to hear that. They want a story. Something with spice, drama. That’s what we are, writers: entertainers, stand ups. So I come up with something stoopid. Something about a knife fight and that stale old line, but you should see the other guys.

          And then I take it off, the jacket coz it’s getting warm, then these two kids come up — whippersnapper teenagers and ask, hey buddy , what’s that slash in your back? And then I say, nonchalantly as though it’s nothing, o that’s where the knife went in. They bend over laughing.

Come on, Buddy.. Bet you ain’t even been in an arm wrestle.

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Angels

/ johnlmalone / 37 Comments

Angels

          There are some lines in ‘Sucker Punch’ that say it far better than I , but I can tell you there are angels all around us, sometimes in our own neighbourhood, yes, even next door.

          I saw one today, He called out to me, just when I was giving up, coughing and spluttering trying to open the petrol cap so I could take the car down to the service station and fill her up. It had been bothering me for days.

          “Hey, John,” called a voice, its head popping over the fence. “What’s the problem,? Let me come over and look.”

              It was Michael, from one of the units. I had helped him a few weeks ago by letting him use my green bin when I didn’t need it. He didn’t look like an angel. He was greasy and scruffy from working on his own car but he saved me, got me over the hump.

          “Anytime, John. You know where I live. Come and get me.”

So I had me a tank full of petrol and a heart full of gratitude.

Don’t forget to thank your angel whatever form it takes.

Forty miles of good road ahead, no roadblocks and blueberries big as billiard balls.

*btw : that’s my angel. I keep it in the dining room with my grandaughter’s sunflower to remind me how lucky I am.

Not Cool

/ johnlmalone / 38 Comments

Not Cool.

“Sleep’s all over the place,” I tell doc. “ Head buzzing with ideas. I get to write more. So that’s cool.”

The doc doesn’t think it’s cool at all.

At the end of the session he hands me new scripts.

………………………………………..

I head down the staircase to the pharmacist, hand him the scripts.

Studies them closely.

Looks a little alarmed.

“ He’s upped the Lexam from 10 to 20 mg. And instructed it be taken at night , not in the morning. Ummm. Monitor this closely and keep doc informed.”

…………………………………………………….

What have I let myself in for?

So I’m sleeping more, head is quieter, less productive.

 No more burning the midnight oil. Fewer posts

for you all to contend with. So not all bad.

But is it cool?

                                             The verdict is out.

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