Articles written by Michael Bettencourt - Page 2

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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: The accident: 1 of 11
ACCIDENT It was less a scene than a dream's quick flash: the two ragged tire tracks unwinding from the passing past the breakdown lane to knit in a tree, ambulance's septic red mixing with trooper's blue authority on the white cloth suggesting flesh, the dealt wreck cooling. Looking for it on the late news or buried in newsp... More..
Creative Writing > Poetry Poetry: Father: 12 of 130
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... More..
Creative Writing > Humor Humor: Dealing with squirrels: 3 of 31
SQUIRREL Out in the yard, framed by the window next to my desk, is a three-pronged maple tree, a trident of wood about 50 to 60 years old and thirty feet tall. When I look at it I see at least a good full cord of wood that would thrill a stove, but right now the squirrels interest me most. Two squirrels use the tree regularl... More..
Creative Writing > Poetry Poetry: Biking: 1 of 10
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... More..
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... More..
Creative Writing > Poetry Poetry: Giving: 4 of 38
BIRDS IN WINTER She dispenses the seed at night; by morning they're lined at the feeder like the spikes on an EKG, the half-husks they litter behind a read-out of living through the cold. On sunny days the pigeons clump on the southern planes of heat-filled houses, on the glair crust of the park's snow, their thin pedestal l... More..
Creative Writing > Poetry Poetry: Drought: 2 of 19
DROUGHT It's been in all the news, it's been all the news. Montage: grey crepe of leaves in surrendered fields grey arcs of skin in surrendering faces. The wish prays for rain; the talk is dust. I am sitting on the top step of the porch. In front of me the lawn grizzles. The sun drains the sky to bronze hot and flagrant. It ... More..
Creative Writing > Poetry Poetry: As October begins: 2 of 19
OCTOBER Crow pours down in a flume of black to filch road kill from the yellow line. Abandoned seeds, barrowed by the wind, fill the air with orphans. Chittering squirrel on a tombstone hides acorns in dead mouths. Torn nets of tomato vines hang, heavy catch gone, in concluded gardens. Rabbit, shot through the eye, stiffens ... More..
Society & Lifestyle > Racism Assessing ethnic issues in today's America: 3 of 24
Imagination and Identity Even a little time spent by any playwright thumbing through the Dramatists Sourcebook or Market Insight reveals a topography of what I call "script ghettos": women playwrights, Hispanic (or Latino/a) playwrights, African-American playwrights, Asian-Pacific Islander playwrights, playwrights with disab... More..
Society & Lifestyle > Social Values & Norms Should prayer be allowed in public and/or private schools?: 7 of 53
THE POWER OF PRAYER The government's push to bring prayer into the classroom is destructive of religious values and ignorant of prayer's power to shape people's lives. How could this effort be so mistaken, when so many self-styled conservatives, and not a few avowed liberals, have championed prayer in the classrooms as a way... More..