"improv"-ing/imitation

Week 1
From "Next Door" :
"Better not stand there, ", says my wife.  "They might see you."
I say, "I'm going to call the police." knowing she won't let me.
"Don't," she says.

Improve:"Better not stand there," says my wife.  "they might see you."
I say, "I'm going to call the police," knowing she won't let me.
"Go ahead!" she says.  "Call them now and tell them to come quickly!  I am sick of hearing this kind of abuse go on week after week!  I don't care if they come after us, there is a baby involved! Tell them we will meet them in yard and explain what we hear over and over!  If someone doesn't do something to stop this, that child could get hurt.  You are the man to make a difference.  Go ahead and call them now!"
I fell against the window as my wife handed me the phone.  I really stepped into it this time!  But maybe it is time for me to step up and make the call.  Step up for what is right.
"OK," I said.  "I will make the call."

WEEK 2

Improving

Sample Workshop Poem

All the hype and duffel bags dumped,

I x-ed our gear off lists with tiny crossbones

In a khaki baggage detail with twenty other Joes.

Laid out on the hangar floor warped in summer,

A battalion’s worth of socks, can openers,

Rubbers, transparent bars of deodorant,

Hunting magazines, photos of children on boats.

Then off to Maine, Ireland, then Germany,

And finally Kuwait, from where Chinooks

Buzzed us into the heart of Mesopotamia

And our own unreal translations of glory.

My Translation

The prepping, planning of a packed duffle

Heaving  with Mom’s wishes.  Scattered, checked and mocked

By twenty other Joes proving their skills as

They rank what goes, what stays.

A battalion’s worth of socks, can openers,

Paper and pens, hunting magazines, photos of

Mom and children on boats.

Loaded, ready to deny fate, we take wing

 – Maine, Ireland, Germany, Kuwait and

finally Chinooks drone a farewell message

Propelling us into the heart of Mesopotamia

Where all of us soldiers would live our

Boyish fantasies of war.

Improving

Week 3

Pickets (page 2 – textbook)

I watch you watching television and decide

Whether my scholarship will impress,

How close we are to being

my parents.  For instance,

If you had your shirt off

And were cleaning a gun,

You could be my father.

My Version:

I watch your shadow in the kitchen window

Knowing nothing I could do competes with

Gunsmoke.  You are your father.  Feet

Propped, red and white can, old rag

Smoothing the wrinkles of the protruding

Cylinder till its polished skin reflects your shadow.

And I wonder ….. are you happy?

Week 4

Improving

No.  He nods again, writes a prescription

For Plan B – birth control with irony, a name

With a sense of humor.  Not diaphragm, sponge, IUD

Or worse, the wall-chart of birth control pills

Pinned above the medical waste bin

In their pastel hubcap discs – pink, yellow, white

Like dandelion clocks: Orthocept, Lo-Orvril, Alesse.

This plan was meant for unplanned disasters:

“the morning after’ – like the wreckage

Of an overnight bombing.

My Version

No.  He nods again, refusing to write a prescription

For Plan B – Birth control with irony, a name with

Sarcasm.  As if in a trance, he begins to tell me about

Biology and the true beginning of life.  He placed the

Thirty pieces of silver in my hand and condemned me

To hell’s fire for questioning God’s plan to be or not

To be with child.  But this plan was meant for

Accidents.  Children are not accidents and in the face

Of the dark night comes the glow of morning.

WEEK 5

IMPROVING

“Big Sky” Pretty Little Rooms

They hope to carry something back,

Pick up twigs, pebbles.  Light-headed

In the cold, blinking against the brightness,

They commit the calf’s white against green

To memory, and something somewhere

Inside tries to remember,

That falling forth,

That breathing in and in for the very first time.

My Version:

They recognized the rare moment in time

to know a wonder.  How to carry

This to others, how to keep the calf’s white

Against green to memory as they blinked

Against the brightness.  The cold played

With their senses and ability to recollect

The event of watching this new life

Breathe in, for the very first time.

Improving

Week 6

Relative Strangers  page 294

MARIE HARVEY:  I don’t have a tremendous heart

My version:

MARIE HARVEY: I don’t have a tremendous heart because it has been broken. 

                                 It is not the type of heart that can mend itself because a stranger

                                 On an airplane chooses me for a mama and everyone lives happy

                                 Ever after with the sun setting to beautiful music and all sigh deeply.

                                 I have a soon to be ex husband that has controlled, ruled and forbidden

                                 Me a normal and happy life with my child.  He has now turned my

                                Child, my precious little girl, against me because he could.  And tomorrow

                                I have to face them both.

Week 7

Ode to Boudin

You are the chewing gum
of God.  You oare the reason
I know that skin
is only that, holds more than it meets.

My version:


You are the face of a new born child
to a mother.  You are what she knows
lies on the inside, a creation of love.

Week 8