poetry challenge

[serenissima]

This is an invitation to any reader to give me a set of between five and ten words. I will attempt to make a free-verse poem including these words.

Comments

[daisho.livejournal.com]

Very quickly (it's half-two and I should have been in bed a long time ago): warmth, razor, tumbling, fresh, boldly, great, orb.

Have fun! :)

[copperwolf.livejournal.com]

Observations

The sun struggles behind a veil of clouds,
a pale orb low in the sky.
Wind sends a newspaper page
tumbling down the sidewalk
past chain link fence topped with razor wire.
Pigeons step boldly through moving traffic.
The light changes.
A commuter speedwalks across the street,
clutching bags and fresh-brewed coffee.
A Scotty and a Great Dane pass my window
as I watch from the warmth of the car.

[daisho.livejournal.com]

That works pretty well -- I particularly like the change of pace that occurs with the change of traffic lights. Good use of "razor", too. I was fully expecting a reference to something being razor-sharp. :)

[403.livejournal.com]

All right: speakers, truth, fan, plastic bag, green, jewel case, ammonite, survivalist. Enjoy. ;)

[copperwolf.livejournal.com]

I haven't given up on this, Jssra. I'm still pondering the word set.

[403.livejournal.com]

Not a problem, I tried to make it difficult, or at least unusual.

[(Anonymous)]

"Circus"

I.

May I direct
your attention,
faithful channel twenty-nine viewers
to the man who will fan
the flames of
a tit-for-tat light show
with C-4 plastique

"It's just meat in a plastic bag;
God gets what is important."

II.

Please turn your heads toward
the center ring:
a riposte of hellfires
just like the first paddy cops
who were taught to put all six in the chest
just in case he stands again.
They are legion, you know.
The cylinders are empty.
Proceed to LZ.
Pray for the serpent-tongued speakers
and their bronzelings
who began the ritual,
the eleven thousand year old mistake.
Shining, then green
like our own iconography
and appended dogma.
Her dutiful servants

I, the ringmaster,
relationally
an aggressor.
myself
versus
Truth.
Itinerant
an Ammonite,
long since vanished
in the dust held by winds
that scar the fresh faces
of an old feeling.
The universal survivalist.
A sucker born every breath.

III.

Would that the capricious parents
did not give
Eve
the jewel case.
Inside,
a whiskey haze,
innate,
the evidence that we are one step from the quadrapeds
desperately clinging
to Zarathustra's tightrope.
The first monkeys to become acrobats
desperately watching the ticker
as their mind's-eyes look upon
a polemical Zion.

(Back to you, Shep.)


It's actually a fairly serious attempt, though it could use an edit. Had to say so because it doesn't LOOK like a serious attempt; only tried because I think that she'd forgotten about your list. :) I beg your pardon--even if I think it's okay, my poetry tends to be incomprehensible, and horrible besides. By the way, I used the Biblical Ammonite, not the squid. It made things a trifle less silly. The last line is in parentheses because I wanted to remove it but if I did it might make the poem even more cryptic. :p

[403.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

My version:

Truths
Speakers have descended on the park
Drawing a crowd.

Here, one loudly denounces the evils of plastic bags
And CD jewel cases
Through a tangle of facial hair dyed green
As though it would help his point.

Here, one proclaims to the masses 'The end is near!'
A more traditional soapbox tirade.
Truly we shall all be sorry if we fail to follow
The survivalist way.

Here, one promises the secrets of the Orient
That have changed her life.
Hopefully for the better; those jade fans and Feng Shuey bells
Are going quickly.

Here, there are more all the time. An increase
Like the rings of an ammonites' shell.
Each one with their own spin on reality,
Every one believing their claims.

Speakers have descended on the park
To demonstrate the plasticity of truth.