new favourite word

courtesy the rasta, kinnah makes up for the failed flash fiction friday...
wappiya/wappiah: mouth-yampee.
love it!
walk good.

fff #16, last fff's sister...

enjoyed last week's fff and decided to continue in a similiar vein (no pun intended re:fff#16). i know i didn't make deadline, but was enjoying writing this so much that as deadline rolled past i decided to finish+post anyway, especially since i already knew exactly where the piece was going and was nearly done. feel free to do the same if you feel to make time to write; thinking of softening our deadline to the following friday noon when i post the next fff trigger so we have a full week to write since we all so busy (carnival!)...lemme know what you think of that and the other stuff i brought up when i triggered (inclusion) flash fiction friday #16: smoke, joke, broke, folk, yolk...

i wait. i lie in wait. i wait for him to come strolling under my perch, whistling his conquest of this night’s virgin.
i wait for when his mind busy building embellishment of this night’s conquest for the boys on the corner under lamppost they mash up long time, folk heroes of the yard in their little minds waiting idle for some random chance to prove it. i wait for him. silently. wait. still. wait.
it worth the wait for my conquest this night. he pass so close and i so still and silent i smell the smoke in his warm breath from the minutes immediately after he spent hisself in her. his life will flash behind his eyes like lightning again. he go remember he make a joke of her pain like others before when he rush in, rough because he know it too late for her to stop him; she young, inexperienced, frighten to disappoint. he go remember how he lie to say he disease-free when he too broke or doh care to protect his victim. he go remember every last lash he dish out with every new bruise he get from me this night, and my bite will mark him for everybody to know who deliver justice.
he pass and i follow, savouring the leisurely chase until our unspoken communion interrupted by the phone in his pocket. he listen, grinning, then laugh, “boy, yuh worried ‘bout big man? i must be on yuh mind for the hundred dollar yuh still have for me…nah, doh dig, i almost reach, and just realise i hungry too, so i now hustling up to see wha’ it have to eat…scene…right…”
mercifully soon we alone again, listening to his breathing speed up as his pace quicken. if he satisfy his hunger, better for my taste, so still i follow, allowing his last meal before i make mine of him, knowing his growling belly will prevent any thought of entering the house backwards from entering his mind.
we cross his threshold together, finally close enough for his first whiff of sulphur. i enjoy his involuntary shiver of confusion as he throws his eye around in vain for my source. we move to his kitchen, him straight to the fridge to ponder the open box briefly before pulling things from the bottom drawer and a carton from a shelf.
i wait, watch him beat egg whites and yolks into a frothy cream before adding diced chunks of colour, hoping he will use meat in his omelette to further satisfy my growing craving for this well-seasoned man. i wait, watch him pull a can from a cabinet shelf, and in my excitement he scent me again. i wait, lingering sulphurously, wanting his heart racing, wanting him warm and juicy, wanting to feel his pulse pound when i pierce his flesh. i wait, his meal the foreplay for mine.
i tease, brush past his shoulder to make him look round at my now-familiar sharpness in his nostril, then swing back to make him spin the opposite way, and as i watch his beautiful body whirl i hear a crash and feel a shower of sharp pricks, pelted by tiny burning pebbles, feel myself in flames, invisible no more.
he shocked still at the sudden sight of me semi-solidified by the lake of salt spilled all around him, insulating him, keeping me from the blood i can now hear pulsing through him as i wanted; smelling his liquid life and the coppery irony of our separation i realise i don’t know the time. i fall to my knees with a wail and begin, pounding within myself now, racing the sunrise, counting the grains of salt for my survival this night.

non-trinbagonians who don't recognise fff #15 (la diablesse) and this week's cousin fff #16 (soucouyant) can check my sidebar for links to info.
walk good.

