Category: Creative Writing
Creative writing — be it fiction, poetry, lyrical verse or prose — by John Fontana referenced through blog posts.
Lyrics calling foe Unity in America in a Time of Division
Taylor Swift or staff who work for her will never read this tweet, let alone the lyrics or “Unity (We the People)”… Yet what kind of message would it send if such a figure turned the words to vocals in song?
I had to try…
Without a job and without a path forward
I’ve got a conundrum.
In the business world, it’s not a problem really: Long-time veteran of a field of business leaves said-field for two full years and then gets an inkling to re-enter as issues faced personally or an attempt to find a career in a new field hadn’t pass muster. This ambiguous jargon makes it seem plain and simple, don’t it?
It’s not that simple. Not for me.
You can see in a couple of recent blog posts I’ve done that I’ve been touching on my old forte in hockey blogging. I am one of the original hockey bloggers, having founded Boltsmag.com in February 2004, running it independently for five years before being recruited by my long-time colleague James Mirtle (who started his own writing career independently at Blogspot) to SB Nation where I founded Raw Charge. I blogged about the Tampa Bay Lightning and NHL for 12 and a half years before resigning due to burnout (a burnout which also seen as symptoms of a surprising health issue that almost killed me).
Blah, blah, blah… Maybe I should ge back in? I’ve got nothing else going for me.
Read MoreWordiness and a would-be song; “Cool Dude, Loose Mood”
Poetry and I are not strangers, the evidence is here on the site in the “Creative Writing” section and elsewhere if you look around. I’ve been penning prose of one variety or another since the 1990’s.
Yeah, I’m old. Deal with it.
There are some that have inspired musicians to actually put the words to music. That’s a longer story than I can tell at this time (wink wink, nudge nudge) but my point is that songwriting is something I’m dabbling in. It has created a plight, though.
See, early in the summer I had a friend send me a guitar riff he recorded. He was looking to build a song around it. Now, this idea was garage-rock in caliber. Do-the-job, verse-chorus-verse simple and straight. The riff is the base and the center for the song in melody and what has to be done is to give it some words to finish the product. The problem there was… well, maybe I’ve been exposed to too much Alternative over the years or maybe I’ve seen too many rock songs that have been larger tellings than Keep It Simple Stupid? Then again, maybe I’m a poet and lucky if my words ever go to a finished song… Read More
The plight of a newbie lyricist marketing a song demo
Even if they aren’t into country music, my friends have been impressed. I’ve already unveiled it but here it is, all over again! A nineteen-year old poem converted into a would-be pop/country song! Slowly, Her Name Fades Away:
Okay, so now what?
Seriously, now what? Read More
Silence and song; the musical demo of “Slowly, Her Name Fades Away”
How does a deaf composer get the attention of the music industry? Think about that for a minute, would you? It happens to be a serious question asked by a man who is currently sitting in an unsound situation.
I’m not Ludwig van Beethoven – far from it – but I can say that my toe is in the proverbial water of the music industry at the moment. Okay, actually it’s actually my entire foot up to my ankle or lower shin (that comes by way of me having spent time trying to promote the Pretty Voices over the past year). It goes by way of words and actions, not so much plucking piano keys and writing orchestral symphonies.
See, I wrote a poem back in the fall of 1998 (a long long time ago in a galaxy not-so-far away) that I’ve clung to over the years. It’s a poem I had intended for inclusion in a self-published poetry book… It’s also something I thought could be done in a musical arrangement to make it into a song.
So, when I got frustrated and vastly slowed this past spring, and while I still had thoughts tying said-poem into a musical arrangement, I made an inquiry with the Nashville Song Service if the lyrical-verse really could be done as a song. Indeed, it got the green light. Read More
Q and A with Calgary Flames blogger Kent Wilson of FlamesNation
I got Kent Wilson from FlamesNation to participate in the hockey blogger Q and A that I’ve been casually conducting this month. Kent’s one of the strengths of The Nation Network and blogging in general, having his hand in the 2014 “summer of stats”.
What follows is a little insight in how Kent found his way into blogging and his views on the season ahead for the NHL.
A hockey blogger Q and A with Lyle Richardson of Spectors Hockey
One of the routine areas that draws fans to the web to find out what they can are rumors. Some are made up, some are hearsay, some are those casually expressed “I’m hearing…” remarks that you see on Twitter from major members of hockey coverage.
