Luke Garza
rgarza@austincc.edu

A veteran of the entertainment industry, Luke Garza worked as an associate producer for the Fox Network’s WORLD’S WILDEST POLICE VIDEOS. As a story analyst for HBO Films, Rat Entertainment and Phoenix Pictures, Luke evaluated thousands of projects for potential development into feature films, TV movies and series, and critiqued the works of many high-profile screenwriters such as David Mamet, Elmore Leonard and Ron Bass. In Austin, Luke served as head screenwriter on the award-winning short J.F. QUE? for the 48 HOUR FILM PROJECT. His short stories have been published in MULLEN and SALON POSTALE. Since 2003, he has taught courses in screenwriting and script coverage at Austin Community College and the University of Texas. He holds a B.S. in Radio-Television Film and B.A. in English from the University of Texas, and an M.F.A. in Screenwriting from the University of Southern California. He is the Advisor for ACC Writers Guild - Creative Writing Club.

Ode to Rejection
(dedicated to Cathy Cox)

You hear amidst the skies
The great turning of the Spheres
Liquid crystalline, in motion
Hath sound soothing to the years
Behold the great Schemata of Life
All the preconceived notions
Great premeditations, great hallucinations
Grand efflorescing emotions
But what exactly is this plan
You perceive with acute clarity
Such a thing you believe called Destiny
Follows no path, owns no parity
Every time I approach that subject of beauty
Smiles she sweetly, sticks her tongue at me
So I climb back into my coffin
And say goodnight, without a scoffing
Preservation of the ideal continues
Self-perpetuating, the unspoken, internal Muse
Inspires me to rise and fall like the seasons
Reaching into stars, tumbling without reasons
I do not know why Fortuna’s cycle spins
Ever downward, ever soak and rinse
All I know is I return until I die
Unsheltered, unfettered, broken cry

From Listening To The Lizard King

The rain-drenched forest
Tongues the clenched teeth of the night
I bite into the apple and
Watch the juices drip down her thigh
Sticky sweet sylvan songs
Play tattoos on my brain
A world of smoke in wintertime love
They brand me with an X on my back
Stumble into the forgotten cave of slime
Crystals dance on refrigerator mouths
I break the green bottle;
Licorice lies pour over me like instant fireflies
Slicing the soft white underbelly
In the rift I hear birth and dying
A terrible treasure too good to mention
Nostrils breathe and breed thunderdogs
I bleed onto the sliding glass door where her
Exquisite corpse sticks to the wall; and
I pray, for the rain, again.