Jacaranda Blossoms
Warm morning slides over fatigue
Your fresh face saturates studio
I drink your passing eyes
Hazel tea flavored with kindness
Laugh, toast buttered in joy
I awake stone sober compelled like a television addict
Seeing your image floating like pesky fireflies, butterflies
Against my studio ceiling, rerun creatures
Circling my petrified heart like old movies, ancient loves
Evaporating in this torrid drought
-Ryan J. Hodge
For someone who enjoys a great story, is there anything better than a narrative that engages you from the very start? Imagine a world so rich you can almost smell the scents in the air, a delivery so clever it forces you to think in a way you never thought you would. I’m Ryan J. Hodge, author, and I’d like to talk to you about…Video Games.
Yes, Video Games. Those series of ‘bloops’ and blinking lights that – at least a while ago – society had seemed to convince itself had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. In this article series, I’m going to discuss how Donkey Kong, Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty and even Candy Crush can change the way we tell stories forever.
What the Strategy Genre teaches us about logical story telling.
One by one
They will come.
-Holly Sisson
“HAVANA MOON”
On the way home from their second trip together to Havana, Conforti finally asked the question Levinson had been dreading. “I’ve been thinking about trying to bring Rosa home,” he said about twenty minutes after the plane was airborne. “Am I crazy?”
“You’ve been crazy as long as I’ve known you.”
“But about Rosa –”
“What do I know?”
“You’re ducking.”
“Me?” asked Levinson with a guilty smile.
“Think it can work?”
“Getting her out of Cuba?”
“Living together.”
“I can probably give you fifty reasons why not.”
“So you think I should drop it?”
“And have regrets forever?” Levinson exclaimed, despite his many reservations. “Hell no!”
Tipton Poetry Journal, Summer 2011
Mystical Muse Magazine, February 2013
Ephemera
Mayflies bear a Greek name meaning living a day,
An allusion to their dance before they die
After maturing in the month of May.
Mayflies bear a Greek name meaning living a day
And start as water nymphs that grow to fly
Only to die after mating–a last hooray.
Mayflies bear a Greek name meaning living a day,
An allusion to their dance before they die.
Bliss, MUSE Press Anthology 2013
The POTENTIAL VI: The Way You Eat Your Mango
I was meant to have three uncles, just three. I never met one – In person – but I read (with) him, read his books, his notes, and saw his spirit, his drive; I do not know what he looked like, yet he taught me: he taught me to dare.
My other uncle nurtured me from afar; I learnt by osmosis. He once said he’d not have (or take) whatever God had not given him. So in his short, fulfilling, life – no but’s – he taught me that Pastors are not God, that Winners are made and not enslaved, that right is forever right irrespective of what any Pastor says; and, most importantly, he taught me contentment.
My third uncle is the first. He taught me from Pluto, he taught me by radiation. He is a genius, and I learn to be one. I pretend not to listen to him, and he in turn pretends not to notice, but I do, and he does. I inform him whenever I want to start something, not so much for his monetary input, but so that he can discourage me – as he should – and I can go ahead anyway (making adjustments for his concerns) – as I should. He teaches me caution, a by-product of anticipation.
So that whatever and whoever I am today and forever I owe it (in part) to these three people – and I am always indebted to my father, who made me (painfully). Of course, I pick up lessons as I go on: I recently saw what personal ambition can do to a Church – or any organisation for that matter. I recently observed how comparison and strife can ruin peace and progress.
Newton had said if he saw further than his peers, it was because he stood on the shoulders of giants; well, I have seen. I see how my forebears forever change me: I learnt diligence from my father, and camouflage from his mother. In fact, as much as I can remember, the only word Father ever taught me was “diligence” – it just so happened that I hadn’t known that word at the time.
All these people together influence(d) the way I eat my mango: daringly, cautiously and contentedly, diligently and in camera.
Closer
On the news, white flags of surrender
fleck the country side
to mark the bodies; metal, soft fabric
in equal amounts bent and woven
through foreign flora: charged green shoots,
blossoms at the tips like blue-bulbed street lamps.
I had just hung up the phone, a friend calling to talk,
but with forced topics, not a breath in between,
avoiding all she wanted
to say, as I’ve done many times before; as, I think,
we’ve all done. I felt that crick of regret and changed
the channel: a scientist began explaining microscopic level,
that mysterious plane where, as he stated,
nothing ever touches.