The man at the blogging level who made a name for himself and found a firm niche in covering reports on potential player movement in the NHL is Lyle Richardson of Spectors Hockey, who you likely have also seen on such sources as Fox Sports and Bleacher Report among others.
Richadson is another one of the forefathers of the hockey blogosphere, starting around 2003. Want proof? I reposted this article for him during the NHL lockout of 2005, having originally run in November 2003.
While there are a lot of questions still to be had about player movement and eery franchise in the league, the questions are a mix about the man, blogging, and guys named “Joe” and “Jaromir”.
A hockey blogger Q and A with Laura Astorian of St. Louis Game Time
Continuing the Q & A series that was unveiled Wednesday, another of hockey bloggings assetss chimes in on life in covering not one but two teams in her blogging career. Laura Astorian, who has been a void of both the St. Louis Blues and the Atlanta Thrashers. It’s one thing to cover multiple teams in one town, but to stand up and show love by way over coverage for two teams in the same sport at one time is a hell of an accomplishment.
Laura currently runs St. Louis Game Time on SB Nation (which is also a game-day publication for Blues games; that is done by Brad Lee). She’s a great follow on Twitter too for take on the sport, the entertainment industry and what not.
What does Laura think about the NHL’s plan to forgo the 2018 winter Olympics? What tips does she have for those who want to get into blogging? Read below.
At Loss to Moore
(Written with remorse and in memoriam. Rest in peace, Sir Roger Moore)
At Loss to Moore
More today is sad to see
Somber sorrows and infamy
Less renown is our grief
Nostalgic remorse from years gone by
More today is gone tomorrow
To the halls of memory and accolades
Spied upon from days gone by
Revelled in with amounts of majesty
Less be more, the status quo
What comes after is without
Blessings from the might that was the more
Shall broaden the reach of what will be
An old story about an old man, may I introduce “Ignorant Bliss”
I’ve got a couple of short stories that were originally intended as submissions to print media in attempts of becoming a published author. Yet finding that print media and not playing the waiting game / not suffering repeated rejections kept me from actually doing it. Instead of anything happening to these stories, they sat in a folder on my computer. And while I’ve been exposed to the folder every time I’ve saved writing files over the years, I haven’t looked at or touched the stories in more than a decade.
Four days ago, while eating dinner, a very random line from a very random scene of one of those stories jumped into my mind. You bitch, those were your mother’s! I didn’t remember the stry by name, but I remembered the story. I spent the evening trying to locate the file and lo and behold, I did.
It’s a 5,000 word piece that is named Ignorant Bliss and you can find it in the Writing section on the site. As a guy known for blogging and somewhat for poetry/lyrical verse, putting a short fiction piece out there that’s emotional and eccentric may be surprising to some. It remains to be seen if it’s a good read or not.
Lyrical hopes and poetic dreams for the immediate future
I’ve been going through older poems that don’t appear on the site, I’ve been going through a collection of my works over the decades . Things I wrote as poetry sure sound like songs (or at least look like them, and I can imagine melody to go along with them). I’m no musician though, no composer, or I’d try to put together a full song and get things on the market (not me as a performer, me as a composer).
I will admit right now that I do have a poetry/lyrical verse manuscript and am hoping to have a self-published book out in 2017. That’s still in the process of being honed out though. There are aspects I haven’t even explored yet with that, and those I have asked to review my work (as editor types) have yet to get back to me with any input.
All of that said, here’s an example of that lyrical-verse/poetry that I had a habit of doing in the past. It’s something that is not going to be included in the book as it stands, but that could change. I’d appreciate feedback on this too. It has been on the web before, when my personal home page was on Tripod ages and ages ago. Different title then.:
Musical Demo: Picture Perfect (aka Picture Perfect Love Affair)
In the late 1990’s I was a poet and lyricist first and foremost. You can find some of the poetry I wrote and have written over the years on the site (click the writing tab above and move down to the poetry selection). That’s not the point though. One poem I wrote, just a lyrical mash-up inspired a bit by Green Day, was “Picture Perfect Love Affair”, a crazy guy in love with a girl in a photo. In fact, that story sort of mocks me at the time, as girls from High School still mattered, and I only had their photos to look at.
