Ink and Famine is back! Why start again today? Because this is the only 12/12/12 we get. So!: gate, photograph, grave, tongue. & four new words.

"Clap your own damn hands." --Doug Cox

What a year--a veritable saga of love, work, dancing, school, Internet Cat Video Film Festivals and potted meat products (well, not that last one). Was it a big year for you, too?

After recovering from various funk-dancing injuries, we here at Ink and Famine are back and rarin' to go! 12/12/12 seems like an ideal date for a resurrection; given our culture's tendency toward date-specific hysteria, we'd like to offer our own small antidote in the form of this new beginning.

Many thanks to those poets who submitted to us last winter and have been waiting this whole time to see the gate * photograph * grave * tongue post go up!

And now for the poems.


washing on the line
a maze of possibilities                                           (gate)


wood on bonehinge
keeping mother out                      (gate)


arc of cicadas
Janus crown                        (gate)


innocence surprised
as a paper skeleton              (photograph)


I once had
a clean pair of eyes                            (photograph)


graven images of seven caravans
a theft of arrivals
star watchers smiling                                       (photograph)


the porch wind chimes
forever singing "A"                 (photograph)


tree shadows on granite
always on a hill
with a view                                   (grave)


without grit
or bone
fertile inverted island              (grave)


Átropos shielding the sun from her eyes
as she waits with her shears                          (grave)


six small stones
for Abigail                                       (grave)


all we make that makes us
like elephants                              (grave)


"the wallpaper"
"yes" it replied                                       (tongue)


Madagascar fin               (tongue)


full pocket of quarters
at the all-you-can-drink milk stand                 (tongue)

And a couple of lovely poems inspired by all four words:

we await the moon, arms of trees

nothing separates us locked or broken

frames, metal or  limbs lean in and over

turquoise under inking blue me on my feet under you

a wall swings gaily us driving through

sad separation old as hills and onyx piled to still the posts

even they, we are:

 

foxes, flowers, the oak and gold

her face a gate unlocked

Helen, if I had a photograph

biting her pen cap fumbling in

her grave purse for the

petitioner’s proper tongue 

thank goddess I said yes

 Words for our next round are:

resin   *   hatchet   *   suitcase   *   stalk

Want to participate? Send your poems, inspired by and/or redefining these words, plus any suggestions for words you'd like to add to our growing, collaborative poets' lexicon, to inkandfamine@gmail.com. Remember, all submissions are anonymous, and prone to be shared as widely as possible.

Welcome back. Peace in 2012!

Your friends at 

Ink and Famine

crown, cup, birth, lapis. & four new words!

Dearest Lexiphiles,

Oooh it's a chilly one! Before we make a fire & sit down for a grilled cheese and a good long read, here's our latest post, laden with the fruits of the prodigious minds that contribute to this wacky project. Enjoy.


head locked in a spotlight
of metal and stone                   (crown)


eyelet in a mansion of grandmother lace    (crown)


whether thorn
or gold
or paper crest
lord shaped words
sit heavy on the subject's tongue      (crown)


I grew accustomed to wrapping myself
in my own arms

now to let someone in
between me and me                                        (cup)


your cheeks in my fingers
crusted salt of brine
on the chalice curve                     (cup)


bark of a tree
and mold
bitter medicine brewed                    (cup)


good Irishwomen drink whiskey
even when it isn't there                         (cup)

stare into the sun to let your eyes bleach out
then fill them with arrival                                       (cup)

death scoops a ball of light from one mouth,
drops it into the next                                              (birth)

 

who are the buds that don't want to open?
we helped the iris--or so we thought--
turned her petals, tidied her veins; and if she did not smile,
the ground did.                                                                          (birth)

the first air gulp
saline & beach sand                           (birth)


little hiccup
god pearl
seed root at its finite song                          (birth)




my duty as a plagiarist
on this bitch of an earth         (birth)




border land
stink of marrow over the wall
he lowers his bow only
to kiss the queen                            (lapis)


wind rounded
undevoted to either corner of the world             (lapis)




tears of a faraway city
play closed lens with the pharaoh            (lapis)


Echo and the Bunnymen
33rd & Lyndale
December, full, sixteen                       (lapis)

compass thief
& proud                  (lapis)



 
open is birth is crown
or perhaps a cup of lapis
spilling over                                   (all)

Azure circlet drinking breath

(first stone holding reign)

a lord of water—anew                 (all)

She wears her basement

like a crown, her fist a cup.

A wheat grain at birth,

now on the cusp of life,

a broken lapis petal.                       (all)

Words for the next round are

gate       photograph       grave       tongue

Join us! Or keep on sending your fabulous, freshly created worlds. The quicker you send your poems (seven lines max each to inkandfamine@gmail.com), the quicker we'll post! & please remember to follow this blog, leave comments (including word suggestions) and tell your friends.

With butter on everything,

Ink and Famine