a planet with long views

IMPROMPTU #7
with the Found Poetry Review for National Poetry Month

The Prompt
The Brazilian poet Manuel Bandeira created the cento “Anthology” (see below) using lines from his own poems, instead of employing the traditional method of cento-construction (in which you build a poem entirely out of lines from other people’s poems). Following his example, write a cento that is a self-portrait, or anthology of your life, utilizing lines and fragments from your own work.
Or, alternatively, create a “self-portrait” cento using lines and fragments from

1. other people’s poems (the traditional method), or
2. song lyrics, or
3. prose (fiction and/or nonfiction)

*To see the basic stipulations for writing a traditional cento, see http://myenchiridion.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html

The Poem

dan woke up
he is six years old
and he lives in a house with two cats

humans built the kitchen
bacon, eggs, mushrooms,
whipped cream, earl grey

she made them all
some elderly woman
every sunday afternoon at 5am

down the road ben woke up
to find his kitchen in a cloud of bread flour
Muriel and Beatrice created this great blizzard
they called it a donut shop

outside, three teenagers pulled beets
from the garden
they dreamt of opening a tapas bar
and calling it Norman's

a curious neighborhood
from the cats' perspectives
but the raccoons paid no attention.

retraction

IMPOMPTU #6
with the Found Poetry Review for National Poetry Month

One of the Prompts9.
Write a prose poem of five sentences. The first sentence should include a pronoun ( not “I”) doing something that itself includes an image/object. The 2^nd sentence should have a different pronoun doing something else with the same image/object. The 3^rd sentence should be a statement about this image/object. For the 4^th sentence, write a simile that is unrelated. In the 5^th, use “I” and relate part of the simile to the original statement. I know this all sounds rather clinical, but here by way of example is one I wrote:

The Problem

A woman accidentally walks into the men’s room. A man deliberately walks into the women’s room. I don’t believe in dialectics but abide by them nonetheless. It is like a painting of someone sheathing a sword. The problem is it is also like a painting of someone unsheathing a sword.

 

 

 

The Poem

 

we retracted the comments about the fish. they took the fish back anyway. the fish was not what was asked for. it was like getting a futon instead of a table. I wouldn't know what to do with it, I already have a bed and a couch.

 

 

Drabble #18: Shortbread

short on butter again, the scone sat unfinished on her plate.  a wounded monk in the crossfire of desire and reality. 

she sat pouting, staring at the monstrosity of sweet bread like one might a snoring bedfellow.  not enough butter.  cheap.

overall, she decided, she preferred biscuits over bread.  savory or sweet, didn't much matter the kind of bread, there was hardly ever enough butter.  but biscuits came with built in buttery goodness.

shortbread, she thought, then. 

that is what she would have next time.  yes.  forget the scones and lack of butter.  she'd have a biscuit with her tea.

Drabble #17: Mercy

mercy grows in the dessert

between the grains of sand
too small to see with even a microscope

mercy grows in between the cracks

and splinters of old shingles
still clinging to the sheds after hurricanes

mercy grows in the heart of the man

who spent his weekend rescuing tiny kittens
after he saw one fall out of a tree

mercy grows in the front seat

of the family car where dad is sat
counting to ten for the tenth time today

mercy grows in.  and out.  and around

in unexpected patterns, just like ivy.
or mulch after a tornado.

Drabble #16: Juxtaposition

http://www.artisticmoods.com/art-print-by-lieke-van-der-vorst/

please don't be so sad. we are all the same.
we fix our selves against imagination and the selves of others.

squatting between look and touch, the smooth of the cool light blue on white with a matching saucer and the warmth of the tattered soft black fur around our paws.  the sweet insides of this one and the burning bitterness inside the other. 

we juxtapose our selves and each other.  the exterior calm against the coal fires burning inside.

we want to be the white porcelain tea cup, but we're really a big black bear.  and we are lost. 