Years later, I forget when exactly, I had a little edit of the poem. “Edit” being the addition of a chorus to use between stanzas:
It’s a picture
Picture perfect
Picture perfect love affair
It’s a real simple build up and filler but it does the job that is expetec of it – it moves you forward and transitions you.
The summer of 2016 had me meet (online and off) Nick from the Pretty Voices. At one point or another I ran lyrical verse past him in a conversation and lo and behold, Nick delivered a demo of my work.
As it stands right now, I don’t think the Pretty Voices are going to record this thing, but it IS nice to have something I wrote put to music.
A long time hockey blogger steps aside
Perhaps you heard a hockey blogger quit covering the Tampa Bay Lightning for SB Nation. Maybe you heard, maybe you didn’t hear. You are on his blog at the moment, by the way. Maybe if you ask him, he’ll tell you.
Creatively writing a fiction anecdote
Reddit has a pretty interesting creative writing subreddit. Someone just proposes a very generalized idea for a piece of creative writing and you’re allowed to do and say what you may in order to flesh out the generalized concept. It’s a practice and a way to both inspire as well as hone one’s writing skills.
An example of things is the below piece of creative writing. The Subreddit entry went on the concept of thus: “You wake up in an unknown place, tied to a seemingly random stranger. You have no clue what is going on, but the stranger does.” Rather ambiguous, no? But it also opens the doors to whatever your imagination kicks up to why things were that way. Here’s what I came up with:
Inspired by a picture
I’m only posting this on Stonegauge the site because I’ve discovered I placed a bit of my writing here that I don’t have hard copies of on my own computer. This poem was inspired by a photo taken from bed. I’d post the picture but I never know if the site is going public again or not, and the picture is private — not that kind of private! Get your mind out of the gutter!
The weight of their worlds
Lay their hardships unto me
Their doubts, their fears
Their degradations
Lay their weights upon my shoulders,
Threats and harms
Leave them be
Steer them straight, right, and true
Deliver from evil
And to the promise of the now
Yes, lay their hardships unto me
And through my suffering
Spare them all
A word’s worth is subjective
Last night I started mucking around with a challenge that I had not partaken in for quite some time. Not a challenge, per se, but an investment in my thoughts and creativity that I have dedicated elsewhere for a while.
I wrote a poem. Actually, two poems, but that’s besides the point. The last poem I had written was back in March or April. Before that? January. And before that? I can’t recall.
And yet, getting through the words, stringing things together and painting a picture of thought and emotion… well, I had doubts… Doubts that I’d done the job, doubts that I veiled things enough to not seem obvious, doubts that I had crafted a narrative that made sense in constructing a scene and building a message.
Doubts that I could get a reaction from anyone I shared this with.
A gun-shy poet. That’ll never work.
What it’s worth is purely subjective, as the poem itself will say. That applies to more than just writing, but people and things.
The journey of the write
When was the last time you sent a letter to someone? I don’t mean a card, I don’t mean paying a bill, I mean a letter. Taking yoru time to write out something — or even print it out — and sticking it in an envelope and sending it out?
I’ve been sending out letters, from time to time, for ages. Usually typed up, which does dampen the personality of the correspondence… But there’s something about a letter in the mail that exceeds electronic correspondence – even if Email, instant messages, social network communication, and even a telephone call are more instantly gratifying.
You take the time, you take the effort, you take the energy to convey what you are thinking – maybe it’s business, maybe it’s personal… Heck, maybe it’s intimate (think about it, guys and girls). It’s something we forget when we greedily rip open a letter and read it’s contents… Â Unless the letter itself is long and winding.
But here’s another piece to think about with a letter: The actual journey. Â Did you ever take the time to think about what your correspondence goes through, where it travels, on it’s way to its destination?
I’ve had envelopes sitting on my desk from time to time in the last few days and months… Â They’ve looked rather monotonous with an address label and return address label stuck on them, the only distinguishing characteristic on them being a number I scrawled on the back of each. Â I’ve had them all ready to go, and then it’s hit me: just what is in store for these things as they travel? Â They weren’t just being sent locally or nationally, but overseas…
A little envelope, a folded and glued piece of paper, containing other pieces of paper, Â due to travel some 5,000 miles or more. Â How many lives touch it? Â How many people see it? Â What does it experience on it’s journey? Â And just what does the recipient think or feel when it arrives? Â How do they react?
