reading | Fred Aiken Writing

June 4, 2024

Quacks Like Book, Looks Like a Book, Must Be…

Daily writing prompt

Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?

The name of it; no. The gist of what it was about; a bit. Actually, I just did a 10 minute Google search and found it, surprisingly enough. I typed in ‘children’s books from the 90’s featuring a monster’. It was called ‘Go Away, Big Green Monster!’ It was the very first book that I was ever able to read by myself.

From what I can remember, it wasn’t all that great or mindblowing of a book. I guess it will always hold a special place in my literary heart due to the fact that it was the book that I learned to read with. It is the book the opened up an entire universe of imagination and hallucination through the art of words.

I read ‘Go Away, Big Green Monster!’ multiple times, almost every night for a period of my childhood. I think it was a bit of a pride thing, like one of those things that kids tend to do on repeat when they’ve accomplished something and the adults in their life make a big deal of it, even though later in life it becomes one of those mundane aspects that no one really cares all that much about. My parents did, in fact, make quite a big deal of it. They were always very supportive and encouraging of those little milestones, and I believe after I was finally able to read my first book by myself we went out and got cake.

I mean, it was not entirely just because of me being able to read a book for the first time. It also happened to be my birthday as well, but I kinda just remember it as being a celebration of my ability to read, or at least that’s how I want to remember it as, and in a way I suppose I’ve been trying to recapture that feeling ever since.

Granted, I don’t even know if I’d go so far as to say that ‘Go Away, Big Green Monster!’ was my favorite childhood book. I’m sure there were plenty others that I enjoyed reading more when I was younger. But for whatever reason, that book stood out, so I guess in my nostalgic-addled mind I decided to write about it. Oh well…

May 28, 2024

bookshelves

i ran out of shelf space for all the books
in my office,
so now there’s a whole bunch of books in the backseat of my car,
and when i see someone in need,
i toss them a book,

i just hope they’re not 
spending all the wealth i give them
on liquor and drugs

May 17, 2024

lost education//memory fatigue

i keep telling myself that everything i read
makes me a little more educated,
but if you were to ask me, or quiz me,
on what i read last year,
or even last week,
there’s a chance i wouldn’t be able to tell you exactly what
was happening in the book or article,
maybe a few keep points, you know, the broad strokes of it all,
but i’m not one of those types of people that can memorize lines and lines
of books to quote at sophisticated dinner parties that serve
red wine with spinach quiches,
rather i’m the type of person that confuses the plot
of catch-22 with that of the kandy-kolored tangerine-flake streamline baby,
but not in a charming sort of way
where the transgression can be forgiven because of my lack of memory,
but more so where the guests at the dinner party sort of pity me,
and the rest of the night is spent in awkward silence
before the rest of the guests collect their designer coats and bags
made from farm animals that sound nothing like the cartoons as they’re being slaughtered,
and everyone goes home a little sad and disappointed,
but not me, since, as my wife points out afterward,
i’m too damn ignorant for my own damn good