There are many different types of writing. Some writers specialize in the art of communicating facts clearly and effectively. Some writers spend years of their lives creating other worlds with nothing but a pen and paper. Others prefer to take the language we all use daily and give it rhythm, movement, and style that is the art of poetry. Our first poet of this series, Shaun Hooker, told us that he always have felt Czeslaw Milosz said it best: “I swear to you there is in me no wizardry of words. I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree.”
Shaun Hooker was born in Lanexa, Virginia in 1983; has worked in the retail industry for twenty years and has used that experience with people in the unique approach to writing about the flawed and down-on-their-luck subjects he creates with empathy in mind.
At a Table on a Tuesday Night
Shaun Hooker
The lights here at the restaurant are dim, moody, an affectation of romance. It's 10p.m. and she hasn't shown in the entrance in the one bright sheen of iridescence that feels as if it was installed there to announce the arrival of special guests or envoys sent to try the food of the purveyor. I twirl the swizzle stick in my drink as I think about the things we said, words like missiles sent back and forth amongst enemy camps, the crashing and burning of language that I wish I could reverse the trajectory or certain syllables and sentences, destroy then instead of laying waste elsewhere. She's kept her promise; she has vanished. I only plan to spin the fluid of this drink, watch the miniature tornadic funnel my stick produces and the glints of light sparkling within the cut crystal until the waitress comes by and asks if that will be all, and I will nod and ask for the check and leave. 12/5/2020