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Tag Archives: compulsivity

hark: a shark

hark: a shark

feel: an eel

swish: a fish…that got away…in the dark…

unreel

Afterword: Compulsivity led to the creation of this minimal list, minimalist poem. Midevening today I realized that if midnight came and went, and I failed to publish something on my blog, I would end a streak that started on July 25th. My friend RussKaz was nearby when I had this realization, and he happened to have single-word prompts on flash cards, so I asked him to pull one at random, and he pulled “shark.” The rest is hastily-written microhistory, with the subtext that a text-body in motion tends to stay in motion, especially if the textmaker has a screw loose.

This is being written during the Winter Olympics of 2014, held in Sochi, Russia. I happened to tune in last night during a ski jump event. I learned that the competitors do not use skis with the traditional edge; that they sit on a crossbar till they’re ready to slide; that their landing area is cross-striped with red and purple and guidelined with what looks like rocks; that many ski jumpers can’t give it up, and go back to the jump even after they retire from competition. Hearing that, and seeing the exhilarating jumps, led me to this drawing and acrostic:

Image

A floating specter seems to be from antigrav.org
Agility will keep him from the ER or the morgue
It helps to have a musculature up to the contort
It doesn’t hurt to NEED the thrill that only comes with sport
Restrictions are made moot yet new conditions are severe
Revel-lations liberate though icy wind may shear