This doesn’t tell the whole story of what I am thinking, but it does give some more of an idea what a letter in the mail goes through at sort facilities:
Waiting for Her Word
It’s been months since I posted anything on my personal blog here. Where am I? Is this sitei site dead?
I’m busy more often than not, and no – the Stonegauge is not dead. Â Just dormant. Â When I have been writing lately, it’s been personal and it’s been in the mail (didn’t I once say that it’s great getting letters in the mail?)… Â That or I am doing hockey stuff.
This off-season has afforded me more time for myself (which has been a good and bad thing). Â I’ve found escape in writing, an ability to immerse myself in a thought or idea, or a feeling and a story. Â It’s like a release, as it used to be when I would write a real good poem that conveyed something creatively.
Oh, I’m still doing poetry too. Â Just not much of it, thanks. Â That’s what this post is – a poem. Â Something I wrote a few months ago for an absent face.
Sports journalism that hasn’t quite been “honest…and unmerciful”
For a very long time I’ve had problems with reading local newspaper reports about the local teams. It’d usually be Marc Topkin that’s rubbed me the wrong way — assuming tthe Atlanta Braves were Tampa Bay’s team in the early 1990’s, reporting personal favoritisms as fact with Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays (which seldom goes on today ) and is often proved wrong. This has nothing to do with Topkin as a person, it had everything to do with how an “inside” story was being presented, or from the angle in which the facts were aligned up (that Atlanta Braves angle, which I mentioned).
This is an example of how the media sometimes gets things lumped on it for setting the narrative. Stories that are carried, stories that are ignored, angles that are looked at and the “factual” narrative. I’m not going to even try to take on the general perception of the media and news reporting, by doing it I open myself up to the same criticism after all.
The point of this story isn’t about that at all anyway. It’s another thing I am noticing that hinders traditional media reports as well as gives a narrative that fans start following, the message that they start following. Â It’s their personal relationship with who they are writing about. Read More
The Unpublished Works
Everyone likes seeing their name in print.
Well, unless of course it’s trash tabloid-ism or an arrest warrant… But I’m not talking just-printed-on-paper but I mean a by-line of one sort or another. I can say that from experience as I’ve gotten that kick — seeing “John Fontana” linked to letters-to-the-editor, or being sourced/interviewed by USA Today, being quoted in The Hockey News, The New York Times Slap Shot blog and la-de-da.
But I can also say that wasn’t where I intended to go with writing when I started out as a kid. My intention wasn’t to be a face-in-the-crowd (though no matter what you write or publish, you are another face in the crowd of literature) in the newspaper. Not another source for magazines and what not. Not a weblogger. I planned on doing things creatively and having my own book. Or books — plural. Take your pick.
But that never happened. See, when i was a teen I got away from story writing so much and was writing poetry most of the time… a habit that’s followed me into adulthood. Lyrical verse more-so than deep observations and perspectives.. Well, yeah they are perspectives but they are my perspectives. Sometimes just pop, sometimes inspired by events or people or feelings in my life.
Over the years, I’ve had some of them available to the masses through the web… Certainly you can find a couple of them on this site and probably elsewhere on the web… But they’ve never really been published in the sense of print. Never published in the sense of being out there for any traditional form of mass consumption. I haven’t bothered to take the time with sending out poems to magazines who have niches all of their own (and aren’t available unless you pay for a subscription or pay for a copy — while you’re not getting paid for your contribution).
I ought to put together a manuscript and do something with it. But I’m hesistant.
Catherine Durkin Robinson, local blogger and Creative Loafing contributor, has written two book manuscripts. Her first one is being published, chapter-by-chapter, on a blogspot site. The other, a more recent work based on her life as a teacher in Hillsborough County, is being sent around to literary agents in hopes someone will pick up the work and mass-market it. Sadly, that has not been the case and the rejections have been comical at best.
Their loss. I’ve read the book and it’s not only a good read, it’s provocative and controversial enough to be read widely by those fearing school-district scandals.
I also have another friend, in the Pacific Northwest this time, who went out and self-published her first novel. The book, Steel Goddesses, is currently available on Amazon.com for purchase. It takes a lot of courage to go out on a limb like that and self-publish any work… But it sort of cuts out the middle-man of having to appease literary agents who tell you what a proper market for your writing is-or-isn’t and tells you to change your work to fit that niche. At least that’s what I’ve seen with rejections served up to Catherine.
