Leaving All Else Aside
by
Will Mayo
"Wouldn't you rather be nude?" I asked.
"You first," she said. And so I got undressed.
"Wouldn't you rather join me?" I had to ask.
"No, I like to watch," she said. We left it at that.
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Young Life
by
Will Mayo
There was, too, that sunlit day about 45 years ago I decided to climb the silo at the family dairy farm. Rung after rung, I climbed the tower. It must've only have reached about 30 feet or so off the ground though it surely seemed much higher. Designed to hold grain and silage intended to fatten up cows before the slaughter, it was not meant for little boys' adventures but I knew little of such things. I thought only of the sights that must await me at silo's edge. So I climbed, grasping one metal rung after another, thinking to myself, “Whatever you do, don't look down.”
Finally, I came to the metal edifice that would have to be opened before I knew the sights of the tower. Holding onto the door with my hands gone chalky from the concrete walls, I eased it open as it let loose that loud steel grating sound. At last, it flung open only to let an angry hive of bees into my face. With arms clad in Sunday sleeves that I swept back and forth before my cheeks, I kept my skin safe but lost my last grip on the silo. Away, I fell, tumbling end over end into the summer air filled with the sounds of lowing cattle and croaking toads, thinking this must be the end of Young Will...
...Ah, but I landed in the softest of hay and grain and dust from the nearby grazing calves. “Whoosh!” I said and wandered off in a daze.
Looking for trouble.
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Did You Ever...?
by
Will Mayo
"Did you ever get that lonely feeling?" she asked.
"Yes...why, yes, I did," he said.
"And then what?"
"And then I had you."
They held each other just a little closer to keep out the night. It was dark but they were flesh and that meant all the world more.
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Writing 101: Make Love To Your Art
by
Will Mayo
Writing a poem or a story is like bringing a hot date home to spend the night. First you've got to strip her bare of all her clothes; you don't want any of that excess baggage hanging around. Then you get the rhythm working. Slow at first then building faster to that climax before lying back for that denouement. Honey, can you hand me that cigarette? I believe we're done.
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RUNES
by
Will Mayo
Once upon a turning earth
and a whirling, twirling sky,
upon a flagging search for success,
I had a vision of an aged body,
bone riveted upon bone,
torn apart
by the anchor's tide of time.
I saw chess players
aiming for my soul
and my creaking body's yearns and desires.
My time passed in endless runes
until I saw the sign of my sight above,
whose calligraphy, curled, read:
"If all dreams came true
and all dreamed of death,
then there would be no dreams,
and no need
to dream of death.
Do what matters and
what does not matter."
With slumbering parties waking,
I saw morning frost
melting into spring dew
and passed through checkered blankets
to meet dusty day.
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Giving Thanks
by
Will Mayo
Still I remember one January day back in 1977 when I was hitchhiking through a monster of a freak snowstorm in North Carolina. Fighting against the wind and lack of sleep to go one more step forward. Until finally two kindhearted policemen came up to me and said, "You can't be hitching in weather like this." So they put me up in a motel room where I rested easy as the storm abated and then the next day I thumbed my way out of that country town where I'd spent the night with my careworn burden of dreams. I never did learn the names of those two cops, the town in which I'd passed my way, or even the innkeeper in charge of the bed but I think of them now and then still. It's good to do that. To give thanks if nothing else.
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Flickering Moments
by
Will Mayo
There is some debate as to whether time is in motion or merely appears to be so like a series of photographs run quickly through a projector to make a movie. But, to me, it all comes down to a series of moments, an old man laughing, the smile on a young girl's face, fireflies flickering in the glass on a hot summer's night..
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