flash fiction friday #16

almost leggo flash fiction friday after last week, but the rabble say lewwe try to keep it going 'cause we all want and intend to write, just busy like hell. i'll take dat chain-up.
inclusion clause trigger: smoke, joke, broke, folk, yolk.
with a request to please say if you remember a list similar to today's in this or jj's fff series (i not sure and doh have time to look) plus what your favourite type of trigger is (starter, closer, title, inclusion rhymed or unrhymed, some type of trigger i haven't thought of but might love to try...etc.) and why. thanks.

rules of engagement:
you will send in your suggestions for flash fiction friday triggers (starter sentences/phrases, closers, titles, inclusion clauses, etc.) anytime during the week up to 11.55a.m. friday, trinbago timezone; i will post the new fff trigger by noon friday trinbago timezone.
if your trigger is not chosen and you think it is too brilliant not to be chosen, you will send it in again the next week.
you will write an anecdote, short story, or novel length prose poem using the trigger provided.
you will add comments and appropriate linkage to my trigger-post indicating your desire to participate and the completion of your piece (don't need a blogger/gmail account to comment on my blog).
you may join in at any time prior to the deadline.
you will display your piece as a post on your own blog (or as a comment on my trigger-post or fasbook note or whatever, once we can all read it- please make sure we can all access the link to read it, not just those who are your friends on fasbook; there's a way to create public links for that, right?).
you will be done by monday noon trinbago timezone.
write fresh!
walk good.

notes from the new flat; trinbago, closing 2009

• cocks start crowing, already trying to top each other by 3a.m. and doh stop until afternoon; around 3p.m. we all siesta...
• a gouti look-back provides a peek of loud yellow breasts of kisskidees kissing in the cerise-laden tree out the window past his shoulder that begs the eye to stretch for a sweep over the lower spread of fig trees and pulls the mind back to other rooms' view of yard+mango tree and gallery choice of sea or green slope, culminating in a moaning, shuddering praise for loving in fertile spaces.
• smell of the sea competes for senses' attention with pommerac+pommecythere and pooteegal skins it seems criminal to throw away, with hosay drums competing with the pan tuner whole day then the panside's endless relentless pursuit of shanti om whole night, until tassa-heralded tajahs come for the last time this time over our low rise from cocorite to st.james gleaming like pearls+gold en route to obliteration in the sea the morning after a cobalt+gold moon traversed the same path to kiss the sun...
• didn't make punchacreme for the 1st time this year 'cause i can't find the canopener i know i packed in the move, and refuse to buy a new one; just as well, since i doing everything in my power to be home alone as much as possible and woulda drink too damn much on top of the pastelles- 3canal show comin', jouvay comin'!
• in a beautiful moment my flashing cursor + quantic's the 5th exotic delivered the synchronicity windshield wipers + car radios been denying me my whole life.
• why am i in season right when i mostly want to be left alone to enjoy my life?
• pass by the parents the other day and as i reach start digging up in everything on the stove. 1st thing i find, macaroni pie, all kinnah yumminess ensues. last thing i open is a smaller foil dish, another macaroni pie, and as i find it she pass by the kitchen, see me in the food and bawl, "oh, that pie's yours to take home..." who say bes' mummy!
• grims rang and i didn't recognise his voice on the phone‎...
• why we get so defensive+irritable when we get call out for beppin'? we need to just admit, and go and pee and go in the bed.
• based on recent and lifetime feedback, the overall presentation of my snatch is very representative of how i think of myself, not necessarily exactly how i present the rest of myself to the world.
• watched the dog run hysterically from the yard behind the factory over+through and straight out the front door, leaving a trail of pawprints across a freshly painted set of 27'x24' arches laid out on the floor, way too high to even tiptoe for plausibility.
• "stereotypes are like predictive text"- mollineau; "if you not livin' on the edge you takin' up space"- slapper.

and note to self 'cause i can't remember if i said it here for posterity and will need a reminder if/when i let myself slide: isoke granmudda say, man like 2ting; hos and bad treatment!
walk good.

fff #15 diablesse...

