Good Timing, Andy

Good Timing, Andy

by Aaron White

Car felt ready to fold up.

Ice flipping powdery rippling blacktop like on a windy beach.

Night clerk loaned her teakettle.

Monday morning went to get lobby coffee, glanced out door to outdoor pool, and that had dumped a load all over, in for audition.

Table; challenging and new that aren't going to be produced by attending audition.

Auditioned like a green tea drinker a Red Bull drinker.

Chatted with, and many them got no.

Enticing offer, except required being away for year... and a newlywed.

Packed and loaded car, incidentally glancing down hall to parking level that flooded ankle-deep with runoff.

looking good gloomy no change there.

took down a highway, off a ramp before end, into an area that clearly a week ago toppled reveal that too much.

Hunt oddly building.

Good timing, Andy.

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I wrote the preceding poem by working through this blogpost as an assignment for a free online poetry class (which I'm taking though Coursera from Professor Al Filreis, whose podcast Poem Talk is essential listening).

For this exercise, I removed every word with the letter "S".

The results were promising but insufficient, so I removed all the "of"s and "the"s, most of which were now lacking referents and just cluttering up the place.

Still too much, so I removed first-person pronouns and my least favorite remaining sentence from each paragraph.

Still not satisfied, I removed all but one sentence from each paragraph.

Finally I went through each line and scapeled out whatever I pleased.

Then I lightly polished the grammer and punctuation, capitalizing words that were now the beginnings of sentences, etc.

I'm pleased with the results, not because I think I've created great art, but because the process of reducing the memory this way gives me a sensation of letting go.  The residue of this pivotal event reduced to tea leaves which may be read and interpreted, or rinsed out of the cup.  I hope you enjoyed it.