Drabble #14: Stretch

stretch
st re t ch
s t re t c h
s t r e t c h
s  t  r  e  t  c  h

br eath
br e a th
breath
br e a th
br eath

s  t  r  e  t  c  h
s t r e t c h
s t re t c h
st re t c h
stretch

stretch arms
legs stretch
muscles and mind

bre ath
br e a th
b r e e e e a a a th
in
breath out

stretch
st re t ch
s t re t ch

Drabble #13: Bruises

the market stretches out for miles. actual miles.  you read it in the brochure. all manner of produce and local fare.  and girls in high heels and summer dresses with little belts synched around their little waists smelling figs and checking for bruises on the skins of white peaches.  their baskets filled with fresh roses and flour from the mill to take home to make bread for their husbands who never get to see them just like this, like you see them, out in the sun.  smelling fruit, smiling at you, and winking at each other like they know something.

Drabble #12: Leaping

from the back of the plane it was all i could do to keep my breath from escaping, from leaping out of my chest through my lips and away from me forever the way she had just... just now.  from the back of the open cargo loft she rolled out, rolled away for the last time. 

i had to hold on.  she couldn't.  she should have been strapped in around all four limbs, but the brackets gave way and she's... gone.  we're 30,000 up making tracks across the indian ocean and my car just rolled out of the f*ck*ng plane.

Drabble #11: Steel-toed

we don't talk about fashion because we're victims of it, we talk about fashion because it gives us power. we wear steel cages around our hearts to protect us against love we cannot control.  we wear steel-toed shoes every day.  we wear stripes to distract them and polka-dots to attract them.  we wear spats and straps and roses behind our ears as lures for the weaker ones, then we tear them away. the ones we can only wash with like colors and cool water.  we don't talk about it because we have to, we talk about it because we can.

Drabble #10: Cheddar

"stop saying 'orange'" he said as they walked home after lunch
"stop complaining" she said back
"if you'd stop complaining about the color of it, i'd stop complaining about you complaining" he argued
"if you'd stop making cheddar the wrong color, i'd stop complaining altogether" she argued back

they walked the rest of the way home side by side in silence.  every now and again he could feel her red trench coat brush against his bare arm.  he wished he hadn't asked her to stop complaining.  now she wouldn't say anything at all.  not to him.  not for a while.

Drabble #8: Treble

the stairs creak wildly under foot
of even the tiniest beast

and the sounds seem louder
in the dark of night than it does under sunlight

because our ears grow stronger
when our eyes can't manage in the depth

of lack of light on nights when the moon
doesn't reflect even a shiver of light

but the treble still rumbles
through the dumbs nestled inside our heads

so we can hear the heart beat in our own chest
as the little beasts climb the creaking stairs

and the rhythm of their chaotic scuffles
down the corridor towards our locked door.

Drabble #7: Measure

he only weighs seven pounds, but the mass of his purr lifts my mood no matter how heavy the burdens of the day's trials resting on my back like barnacles, harsh and sticky and old.  small and soft and sweet, he greets me with his tail in the air and a meow on his little orange lips. his whiskers the measure of happiness. he shares that happiness in his own little ways; nestling onto your lap for a tv show and purring so loud, you have to turn the volume up to 46. he fits just perfectly, lightening the world.

Drabble #6: dew

it would have been a Tuesday
by the calendar created at the start.

the sun collapsed against the horizon
in a hundred different strands of color

pleated against the ocean like fabric
on a young girl's first, best dress.

while a spider watched as the world ended,
colorless it stayed dangling by a silken thread

in the cool of a wind swept beach,
as life slipped beneath the earth.

the last sunset, the last settle of dew
on the last strands of crab grass

at the last place where the sun was seen
by the last spider that ever lived.

Drabble #5: indigo

your hair is a mess, big and brown, ruffled against a night of vibrant dreams, running and jumping and falling freely through miles of uncharted airspace, ruffled against the pillows, the static building up from the friction of hair versus fabric, yours eyes are stuck shut with the residue of rapid eye movement, deep dreaming, memory building, reformation of the neural passage, your feet are sticking out from under the indigo and green patched duvet you tossed around all night, the light shining in against your pink wrinkled cheek where the creases from your pajama sleeves left their wicked marks.