this week i put fingers to the keys to start typing but no letters crept across the screen’s blank page. faucet on but no water pressure. i put on quantic's 5th exotic and let the vibes of the new flat take over and think i got something i actually like...
flash fiction friday #15's an inclusion trigger: mind, find, blind, kind, dined…

i see this woman before. watching her now, skirt swishing seductively around her haunches thighs calves i have her in my mind so clear, another time, another moment of her intoxication reaching lithe fingers pretending to be hers across a room to an earlobe or collarbone or nipple, scent calling, eyes beckoning, this woman pull at me before like she pulling now, imagined senses of her rubbing against me, enveloping, soothing, warm and tingly, pulling at my navel-string, curling low into my belly, finding my core and nestling in my warmth…this woman…
some lesser female physically pull me away, grabbing my elbow, coaxing me to her, but i blind to everything outside the aura of the woman across the room seducing even when i can’t see her, her heat pulsing in my veins. the lesser woman pressuring for a dance. i look back to see my woman make sweeteye at me as she lead a man to the dance floor, holds him close so our eyes make four over his shoulder as she sways against him, warm tendrils in my belly boiling and bursting into flame. i pull the lesser woman to the floor and lock eyes with my woman wining slow and graceful on the man with broad shoulders and salt+pepper ‘fro. her lips form a kiss at me, a set of lashes deliberately flutter closed then open again, my stomach flips, i unintentionally release a small groan i hope the lesser woman doesn’t hear or feel, pressed against my pelvis.
we dance as long as my woman stays with the man in the black longsleeve shirt, 2 songs i don’t hear and barely feel changing as i watch her, feel her, breathe her in, imagining her breath on my neck hands on my lower spine pulling me into her. she walks away, sweeteye again over her shoulder as she retreats, wanting me to follow. i leave the lesser woman – if i going horn my girl it will be only with the best. i follow her to a corner darker than i notice at first, excitement pounding in my ears. by the time i realise i only sense more than see her, that thought lose amongst too many exiting my brain all at once when she brushes my shoulder lightly and every part of me shivers, thrills to her touch.
her skin and her smell make it impossible to leave her alone, conscience-reminders of my girl become alarm bells in my head screaming not to do something i’ll get in trouble for. i make small talk to try and extricate myself; i know i cannot resist this woman.
“so where you from? how you find yourself in this dance?”
“i not from around here. i from country, visiting my cousins for the week…”
i miss the rest of her story amidst all my nerve endings shouting hallelujah at the sudden realisation that she would disappear before my girl come back from her family reunion in canada. i would get away with it.
the rest of the night is a sweaty haze of kissing, groping, pulling, until i sure enough to whisper that we should go.
“your place or mine?” she teases.
“doh care, once we both somewhere we could get naked together.”
“yours, then.”
“lewwe go.”
she smile behind her eyes, take my hand and pull me toward the door, skirt swirling enough to make me instinctively look down for exposure of what must be a shapely calf, then sadly disappointed that the light not on my side, delivering nothing but shadow. i know i’ll see everything soon enough so i simply walk with her.
she doesn’t let me turn on any lights in the house. she likes darkness. she wants us to feel each other.
i tear her clothes off and greedily start roaming her body with my hands and mouth.
a sliver of moonlight sneaks past the curtain, i pause long enough to appreciate the sexy outline and let my hand follow my eyes down along her hip to a surprisingly muscular leg. she goes completely still but i now distracted by a suddenly, unexpectedly hairy calf. i backtrack up her thigh to compare, again her calf is a horrible disillusionment. something wrong. something feeling wrong. the leg feeling kind of like…nah…
i dress back, squinting, trying to see better in dark broken only by her smile growing into a grin, and eyes curiously red. next thing i know i feel something solid hit me in the middle of my chest, something flat and hard knock me down.
she sound like she limping in the dark, step, drag, step, drag, step, drag.
she reach while i still gasping for air, and as the curtain blow up i finally see her naked form lift the hoof and place it square on my chest, the mighty conqueror, cackling,
“it has been a long time since i dined on meat so succulent…”

walk good.

