“we locked up Ben
just to hear his screams,”
is how the story began
once black type, now brown
on yellowed paper old
stuffed without ceremony
in a notepad more
jaundiced than the
paper it was printed on
nervous chuckles at that
with a put that aside
until braver days rise
maybe some misbegotten
future morn
or maybe not,
vaguely recalling
misdirectional intent behind
the phrase from before
but not tonight, no
as i enjoy the glow of
cds inventoried to store
11 responses to “just to hear his screams”
Well this one is quite different.
Even I am not sure what to make of it 😅
A whole can of worms to open there – or not. 🫥
I took a daring glance at a bit more and decided that I probably needed more sleep before it went much further.
Oh… the writing of nearly a quarter of a century ago… 😅
That’s a very layered piece, Michael. It reads almost like memory, history, and unease tangled together, and I am still wondering about the first sentence😉 🧡
I might have to explain the basis of this one. In short, it is more real event than creative writing. I discovered a piece of very old writing while prepping some of my CDs for storage as an attempt to clear out some clutter around the house.
The first line of that piece of fiction is very close to the first line of this poem. I glanced a bit further after writing this piece and the rest is pretty awful writing and might deserve being tossed into the fire, but I still like the opening premise: to shock the reader with something unexpected right from the get go.
Thanks!
I like this!
Unsettling what thoughts once came across us. There is a disturbing, Victorian asylum tone to the first two lines – you should explore this further!
I might have to explore those first two lines further, but the piece of old writing is largely rubbish. I do like the basic idea that something unsettling at first blush might be something desirable and I can see where my thinking process was in the piece from half a lifetime ago. But…. a little bit of a glance past that opening sentence is pretty much a cringe-fest in terms of technique and style. It may be like “The World’s Funniest Joke”: deadly except in very minute fractions.
Ah, yes, revisiting what, at the time, you quite liked, maybe even felt to be quite good. Always the possibility of culling bits from it to use on something new. Worked for Victor Frankenstein. Sort of.
It was that Abbie Normal brain that ended up causing all the problems. 😂
🤣