So the idea I am kicking around is actually putting together a manuscript of poetry I’ve written over the past decade and self-publishing it. I realize that poetry is not exactly a hot seller and not going to lead me to riches… It’d cost me more to publish than the commissions I’d get in the long run from doing it… But it does what I have long sought to do — take the writings jammed in Mead notebooks that I’ve carried around since High School and take some of those verses and show them to the masses. Will people connect? I have doubts. Will strangers read what I’ve written? Even more doubts… But it’s mine, and it’d be out there. My claim. My piece of literature.
My book.
It’s a thought, at least.
This Bitter Month
Boring weekend with too much downtime and the end result is me posting a poem I meant to keep private. Yeah, Kate, you can get on my ass for being a morose m’fer (as you did last time 😉 ) but I thought this was good even if it was muy triste.
Uninspiring: Let Me In
It’s been a long time since I wrote anything rhyme-based. In fact, despite all the hurt and emptiness — I haven’t been inspired to write shit. Usually the hurt, the pain, the anguish, the longing… It all drives me to write. It (or usually the source of everything inside) becomes a muse. I’ve had some great muses in my time (I’m talking people here, not instances of anguish) where the longing was what drove me to scrawl out lines of internal conflict and what not. Three above the others. And one trumps all.
It’s odd, though, that Current Source has inspired almost nothing for me. Here and there? Yeah. But nothing profound… The only poem that I had written was months old.
While I like the rhyme and the declaration — which goes beyond the obvious call for someone to drop their emotional wall and let someone “in” — it was foreshadowing of sorts. A warning sign I kept ignoring.
Slowly, Her Name Fades Away
Well, the daylight slips away,
And I start to forget her name
She loved me for such a long, long time
Unlike any other lover of mine
She was so different,
But in the end, the same
Slowly, her name fades away
Our time just passed,
I thought it’d last
But my mistake …
She’s one and the same.
Well, she couldn’t cope,
A lover on a rope
So I must say,
Her name fades away
It’s guaranteed
That her and me
Would have run away some day
But as time went by,
That thought did die,
And our love passed on a Wednesday
Miracles forge —
and also disrupt
Slowly, her name fades away
What she meant to me,
I now can’t comprehend
I thought it was love everlasting,
At the end, it was just make pretend
Our love was once a fantasy,
A tale that I did once believe
But it’s sad to say, she’s gone away
Slowly, her name fades away
©1998 John P. Fontana
Poetry
Since my sophomore year in High School back in 1994 I’ve done my share of writing rhyming verse and what one may or may not call poetry. Some of the following prose was written between 1994 and the present. Some are romance, some are broken hearts, some are stories, some observations, some just nutty. It’s subjective if any of them are good or not…
- Aspirations of Romance
- A Time to Every Purpose
- At Loss to More
- Be Honest With Me
- Crimson Crown
- Deception
- I’ve Lost You Again Today
- Letter
- Losing Hand
- Lost Inside
- My One
- Never Gonna’
- New Found You
- On Your Mind
- Picture Perfect Love Affair
- Ripped from a Soft Womb
- Scoreless
- Slowly, Her Name Fades Away
- Yer Ono Blues
- … [More to be listed]
Everyone loves getting mail
Not one of my better poems, was written in a bit of a rush the other night when I had this thought on my mind… Inspired in part by The Lake House
Letter
I want to write you this letter
And
I want to spend time in thought and
Trying to figure out what I’d say to you
It’s great when you get a letter in the mail
And I’m thinking about writing a letter
And
It’s been a few weeks since we talked and
Right now you’re on my mind
Whether you like that idea or not
So it’s been a few weeks since we talked
And
The last time we did, we fought and
I let you walk all over me,
While you had good reason to be pissed
Yet I was all apologies
And
All in all is all we are
You never offered me the same
For you getting all angry and acting lame
I’d better not write you this letter after all
Why I better not write this letter
Is
Because you just don’t respect me and
You got me tied around your little finger
And just twist and twist me tighter than a knot
Knots can be so cruel
And
They can be like feeling locked inside
Yeah, feelings can be knots too
Cinching tighter and restraining things
So I’m writing you this letter
And
I’m just a piece of twine twisted around
Your pinkie is red from this yarn
That we’ve both been spinning for ages
And it’s great getting letters in the mail
And
Last one I sent you was years ago
And I tap-tapity-tapped it up on my keyboard
