October 26, 2011

innocence, snake, book, tremor. + words for our next round.

Dear Poets and Lexiphiles,

It's time to do the sugar skull bop, and raise our glasses to the phantoms. What a delicious time of year.

We're so glad we waited a little longer & collected more poems from you for this post. Here is a sample of the work we received in response to our last round:


Chopin's Waltz for Piano in Opus 18    (innocence)


a white petal, bending
impaling
on own thorn
before the winters come        (innocence)


I am led through a corn maze
the husks silver tongues with
full throats -
the priests float through the stalks
my flesh crawls
back, away, through the roots            (innocence)


we'll take New York, innocence I mean we'll take innocence
New York

feed it tenements & tear gas                                                           (innocence)


tiny moon of flesh, your flesh, immune to brutality          (innocence)


beloved pulp of soma
between goddess fingers -

the ultimate border of sky and earth -

the longest trail of stars in the achromatic pitch of heaven    (snake)


An old reliable string                (snake)


visitor from the sad phrase
wearing the small dress of your own bare feet           (snake)


conversation between Salieri and the dead
rolled-up newspaper tucked into the broken gate         (snake)



lock in key where the eye once was
page turn, glue & pulp
aggregate universes
each one in need of a name                 (book)


argosy's charred ghost             (book)


my first steps without looking down
sacred bread placed under my tongue
the handmaid & the crone singing in tune
a white desert to bury black tears                          (book)


touch a ruined wall: a tree grows.
everywhere you place your fingers, vines.
color. clematis. raspberry bushes. strange cats come near
each time you do this.                                                              (book)


Always, forever, home of the brave, home of the banned            (book)


my hand on your thigh
between white sheets                (tremor)


the soft hiccup
that released craggy mountains -
Hades missing his mantelpiece             (tremor)


someone there was calling
across the ravine
words falling down the canyon
in competition with the wind                 (tremor)


earth bands bleeding red to white
a quick shudder, shoulder dance of the mesa             (tremor)


A spare parachute of percussion        (tremor)                                        



underlying perceptions are trembling
coiled in the road
awaiting certain death                                (snake, tremor)
 

Reversal of the Southern Oscillation
tremors in another la Nina year,
snake dry. A page in Mother Nature's
book of innocence, repaid with
human maleficence.                                        (all)



Yee-haw. Wünderbär. More. More, please!

Words for the next round are

thorn       spice       cloud       usurp

So show us another corner of your lovely brain & send poems via email to inkandfamine@gmail.com. Please leave comments, jokes, queries, compliments, harangues, prayers & word suggestions for our next round below.

Happy writing, all!

Ink and Famine