Category: collaborative poetry

A response poem to Holly

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Dear Holly,

Mystic

Stand still long enough in the present
moment, and Border Town springs
to life, a mirage of mirrored souls
strolling down Main Street amid a sea
of glass-front shops. Twenty-four hours
a day, they say, it may appear,

sometimes as near to you as a pear
in a bowl, a still life given as a present
we open by breathing, forgetting the hour-
hand, the minutes, the seconds that spring
to life in a primordial sea,
a briny home, birthplace of our souls.

Border Town, Edge City, we don’t know it by a sole
name; a phantom place appearing
as Atlantis, tendrils of sea
anemone fingers waving the present
tense in our faces, until the spring
that winds us loosens, a slack Slinky in our

chest that slows the hour-
glass sands. We plant the soles
of our feet, grow roots, soak up spring
water until openings appear,
inner floodgates that present
a view to the hidden city of Eternal Spring.

It’s a Shangri-La we thought we’d never see –
conjured countless times at happy hours,
downing gin and tonics to wash away the presence
of black marks on our mortal souls.
It’s like wind in the trees, or peering

into a well, fed with a spring
meandering from underground seas.
A cavern in the ribcage, it once appeared
to us as the cauldron of a witching hour,
but now has become our sole
mio, a sunny bow on a wrapped present.

Time is an unfurling spring, a malleable hour
in which we see the yards of our souls
uncurling, appearing to us as our own present.

***

Holly (Lost Kite) and I have been responding to each other’s poems in what has become a series. Here is her poem.

The prompt this week at RWP was to collaborate on a prompt, and then mix up the prompts to write a poem. I’ve got to admit that although I contributed to the prompt, I chose to collaborate by responding to Holly’s poem.

A response to a poem by Holly

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Dear Holly,

The buttons on my sweater
strain at the thread, promise to bare
my heart, leave me unfettered

in a world of burly, leather-
clad men who stare
at the buttons on my sweater.

I’ve never been a ‘come-hither’
kind of woman–I’d rather
my heart stay unfettered.

One night of heated touch on feathered
pillows, and my fingers close with care
the remaining buttons on my sweater,

now tense from coming together.
I doubt I could ever prepare
my heart to leave me unfettered,

to open up its folds, consider
taking up the dare¬
to loosen the buttons on my sweater,
to freely bare my heart, unfettered.

***

I love playing around with forms. This one is a villanelle. Thanks, Holly, (Lost Kite) for the great image of the straining buttons, and for the idea to use the image as a metaphor for internal changes.

Lament for Federico García Lorca*

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You will always be a myth weaver
with coal-black eyes who sings to me
across the years of gypsies on shadowed roads,
of velvet dark, of orchid dreams,
of girls at night who wait downstream,
windows open wide for men on horseback
making their way down rocky slopes.

But the riders have fallen–
their underwater faces
waver in moonlight cisterns,
their arms like lilies glow under silver beams.

If I could hold your hand across the years,
lift you from the rivers where you wept,
I’d draw you to my chest,
wipe the tears you shed
for all the lovers
who slept before their time
on earth was due to end,
for children who died before
they learned the dance,
for men who were the darlings
of other men,
for Spirits of the Wind
who tore away the chokehold
of the trance.

The stars began to fade
the night you died–
shot in a cave, tossed in a grave.
Now your words of passion
shine for you instead.

*This title is in reference to Federico García Lorca’s poem, Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías.

I first wrote this poem as a sonnet:


Lament for Federico Garcia Lorca

Garcia Lorca’s lambent words release
their light across the years – his gypsy songs,
laments for dying heroes now at peace
in moonlight cisterns shadowed all night long.
If I could hold his hand across the years,
and lift him from the rivers where he wept,
I’d draw him to my heart and wipe the tears
he shed for all the lovers who have slept
before their time on earth was due to end,
for children who were born to those who danced,
for men who were the darlings of their men,
for those who broke the chokehold of the trance.
The stars began to fade the night he bled–
his words of passion shine for him instead.

***

The prompt this week at Read Write Poem is to break the rules. I took what I liked from the sonnet, and rearranged the lines to suit the spirit of the poem. Lot’s of rule smashing going on here!

read, write, collaborate

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In Your Eyes My Own Reflection

When you step out from behind
a gossamer curtain, the shape
of your face, the line of your lips,
releases the light, curves into morning.

Pieces of me stick to whoever
gets too close, they tie you down,
rough as rope.

As you peel me away
I feel a shiver, notice a reflection
in a mirror – is it you, or is it me?

***

The lines from this poem come from several different poets. To read the original lines, visit read write poem’s collaborative poetry prompt, by Read Write Poem participant Holly, from Lost Kite.

just when you think it's over, a collaborative pantoum

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just when you think it’s over (click to listen)

The philter will bind you a year and a day,
your body and mind beaded on a thread of time,
and when at last it’s done with you,
holding the strength of your sinews,

your body and mind beaded on a thread of time,
what will you have but fire on your mind?
Holding the strength of your sinews,
the philter will find you, I swear, some way.

What will you have but fire on your mind?
Arms & eyelids strung, you’re a marionette.
The philter will find you, burn your mind, some way
as you dance on the street for the crowd.

Arms and eyelids strung, you’re a marionette,
a tattered Pierrot at a mute carnivale.
As you dance on the street for the crowds,
your muscles bundle into nerve bouquets.

A tattered Pierrot at a mute carnivale,
void of a beloved, you will need my help.
As you dance on the street for the crowds,
you climb inside my cauldron, feast from burning hands.

Void of a beloved, you will need my help
opening surfaces, unsheathing layers.
You climb inside my cauldron, feast from burning hands
that run along your rough fibrillations.

Opening surfaces, it unsheathes your layers,
and when at last it’s done with you,
running along your rough fibrillations,
the philter will bind you a year and a day.

***

I arranged the lines for this pantoum from quatrains by the following poets, including one line I wrote.

rethabile
nathan
michelle
jillypoet
dana

To read the original quatrains, please visit poems in progress: quatrain chain at the poetry collaborative.

The first and last line of this pantoum comes from a collaborative poem by Jo Hemmant and Michelle McGrane, entitled Each act of love foreshadows the end.