When Blogs Collide . . .

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Writing on Blogspot

. . . on WordPress

(and vice versa!)

If you’ve searched me by name, Jeff Glovsky, chances are you’ve wound up here. Welcome.

In learning the craft of writing, and of becoming (more or less) myself, I seem to have tuned into a few of the biggies … certain manna, and ticks and inflections of theirs, picked up by my young and thirsty antennae, all bursting with needing to take it all in.

Gifts and Ripoffs

… flying in the face of his own misguided logic that in some small way, an exit by overdose might be a good thing — its transmitted “message” perhaps being taken to heart, as opposed to being ignored or simply not received at all by other nodding junkies suddenly waking up, saying, “You know what? Philip Seymour Hoffman died. Let me quit.” —

Sadly, it’s unlikely that this became the case anywhere. Philip Seymour Hoffman just died.

Olympic Darkness

Once I was sitting outside a jazz club where I used to mix sound. It was a beautiful spring night, and I stepped out of what was, at that time, the stereotypical smoke-filled room to gulp in some fresh air. It was during a bass solo … These always tended to go on forever anyway, so I figured I had a few minutes, at least, before the singer would come in again and start gesticulating (wildly) toward her ear, suggesting (none too subtly) that she wasn’t able to hear herself …

Cold, War and Otherwise

Elliot Rodger was a sick, pained soul. Stereotypically “tortured”, almost “poetic”, in his musings. His dark manifesto, had it been written, say, a century and a half ago … penned anonymously, and/or “discovered” … who knows? Might have become a literary classic, in the Dostoevsky or Knut Hamsun vein.

As a writer, I myself am tortured: panged with jealousy, twisted, unnerved, by the guy’s naive, sadly wasted talent!

America’s Psycho

When my dad turned 50 years old, he did a little ‘river dance‘ on his birthday cake. Sadly frustrated with life and years behind him to that point, and whatever present hassles he felt his family, (empty) wallet and failing business had been giving him, in a single swooping motion, he swatted his 50th birthday cake off the kitchen counter, and leapt upon it like Nureyev.

Remember(ing) Laughter

Last May, in the wake of the Donald Sterling nonsense, I commented — rather vehemently — about the old fella’s ‘mistreatment’ at the hands of certain “hating and seething” “thought police” … “angry, directionless ministers beseeching … already converted choirs” that Sterling was worse than just a crusty curmudgeon, left up to his neck in societal sea change.

I empathized with Donald Sterling …

Two Nations, Under God?

Jeff Glovsky (Words by)

Photo(s) by Jglo - 'Fall of Jeff Glovsky'

“The Fall of Jeff Glovsky“

by Jeff Glovsky, Writing

Old Is New(ish)

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Writing on Medium

by Jeff Glovsky

Several decades ago— before our Facebook, cut and paste, “open-source” world — there were older siblings … also scribbling … pos(t)ing dreamily, into Barnes & Noble “journals” the size of granny panties, or contributing to Fray.

It’s All About Me(dium)

Not long after I penned my ode to the beauty and simplicity, and read-generator, which was Medium — it all fell away … Medium 2.0 seems to be nothing more than another tired social network: aggressively encouraging “likes” … encouraging peanut gallerists to chime in …

From Medium to Middling

Swimming through the noise I cannot place, the curt, intrusive bleats — unbeautiful, like summer in a land-locked foreign country, or a desert… or a pounding rain — (an) army sucks and splashes past, hoof-thund’ring toward cerise horizon.

Bad Olives (or, I Hit My Head)

I think of the ‘ones who got away’ sometimes … those fleeting passengers through my life, who wouldn’t have reason to think of me, but nonetheless made their impressions felt and registered on my akasha.

October Song

There’s a guy on the ground, with a boot in his back: “Release me!” the guy’s yelling up, in English, to a man in green, one of Bavaria’s Finest. “Bullenschweine!” (the guy’s switched to German) … “Sofort!” he shouts to the boot in his back (and the cop’s deaf ears). “Release me!” he Englishes again, “Immediately!“

The Bavarian cop presses down in a Schuhplattler.

nicht by Jglo

(A) Time and Place

by Jeff Glovsky, Works in Progress, Writing

‘R’ You … ?

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ripped from ...

Ripe Delicious

by Jeff Glovsky

Taste her squirming, nighttime, on that park bench, midtown Broadway. Like her spice sweet happy smile, bright young laughing, birdlike eyes and hair all wild, like a porno morning after, or a teenager.

She’s 21.

* * *

Apple ripe and bursting wide tight seams, once secret places…and I’ve tasted. Like the greatest hearts and tongues of her g-generation…

I’m The Who. She’s heard of Paul McCartney once, or maybe…She’s a baby!

My grey nose hairs twitch.

* * *

Like two ships crashing down round the tip of an iceberg; meeting by chance in a hot summer rain, neither having umbrellas…Sharing some pain, laughter, loneliness…Nuns at a conjugal supper.

…Not sure what that means …

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“Ripe, Delicious“

 ripped from ...

