L. P. Lake

[rowens]

I had a really religious friend used to say when it's thundering God's playing bowling /, when it's raining real hard it means God's got big balls. /. I said Balls have nothing to do with pissing. He said / . I woke up to sirens Thursday morning, that was Thanksgiving. I woke up to sirens Thursday morning, the sun was shining right in my eye through the window, and when I stepped outside it was pouring down raining and the sun was shining bright. My sister was giving me a ride. I said, I heard all these sirens this morning and stepped outside, and the sun was shining and it was pouring down raining. : . The Devil must be beating his wife.

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I went with my friend's moma, and dad. To the lake where they stayed when my friend's grandma, his dad's mom was still living. / It was snowing that day. And the sun was out / and I said When it's raining and the sun's out the Devil's beating his wife, / when it's snowing and the sun's out, the Devil's beating his meat.

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I said that / and it was recorded on video VHS tape. And my friend asked me, while we were looking at the old electricity meter / on my house, if I heard that somewhere or just made it up / , because he remembered hearing it when I said it when he was recording it. / And he changed the subject, and we didn't say anything. And we were in the car and had the radio on.

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L. P. Lake is what me and my friends used to call Elkhorn Lake when going there Saturday morning after buying records at the Saturday open only record store in town.* The siren I heard on Thursday morning this year was from an ambulance going to pick up my granddad who has a heart attack or is in some critical state and needs the rescue squad to come pick him up a bunch of times every few months or so.**

[Lizzie]

Hi, Ro. I really like the dark humor of 'when it's raining' God and the devil are doing this and that. Good subversion of common phrases/cliches.

There are far too many indulgently long lines, and I have no idea how or why this is in short form which is about condensing down to the bare minimum. Unless it's here ironically.....

It could be a nice scene study if you would just pare it down.

All the same: enjoyed it, and all the best to you.

lizziep

[Erthona]

momma

moma is an abbreviation for "Museum of Modern Art"

Nice tangential study of malapropism of religious folklore.

dale

[RiverNotch]

How many songs? How many songs? All of this feels like stuff I've heard before, or should have heard before -- "and we were in the car and had the radio on" reminds me of the song Roadrunner, and everything else, everything else. How did I miss this? Lovely work.

[rowens]

I wrote this from simple personal memory. The music was Creedence Clearwater Revival and a Beatles Best of album. Mama is spelled anyway a man wants. And my granddad, who has dementia, is present of mind to have a heartattack on the morning or afternoon of each major hoilday. So there's some semblance of something going on.

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There were mostly commericials, and changing of stations, and mainly there was a Rolling Stones song on. I'd forgotten what I wrote. On the way to the lake it was CCR and The Beatles, the part where I actually mention the radio it was commercials, The Rolling Stones and some 90s song, The Screaming Trees or The Meat Puppets. I think it was The Meat Puppets that goes, And when I wake up in the morning . . .

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And to answer Lizzie's question about short form: it's because it took a short time to form it. I just was writing what I know. It wasn't as short in space as short in time. Short time form.

[billy]

please post longer poems elsewhere. this is the short "form" not the 'short time to form it' forum. i like the writing

[rowens]

When I started writing it I didn't plan on it being so long, and when I was done writing it it was hard to believe that it was so long.