creative ramblings & reverie

Friday, August 26, 2011

Writing Spaces



Writing a life, writing a death.




image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Stratford, Stone 2

Leavings

Serene Rose lipstick
a Micky Spillane crossword puzzle
a recipe for garden spring rolls clipped out of the local newspaper
red but dejected teddy bear
dozens of inhalers
roll of stamps
quarters for casino
blue and white dishtowel with blue hearts
sprouting garlic
abalone shell from Long Beach forty-seven years ago
impeccably clean sheets
several gallons of Chinese chicken salad
turquoise jelly beans
birch trees and a linden
a sturdy old barometer
a neighbor lonely for talk
Zoe the cat fretting against the back screen door
picture of me at twenty-four looking unlike myself
a gallon of Johnnie Walker Red
a bottle holding the remembrance of White Linen
a tiny jade frog
a Norwegian back-scratcher
the chicken doorstop
the rain barrel, now full, whose lip Zoe drinks from
those fine New Mexican clouds
a Chinese fortune, “You will be happily surprised by a long-time friend”
a dryer full of towels
her deck of playing cards

—Christie

Friday, August 12, 2011

Writing Spaces




Santa Fe, New Mexico—the perfect place to write, or paint.





image:  Hacienda Nicolas

New Mexico Inklings


the red earth
of my childhood:
La Bajada Hill


against rain-blackened
summer mountains,
Santa Fe


abandoned racetrack—
stalls all standing open now,
no quiet whicker of horses


moss roses
in the patio,
this last day of July


linden shadow
on the pale adobe wall,
the ghost of the old cottonwood


And one from just before I left for college, which has swum back to my mind:

croquet in the dark
at the finish of summer,
before we part ways


—Christie

Friday, August 5, 2011

Writing Spaces



Write about nature!





image:  Grass growing on a wooden table, Frank Vincentz

Inklings


wind from the bay
suggests a flotilla
of white boats



a string of paper birds
on a cubicle wall
is dreaming flight
 

tiny cones
dusted with yellow pollen
carry the memory of trees



—Christie