Round Trip

by Jeff Glovsky

Palm stretched over, purple leotard, and hair, blue-black and wine-drunk like the lips we bit and sucked on…Legs up, back against that fenced off lot near Soutine’s, off Columbus; legs a ripe mélange of ass and ocean…Panties in my teeth and spitting hair from out my nostrils.

* * *

In Buchs, in Switzerland, repeat the scene, but this time it’s a phone booth. We play Superman, and spin around and turn each other out…The Alpines ring us like disease; emasculate our selflessness, elaborate our flaws…

It’s cold here.

* * *

New York, you come again…We come. And meet again, and then…we shudder, coughing, roaring at the small joke of the world.

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“Round Trip“

ripped from ...

Remember(ing) Laughter

by Jeff Glovsky

When my dad turned 50 years old, he did a little ‘river dance‘ on his birthday cake.

* * *

Stamping like a person one-tenth his age in the frosting, and crushing “5” and “0” candles beneath his still shoe-clad feet, he ceased misbehaving only when my mom burst, literally, Lucille Ball-like into tears.

* * *

My friend Mike and I had been arguing that day over which of us was going to be Hawkeye Pierce … and more importantly, which one of us was going to go downstairs and eat birthday cake wearing the dirty bathrobe my brother and I had laying around the floor of our bedroom?

* * *

Just then, my brother (Major Winchester) burst in. “Dad smashed his birthday cake on the floor!”

I didn’t hear what he said at first — flailing, in a headlock, as I was — but eventually, as the words sank in — and as my best friend Mike released his grip — I realized that neither of us would be needing the bathrobe …

There wasn’t any birthday cake to be eaten!

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“Remember(ing) Laughter“

Pieces of 'H' / 'R' You ... ?
Members Lounge: some Random Poetix

by Jeff Glovsky

by Jeff Glovsky, Writing

Pieces of ‘H’

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here's some

Hung Hannah

by Jeff Glovsky

It’s usually the cutie-pies who get me: The smiling-with-tongues-leaking-out-of-their-teeth ones; the gap-toothed-and-sunny-eyed dollop of heat ones…the sweet ones…the sad-eyed and vulnerable, meek ones…

Though sometimes, a freak ends up having to do.

* * *

Hannah was freakish, to be sure. Knees bent like a horseman, she swayed like a willow…Invited me into her heightened regime: Crook’d finger, then wagging it Mick Jagger-like…and then sshhh-shing it, crushing it up to our lips.

“Smell the finger!” I thought I heard her howl.

Hannah didn’t speak like me, though; freakish Hamburg Hannah only let on she spoke German.

* * *

See Hannah: Dancing like a horseman willow…Licking on her hands and fingers, beating on her skirt to stay down.

* * *

Hannah’s left alone now with her heightened, altered dreams. She sits there snarling, like she farted; spilling wine all down herself…I ask this bird, who’s flown, “You cool?”

She snarls at me, incoherent.

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“Hung Hannah“

 here's some

Hind Forward

by Jeff Glovsky

She tells me she’s Moroccan, and I dig this of her. French, some, too. She tells me she was born in France, in fact, it’s “just Moroccan blood”.

A powerful attraction dunes…Like sands whipped up by long millennia of dueling desert shifts, it sifts…

* * *

(O)ur Dutch-bound train rolls into Belgium…sad nether lands…a cemetery. Brussels comes, and I ask little Hind why she thinks things are so: “It could’ve been Paris, Brussels…no? What happened, I wonder. What didn’t happen?”

Hind pulls a cigarette and shrugs. “And New York is not Washington. Or Boston. Why, do you suppose?”

“New York, it doesn’t need to be! But I ask you the other way: How come Brussels, right? Did not become what Paris did?”

“There’s too much power…”

“Washington and Boston have their own things going on, in any case,” I reason (smartly). “But Brussels…must be frustrating!”

“Imagine being buried here,” Hind shivers. “One’s life ends twice!”

* * *

She’s standing on her seat now, Hind…and reaching up behind her, to her bag, up on a luggage rack. She finds it blindly, smiling at me…Tugs it so she’s got its weight and pulls it off the luggage rack…

Then bites a lower lip as the big bag with her small arm comes crashing down upon an old man’s head.

* * *

She looks down at her watch and does that pouting little French lip thing.

* * *

Our train pulls into Amsterdam.

read all of

“Hind Forward“

whatever hol(y)days you celebrate, may they be merry

Happy Holidays!

Pieces of 'H' / 'R' You ... ?
Compendium: collected short "faction" by Jeff Glovsky

by Jeff Glovsky, Works in Progress, Writing

Developing Characters

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excerpts from ...
CENTRAL PARK

by Jeff Glovsky

Now my social circle, such as it is, resembles a bit a Fellini ensemble: Comprised almost entirely of souls I’ve just met up with, there’s this homeless guy I feed sometimes … El Flaco John and Todd Sin Pelo, two sad sacks I revel in at “work”, this outdoor theater …

There’s bright Crystal, lovely! Eighteen! Topless!! Now, two German stewardesses … from night streets, separate outings – Why, on two diverse young evening jaunts!