My handwriting is a horror unto itself
The horror of my day
Is
Realizing I still have feelings for you
And you’ve pretty clearly moved stage left
The lights are bright on Broadway
“The Producers” is better watched with an audience
And I don’t know if you care
About
Getting a letter in the mail from me
Letters in the mail are great but even better
When you don’t expect them
I’m the king of “don’t-expect’em”
And my wrist is getting
Cramped
Writing out this yarned ramble
Ramble – what we know so well
What we loved, what we lived, what we did for hours
And I watched this movie
Tonight
And it got me thinking that i ought to
Write you a letter
You could care less about the addressee
Your residence wasn’t hard to find
So I’m closing this letter off
And
Hoping to put things to rest even though it’s
Special to get a letter in the mail
And I want to share special with you again
All in all is all we are
And
Kurt Cobain is formally dead and
You can’t respect someone who kisses your ass
It just doesn’t work
So I watched this movie tonight
And
I wanted to write you a letter
I wanted to write you this letter
It’s great getting something in the mail
————
© John Fontana
On your mind
I don’t know how often other people do this but I always get curious about other people’s thoughts — thoughts involving me, thoughts involving others and such. While opinions and perceptions can come off hurtful when you hear them – they can also raise you up to new heights.
But the one that always gets me is when I hear someone dreamed of me. Me! I was on someone’s thoughts enough that I ran through their mind… Even if I had nothing to do with the underlying fabric of what went on in the dream and the psychology of what happened (dreams have a great wide amount of meanings)… It’s just special to know that the thought was there.
So here’s my next one — yeah, a little verse on this St. Valentines Day… Inspired by the ones on our minds.
On Your Mind
When last was I
A Sight for sore eyes?
The last time you
Longed my hand?
When last was I your
Knight in shining armor,
Your prince,
Your noble man?
When last did I
Paint a picture
That made you melt because
You were my muse?
When last did I
Earn your undivided attention
While we discussed the
Front page news?
When last did my thought
Earn your affection
Because of the joy
That I bring?
When last did we
Fly through the heavens,
Together —
In the night
While you slept,
And you dreamed?
© 2007 John Fontana
Note to self — if you gotta blog, blog here
You know, I get my thoughts out pretty well on here. It might be snipping about personal matters, it might be poetry, it might be just re-listing song lyrics (which seem to be popular with the Search Engines) or quoting movies. Whatever the case, I blog here not-so-much but I do blog here from time to time.
I also blog elsewhere… And tonight I figured I would blog on DFA-link int he Pinellas County DFA group about my fondness for Al Gore and how I am holding out for him to enter the 2008 Presidential primaries.
The only thing I didn’t expect when I blogged this was the fact the post was going to get wider exposure than what I was aiming for. Much wider. Hugely wider.
Blog for America front-paged wider.
More than three years ago, I never would have dreamed in my wildest imagination that I would be featured on the front page of Blog for America — the then-It blog of the Howard Dean for President campaign. Dean failed in his attempts, but he founded Democracy for America in an effort to organize Democratic support better. Blog for America lived on and is still highly thought of on the liberal/progressive blogosphere.
And at 11:45 PM ET, on February 12th 2007 — yours truly has made it to the front page. Whodathunkit?
Incomplete or not, here it comes…
I started writing this one months ago while someone was kvetching to me in the usual disrespectful “you’re there while I need you” manner and gave me a little vision during it.
So one good thing came from my sap act:
Dance of the Ages
Dancing barefoot in the grass
Gypsy woman reflects the ages
Curly hair tied back with rags
The melody makes love to her
Fabric waving through the air
Her dress flaps loose, without a care
Playing on the tamborine
And watchers heeding her every move
Gypsy woman lives on the road
No roots or ties, she knows no home
Her band of gypsies come and go
Strangers eyes are her closest friend
Night falls and the music ends
She washes, naked, at the rivers edge
Pale moonlight bathes her in a glow
She longs for the throes of passion
Day comes and the troop pushes forth
On their course, their road heads north
Gypsy woman heeds that cry
Somewhere new, there’s a strangers eye —
To captivate and to alure
A lovers gaze, a young man’s urge
To tease and taunt through her dance of ages
She lures them to her like cats to string
© 2007 John Fontana
More poetry
On a creative tear.
