Musings of JR Simmang

Them goats. They got themselves into the house 'tother day. Them was just playing around, doin' them goat things they do, eatin, shittin, makin a gen'ral mess of things. We usually keeps a tight ship here. My wife an I, we got the good blessin's of the Lord to have had a full house, and the even gooder blessin to have 'em kids leave the nest whence they were grown. So, whence they left we had to keep the farm run ourselves. The chil'ren were good fer hoing and plowin. My eldest son, he's the bright'un, he went off to college and got himself a good little girl. She's precious. A daughter, if'n you reckon what I mean. My youngest jus' left a few month back. It were he who always left the gate open so them goats would get free. I don't blame 'em. They smell somethin' nice comin' from our kitchen (my wife is the best damn cook in this here county), and they come waddlin' in. You see, them is silent. I call them, sometimes b...

Time for a short story. This is a response to the Writers Digest prompt for the week of the 28th. My grandfather always told me to never have children. He was scared our children would end up complete messes. His children certainly did. I was raised by my grandfather. My mother was "addicted to controlled substances," but I knew she was a sex-crazed meth-head. My father was a womanizing sports car driver with an enormous ego and severely diminished id. He didn't stick around. So, I tried to follow my grandfather's advice and aim for a life of celibacy. I joined the seminary, got a job preaching, and wound up a deacon, married, with three kids. I met my wife in the summer of '03. I was one of the pastors of our church and Anna was a recent college grad who was unconvinced religion was real. What ensued was 188 hours of deliberation, libations, and sex. My grandfather tut-tutted, but 10 years later, he's a proud grandpa. My kids, Eli, Nicole, and Claudette,...

Again, I find myself drawn to the shadorma. It's a gorgeous little form from Spain. Here's my most recent one. His seat was sweating with power soon to be overturned. Along the far horizon, the drums of war droned.

The poetic form Senryu is similar to a haiku. It has a total of up to 17 syllables, usually in a 5-7-5 pattern, and doesn't fit the nature or cutting archetypes of haiku. It's fun being concise. NOTHING FORGED IS NOTHING USED They forged the wall from stone and steel, hiding their eyes while their castle fell. GIVE AN INCH I always laugh at folks who insist upon rulers for life’s measures. BE STILL, YOUTH It’s a most curious thing, that tears of joy and pain are both the same color. OBSERVING REQUIRES SIGHT One of life’s ponderables: needing one’s glasses to find one’s glasses. SOMETHINGS NEVER CHANGE He picks up the old, battered coin, flips it, and walks to the nearest slot. BAREFOOT IN THE ASH As I walk barefoot in the ash, I remember that rain washed me clean

Waterlogged. The soccer game ended early and now, he stood on the curb, with the rain coming down, and the only word he could think of was waterlogged. Soaked, through and through, comes from the lumberjack tradition of sending logs down the river. They'd soak up the water, making them useless until they dried out. They'd weigh too much. They wouldn't burn. They'd have to sit out in the sun, and sometimes they'd mold over, making them brittle and hollow. Waterlogged. The streets glistened with the newly applied surface, the tires of cars-by squealing in lack of control. But with each new car that passed him by, he continued to be soaked through and through. He'd catch his death of cold. Wouldn't that serve him right? At least they won the soccer game. He laid down on the sidewalk and let the rain pelt him and squeak through him and touch him and know him intimately. He could almost feel him being sent down river. Soon he would mold. Soon he would b...

Sometimes, when I leave the windows open, I wake up with a slight chill, pulling at my covers. I try to go to sleep with the covers already on, though, so I don't wake up. But, sometimes I can't help it, especially in the middle of summer, when the heat just lasts on through the moonshine, and I feel like tomato soup. I say all that to say that I'm not accustomed to waking up in the middle of the night hugging myself. Why do they call it a "straight jacket" anyway. It doesn't keep anything straight. The two men were named Ajax and Phil. Nice guys. We probably could have been friends if it weren't for the fact that they were carrying me from my apartment into the back of the lorry. Lorry. I love the names the Brits give things. Bangers and mash. Tosser. Kip. Dog's bollocks. Ajax and Phil looked at me funny as they passed me into the lorry. I guessed I must be crazy. Why else would I be walked out of bed and into the back of a paddy wagon (that'...

Friday nights, I find myself planted belly up to the bar at Morrow and Bakers. The bartender's name is Jacky, at least that's what her name tag tells me. She works weeknights, so I only see her once a week. Jacky's an older lady, perhaps in her sixties, old enough to be my mom, so I can't help but think of her that way. Usually, our conversations don't extend past niceties, but I've been coming in here a while, though it's a dive, and Jacky's become a friend of mine and this bar is our treehouse. I always wonder why it is I come here, come back Friday after Friday, and I think it's the way Jacky hears the bell above the door and her eyes turn to face the draft, her lines seem to disappear and for just one moment her hair hints at a luscious brunette, and then she shadows over, face back to the brew, eyes back to grey. I asked her about it once. She said she hadn't had enough drinks. The next week, I asked again, because now that I noti...