flash fiction friday #15; retry

repeat from ole year's weekend since i failed miserably; trigger's an inclusion clause:
mind, find, blind, kind, dined.

rules of engagement:
you will send in your suggestions for flash fiction friday triggers (starter sentences/phrases, closers, titles, inclusion clauses, etc.) anytime during the week up to 11.55a.m. friday, trinbago timezone; i will post the new fff trigger by noon friday trinbago timezone.
if your trigger is not chosen and you think it is too brilliant not to be chosen, you will send it in again the next week.
you will write an anecdote, short story, or novel length prose poem using the trigger provided.
you will add comments and appropriate linkage to my trigger-post indicating your desire to participate and the completion of your piece (don't need a blogger/gmail account to comment on my blog).
you may join in at any time prior to the deadline.
you will display your piece as a post on your own blog (or as a comment on my trigger-post or fasbook note or whatever, once we can all read it- please make sure we can all access the link to read it, not just those who are your friends on fasbook; there's a way to create public links for that, right?).
you will be done by monday noon trinbago timezone.
write fresh!
walk good.

vision 2010: part 2

[pre new year's part 1, happy merry death of development]

the other day i performed @ the new building by the savannah, apparently called the national academy for the performing arts (napa) in spite of a lack of students, programme or full teaching staff.
even knowing in advance how little function was being considered (no theatre consultant hired for the project, apparently the pm pm* could handle dem ting heself) i was shocked+appalled at what we being told is "state of the art" and how our $ wasting. weeks later, this still raw enough for me that this post will simply list what i know as simply as i can say it. the only effort i make at wordsmithing here is to ensure that i don't defeat my purpose by sounding like a lunatic to be disregarded.
so lewwe start by remembering that the pm pm forced the building open before it was ready (felt like a weird rape allusion once written but i leavin' it) against the recommendation/request of those building it and those intended to use it, and that my complaints are within the context of unanswered questions about whether we need a 1,200-1,500 seat theatre when local theatres barely fill queens hall (capacity inside 800) after barely affording the rental there and why it should be administrated by qh rather than trying something different to address any of the myriad regularly occurring problems working in that space. (regarding capacity, i was told in the earlies that there would be a secondary, smaller performance space in the new building, ideally a black box, but never discovered one when i was on the premises.) right:
1. yay, designated rehearsal rooms, but concrete-floored dance spaces (all that i saw) hurt dancers, destroying not just our bodies but the very joy of leaping and heights possible (utt students wouldn't last a semester dancing on concrete floors every day); triangle- and kidney-shaped rooms aren't very versatile or functional (few stages are shaped that way); ballet-barre+mirrors mounted on the same wall with no other mirrored walls, also not very helpful.
2. dressing rooms are much more user+production-friendly with bathrooms (including showers) in them or at least adjacent+connected; need soap-dispensation and garbage receptacles; need monitors so that cast members can hear onstage and stage management (the further away dressingrooms are the more important this is and same applies to distant bathrooms, plus stairs en route between stage+dressingrooms should be avoided wherever possible; our dressingroom with none of these basics was up 3flights of stairs from the stage with toilets down the hall and showers up another floor that smelled like urine on approach).
3. backstage+house aren't physically connected so any entrances/exits through the audience force performers to cross the proscenium/curtain coming+going. very limiting.
4. the space doesn't have a soundboard or cyc so sound+lights are somehow expected to make magic without the basic tools of their trade, and techies say in-house lighting equipment way behind what's available @ the refurbished qh; "state of the art"? i performed with a curry-yellow accordion-pleated upstage curtain and green velvet legs for wings not slanted to minimise audience-backstage sightlines (was told upon inquiry there's a seamed white backdrop; still not a cyclorama; could you imagine asking lights to create a skyscape on a curry-yellow accordion-pleated curtain?).
5. the slipstage is terrible for dance but they don't have marley to fit the floor yet; if we had a performers' union we wouldn't have danced 'cause the slipstage-function requires horizontal+vertical half-inch grooves crisscrossing the stage big enough to break a toe in, which meet at rounded-away corners to form holes big enough to break a foot in, interspersed with raised metal plates for equipment plug-ins on the floor (which isn't sprung and feels only slightly better than concrete, especially without marley; post-performance i was bruised in delicate places).
6. said slipstage should have sensors; right now, if the stage set in motion and you miss the warning, it cutting you down and running you over.
7. wireless headset/p.a. communication amongst stage management, control booths, board ops, and followspot-ops is necessary to cover all crew and backstage+dressingrooms. this is how we run shows. not optional.
8. theatre on this scale needs a loading dock. not optional.
9. water fountains/coolers/and/or some sort of vending needed, preferably with caffeine available, but at least water (water not optional).
10. saw absolutely no onsite storage for set pieces, costumes, props, etc. or real shop space+equipment for set construction.
11. couldn't find a box office.
12. highly counterintuitive seat numbering; instead of rows starting with seat#1 on the end, #1's in the middle of the row with 2 and 3 on either side then 4 and 5 on either side
(ie. 9 7 5 3 1 2 4 6 8) so the only consecutive numbers that are consecutive seats are 1+2, plus the rows are numbered not lettered so a seat will be "9 9" instead of "i 9".
13. didn't see proper onstage+backstage worklight.
i suppose they could have pan concerts and bring in big broadway/foreign shows but we shouldn't have to import arts+entertainment, plus the building have no loading dock for pan racks or anything on the scale of aida or bollywood dreams anyway, so...where i findin' $2million to finish the little carib?
walk good.

