An Exquisite Corpse

Last night, I was a substitute teacher for GoJake’s writer’s group.  We explored the Dada form of poetry called “the exquisite corpse.”  It requires at least a small group of people to write one.  There are two or three ways you can write one.  You can either pull slips of paper with words on them out of a hat, randomly look up words in the dictionary and write them down, or do what we did which is one person writes a line of poetry, then folds the paper to cover it up.  The next person writes a line without seeing what was written before and folds the paper to cover their line.  You write and fold until you run out of paper. 

Our oldest writer was 51 and the youngest was twelve.  We wrote three.  Here are the best two. What’s amazing is how well they went together.  Even when the imagery goes surreal, a sort of theme pervades.  The poetry form is supposed to show how connected the human race is.

Exquisite Corpse #1 (by Janette, Chris, Kathryn, and Judy.)

They looked at me as if I were crazy
the yellow leaves bloom pink in the breeze
She smiled as she died
a cry in the darkness
I wish that I could shake you
and force you to listen
my foolish unshakeable darling
The moon never beams
without bringing me dreams
the moon shines like cold fire
lost and alone.

Exquisite Corpse #3 (by Janette, Chris, Kathryn, Caitlin, and Judy)

The eyes shine with malice
the island untouched by man is callling me home
borrowed from the pages of a long forgotten novel
I want to sing my song to the leprechauns
white pages bruise my fragile knees gently
The moon was red as blood
the silver letters are glowing in the moonlight
swaying to the melody spinning round in my mind
I want to share the secrets of my music with you
I salute those who have gone before
the demon bares its fangs
is there a poet still left in this house?

New Poem

Hi gang, new poem.  I want to ask specifically two things when you go to give feedback on this one:
1.  Does the repetition work or is it annoying?
2.  Does the title work or can you think of something better that more closely suits the mood?

Anyway, without further ado…

I burned I burned I burned
I walked home burning and heavy
burning with unrequited anger
heavy from the words that weighed me down
heavy from words that lay like
lead in my stomach
heavy and hot from anger and words
that could not be loosened to fly
free unabated from my tongue
because you would not listen
because I could not say them

It seemed a new thing to me
that I walked upon, these
slabs of pavement
forced between the legs of mother earth
but the raped mother ultimately
claiming the pavement
her green fingers growing
between the cracks
driving them apart
and I stared at the raping pavement
inviting me to it
a cool inviting lover

and I burned I burned I burned
I felt to heavy to walk home
sidewalk inviting me to lay my
heavy burning body upon it
to lay on its cool surface
inundating my heat with cool
supporting the weight of words
I could not carry
Lay down lay down lay down
you burning heavy thing
and I wanted so to lay down
on cool pavement nestled
on the pubic hairs of mother earth
and how I burned
stumbling home beneath the weight
knowing if I laid my head
I would not rise again

A Stream of Consciousness

It seems cruel that the mind tarries beyond the point of time that our bodies can sustain us.  Her mind is sharp and she knows that she is dying.  She longs for it one moment, and shudders away from it the next.  And those of us around her want the suffering to end but do not want to lose her.  There are so many unanswered questions, so many old fights that you want to resolve but never will. 

I see her children and grandchildren struggle with the words on their tongues, which ones to spew and which ones to swallow.  It is too late to say, You hurt me, You never understood me, You never let us know each other in the way that we could have.  There is always time for love and comfort, but a statute of limitations on anguish and regret.

A Quick Post…

Things have been a little nuts for me the past week.  For those of you who sent comments/emails checking up on me, let me just say that I appreciate it.  Its nice to know that I’m missed.

Please keep my husband’s grandmother Sue in your prayers.  She is 90 and in bad health.  We’ve been busy helping her move in to assisted living and getting her house in order to be sold.  Most likely, she doesn’t have very much time left and my husband Garth is taking this particularly hard.

Add to that a full-time job and also being a full-time student and I have been one busy, frazzled woman.

Thanks for your concern.  I’m sure I’ll have some poetry for you soon.

Jan