The Writer’s Unsound Love Affair (writing on writing)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

You can’t force yourself to love something even if it is philosophically correct. Likewise, you can’t force yourself to not love something that is philosophically incorrect.

I am speaking here not only of foolish wanting when it comes to romantic love, but also of the writing process. If a writer were to be philosophically correct, she would love the “writing” part of writing as much as the “having written” part—the production as much as the product. But we’re all grownups and we know better. Creative inertia is a bitch. The physical act of writing is an unwieldy drudge. We know such an upright love affair was never carried on in the heart of any writer who has earnestly walked this earth.

-M.

Love Notes to Maupassant (writing on writing)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

IMG_0365While sitting at my desk today, I glanced over at the tiny pile of books in the left corner. Among these are the only three out of my once mighty personal library that made it with me through all the hasty moving I have had to do in the last few years.

One of them, the most special, is a book of Guy de Maupassant stories. It is a holy artifact. I’ve read it two and a half times. You can see the pages are yellowed with age and use and love. The first short story to ever make me cry, (my favorite short story), is the first one in the book,”Boule de Suif”. When I was writing fiction regularly, I wrote my best stories while reading it. At Vanderbilt in springtime, I used to sit in the late afternoon on a bench in a circle of shade trees at the center of which was a blooming dogwood. The stories made me sigh and think and dream of better for my own work all while the dogwood blossoms fluttered to the ground like snowflakes.

IMG_0368Full of both long notes and clipped marginalia, the book now reads to me something like a diary. My handwriting was better then. I am grateful for that.

Pictured here is a note on, “The Conservatory”. How amazed I was, and still am, at his gifts of humor, twist, and sly revealing.

-M.

Announcement: Upcoming Poetry Reading

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

I will be reading Wednesday evening at the SHOUT! open mic poetry night at Half Off Books in Whittier. Come on out and see me. The theme is love poetry, (Valentine’s Day is creeping up upon us, you see), and I have chosen the infamous Naked Hemingway poem which I will read in the even more infamous sultry, sultry voice.

You know you want to hear it. You know you do.

-M.

Dishes (poem)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

Loose grime and stringy meat
that comes away in the water
and lies in wait by the drain,
tangled in the silverware,
ready to snarl like seaweed
around the pruned fingers that clutch
in the dark to clean the forks and knives.

Cold, gray and scuzzy water—
reason to fear sharks below,
to fear the chum they’ve spit out
not good enough to get stuck between their teeth,
not good enough to wave alongside the gristle
from where a surfer’s arm was severed
uncleanly from its shoulder.

-M.

Never Write While Hungry (poem)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

You’ll roll from aisle to aisle
aimless and slow
eyeballing the shiniest packages first
overhead and at foot
at your groin and at your twitching nose.

You’ll make better bad choices
(still bad choices)
fill your cart with loud
brightly powdered crunchies
that exercise your jaw
but stain your hands
without so much as a goodnight kiss
or any nutritional value at all.

-M.

Character Allowance

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

My ancient fiction professor at Vanderbilt creaked in his departmental chair and told us about a man he knew who drank Dr. Pepper hot. When work was over, this man would get into his after-fives and stir it in a saucepan over low heat, delicately, like he was handling milk. “Sometimes,” Professor Sullivan said, “it’s all right to let your characters take life a little too far.”

-M.

Unaffectionate Boy (memoir)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

Natanon was near the last one to deplane and make his weary way through the Roy Rogers airport. He met us by the empty spinning of the baggage carousel. His mother sent him to us from Thailand to finish his education in the States.

He was sent to us to get a little time with his dad.

He was dressed in black like a cowboy villain, but almost bald being only two weeks out from a stint as monk in his hometown of Phuket. His father and grandfather hugged him welcome. He smiled, but his shoulders were drawn up. He and I shook hands. He smiled again, but looked down at his shiny, square-toed shoes.

Later that day with the family, eating fast food Chinese— a mystery to him—he slid his cookie’s fortune across the greasy table for me to read to him, his English still a little weak. I read it low-voiced like a mystic and, as benediction, exclaimed, “…in bed!”

His English and teenage hormones were just strong enough to make him blush, drop his head and silent shake his drawn up shoulders down, with laughter.

-M.

Working Man (character piece)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

Work, work—consumed by the work. And who could correct him? This was the creature his mother bore him to be. What would seem purgatory to the rest of us was his joy and satisfaction—building a palace of thought that would never be finished. No matter where he placed the lights, there was always a better place for them. There were always dark corners that needed to be lit.

-M

Tennessee Jazz in Autumn

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

I am reminded of a cool autumn night in Tennessee when I turned off the lights in my room, lit a single black candle smelling of the last anticipations of November, and turned on a gentle jazz album. I slipped into a slip of a nightie, black and silky. I set the candle on my windowsill, made a hot and heady drink, and crawled under the blankets. I opened the window to give myself a shiver of autumn on my bare shoulders. I sipped my drink with the jazz, watched the candle flame, and felt the familiar tingle of sex, but softly—foreplay with the beauty of my self, and the beauty of the night, the flame, the music, the heat and sweet on my tongue.

-M.