Articles written by Michael Bettencourt

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About me - Michael Bettencourt

Michael Bettencourt is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. His A QUESTION OF COLOR won an Ostrander award in Memphis (TN) for Best Original Script in July 2005. IN THE FORT chosen was a Selected Script by Inner Voices. In 2004 he won Boston Theatre

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Creative Writing > Poetry Poetry: Father: 1 of 131

Chisels Summer: the sizzling hiss of boiled air like a handsaw in new-kilned pine. The heat siphons off my pen; my hand leaves liquid negatives on the page. I sweat in a sweat of waiting. Someone somewhere starts a sabre saw; I can hear the droning whinny of the kerf, almost smell the singed pitch of the knots, feel the soft...
Creative Writing > Poetry Poetry: Survival: 1 of 56

ON CROSSING THE STREET At the streetcorner he looks thick and straight, like a man waiting to run the bulls - but his first step off the sanctuary of the curb shows how crippled he is, hips askew, arms arrhythmic, legs swung like bell clappers, all jerk and thrust and ungrace. He moves one step out, then another, feeling the...
Arts & Humanities > Writing Tips Where writers find inspiration: 1 of 33

Perhaps such a situation does not arrive in every artist's life, but I would bet that it does - in some key, major or minor, at some length, brief or protracted. That situation of wondering just what living as an artist means. For me, right now, this situation frames itself this way: after a decade of dedicated playwriting w...
Creative Writing > Poetry Poetry: Laundry: 1 of 24

WASH The panties on the line are bikini, faded violet, cotton crotch. The jeans pinned next to them are heavy, denim opaque, stitching orange. The breeze yawns, stretches the panties, hips pressed forward, buttocks tight. The jeans' legs flail, running jagged laps. Suddenly the left leg braces across the open violet space, t...
Creative Writing > Reflections Reflections: Mourning: 1 of 21

"RAGE, RAGE..." My friend's letters had mentioned the possibility as far back as the fall of last year, but now what had stood merely possible had become painfully probable now: the death of his father. He had come back to Brooklyn from San Francisco each time the alarum had rung: the complaints about vague pains and exhaust...
Creative Writing > Poetry Poetry: Bus ride: 1 of 18

Old Lady on the Bus There is a moment when winter finally locks in, when the snow-dunes become mounds of grey crust, when ice grouts the sidewalks, when all light, sun or lamp, grits the eye. I think most often of 4:30, the daylight standard darkness coming, when cars pontoon by and people slither on shot feet. I think most ...
Creative Writing > Poetry Poetry: Biking: 1 of 12

CYCLING MOUNTAINS ON AN AUTUMN DAY The weather begins to sting. I push my blood up to ramming speed to crack the air that waxes against me, trails me like flame. The crazed asphalt jimmies my bones apart. I come to the turn-off: Summit Road. At night, from across the city, antennas threading the dark with their red announcin...
Politics, News & Issues > Political Issues Affirmative action defended: 1 of 11

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION REACTION I hate to say this - admitting it seems like such a defeat of character these days - but, yes, I, a middle aged, balding, white male, benefitted from affirmative action. How, you might ask (if you believe the reigning Republican theology), did such a perversion of the natural order ever occur? The...
Creative Writing > Poetry Poetry: Last resting place: 1 of 10

PHOTOGRAPH A photograph inset into the headstone of Mrs. William Temple, showing her lying at rest in her coffin, rosary beads in her hands, was found by members of her family to have been shot at, stained, and torn over the weekend. -story in local newspaper- They had set it there to grace the memory of one past; not everyt...
Creative Writing > Memoirs Memoirs: Winter: 2 of 18

SLIDING As a child I remember that as soon as the ground got cold enough to hold snow, and the snow began to layer itself into a depth, my friends and I would hit the slopes, not for skiing, which none of us knew how to do since none of our parents knew how to do it, but for sliding. The first thing we'd do is dress for the ...