Category: Creative Writing

Categories
2006-2010 Short Stories

Blue, Bean, and Fred

According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, there are 254 million passenger vehicles registered in the United States, making it likely that you’ll be in a car accident at some time in your life. Having driven for ten years, I myself have been in five accidents, which I hope satisfies my lifetime quota. Granted, two of the mishaps were before I was 15, so I am unsure whether they count. One came before kindergarten, so I know that one doesn’t count. It came before I could reach the pedals or read the owner’s manual.

I caused my first car accident when I was 2 years old.

Continue reading “Blue, Bean, and Fred”
Categories
2006-2010 Prose

The Universality and Intimacy of Writing and English Studies

My love affair with English language and the written word germinated humbly in elementary school before blossoming into a full-blown obsession in high school, wilting somewhat during my early twenties, and returning to full bloom in my final year of college. Immediate plans for post-graduate studies remain murky for now, but they will assuredly contain graduate-level studies in creative writing at some to-be-determined university. When asked why I would choose English as my choice of study, I can only look to what others have said before me for guidance.

Continue reading “The Universality and Intimacy of Writing and English Studies”

Categories
2006-2010 Poems

“Blue Note”

A latex slip, ribbed for her pleasure, is pregnant
with half-babies vainly swimming
in an open-ended tunnel capped with a reservoir tip.
Her intimates, intermingling with his pink
Polo shirt, lie curled up in a ball,
freshly unfurled from her young frame.
Tendrils, chiseled in stone-colored smoke
borne from a Camel Light, swirl in the dusky
incandescence before fading from sight.
Coltrane, on wax, carves a space in sound with his sax;
“Giant Steps” walks the room and scores the scene
until “A Love Supreme” conquers all.

Categories
2006-2010 Poems

“A Letter to the Senator “

The seismic pothole on Main Street has grown
and has started to gnaw on the sidewalk.
Most motorists and all pedestrians
avoid the byway, preferring the park-
way instead, so we ask that you refill
the road starting with the hole. We had planned
to send thousands of pleasant letters, all
requesting this favor with eloquence.
Sadly—Harold has to take the children
to karate; Karen has Pilates
until seven, and the rest have chosen
not to care, so we elected a mouthpiece,
this young writer named Michael Ollinger,
to deliver these capital concerns.

Categories
2006-2010 Poems

“Prowling for Pizza”

Borborygmi
have finished their low growls and now howl
aloud just like
a ravenous wolf pack surveilling
the frozen lands
of the Arctic for lonesome elk.

From the muffled
muttering of other stomachs
sitting around
the table, I know that the storm
of starving wolves
are not the lone scavengers here.

Snarling dingoes
and snickering hyenas join
in the unrest
and request in guttural tones
that some ripe prey
is found or delivered post haste.

I start to pray
that my meal is served soon before
my gut’s moans grow
louder and warn my friends, fellow
feasters and beasts
on the prowl for hapless pizza.