Five Words Poetry

Thought I'd try my hand at another chain poem. In case you don't know, here's the explanation I gave for my previous chain poem blog post:

"There's a thread in the Insight subforum called Chaining Poems, and the concept is simple. It starts with five words. A person writes a poem using them, and then posts five more words for another person to write a poem. Repeat!"

***

gin
glade
gorgeous
gallant
slide

The gallant knight strides into the glade
and a snake slides through the green grass
to escape his heavy boots.

In his hand he holds a bottle of something strange,
gin given to him by a gorgeous stranger
who emerged from the light of heaven.

She was clothed in livery not fit for a lady,
but in her beauty he could not mistake her
for a man, and when she spoke he listened.

Odd words, for an odd woman—
time unravelling like a spool of thread
and war in a distant world.

Her smile was weary, her laugh sad,
and she took a swig for her "Dutch courage."
He said he did not understand

And she said it did not matter.

"Come to the glade tomorrow,
come help me win my war."
And so he came.

***

Hm. Interesting.

I hosted a contest on Locution with the same idea a while back, too. My entry:

***

kismet
fuck
chary
gimcrack
ululate

I bob in a kayak
and think about fate.

I don't believe in it.

No karma, no kismet.
No destiny defined by some deity.
We are gimcracks of the universe,
tucked away on a shelf labeled Gaia.
If I were to turn up my head,
ululate at smears of white on blue,
no one would hear
but an alligator at the bank.

I slide by, chary,
the waves from my vessel
lapping at his feet.
Stretched out on a fallen trunk,
he flicks his tail
as if to say,
“Fuck that shit.”

The trill of a woodpecker
echoes over the lake
and a dragonfly lands on my paddle.

Yeah, fuck that shit.

Gosh, I have a blog!

I really should come by here more often. ;)

Life's going well--my summer classes will be coming to an end soonish, and I have a job prospect, provided things work out. Exciting stuff!

I've been really enjoying my literature class. The book we're using is very interesting, and I keep dipping into it and reading little sections. (It's easier than starting and finishing a book, unfortunately.) My favorite thing lately was a comparison of two versions of the same story. It was fascinating to see what the author changed, and I had fun trying to figure figure out why he edited the things he did.

Interactive Fiction has also been taking up a lot of my time lately. I'm slowly working my way through the manual for Inform 7, which is a language for writing IF. At some point I'd like to start writing my own stories; I have an idea for one, but I'll probably try some simpler things first. There are so many things to consider, it honestly seems more complicated than writing a novel!

I haven't been writing much, but in the past few days I've written some very rough poems on the Locution forums. There's a thread in the Insight subforum called Chaining Poems, and the concept is simple. It starts with five words. A person writes a poem using them, and then posts five more words for another person to write a poem. Repeat! Anyway, here are my contributions so far~

***

geyser
filament
schist
strata
oblique

The geyser erupts
between the closet and our bed.
Somewhere underneath the floor
words collected, letters pushing
serifs tangling corners grinding
until the pressure was too much.
Lexical shrapnel.

When the steam dissipates
there are no words left.
     (You have left as well.)
I pick at the carpet around the crater,
pull up strips and dig into our lives.
Follow the filament of thought
inward and down,
past the strata studded with artifacts.
Chopsticks from dinner last Wednesday,
six of hearts from poker two weeks ago,
the napkin you scrawled 836 3098.

I scrape the dirt, dust off the fragments,
peer at oblique angles,
but cannot see when the schist fractured,
when two planes separated and fell apart

***

beer
origami
nevertheless
bondage
cinnamon

We linger by the beer
behind its glass doors, chilling
and you ask what I'd like for dinner

I tell you I wish I was an origami crane
fold me a thousand times
and I would soar
escape the bondage of gravity
the weight of these limbs
the fog in my mind

You smooth my creases
sharp as they are
and blow breath into me

Nevertheless, you say
we need to eat tonight

I grab a squat jar of cinnamon
a bag of rice, a box of raisins
we will have something
that tastes of farawayland
and later dream of flying