Written in 10 minutes - playfully

The following piece was written by Stewart Mintzer on the day we used a video of Leon Theremin playing the theremin as our prompt. Everyone generated words for 2 minutes, then we all shared a word or phrase from our own lists to create a community list. Then we wrote for 10 minutes, letting the imagination lead the dance with the rational mind. The goal is not to write something finished and coherent—it’s only 10 minutes! The goal is to surprise yourself with the freshness and energy of what flows through your pen. This is what Stewart wrote:

Let yourself be nonsensical, it’s a permission slip to come alive. The truest thing I’ll say to you is in glossolalia. Sounds that reflect what's beyond the fumbling search for the right words in my conditioned internal dictionary. For instance, right now I’m: ___________________________________ . Know me like that, what I hunger for, fear, get shy and fat tongued and dreamy with.

There may be 7000 human languages in the world and lots are going extinct, spoken by less than a 1000 people. The fungi system sings to the roots. Your holy channel from belly to throat is an air violin. Sound me some peace. Sound me a softening of the dominator culture, of mine is bigger than yours, of the night time swaggers that fall exhausted in bed. Sound me healings for back operations in Seattle, for offerings to bring back the bees, to fertilize time for weeks of kissing.

The forced air heater here clicks off. I must meet the plants, make friends with sadness, come back to breath.

If you’d like to read more work generated to the Theremin prompt, or to other Prompts of the Week, click here.