Day 5:- see below for prompt
ps. I tried
hissing & giggling
like a breath locked behind teeth and lips
wild & savage horses sweating gnashing streaming from nostrils
there must be hordes of these unsaddled steads bursting clear
breath takes a breath
joins the flanks & withers
unhurried now and slow
time has pulled up, dimpled & impatient
straining at the gates, themselves drawn up in ancient
times – time time time has ticked & crashed counterfeit in fits of
dusts & dandelion puffs and prideful lusts spread out flat
abundant as on a Roman table with Caesar sat, fat as a fat white grub
no-one can lock breath out or in out or in out or in
or take it back as victor’s loots
you hear the shouts “it’s a lockdown, you hounds, muck in
get down on the ground, you bunch of sooks, lift your skirts, suck it up….”
“quiet, now look, let’s pull up and catch the wind” a simpler voice pipes in
out cast your soul and mind unbridled onto powdery stars afar”
this is a hunt for another kinda sanity
impenetrable locks can’t hold this longer than that infinity
down in the dirt prints itself slightly skewed against the heavens –
the ensuing smell pelts us with pips and gasps of sweet that taste like hell –
Death shakes Breath’s hands and declares a draw. She chortles, it’s a tie, alright
no more fight
they glance in my direction, calling me Marmalade, laying the table for tea
but I am high upon my bestest horse, me like a goddess twice blessed and he
like a hairy surfboard, bucking for all he’s worth
full power, up the tower, directionless is best
Andiamo! Avanti!
apri le porte! questi denti !
parlare ! silenzio !
don’t spare us, screech the horses, not spared, of course
in silence, all of beast or burden, lay down panting amongst tiny dandelions, humble daisy lusts
chained at last, picking bits of feast from our teethes, delicately, licking breath from our lips
April 5
btw
prompt day 5:-
It’s called the “Twenty Little Poetry Projects,” and was originally developed by Jim Simmerman. The challenge is to use/do all of the following in the same poem. Of course, if you can’t fit all twenty projects into your poem, or a few of them get your poem going, that is just fine too!
- Begin the poem with a metaphor.
- Say something specific but utterly preposterous.
- Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.
- Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).
- Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a place.
- Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.
- Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.
- Use a word (slang?) you’ve never seen in a poem.
- Use an example of false cause-effect logic.
- Use a piece of talk you’ve actually heard (preferably in dialect and/or which you don’t understand).
- Create a metaphor using the following construction: “The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun) . . .”
- Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.
- Make the persona or character in the poem do something he or she could not do in “real life.”
- Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.
- Write in the future tense, such that part of the poem seems to be a prediction.
- Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.
- Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.
- Use a phrase from a language other than English.
- Make a non-human object say or do something human (personification).
- Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that “echoes” an image from earlier in the poem.
