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Trying to write 300 words on the fly is like trying to conjugate the verbs of a butterfly with a knife, is like languishing quietly the summer nights as Keith Richards tumbles ingloriously from on high, is the inept escapades of a slug in a slot machine.
Trying to wax 300 verbs quick is like 300 English teachers agreeing to lunch upon the failings of those vulgar and recalcitrant lunks, toasting to death the dying culture’s language with a fistful of Xanax and seven snifters of punch.

Trying to divine two hundred and ninety nine is like wining and dining starlets beneath the starry skies, stupidly high upon sacraments of power, writing 300 hundred words an hour is like riding dirt black motorbikes into the darkest channels of the night, threading columns of the past, blind--plus one.

Trying to pen 300 gems on the occasion of your return from a Vegas vacation spent dividing twenties impatiently out your dehydrated folds as the office copier back home doles out lists of reasons the company is so cold is like trying to untie your vasectomy for just the right occasion.
Trying to squeeze 100 threes from the black and white keys while Keith Jarrett burns sage and gorges lazily on big bourgeois blocks of imported cheese, you seize the splendor of a newly dealt hand you catch a streak the cards gain momentum the words start to speak you breathe and the Dow Jones goes berserk and bursts its beams up through the clouds.

Trying to write 300 words out loud is a thing is a trick is a willingness to fly is something you’ve been needing to try ere the deadline lunges up upon the sky and slaps you down to earth, a butterfly to a slug.

Rack ‘em up.

— Keith Niles —
Keith Niles is a writer in Echo Park.
He hosts the infamous Sunday night reading that is the Little Joy Open Mic.