The poet realizes she has NEVER had an original idea...

This week's readwritepoem prompt was to cut up the words in a text (newspaper article, memo, anything), draw the words randomly, and write them down in that order. Then, we were to see what poem we could make with them. I used a memo about ordering textbooks for next semester as a vehicle for purging my poetic insecurities. The actual purge was less than successful, but I got this poem out of it. The words from the memo are in bold.


I’ve got that fraudulent feeling,
Like my work is nothing more than gum
On the bottom of a real poet’s shoe.

Like I’ve enrolled in a course
Without meeting the prerequisites.

Like the stanzas I send out into cyberspace
Have already been written,
Are in fact illegal adoptions,
Botched abortions,
Of select, sacred texts.

Like I’ve acquired my images by requisition,
Didn’t even say please,
For ideas illegally confiscated.

And soon,
I will be found out, punished.

Sentenced to a life term
At open mic night
In a bookstore coffee shop.
Where I am forced to read
My bastard verses
In an endless loop
To the English faculty from my alma mater
While I am naked
And they are clothed
In caps and gowns
And righteous disappointment.

New Summer Whispers to Old Winter

This week's readwritepoem prompt asked us to take two poems we weren't entirely happy with and have them "talk" to each other. I decided to take my "Dirty Snow Berms" poem and "Summer's Seduction" (both available in their original forms under the tag "Seasons" on the blog) and have them talk to each other. I'm not sure about the result, so I will be revisiting this one...

Only the evergreens
Can defy the cold
But summer’s seduction
Makes it easy to forget
While berms down below
Contain all the excess
Hear the breeze whisper
You are safe you are warm
Belched from our cars
And kicked up from our tires
No need to remember
The sting of biting ice
My feet are embedded
In a late winter scab
Come, walk tender feet
On warm carpets of grass
And if I pick at it
It only spreads more
The sky is your ceiling
No need for shelter
And encrusts my bad habits
In crunchy crystals
Walk unafraid
It’s time to forget
I’m too tired to climb
Over icy blockades
The cold will never again
Split your tired skin
Who is my neighbor?
Where is my river?
See waters tumble
And flowers dance.
Above me the sky
Is clueless with clouds
Let the warmth lift you
From east to west
But down here I hunch
And shuffle and slide