matchstick, tower, sacred, volcano + next week's words

It’s been quite the end to summer! Hurricanes, caravaning cross country, getting lost in the deserts and forests that surround us; looks like we set down our hatbox of undefined words and took to the air, feeling the feathers pull from our hide.  A much needed apology for allowing a longer than desired hiatus, but the mind is often in need of the intake of new air before it is allowed to spout out new words.  And with that, here is what we pulled down out of the ether...

Your love, a sacred volcano
towering in this old heart
like matchstick voodoo.    (all inclusive!)

letting go of the statue’s hand

a ring of ash whispered into your palm     (matchstick)

young slave watering the gardens of
Babylon, city of closed arms                (matchstick)

when little flame

stilted her house

to keep the waves away            (matchstick)

that single, delicate hair on your hardening nipple         (matchstick)

 

anyone who really looks you in the eye
is beautiful               (matchstick)


Vanzetti said
                       I am innocent
and sat down in the deathchair             (matchstick)

the god
needing something
stands up                  (tower)

the watch point

the base keep

where my hair is all locked up                  (tower)

edifice built of countless scraps of paper
covered in words borrowed from unheard songs       (tower)

 

prism of your plasma

wanting to flow into mine

juices together

pulpy, sweet          (tower)

soul, don't go
one face turns to another so seamlessly
identity drops like a silk dress          (tower)


listening to a heartbreak song
with one you plead silent
not to break your heart            (tower)

a coin taken from a well

your wish in my pocket         (sacred)

everywhere you step
someone's bed
someone's altar       (sacred)

some stranger's breath stirs my dust      (sacred)

 

tears from Guadalupe

around my neck

one clear word

strung after another            (sacred)

the composer says goodbye to his earthly body
with two hands
the painter with one            (sacred)


what flows between the me
in the bed and the me traveling
in pictures of grief            (sacred)


from branch to brick, this town
is made of women
women's souls hush this place and keep
what water is left
running uphill               (sacred)
 

you still drink the explosion       (volcano)

natural bad luck
a peacock feather's eye on the wall         (volcano)

red birds rise toward home        (volcano)

her ruby lips

blow you down

there’s that “L” word again         (volcano)


long demon tongue
lapping hard at the wet sky        (volcano)

smear of ash
on a dignitary's tablecloth              (volcano)

We hope that these words find you well with the earth cooling off, the scent of soil and changing leaves promising the turn of the season.  If you would so please, we would love to hear how you would define-

carapace    mandrake     caravan       apothecary

Please submit your poems to inkandfamine@gmail.com.  And if you have any suggestions for words you would like to see redefined, please post them in the comments down below.  See everybody next week!

Yours in sonnets, haiku & even a little bit of iambic pentameter:

Ink&Famine 

 

dance, honey, blood, rule. + next round o' words.

Lexiphiles, we salute you! Missed you last week; there was some traveling going on, both mental & corporeal. We'll be back on schedule with every-Monday postings next week.

We love the response we got to this group of words. Here are some of our picks from a whole juicy two weeks' worth of submissions:


abandon back story
choose body               (dance)


the key in the lock
peach pit
a fire you cannot put out      (dance)


when two trunks
mine & yours
kiss bark
& entangle root    (dance)


honeyed words
and the blood and guts of our lives
thrusts us into past and future
regrets and fears                                 (dance)


practice of being present in the moment    (dance)


the touch of the devil
on the tip of your soul       (dance)


a salacious heel turn
in the beat of traffic
two fold                      (dance)


leather fold in the master's keep
hoof & bit
hot body turning under weight & pull            (dance)


killing a lover
in the midst of a sonata          (dance)


i
don't       (dance)


brow sweat & tear
licked from chalice lip          (honey)


the earth pot in which
a small child holds his endless swim        (honey)


a ground dance
leading northwest
to the door of the soothsayer           (honey)


the still dance of a toothed butterfly
sharpened, polished
on a wizard's cane                                  (honey)


I love you
I miss you
come find me        (honey)


perfume of a female beast
wetting her palms
staining her bone white teeth       (blood)


a made sacrifice
for one more wing
one more wish                  (blood)


a bridge between calf
& ankle
sisters forever                  (blood)


liquid, solid
binds us all
despite the shame        (blood)


quick to mix with water
and confuse the issue             (blood)


from bowl cap to knee bone
a stagnant fire
that holds up the dance          (blood)


leaving behind the rolling cassocks
small white blossom
in the bosom of a dead man's hand         (blood)


it seemed so simple
red dots
red line
red pool         (blood)


when the caterpillar refuses the light
& the air
& dines in darkness on his feet                  (rule)


blue silk curtain
dividing chanteuse from song           (rule)


not an implicit understanding
you got to carve it into stone
for it to be a rule                         (rule)


bottle cap, rusted
leaning on the sill
where feasts used to cool
in the Kansas heat                  (rule)


you make a box
you live in a box
you cherish the box
the box falls apart             (rule)


my chisel wasn't sharp enough      (rule)


& this time, we got two poems that use or encompass all four words:


Do they still dance to Haydn's Symphony No. 43
in Hungary, like honey never decomposing
but fermenting, or like ephemeral eagle's
blood in the fog of Haydn's Symphony No. 88?
Who rules in the essence of his ether?


you with your hips
me with no boundaries


Yowza.

So, next weeks' words are

matchstick      tower      sacred      volcano

Send your poems of seven lines or less, re-imagining or defining these words, to inkandfamine@gmail.com. And please, if you are waving your hand in the virtual air because you've got your heart set on seeing a particular word undergo this collaborative poetic transformation, leave us a comment below!

O happy day, calloo, callay--

Ink and Famine