All great art is about a girl.

"You were too artistically subtle" she said. "She" being the latest one to nudge her cheeks over the edge and fall down, deep into my ones-that-got-away abyss. We'd probably be together today, raising cute little Steven's, had I been more pragmatically-forward and less artistically-subtle. And by pragmatically-forward, I think she meant, and these are not her words, artistically not-so-fat. You see, not only was she about nine years younger, but she was as height-weight proportional as you could get.

And so I find myself adding another notch to my little brothers belt, and getting another lashing on my logical acumen. As many movies as John Hughes or Robert Iscove ("From Justin to Kelly") or anyone else makes, reality lashes you on the upper thigh like a clumsy father if you try to believe anything but this: Art, talent, personality, humor, and skill do not render if you're fat. They bring girls in, friendly girls, pining for affection and attention, humor and praise; who admire your life and pay homage to you. But in the end, my little brother, metro-sexual extreme, you're right. They're just docking at my wide, safe harbor for a self-image refueling. If I go to close the deal, they disappear fast and artistically-subtle as the tide.

"Even Christian women, Steve?" Especially Christian women. They strut the halls like ambient manequins, with rings on all but one finger, harboring this vision: A Christian, Colin Firthian, Jane Austen character, rich, virgin, and ready to quote Sonnets during sex. He knows how to fence, rub feet, garner affection, and can read minds. If Mama told her princess she was a package, you'd best be three times that, if you want a date. It's like this, there should have been a Proverbs 32, a rider to 31 - that being, Proverbs 31 women don't exist, and if they do, they're married, or you can't have one.

Some cool links

This will make you laugh until you burst.
Here's a funny commercial.

Reasons I'd make it in London

The first reason I'd make it in London is because I can do a smashing Alan Ford. I'll need the giant black-framed glasses in order to be more believable, but otherwise, I got him in the bag. The secret is to grit your teeth alot, and just give 'em Cockney hell.

Then, I know the cool places to live. Notting Hill is the big movie industry mecca, and where movie stars hang out, and I know that "the Tube" is like the Subway, which I've ridden before. I'm large boned right now, but I'll be skinny very soon, because the food in London tastes like ass.

The additional reason I'll be awesome in London is because I'm stupid-assed buff and funky fresh. I can play guitar and I'm reading "Man From St. Petersburg" so I can know more about London, and I've read some Hemingway. Basically, London has no idea what's about to hit them, because I'm coming. I also saw "Snatch" about eleventy-fillioin times.

In conclusion, London is a hip town, but I'm hipper, and buffer, and will be launching my writing career from London very soon, as soon as I get some scratch together and blow this joint.


Alan Ford, a.k.a., Bricktop

Sanctuary

At Stillwater Cove barely seven years old,
I'd take Glad bags, which I'd cut and unfold,
And cover my newly dug hole where I planned
To create a little living world in the sand.

Wherefore, as Noah, did I add...
Creepers, critters two of each,
(Okay, maybe not so, but how often do
you find two of anything on the beach?)
Mollusks, crabs and lively bugs hermitting,
Mostly edible, incredible, outer shelled,
sidewinding crustaceans, some permitting,
Okay, some not, some today aimed elsewhere
Than my silly design to stick them where
They can't gain or feed, or birth, or be birthed
But just the same to fill the girth
Of my little living world in the sand.

Then water I'd add, and rocks to ensure
No escape, and kelp and seaweed to keep
It real; what’s real? Could I, on this beach, procure
An ocean like the great Designer's deep?
And aren't all things gone soon, we take in hand,
without help, like my little living world in the sand?

Now, grown, I care and form much prose,
And still things build to nature ensnare,
My cracks, faults where frayed character shows,
The pools losing water that I can’t repair,
And she who lures and sums me into squalor’s spray,
Is like ten thousand waves pummeling my way,
Washing smooth with a swill of green sea,
These living to their lives, their young, and me
home, to later life, built by hand
My little living world in the sand.

Wishes, dreams, false myths and secrets
I wish't they'd cured in lunar wash clean,
A million fewer would be my regrets.
For millions of better chances I'd seen,
And chanced the few from in between
Thought and faith, where, reaching high,
Ten leagues up, where air breathers vie,
I'd no longer be a submarine.

My creatures crept back into the ocean,
I turned them loose, at my own notion.
They swore back at me, which I understand
'Cause I kept them imprisoned in the sand.

Thick, course tufts of beach grass
Cut my feet as to save it I tried.
Hot sands taxed them too
While under siege of tide
My contrivance stood not fast
But was, by justice (or tidal force
of nature, which in due course
balances all foolish contstruction)
It was brought to swift destruction.

But it was fun...

Shopping under rocks for what, I don't know.
For barnacles? Maybe, for things I would eat?
No, for hermits and mussels and starfish that glow
With cadmium on near flourescent feet.
How violent, indeed, these monsters would be,
Were I only ten centimeters tall.
Seven hostages, baffled, scatter to the sea
From the rock I turned over, I watched them crawl,
Wondering off across the land,
There's already a living world in the sand.

Copywright 2004 Steve Sheppard

Sleigh Ride

Sleigh Ride

In cold, smokey air we walk toward
The old mare, gaping her bridle, bored,
With a slack haunch and hooves raking
White lines in the road and making
Her giant equine tussocks tap
Their vibes deep in rhythms which map
A winding root to my heart’s aching.

The driver clucks, and cracks his whip,
Urging the giant who rights our strake,
And jerks us fro like a small thing in her wake;
She blows white puffs, bobs and sways
Her bell plumed neck which peals our sleigh’s
Moonlit traipse down the tree-lined maze.

What mulls in me I should, too, loudly drum;
These bits of rime in the rents of my face,
Speak tears, not joy nor sorrow, but from
Seeing lights, in pulchritude, pulsate apace,
In currents, glistening, they glisten like her eyes,
Like the doomed gymnopspermous seed dies,
And fades, fading into barely a trace.

But then, my love, her precious arm hides
Barely kind, snugly in mine, now warm.
And quickened, my heart awkwardly coincides
With the powerful mare which my mind formed,
For, there was neither horse nor puffs nor bells,
Just the brewing vigor of Love inside.