Poetry

A Twittle to Carolyn Hastings, Pt.II

Since life insists—

A Twittle to Carolyn Hastings, pt.II

Dear Carolyn, this is no acrostic; The space between us, invented, A mirage in our peripheral sight — I gab loosely as intended.

Well, look at that; part one was more than a year ago, in which time I’ve released several more twittles, most personally addressed to Carolyn herself—

There were only ever two twittles by me prior to this one. My first (published February 7th, 2022), and second, (March 1st, 2022)— and ahw, shucks!! Have them all then, why don’t ya??

Listed in order of creation and everything—

April 27th, 2022 — How My Twittles Haven’t Improved May 8th, 2022 — Our Gatekeeper and the Beast of Twittles June 18th, 2022 — A Long Time June 30th, 2022 — Just a Lil’ Twit Twittlin’ January 27th, 2023 — GPT-3 by OpenAI Answers The Meaning of Life as a Dark Clown — feat. My First Twittle of 2023!! April 3rd, 2023 — Of Whimsical Invocations May 11th, 2023 — Twittles 4 The Present

If I didn’t address her directly, then there’s a good chance I thought of her.

The Process

Now, if you don’t already know—

A twittle is a nutty poem in the class of a quatrain exactly one hundred alphabet letters a perfect workout for your brain © Carolyn Hastings 2022

This means a twittle must contain one hundred alphabet characters split between four lines, and preferably with a solid rhyming scheme.

Note:
If Carolyn likes you enough, 
she'll even let you play 
it loose with the last 
part.Any twittle unapproved by
the official channels may
result in spontaneous and
unexplained radio burns from 
the far reaches of outer space.
Children left unattended in the
parking lot will be put to WORK.

I’m sensitive about my one year, two month long bout of unemployment.

Yeah—

Not that I haven’t been up to anything good. I’ve learned new skills, developed myself internally, recorded past and present events, cultivated new ideas for the future— but also, absolutely just chilled sometimes.

I generally still smoke weed in the evenings, but there have also been —admittedly — numerous — sigh — wake n’ bakes.

Now, though I’d given up for a while, the job hunt is back on. I’m just not sure what to tell them when they ask about the gap.

“I had personal and family matters to attend— and I essentially failed as a writer.”

It’s honest enough.

But especially since I’ve cut my hair and shaved, I feel more energized and confident to get back out there again, and to take it more seriously this time—

I’m really quite curious to see how long it’ll take to grow back— and this time I’ll savour every stage along the way.

The Trick

From the beginning, I had no clue where this twittle would take me. This, perhaps, is why the results — a silly entrance, an obvious statement, almost showing direction, followed by sporadic bounds* — updated on September 13th, 2023 @ 01:11 EDT 🙄 — of sensuous depth and meaning, then a sweet return to nothingness — were so predictable from me.

Because, let’s be real; I’m no Margie Willis.

Starting from emptiness doesn’t agree with me; how Margie spins gold this way, I’m sure that’s for everyone to discover at their own pace.

In any case, with my carefreeness of the day, some chaos was simple to achieve!!

So, before anything else, I jotted down a handful of words I might want to include in the poem with their individual character counts.

Either by memory or on paper, 
it helps 
to keep these individual character counts 
in mind, for making quick and easy adjustments 
later on. To further simplify 
the process 
and to observe the poem’s overall balance, 
I also noted the lengths of every 
verse, and as it helped near the end, the length of 
each half of the poem 
before adding up the total.

Like this, I could do it all in one concentrated area of the page, with minimal — or no — rewrites before copying the final version to my notebook.

I also kept a blank area at the bottom of the page, reserved for anything else I might want to capture as I go.

Or, actually, in this case, I realize most of these notes were in passing, and not while crafting the poem.

There aren’t many, but see—

Please point it out if my thought process is completely wrong.

I’m open to being the idiot.

Always.

This half of the page demonstrates one of my favourite ways to achieve a smoother workflow by releasing your pesky side thoughts as you go.

Otherwise, personally, it’s easy to end up having paced the apartment for hours, by which end, depression and anxiety have set in for not having progressed as planned with the day’s tasks—

I’m not unhinged.

Let’s even ask the mini tag wall of writers whose works I must also review—

Dani Montage | BichoDoMato | Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) | Cristina Cattai | Britt H. | Benighted (…Benighted… Benighted…) | Jenine "Jeni" Baines | Charlotte Ella King | pockett dessert | William J Spirdione | Lysergic World Design (whose materials are almost too intense for me, but I have to take the occasional peak at what’s going on) | A Shayens Abran (which equally reminds me, I need to submit to Be Open!!) | Jenny Lane (and Nowisms!!!!) | Nikolaos Skordilis | Diana Meresc (automated highlights are cool, + decent quality AI writing 👌✨🍂) | Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) (listed again, because I also need to submit to The Brain is a Noodle!!!!!!!!) | and— Jesus — do I really have so few names from the top of my head — Jan Sebastian 🖐👩‍🦰!! HA!!! You don’t even know. | And, ooh— Natalie (she’s so deep)

I spread myself too thin; most writers, I only read once or twice.

Hoping I didn’t forget anyone, but feeling I forgot everyone.

HEY, let’s even see how deep Tony Stubblebine might come down on his own platform, eh?

No jokes of tongues.

Addressing all tagged parties— I invite you to share with us a handful of your stories in the responses to make things easier for me and everyone else here to explore.

On that note, I think we’ve all spent enough time together for one day.

It’d officially be weird for you to read me any more, at least until the morrow.

And thank you please dearly Carolyn Hastings and the Paper Poetry team for putting up with my sh# all these long years. Maybe 2023 isn’t my year for making promises, but know I’m not done kicking yet.

For anyone else who’d like to try their hand at twittle poetry, then might I recommend—

She actually beat my record of ten twittles in a single poem by a count of three entire twittles more, and I’ve never gotten over it— except, you know what? No. I’m not even competitive, that’s just an inappropriate number of twittles.

Ten was the perfect amount.

Oh— so now YOU want to beat the record? Why’s everyone hating on perfect amounts of twittles?

Ah, F/CK—

I’m just talking sh*t.

Peace out, C!! Until the next time.

Love,

— G

About the Author:

🔍 ㅤGustave Deresse Is a Canadian Writer, Editor, Roamer & Musical Artist Exploring Themes as Spirituality, Logic, Love, Life, Technology, Philosophy, Nature, Art, Neurocognitive Psychology, Creativity, Writing, Humour, Inspiration, Music, Well-being — and the Weird.

P.S. Subscribe by email to catch my original works! ✨

My Introduction Page —

You might also enjoy —

— a spectacular one by William J Spirdione

— another by Gustave Deresse; Writer & AI Artist

I appreciate you, take care.

Sincerely, — G