"Buried Alive" Chapbook Excerpt5/27/2021  RIP I
Rest in peace, Dreams. Died of adulthood. Circa 18-years old - S. Huey From my forthcoming chapbook, Buried Alive, a personal reflection on living as though dead and dying without having lived.
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Lament of the Pandemic Children5/26/2021  mommy and daddy,
please go away… i want you to miss me, come home and kiss me, and then, like we used to, together all play all you do now, is stare at a screen and talk on the phone, while I feel so trapped here, five days a week, at home all alone i am here but you don’t see me, i speak but you don’t hear, you are both so far away, even though so near i have all of my stuffed animals, i have all of my toys… but I’d rather be playing with you, or at least with real girls and boys so mommy and daddy, please go away… but come home like you used to, at the end of the day tell me you missed me, pick me up, then kiss me… now mommy and daddy… let’s go out and play! S. Huey * First published in Raven Cage Zine, Issue 57 (May 28, 2021). ---------- Commentary: I make no pretense at being a poet. For me, this is a short story with a few words of rhyme. How does this "poem" make you feel? Hopefully, sad. But such verse can also open our eyes to truths both previously unseen and unfelt. How often do we look at life through the eyes of our children? To see as they see, to feel as they feel? They live in their own heads as do we. Food for thought I'd say. One of my personal favorite short stories (speaking of those that I have penned) was inspired by watching children play on a playground. I learned a lot that day. The Writer's Haiku5/24/2021
Blood on the Page5/10/2021  I bleed all over the page
A paper cut? Nay, The blood flows from my heart Deep and bright and red… Arterial ink I put it there In black and white For all to see They judge me But they do not know They do not understand Yet they pretend to I write therefore I am Descartes misguided… He thought therefore he was Ha! But must I myself not be before I can write? Yes… I write because I am I am because I write I am…therefore my words are And they are… On the page In blood Ink the color of soul. - S. Huey Yesterday, I was notified by the editor of Black Poppy Review that my most recent fiction piece, "The Ride," was accepted and published (read here). This was my first attempt at flash fiction (short stories under 1000 words). The goal of flash fiction is to present a big idea as simply, concisely, and truthfully as one can and this with the color of good prose. Flash fiction situates itself carefully upon the border of short fiction and poetry. I enjoyed the constraint of a limited word count as such forces the writer to focus on terse prose without losing the color and I, perhaps, paid even more attention to turns of phrase than I might have otherwise in longer form (though I can't be certain of this).
As I shared the draft prepublication, and others having since read the piece, readers have asked, "It is about death, isn't it?" or "Suicide?" To wit my reply is always that my job as a writer is done, the rest is up to the reader. All writers know that some meanings and themes emerge after piece's completion and were not necessarily in the mind of the writer during the process of creation. That would be way too convenient. Yet such reader-derived meanings and themes are equally valid. That is one of the joys of literature, is it not? It is interesting to hear what others experience and see in the mind's eye upon reading one's work. Truly, "The Ride" should be read as a dark piece and that was my intent, after all, but who's to say that it might not also be interpreted (validly) by another reader in a more positive and optimistic light--say, as a treatise on how we tend to focus on the past and future so much that we miss out on the present moment? Something to remind us to LIVE NOW as now is all we've got...to motivate...not depress. I won't say much more about the piece but I will part with this--There really isn't a middle story for our passenger and narrator and that much, dear reader, I can say was intentional. It is for you to write in your own mind, feel it as truth, and to live it out. - S. Huey |
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