Drabble #4: threaded

the flannel is worn away at the elbows on the shirt you've worn for 14 years.

it smells just like you, even after a wash. 

soft as skin to touch, i pet the sleeve against your forearm and imagine what you would look like if your skin were flannel patterned.  it wouldn't be very different.

you take my hand in yours.  we're at the movies.  or an arcade.  or one of your friend's parents' house on a Thursday night.  you take my fingers and thread them through yours.  threaded tighter than the fibers holding the elbows of your shirt together.

Drabble #3: Worrisome

the thump thump thump

my heart, when the lights go out

 

it starts with heavy

sounds like thunder and earthquakes

 

rumble my guts and echo my heart's

thump thump thump...

 

we're trapped.  stuck in this

until the end.  bitter or sweet.

 

exposed to clouds and sad songs

 

thump

 

the crashing down of

heavy limbs and the screeching

 

the sound of monsters

from the deep

 

thump, my heart stops,

thump, my heart starts,

 

thump thump thump... 

the audience screams

 

some worrisome tremor

this heavy burden of suspense,

 

the sound of souls losing

their grip on tangible

 

hearts. they go thump... thump...

Drabble #2: Simple

the sun was peaking in through the gap in the blinds.  he needed to go back to the hardware store to get the correct sizes. 

moving in was too much work.  too many boxes that he neglected to label.  no clean clothes, because he packed all his clean and dirty clothes together.  biggest mistake he'd ever made.  even bigger than the wrong size blinds. 

so he showered with dirty clothes on.  another mistake.  how was he ever going to dry them?

he sulked out of the bathroom and out onto the deck.

there enjoyed the simple warmth of the sun. 

Drabble #1: Vaster

what comes to mind first
when you say "did you see that thing on the news?"

is that the mass of all the termites on earth
outweigh the mass of all the humans.

but that wasn't what you were referring to.

you mention a car crash, and i imagine the probability
of two cats with the exact same stripes.

or the complexity of mitochondria,

and the way some plants grow better in sand.

"hello?" i watch your hand wave before my eyes
"are you listening to me?" and ponder the vaster nature

of every day, reoccurring.
like a hand waving.

 

Oulipost #30: Patchwork Quilt

Prompt: Conclude the project by writing a poem that incorporates words and lines from all of your past 29 poems.

source: http://somethingkaty.blogspot.com/search/label/oulipost

a mansion is frozen in lime juice
on the beach, in the deep water,

especially on the coastline
where, the next day (despite emotional drama),

herring urged the hobo to drive the ocean,
damn the heroin, and school the whale

like a car (they go by) to join with similar fruit.
real pie.  Punch the injury of the funded hard whale

the two men who could fit between these
caught the duet and released it

to a tragedy of scallops, lobster and oysters
employed by organisms for specified

front of faces at fenway park
where any several soft-rayed food fishes

in front of the famous family of fishermen
from all kingdoms of life can be found and remain.

Oulipost #29: Canada Dry

Prompt: The name of this procedure is taken from the soft drink marketed as “the champagne of ginger ales.” The drink may have bubbles, but it isn’t champagne. In the words of Paul Fournel, who coined the term, a Canada Dry text “has the taste and color of a restriction but does not follow a restriction.” (A musical example is Andrew Bird’s “Fake Palindromes.”)  Be creative, and write a poem sourced from your newspaper that sounds like it’s been Oulipo-ed, but hasn’t.

Source: Cape Cod Times, Wednesday, April 30, 2014

family rapidly of rising than
 prices dozen are cod putting will
no squeeze branches of limes
on a Tuesday.

when animal league boston
Mexican truck low-cost
and surgeries who aren't
the lime juice spike
and shore dog inching towards
a cat who came home
procedures, told local clinics.

visit the combination waggin'
Tuesday has taken big parked
in the tire lot no restaurants
unplanned margarita
which be average burden
owners animal league say.