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Last week’s Exquisite Storm: “The Happy Place Is Not Square Trees”
An Exquisite Corpse (so named by the Surrealists) is a “found poem” made up of disconnected parts, but we prefer to call it the Exquisite Storm. Each writer in our Saturday Imaginative Storm writing group offered one line from the 10-minute piece they generated.
Last week we were inspired by Navé’s photo of the rabbits outside the Bareiss Gallery in Taos, New Mexico. The title comes from the first line, spoken by Susie Shipman. To hear it read aloud, click through to YouTube.
The happy place is not square trees, busy shadows, or crocodiles. The juxtaposition of the absurd and rational did not comfort. Who died and made you the "should-be-monitor?" The laughter started and I was in my best life. A one, a two, a three, and a four—Showtime! But wait, we haven't rehearsed. No, this isn't that dream; it’s the other one. Zigzags of bright and dull spots on the wallpaper around me. So I'm just going to stop, soak it in and enjoy it. In the forest, when somebody found me, they will think how chic I was. The cane and yellow Crocs were the final dapper touch to the blinding juxtaposition of plaid on plaid on plaid, like an advertisement for Scottish family kilts. From time to time, his lucidity would return. He was a painted forest himself. Lettering down the page of life in my lime green crocs, and babe, it's all good. He also played a lawyer and a villain in other films. An audible gasp from the audience shattered the moment as the snake made its way up his checkered pant leg, all the way to his houndstooth beret. Just a little soft shoe at the drop of a hat. And I am your friend. This is the happy place where terror and absurdity meet. And at the end of our days, what remains. Because he is a relic of what never was allowed but happened anyway. Apparently through the looking glass into a painted forest with colorful nature, including flowers and weird ass trees, as if I was on just the right dose of psychedelics. Now he walked with a slower inner pace, leaving silence to teach us all. He was a checkered past, leading the gang in a chorus of loud colors, loud music, and loud plaids. When I saw this, it brought back a memory I shall never forget. This is such a wonderful adventure. Can you snap a stick in the dark and make a fire? He was eclectic. In his age and his youth, looking as though he dressed in the dark.
ORDER OF SPEAKERS: Genevia Hendry, Heather Doyle, Allegra Huston, Andrew Smith, Daniel Barber, Margo Parks, K. Wentzien, Maria Eugenia Ortega, Melissa Malm, Jay Kogan, Kathleen Wilson, Regina Ress, Linda Smith, Maria Wasson, Marianne Furedi, Krista Thornburg, Katerina Tana, Eve Stern, Glenna Kinney, Sandi Dittmer, Barbara Benedict, Lyn Rothman, Wendy Swenson, James Navé, Andi Young
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