At first, the page is clean and blank; our eyes unable, blind to words. We pick and choose the phrases that we won't/cannot misunderstand. But, things get easy, so they say. The words we read become more real. We find beginnings are made of our truths and wills and hopes and dreams. The story must begin! We say. And it, when it starts, we're happy. The pages turn, the plot thickens. We are but children, bright and new! But with each page comes plot and spite. We meet conflict, antagonist, the rising action, see the twist. Our love is torn from lover's limb, and we become the pages torn. It starts off happy, doesn't it? We climb the good climb to the top and try to never turn around. But in the end we cannot help but fall in love. Acquainted with the lover's quarrel, we have the taste of blood on our crimson-dyed lips. Despite how wretched, wrinkled we become, we cannot find the fight to put our books on dusty shelves and file away our lonely lives.

In the study, next to the kitchen and lined in gorgeous windows, sits an old dust jacket hiding the contents of his favorite book. If you asked him, he couldn't tell you why it's his favorite book. Perhaps, though, he'll smile like he always does right before he whispers the truth. He says, It's the time before the new chapter and shortly after the last one. We, you and you, scan and skim, and when the last period is done you pick up where you left off, find that numerical green light, or cleverly abbreviated name, and read on into the brilliant night. But I want to know. I want to see what happened between Bombadil's leaving the council and when they arrived in Bree. I want to know that Ender's dream turning his days into a murderer's fantasy will all be washed clean with Demosthenes's thunder. What happens between the quill of one and the first quill of the next? And then, he's silent, for he's said all he can...

There's always a beginning, isn't there, born in peace, and settled?

I lost my wife in amongst the human detritus about a half hour ago, and I found myself standing awkwardly in front of an old table spread with old things. I'm ambivalent about garage sales. Sometimes you find something good, something that has history, and it will collect dust and history at your place until you have a garage sale and the cycle starts all over again for someone else. I just hated going to them. I decided it was time to go, so I lurched forward out of my daydream and stumbled over an old wooden box. In the process, the lid came loose and skittered across the driveway. " Oh dear," I heard Ms Franklin say as she scuttled up to me. "Are you alright, Mr Wilcox?" "I am," I said bending over to pick up the lid. "Terribly sorry about that." "No, no. That old thing has been in the attic for the past 50 years. I thought that lid was sealed on forever." "Well, it just takes a clumsy old oaf to open it, I take it." ...

                                                                               Day 1 There's one week every six months where my neighborhood loses its dignity; white plastic chairs sit empty on the sidewalks, old televisions become the scrying glasses to the pavement. I usually join in this game, my competitiveness not to be outdone. I stand at the driveway, staring at the unadorned curb, an eye without mascara, so I start with my old clothes, oversized, outmatched, and reaking of button-shaped disappointment. I found an old Hawai'ian shirt lurking in the back of the shadows of the c...

(When reading through this post, bear in mind that I may have written several categorical claims. Please note that I am not including ALL of a certain demographic, just most.) I was looking at my blog the other day, just browsing, and I started to ask myself: if my blog were placed in the middle of several blogs, would it stand out? The answer was no. So, I'm starting to wonder to myself, what can I do to make it stand out? What's the difference between my blog and others. One, I'm not getting paid. Two, I have no idea how to spice things up. Three, my poems aren't filled with fancy images and moving things. I'm relying on my poetry, but seeing as how the nation's literacy is quickly spinning 'round and 'round the giant urinal cake and down the drain, fewer people are reading (which is one of the reasons why I'm so happy I have the readership I do). I don't know what my goal is. The face of readership has certainly changed. I wonder...

Oh, to be on that train approaching the speed of light, descending into blue-black deserts and trailing into desert nights. Approaching the speed of light, my flesh bends and twists and breaks. And trailing into desert nights, my bones become earthquakes. My flesh bends and twists and breaks, while my eyes define the arrow's draw. My bones become earthquakes, shaking at the arrow's crawl. While my eyes define the arrow's draw, I blind myself indefinitely, shaking at the arrow's crawl, scratching at the arrow's belly. I blind myself indefinitely, allowing me the time to think, shaking at the arrow's crawl, my infinite time in every blink. Allowing me the time to think, time sinks in deeply to the core of me, my infinite time in every blink, I am now able to see what I want to see. Time sinks in deeply to the core of me, and the arrow's sting becomes a dull nagging, I am now able to see what I want to see, your smile, stretched...

This one is a mixture: part haiku (the first stanza) and the piku (second stanza). My little one swears that the sun is growing from her tip- toes and heels. I can't find any reason to tell her otherwise.