The Marathon journey is in its third year. Put Pen to Paper is the current incarnation.

It’s March 7 and I am back at Montco. You might think it was January – look at the snow, and take it from me, it’s very cold, also, 21 degrees F. But look at that blue sky and sunshine, also…spring is coming, just feeling its way very tentatively right now.

Don’t sit here…

Sit here.

I went into the library and set up my work area.

On my way to my table, I passed the new book display. I often check out a book from this stand. Maybe not today! Here’s the state of things. Gave me a laugh.

I settled into my work. First I did some straight-out-of-my head writing, following whatever occurred to me. I did notice a winter theme. I’m ready for spring but you know, it seems to me this winter went by quickly. Maybe it’s just me.

Then some Little Vines. About halfway through that work I moved to the grocery store café for lunch and to finish up the Vines. Then I went home.

I thought I’d try to get some snippets going, and at home is where snippets are done – they are messy and the WIP is fragile (think about having a whole board of teensy snips of paper laid out – poof, the door opens, and there go your snippets…), and so I don’t usually transport their whole eco-system (book pages, scissors, cards, glue, matboard to compose on) anywhere away from my work table.

I think my work process for snippets is changing. In the past I have cut out millions of words and phrases and then arranged them on my work area, then pushed them around until they fell into place. (You see the pile of snipped words in the above photos.)

I’m more impatient now, or else I just need a change. I am finding I am going straight to the book pages and cutting words/phrases, and then finding mates for them (there needs to be three lines to make a snippet in my rule book) right off the bat. I  seem to be less controlling of the process, maybe, than I was in the past – if you have one million phrases/words to choose from you naturally get a little perfectionistic. Now, it seems I have a looser attitude about what fits – a tolerance for a more serendipitous outcome? I think it’s a good thing. We’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, I didn’t have a lot of time for snippets, but I did come up with a few. Note to self: I MUST make some ATC sized cards for snippeting. I’m still using paint cards and whatever and that’s just not right. Some rules I am not wanting to change…

All right. Here are a few items from today’s work.

We have a hard-frozen snow on the ground right now.

4.
I break through the crust of hard snow
stepping across the yard
my feet sinking into the soft layer
beneath

Like the spoon in the hand
the metal
cutting through the burnt sugar crust
of the crème brulée
into its sweet milky interior

The first bite
of winter
the first bite
of dessert

A friend recently gave me some cookies he made. Yum. Shadorma chain.

5.
Tart lemon
glazed cookies. Flavors
arriving
hand in hand
The sweet word mellowing sharp
The acerbic face

who smiles first.
Hello. I predict
your visit
will be short
Your partnership is too good
to last beyond lunch.

This small poem came from seeing small children at the YMCA and being glad that phase of my life is over.

6.
Jackpot!
The baby fell asleep
comfortably sited in the tidy acreage
of his crib. A maestro
declining the plethora of options
his orchestra’s repertoire contains
opting instead
for a night off.

Here is a shadorma for our recent weather.

7.
Nose cold night
Grit snow in the street
Feet crunch punch
sparkle steps
stringing streetlight pools in loops
on an icy spool

Little Vines.

a.
well-lit basement
the fading sound of skittering feet
oh they’ll be back just turn off the light and wait

c.
The surprise hailstorm
some charming news
for the local windshield-replacement franchise

e.
the meeting this morning
the big game
assembling in the conference room
sitting targets

f.
what a skinflint you are
leaving no footprints leading away from here
you took them with you to use again

g.
three o’clock when school ended
the beginning of a pleasant sense of holiday
that would last until eight AM the next day

h.
there are calendars everywhere
one day
they just stopped working

j.
here is some humiliating news
we’re breaking up on Valentine’s Day
I’ve already reserved the time slot

l.
a giant twisting worm
hanging from the crane
poised over the construction site

n.
You know when I was a kid
I was always wondering
Am I supposed to understand any of that?

p.
so what do we do now
heading south on route sixteen
you with your pale cold blue eyes in the back of your head

s.
oh what a cute baby you are
the best boss any of us ever had
Kiss kiss.

u.
a high-strung group of live-wires
full of electricity and magnetism
living in harmony
residents of the basement circuit box

x.
in the main dining room
a cloud of pink and yellow gas
the building is infested with blowhards all right

y.
What were things like back then
before I was your stepsister
and I smashed your fingers in the door?

aa.
take the stairs to the twelfth floor
in eleven seconds?
Someone’s going to the afterlife tonight all right

dd.
the building shakes
the architect and her blueprints wince
the minor detail rears its ugly head

ee.
it’s not under control
this mirage of chemistry
we have decided to call it love at first sight

ff.
crawling through the ventilation system
toward a promising career?
I don’t know why I fell for this one.

ii.
in lazy slow trickles
the good old days
bled out

jj.
Find out what it means
end her future
ok?

Thank you for reading!