Bare Bones Poem - Collaborative Poetry

Part V

Be a magician, arch your wand.
Let doors quickly open
around your feet and head.
At the end of your show,
bow deep, then savor,
letting silence, gasps, cheers, and applause
mingle like unholy ancient chants
of a sacrifice
before you dissapear into smoke
like a starman sent from the sky
getting breath from the anticipation
(or a collective scream).



In this ReadWritePoem Prompt #41, we posted a poem of ours missing most the nouns and verbs. Then we chose the "stripped down" poem of another poet, and filled in the words. Here is the bare-bones poem I had to work with posted by A~Lotus:

Part v.
Be a _____, arch your _____.
Let _____ quickly _____
around your _____ and _____
at the _____ of your _____.
_____ deep, then _____,
letting _____, _____, _____, and _____
mingle like _____ _____ _____
of a _____
before you _____ into _____
like a _____ _____ from the sky
and getting _____ by the _____
(or a _____ _____).

(This poem with all its original words may be found HERE.)


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I orginally chose another longer poem, because I simply liked the shape. But I was stumbling a bit and not really having fun, so I chose this one, of which I immediately liked the tone. I ran right through it, filling in the words like I was reciting something learned. I only changed a couple small words in the 2nd to last line and the punctuation in one other line. It was easy (and fun)--until the end line.
Obviously, this line should somehow turn the poem around, but I couldn't do it. It is frustrating me. However, I really like the picture it paints.

Here is my original poem I posted as a bare bones model for others to choose:

I am not connected with nature
The trees don’t sing to me
The winds deny the pleasure
Of coming around to me
I have felt the sun on my face
But it has not set me free
I am not connected to nature
And she’ll have nothing to do with me.

It's a silly lil thing, but I was actually very desperate when I wrote it. It is simple and boring, because I just didn't care; I was so apathetic with my life at that moment. I would love to see it improved by another.

Well, I am off to read the REAL Part V.
Also, I want to thank Dana at ReadWritePoem for a surprising exercise and A~Lotus for a great model to play with!!

Sibling Rivalry

Word on the street is
Abraham is your daddy too
but that doesn’t mean much to you
snarling and smashing
crashing and quick
with the tongue and fist.
That shit list of yours
is set in stone
and when you’re done
I’ll prop it on your grave
to remind us to save
some prayers for those
drug down with you
on fast-forward to the last scene
no time for plot or meaning
eyes fixed on the screen
for a climax.
And when the curtain falls
it brings an axe.
And you drug us all
down with you.

(ReadWritePoem Prompt #39)

Jigsaw Poem

Heavy summer air plays tag
with thin cool ocean breezes
They chase carefree through trees tops
carrying shouts of beachgoers
who are just out of site

I inhale the scene
savoring it like the scent of a lover's hair
I taste the sea salt
spiced with the timber planks
layed before me in a twisted path

which decants me from woods to sand
while the wings of the evening
wrap around it all
turning the sky amber
and making the moment a dream


(Jigsaw Poem for Poets Who Blog)

So Nice To See You Again, How's The New Wife?

sweet scent
of you stinging
my nostrils, promises
are baked road kill, kisses are green
shiny pus filled wounds, acid coats my tongue,
memories are wet dogs begging
foaming at the mouth from
your sickening
sweet scent

(ReadWritePoem Promt #38)

Dark Matter

(Hubble Space Photo)

and now they,
scientists, say
we're not really moving together,
but farther away.
galexies have dreams of their own,
noses pointed on where to go.
well, then
we'll get
that space
we long for
and if I miss your face,
tears of doubt
won't turn back time
when all the stars go out
then my heart, cold third stone,
will know, we'll know
what it is to have space
and to be alone.

~*~
Dark energy:
BIG BANG pushed all the galaxies out, but gravity to eachother slows them. As they get farther from eachother, they are slowly speeding up, because gravity is having less impact in the larger spaces.

1995: Hubble discovered the galaxies are continuing to move farther from eachother at a faster rate by measuring LIGHT from supernovas.

1916: Einstein thought all this might be so, but rejected it because it was against what we thought we knew at the time. He was LOOKING for a way to prove the universe was STATIC.

SO eventually dark energy will push all the stars away from eachother SO FAR that they will no longer be visable from eachother.

(InspireMeThursday Prompt Shrink)

Child's Rhyme

The itsy bitsy spider
Climbed up wedding dress
Down came the veil
And made the spider blessed

Out came the priest
And damned again its soul
And the itsy bitsy spider laid poison in the role

~*~
No, I don't hate my husband. I do feel that you learn about dad/mom/wife/husband roles and what they mean to eachother as a child. You are taught them with the repetition and inconspicuousness of a nursery rhyme.

