Reckoning
Posted: February 7th, 2006, 7:46 pm
The author put his characters' guns away.
He could almost hear the sounds of disarmament:
the click of a revolver being opened, cold
bullets falling into his hand. A sniper rifle
taken apart, its components placed in their case.
An old shotgun that stuck in wet weather, opened
against his knee, so the shells slid out.
His fiercely talked-about centerpieces,
in the best of his quick-moving novels,
showcased gunsmoke and the smell of carbide. He wanted
to move away from that, at the behest of no one -- what
sells sells. He wanted to slow down the pace,
develop conversation, just two people talking, as
both act and interlude.
Push away from plot and finely craft
his relationships, as he had been unable to do,
in fiction and in his life.
He could almost hear the sounds of disarmament:
the click of a revolver being opened, cold
bullets falling into his hand. A sniper rifle
taken apart, its components placed in their case.
An old shotgun that stuck in wet weather, opened
against his knee, so the shells slid out.
His fiercely talked-about centerpieces,
in the best of his quick-moving novels,
showcased gunsmoke and the smell of carbide. He wanted
to move away from that, at the behest of no one -- what
sells sells. He wanted to slow down the pace,
develop conversation, just two people talking, as
both act and interlude.
Push away from plot and finely craft
his relationships, as he had been unable to do,
in fiction and in his life.