Moral Suicide
What is a standard worth
When you are
Unhappy in life under it?
What is a principle worth
If it keeps you alone
Day-dreaming of a bliss that
Isn’t real?
The rules and laws
You set for yourself
Are made to be broken —
–unless you dread where
Life will lead
Without them
Unhappiness is a constant,
When longing an unattained goal
Which amounts to the
Standard practice
Of my life
© 2007 John Fontana
H-L-Z
Untitled
All I can do is watch you from
Afar
Your blonde hair
Shifting with the breeze –
Willow branches taunted by the
Throes of air as it bows and
Sways where and when
The hidden forces will it
All I do is admire you from
Afar
Smile darting and mischievous
Gleeful
Youth and happiness
Escaping into a
Cynical world
Anarchy and confusions
Life as we both know it
All I can do is endeavor into your
World
Mysteries of your being —
Auroras in the heavens
Blazing and dancing
Wonderment, allure,
Compelling me to try,
Try,
Try again
All I can do know you through my
Reverie
Out of reach, out of knowing
Out of a solution to the confusions
That find me enamored by you
Knowing nothing is a bliss
Having nothing — torture
Yet having this dream spoiled
Having the answers
May just extinguish the
Artistic maelstrom
Your palette paints into my
Soul
Lost Inside
Seen my feelings lost inside forever
Couldn’t we be good together?
Girl, you are my everything,
You’re all my wants and craves
Lost inside the secret you
What am I supposed to do
Girl, you are my majesty
I’ll worship you forever
Only known I’ve lost my mind
Oh, why worry? Never mind
Everything that I do crave
Is lost inside your being
Now to find you,
Majesty,
I need to be your everything,
Fit the bill and fly the path,
Our equation, do the math,
Add us two and then subtract –
The worries and the hardships
Seen my feelings inside you, girl
Oh my, honey, what a world
What am I supposed to do?
I’ve stayed lost inside the secret you
And inside, I’ve lost my mind
Oh, why worry? Never mind
Everything I’ll always crave
Is lost inside the secret you
©1998 John P. Fontana
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I've Lost You Again Today
The conversation closed and the good Lord only knows
When I’ll speak with you again
You’re leaving today, winging ‘way on a plane
And I’ve lost you again today
We’ve known each other for quite a few years,
Shared our laughter, anger and tears
We’re lovers of past
Friends of today
Yet something’s been missing in things we say
I lost you once when you needed space
I lost you twice when you moved away
I’ve lost you to another man
Now I’m losing you to a foreign land
But away, you’ve gotta go
The life you chose is the life you know
And your life’s heading in another direction
We’d only crossed at an intersection
Each time you’ve gone, you’ve come back to me
And I hope that’s how it’ll always be
I know you’re happy with the plan:
You’re path in life, your future, your man
But something in me’s been gone a long, long time
The joy you bring and the way you can–
Fill me up with hope and glee
Honey, you’ve always completed me
But the time grows short and the rhyme grows long
I look again and now you’re gone
You’re on your way, with part of me
It seems that you have some secret key
You unlock my smiles and my zany side
Ignite my passions and calm my mind
But you’re not mine — yet you’ll always be
I’ve lost you again, you’re flying free
I’ve lost you again, as you glide ‘cross the sea
© 2005 John Fontana
Writing re-assurance
I haven’t tried this in a long time – the last story I published in part on this blog was never competed (“Peter’s Problem” just rambles on and on) and never got any opinions on pieces fo the story I DID publish.
At any rate, I told people about this story in an earlier entry… There is no title to it as it stands right now and it’s just a few hundred words… Let me know what you think if you think anything about it… Just click on more to view it.