Karola met and knot-tied with her Corsican Mann down in Mexico City. She sprekz well, das Spanish … The night we went crazed, after sucking down Fosters (she loves Australian beer, she said, and only sampled French parfum), I caught her peeping my way through a pair of Woodsy lenses.

* * *

Drunk when I met her, and heavy with child.

“Hi, I’m Delphine!” Delphine broadcasts. “You are?”

“Sit down, Delphine. Want a beer?”

“I’m Greek!” Delphine shouts, and she plops with a thud on a cat-scratched futon. “My love, I am hungry! Have you any cream cheese?”

* * *

There’s a woman on the Upper West Side, loves to dream …

Why, each night, catch her traipsing her mangy hound here, the two of them dressed to the nines, fit to kill!

… And Zorro flicks hair from a flattish sombrero: a dyed blonde, unruly and posthumous mane. Her little pooch cries out as well … the two of them begging, imploring attention.

* * *

“You framed, man? Man, you must be FRAMED!“

I yell this to the homeless guy leaping out of the shadows at 78th Street … An empty wooden picture frame is swinging round his neck.

In true form, Ernest cracks with glee. “I dint do it! No,” shouts he.

No, “I was FRAMED!” we both yell.

an excerpt from ...
DOING BEING

by Jeff Glovsky

I’m watching Jungle Cali as she screams in with her vipers. Topless dancers from across the street …

She’s got this kind of jazz patois … Like, everything is straight, you dig? Like everything is solid, Jack! Like Wynton put some major foot up, David Sanborn far from sad.

I watch her now though, every night. She’ll scream in with her vipers when their shifts change, five a.m. … I watch them: Loud, she’ll scream in, claim their throne, commence to holding court, these vipers, caution to the wind!

She’ll flirt there, shout, caress meat thighs and wink at cabbies, me and all who, damaged, limp across her landscape … Jungle Cali laughs, we’ll cry, and die another year each night.

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DOING BEING

Wolf, howling nighttime, prowled the Upper West, growling and swearing to himself …

He was generally harmless, howling “Wolf”, and kept to the demons within his head … The last time I saw Wolf, he had aged – albeit gracefully, with a little salt and pepper, George Clooney thing going on (short on the sides) … His posture improved … Occasionally, he’d ask me “How’s the Mrs.?” as he howled.

Then I ducked, as he swung a tree branch at me on Christmas Eve in 2010.

Since then, at the holidays, I think of Wolf …

@Jeff Glovsky on Medium ...

Developing Character(s)

by Jeff Glovsky

by Jeff Glovsky, Writing

Compendium

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Stories by Jglo

original “faction” by Jeff Glovsky

Now smoking in a doorway cross the street, I watch Cristina leave: She stumbles out the door and down the stoop, sways sideways like a crab…Grows sober as she peers around, pretends not even to be looking: calm, she lights a cigarette, and plays she’s taking in the night.

… She looks so damn ridiculous, I can’t announce myself!

“Contact”

* * *

Happy memories flood a little: Pedro with his gimp, and fleshpot offers (“Zhu wan’ womens?”)… There was Voula, on that balcony: thick stockings ripped about high waist and sweating as she blew me (hair like flooding hay cascade), full moon over Kifissias… Greek smiles, and an ancient tongue…

Oh! Pray to be alive still.

“Mornings”

* * *

I make it to the edge of Market Street, where people finally glow. I stumble through the neon, down the crusted, naughty pavement; past the porno barns and donut shops, the hookers and all-night transvestites… Old-eyed, gorgeous-bodied, full Brazilians swipe their tongues at me…

“Bus to Anaheim”

* * *

At Cadillac and Venice, I stand waiting for a bus or taxi… Car pulls up, rolls down its window. Upper middle-aged guy with a crew cut leans and says to me, “Hey, what are they? A couple of whores?”

He sits there, waiting for an answer.

“Left Coastin’ (Some LA Scenes)”

* * *

Standing like stone at Prytania and Terpsichore…Wishing they’d won that Civil War.

… In New Orleans, they dance to Koko Taylor. Sit out on their civil porches, naked, flood their war-torn streets… Don’t never go to Bourbon or the Quarter but to sweat.

“South Rise”

* * *

I think of vulnerability with Rivka. Also trust, and caring… Rivka seemed to care a lot. While others might flop noisily, then want only to crash (like me)… Warm Rivka’d stay awake, engaged. Sit cross-legged in the middle of the bed, like a Thanksgiving prayer… Or splay out like a cat about to side-stroke cross a swimming pool… Or simply lay beside me. But the whole time, with great eyes on mine, like we were meaning something.

“The Venezuelan Dairy Case”

* * *

Husbands all wave dumbly from bland stations. Love steams in and out.

Kids twist the scene, and scream, and make us long for infancy ourselves … We go on waving dumbly.

Years, like chestnuts, crash and shrivel pointlessly into the earth. We join them finally, most of us, with never having tasted Carmen Aragon.

I’ll find her …

random SHORTS

from Underwear Woman Digs the Sea
more Stories by Jglo 
(Long Reads too
& Random Poetix)

by Jeff Glovsky