Late Again Lavender

Mother Nature by alizarin
Monday Mural from Poefusion


Late again Lavender
lost your sense of time,
gone in the grisliest
robbery of rhyme

Duck and dodge Lavender
past nobility,
interceding costar:
slick civility

Pickax pricked Lavender
rework your last rhyme,
send overburdened tunes
through highways of time


~*~
*Random Inspiration: Chose 5 nouns, verbs, and adjectives from the dictionary, and build a poem with them*
I did not use them all. Odd how it was that all the M-words that did not make it.
Nouns: costar, highway, macrame, nobility, pickax
Verbs: duck, intercede, mate, overburden, rework
Adjectives: grisly, lavender, mod, past, slick

The kind of otherwordliness and sad/repulsed/determined look of the figure made me think of this poem. And her hand out-stretched as if she is doesn't think it will work, but she has to try. Her reaction is too human to see her as nature.

Beauty Treatment

Skin softened by sun
seeps in moisture from the air.
The ocean’s just show.

(InspireMeThursday Prompt)

Standing in the Shadows

Standing in the Shadows By Rick Mobbs



I’m a superhero goddess, who am I?
I am the molder of your fate, who am I?

I’m the savior when your buildings are burning,
champion and tamer of beasts, who am I?

I can fly myself to the edge of the Earth;
I see unencumbered and know, who am I!

Here clarity rings long with lines and answers;
All pieces fit to reveal your who am I.

You believe you are too busy to listen;
It does not mean I’ve not disclosed, who am I.

I am you in hazy moments wavering
Sleep and awake, wandering with who am I.

Stark, I illuminate future and wisdom.
Jenn, don’t wipe away sleep and ask who am I.

~*~
Thanks to Rick Mobbs for permission to use this image.
~*~
(ReadWritePoem Promp #36)

Once

Once
I stretch out each limb
Finding all they’re worth
After uncurling myself
Out and over the earth
How will you find me
Once
I melt into the world
While it melts into me
Walk up to the mirror
For the world to see
How will you know me

How will you love me
After every road I’ve run
Will you be waiting at the end
And love me like you’ve done
Once

Invite

The world is in
the kitchen. Warm
scents in the swirling
chatter, sing-songs
drinking helps meld,
sorrows felled by
us held in shared
waiting, aired prob-
lems, snared by these
sympathies and
a “please.” Manners;
only dinners can
make persons from
killers. Come, eat
with some nations.

(Poefusion and The Miss Rumphius Effect )

Uttanasana (Fowrard Bend)

Noon.
High and straight she shines
deep and centered core
but not dense.
She radiates in all directions
pulsing and blending with the wavering sky.
One, two, three, four o’clock falling
five o’clock pausing.
Six o’clock.
The sun meets the earth;
she gently pets steady and solid ground.
Bright and powerful rays shoot for the sky before
reversing
time to
noon.

Intermediate

(DENVER ART MUSEUM IN JANUARY TWILIGHT)

Grey
dogs wilting with mange
days heavy with sky
the deathly cheeks of a stranger
far off summer thunder
groans from a sleeping lover
the low hum of pub chatter
hotel smoking rooms
cold hamburger, burned last night
the very last sip of muddy tea
waiting
washing all those dishes
the last four hours of a sinus headache
Grey can steal your breath like a cat

~*~

One of my less edited poems, but I am trying to post more. I hate that old wives tale about cats stealing your breath at night, but I like to use it in poetry. It is like telling kids the Boogieman will come if they don't go to sleep. In this poem, I was trying to say that grey is on the scale between black and white, both and neither.

Farmer's Tan

He wears op’ra gloves
and a mask
eyes to collarbone
in color
so unbecoming.
He calls it
blurple, a mix of
blue'n purple.

When he is topless,
he still wears
a white t-shirt with
two nipples
blushing at their own
surroundings.

A white gold ring shines,
a mirror,
against browned finger.
I touch his
hand to see if he
can still feel.

White cigarettes burn
to grey ash.
He turns to brown dust.
Flake and peel,
layer and layer,
dust to dust
too soon for my taste.

(ReadWritePoem Prompt #35)

Maybe not even then

The crow shuts her beak
when the sun forgets to climb
and the waves are still.

Shuffled Words

I decided to try Shuffle Words.

This was my first attempt. It didn't feel right adding puncuation since there wasn't any in the blocks to use. (I actually wanted to keep working on it, but I pushed save too early, then I could not use new words.)

It is just an exercise, remember.

~*~

just know they which find prizes pay prices


over your blue black bed
among these sheep
I make many a furious repair
love taxi going high
a car
a dirty place


a clean woman
a good thing
outside be red pig brown dog yellow cow white goat
no man has remain
she sees into water
down long low


if we only hate her
can it be called right with you
without words would you
who will after all

Contents

The air
startles my lungs
stunning me with health and life
The streets
stirred by light
dive from the seams and slip past me
The earth
breathes a melody just under
her children’s constant chiming
The hour
again finds me and flowing
back into my blood, displaces the day.

(ReadWritePoem, Get Your Poem On #34)