Monday, August 08, 2005

"THE RAGE POET WAKES UP IN AN UNKNOWN LOCALE" is a fast fiction with a slapdash of slapstick to accompany your Monday morning cup of joe.

You know the kind of people who open their mouths to effortlessly pull out magical little observations the way a magician lifts a rabbit out of a hat ? I think the delightfully talented Ariel Gordon is probably that kind of person. She's a writer/ editor out of Winnipeg, Manitoba whose website is full of beautiful revelations about dead frogs, the angles of rays of light and all other sublime minutiae overlooked by the masses. She sent me this photo to base a fast fiction on:

window-hallway-SMALLER
After you read this story you should visit Ariel's site to put a little poetry into your Monday morning and let her help you attune yourself to something new.

Enjoy...



THE RAGE POET WAKES UP IN AN UNKNOWN LOCALE


Stan Karlmein lifted his face up from the floor of the unfamiliar hallway. Half his bald head was bearded and wigged with imprints from the carpet and his typical morning look of confusion was magnified tenfold by the fact that he hadn't the foggiest clue where he was. His brain slowly lurched into motion, moving forward into the meaning of the view in front of him.

"Sir, I'll have to ask you to get up," came a deep voice from behind him.

Stan turned his head, which was aching with morning lethargy, in the direction of two men dressed as police officers. They stood over him with metal canisters in their hands.

"Sir, you'll have to vacate these premises immediately." The other officer's voice was even deeper, coming from within a massively muscular chest. He nudged the poet with the tip of his black boot.

Anger surged through the poet's body, waking him up to a state of knowing what must be done.

"I don't have to do anything," he shouted, swinging his legs to sweep the feet from beneath the police. Through the ensuing struggle the rage poet was wrestled to the wall and then back to the ground. As he lay pinned on the ground people peered out from their hotel room doors and words started to crystalize in the compression of rage and shame that wrecked havok in his body.

His routine of a nightcap of laudenum, a drop off in some brand new environment and a wake up call from his two assistants once again was going to provide him with grist for his poetic mill.

Inspiration through anger, he wrote on the credits page of "Waking up Rage", thanking his two assistants Paul and Ben. A photo of the three of them smiling behind a motley collection of bandages stood at the bottom of the page.

Years later the book was to be praised for turning boxers onto reading.

3 Comments:

Blogger Jonathan Ball said...

that's great!! i'll be sending a photo your way asap.

4:41 PM  
Blogger Ariel Gordon said...

Thought I'd let you know that your story is particulary appropriate, given that the photo was taken on the floor of one of the residences at The Banff Centre.

As I was lying there, focusing and not focussing on the window in the distance, on my impending meeting with editor Robert Hilles, the director of the program walked up behind me and made an enquiring noise.

I turned and took a picture of him from the floor, at which point he giggled.

He did a lot of giggling. The rest of the time he was a sandy-haired nondescript man, but tell him a good joke and he inflated with glee.

9:10 AM  
Blogger Ariel Gordon said...

I forgot to thank you A) for using my photo and B) for saying such gratuitously nice things...

Oh - C) great site. You must have off-the-chart levels of fortitude.

A.

9:12 AM  

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