Aspiration of Romance
Enchant me
Rise up over me and engulf me
Through your sensuality and softness
With your intellect and your persona
Show me the reason to care again
And give me a reason to want
Entrance me
Captivate me so I
Can think of nothing other than
Your very existence while
The world spins its uncontrollable revolutions
Leaving each man to cope with its maelstrom
Intoxicate me
Make me wish for nothing more than your
Warm and unblemished flesh
Held close against me
Where desire takes us into the
Unfamiliar territories
Of bliss and contentment
Save me
Find my cynical and sarcastic person
And convince him there is still good in the world
Simply by being yourself
Simply by pointing out in your everything
That not all is corrupt and lost to lust
Lost to insanity
Lost to the malice mankind unleashes on itself
Teach me to love again
Be my purpose in life
The purpose being having and holding you
Wanting and loving you
Supporting and caring for you
Until the sun sets on this world
© 2005 John Fontana
Poem: “If It’s All The Same to You”
If it’s all the same to you
I’m gonna’ talk a while
See where the rhythm leads me
Or if I can forget your smile
If it’s all the same to you
I feel left for dead
Solitary Avenues
And a cold, lonely bed
If it’s all the same to you
I think I’ll hate the world
Where you’ve gone, loved, lived, moved on
And I can’t find another girl
If it’s all the same to you
I’ll cry myself to sleep
Self-esteem is running low
And shallowness reigns supreme
© 2005 John Fontana
Wordsmith
It’s happened a lot before, I start drawing conclusions on any situation that I’m told about and those conclusions — be they correct or not — could be the synopsis of a story. It’s only occasionally I sit down and decide to hammer out the idea that crosses my mind isntead of letting it pass into oblivion. Tonight was one of those nights.
I’m chatting with Jenna and she informs me about finding two little black kids peering into her van at Sabal Walk. She asks them not to get fingerprints on her windows and they ran off screaming. I think about it a minute and then tell her that the kids could have been made to think bad things about her and the cages (dog cages) that are in the back of her van…
From one brief spark, a fire is born.
In 15 minutes I write an ultra short story — just under 900 words — talking about the kids and what could have led them to react like they had. There were racial issues and social issues and just flat out childhood reactions that all come out. I’m not all happy with the length but I am happy I wasn’t so lazy with putting the story down that I didn’t do it. It was a solid concept and it was supposed to be brief in the telling. to begin with. I would have liked 1000 words and I might try to edit the story up but for the time being I’m happy with what I got.
Sports MEdia Whoring
The NFL Draft begins todays and like usual there is a wide net of coverage all over the Internet and throughout the media…
The St. Petersburg Times introduced their city editor as a blogger — Kevin McGeeve — to help cover the draft… That or to increase online readership?
McGreeve points to a couple of Times articles by staff writers and neglects several things that make bloggers different from traditional print media. One of those things is relying on a derth of sources, personal opinions and holding people’s attention.
While I continue to monitor the blog and see if there are any updates, I can’t help but agree with someone who commented on Kevin’s first post — Why is anyone showing up at this blog? There is better coverage at ESPN.com or on another media site. McGreeve hasn’t really blogged anything worth reading. Maybe that will change today. We’ll see.
Mad props, yo
It always makes me feel a little better when I get a compliment on something I have written… Especially when it’s coming form a higher up who is established in the writing community in some way, shape or form.
That’s why I’m beaming over some of the praise I’ve gotten from James Mirtle on his blog, directed at a post I made on Boltsmag. James is a hockey journalist and if I ever get ANY recognition from the guy for what I write, I’m usually happy.
Speaking of writing, I had a letter published in the St. Petersburg TImes today — titled “Going Down the Wrong Road.” First time in a while one of my opinions is good enough to print.
Enter the poet; “Socially Inept”
Barrier
In an Information Age
Where knowledge roams free
And technowledgy rules
Wall
Srutting and fretting
An hour on stage
The flock of seagulls committee
Is cammanded by the ignoramous
Made to feel worse by those who care the most
Third verse
Third wheel
Cursed in a rambling ode of
Outsider Syndrom —
And unrequested serving
At a humble establishment
© 2005 John P. Fontana
For postierity
I wrote this poem with one person in mind and it’s odd that it has come true in every faccet.
….well, almost everything… until now.
Things might just be a scare but if not, it’s a serious issue has come up that coudl force a loss…. And no offense, but you were bound for it… Just because you reap what you sow.
Wedding Gift
So Josh and Michelle are getting hitched Sunday and now that I have some time to cram on the gift — I’m hitting a wall creatively. Not hitting a wall but my first intuition is that the poem I was going to give them, framed and with art, isn’t going to cut it.
I originally wrote this thing with a girl named Jamie Rose and her boyfriend from High School in mind. I wrote it because I felt guilty for having a crush on the chick when she was so in love with her boyfriend.
So now I am wondering what I should do — edit it where need be? Keep it as is? Bah! Choices, choices!
And let no one put assunder, for together they are a whole….