ps: example of the lack of thought of function, there's a massive dressingroom with an exterior wall of glass, not-really-shielded by a nearly-transparent curtain; the glass wall is backed by an outdoor water feature with a bridge to encourage gazing, designed such that the bridge directs audience to look @ the water feature with the glass dressingroom as backdrop...

*everytime i type "pm pm" i tempted to call him a pummpumm one time and done, but he so not worthy of such a glorious appellation...

1st fff fail ever, for the new year

so we had weeks when i was the only one who managed an fff, even when others said they were in, but this is the 1st week not even i managed- doh know why i was so optimistic about writing during a wild holiday weekend with the rasta...
so i fail, and will do my best to ignore this last flash fiction friday (#15) trigger and if you writing doh click that link so you doh see the trigger either, so we can use it friday coming (hate waste; sorry). meanwhile i'll finally blog vision 2010 part2 this week. fire lit and my ass bunnin'...
walk good.

new year's flash fiction friday #15

look like i starting this new year just like i finish the last one: late, but glad. the only reason i late with the trigger this week is ole year's night recovery- now getting moving after coming home after 5am- so feel free to take the extended fff deadline if you wish, this trigger's an inclusion clause, about 3hours late:
mind, find, blind, kind, dined.

rules of engagement:
you will send in your suggestions for flash fiction friday triggers (starter sentences/phrases, closers, titles, inclusion clauses, etc.) anytime during the week up to 11.55a.m. friday, trinbago timezone; i will post the new fff trigger by noon friday trinbago timezone.
if your trigger is not chosen and you think it is too brilliant not to be chosen, you will send it in again the next week.
you will write an anecdote, short story, or novel length prose poem using the trigger provided.
you will add comments and appropriate linkage to my trigger-post indicating your desire to participate and the completion of your piece (don't need a blogger/gmail account to comment on my blog).
you may join in at any time prior to the deadline.you will display your piece as a post on your own blog (or as a comment on my trigger-post or fasbook note or whatever, once we can all read it- please make sure we can all access the link to read it, not just those who are your friends on fasbook; there's a way to create public links for that, right?).
you will be done by monday noon trinbago timezone.
write fresh!
walk good.