Category: Casting Bricks

Renga – Swan Dive (qbit/sarasouthwest)

~ qbit ~ 56 Comments

Our swan meets Nikki Papandreou,
The Greek Olympic diver

Eye to eye and nose to beak
They keep their poise and watch each other

She waddles to the edge of grace
Submerged, he breasts for air

Wings cut through air,
Arms slice through water

How fierce the thrill
That twists as one?

How strong the force
That separates them?

Jackknifed time entangles
Their fall as flight through space

Becomes reunion of bone and skin and
Hand and feather, a merging and emerging

Yet such ecstasy, transgression,
Cannot queen the body long

This body’s reaching out for that
Still point, where rise turns into fall

The ancient moment, amphibian mind –
Zeno’s paradox suspended

A moment free of up, of down, all
Movement frozen in a blue eternity

 

 

Conspirators: qbit, sarasouthwest
qbit’s Renga Challenge – Swan Dive
For Jilly’s October Casting Bricks

Renga – Swan Dive (qbit/Jilly)

~ qbit ~ 56 Comments

Our swan meets Nikki Papandreou,
The Greek Olympic diver

Brandishing a cygnet ring
Bargaining with Poseidon’s wave

“Nikki” she laughed, “suburban demi-god.”
“Prove your flipcraft of the Argonauts.”

Oh, Siren, thought he, in the face of her derision
Fifty heroes shall stand and see

A white Medusa, her neck a downy serpent –
“For Lysistrata and the Amazons!”

“Apply the wrench, my lovely wench”
The Golden Fleece denied

Head over heels, they mirror the gods
Unbounded by the sea or heaven

A Promethean dive from dizzying heights
a mythological echo and splash

Their wild swan chase to raise Atlantis,
Oysters, smoked in their beds

Ocean crossroads deal carved in stone
Volcano ash scatters the sweetest atone

Conspirators: qbit, Jilly
qbit’s Renga Challenge – Swan Dive
For Jilly’s October Casting Bricks

Renga Challenge – Swan Dive

~ qbit ~ 23 Comments

Our swan meets Nikki Papandreou,
The Greek Olympic diver

[Your couplet…]

[Repeat 5x]

 

Administration, Thoughts, Plots, Plans &tc:

Proposed as a Renga of unstructured couplets for two people, but certainly fun if folks want to do one with more people, although then we’d probably want 20 couplets instead of 10.

I’m hoping that by keeping each writer to two lines, our push/pull on each other stays strong, but leaves enough room to develop a new idea, pivot, etc.

PLEASE SIGN UP IN THE COMMENTS BELOW, and we will work out logistics and kick off the working versions in another post.

Group Renga for Jilly’s October Casting Bricks Challenge

More background and thoughts on Regna: here.

Renga – “Road of Ashes” Charley/qbit

~ qbit ~ 5 Comments

Charley and I take on The End of Times and Quo Vadis of the soul in this Renga full of vigorous language and vibrant imagery! Make sure your seat belt is fastened!

Life in Portofino

qbit has taken up this crazy challenge!  I will update our ongoing collaboration through 10 couplets.  Stop by and see what insanity he & I cook up!  If you are interested in joining in, stop by the original post for On the Road of Ashes and let me know!  This is a part of the September Challenge of Casting Bricks; join us!  (plagiarized from Jilly’s blog almost verbatim)

I was on the way, on the way
and suddenly, precipitously, I wasn’t

Tourmaline voices cracked like stones in a fire
Broke my path wide into rust or grey choices

To labor as herdsman over sheep seeking knowledge
or waste my life recumbent on a hammock

Such are the sheep of Yeats
The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Cry out agonies in languages better gauged
to bear pain than in lingua hominibus

Vulgate promises
That will not redeem

Poets…

View original post 40 more words

Renga – Rasta Bones (qbit/Jilly)

~ qbit ~ 103 Comments

Rasta bones
Litter the rocks

Jerk scented air
Reggaes the walk

A hungry dog
Is an angry dog

The hum of meat
Vibrates the streets

We wail and gnaw
The Marleybone

S’the Mawgah dawg
We wail and moan

Knives grooving
The alleyways

Steel whets
The appetite

Hurricane Ganja
Tears Babylon’s walls

Gate of Rasta soul
Cries out One Love

 

 

Authors and Madpersons: qbit and Jilly
(plus Unindicted Co-Conspirators)

Renga Challenge – Raccoon Bones

Jilly’s September Casting Bricks Challenge.

Renga – Raccoon Bones (qbit/frankjt)

~ qbit ~ 19 Comments

Raccoon bones
Litter the rocks

Striding through the backyard
Coyote

Snarled tracks in snow
Prowl the sliding door

Flick of a light switch
Scamper of footsteps

Cat
Is MIAow

Urine puddle
The late-night cleanup!

Dog
Is paper wolf

Barking chorus
Racing deer

The eyes, the eyes
The eyes, the eyes

Last clatter
The waning moon

 

 

Authors and Madpersons: qbit and frankjtassone

Renga Challenge – Raccoon Bones

Jilly’s September Casting Bricks Challenge.

Renga Challenge – Raccoon Bones

~ qbit ~ 19 Comments

Raccoon bones
Litter the rocks

[Your couplet…]

[Repeat 5x]

 

Administration, Thoughts, Plots, Plans &tc:

OK, I think this is a Renga of unstructured couplets for two people, but certainly fun if folks want to do one with more people, although then we’d probably want 20 couplets instead of 10.

I’m hoping that by keeping each writer to two lines, our push/pull on each other stays strong, but leaves enough room to develop a new idea, pivot, etc.

PLEASE SIGN UP IN THE COMMENTS BELOW, and we will work out logistics and kick off the working version in another post.

This is another attempt at a group Renga, part of Jilly’s September Casting Bricks Challenge.

More background and thoughts on Regna: here.

 

 

Pillow Talk

~ qbit ~ 17 Comments

I am but a minstrel, a singer of songs.
A righter of wrongs.
And I sing to make my mistress happy.
And I sing to bring her peace.

When my voice and my lute
do not suffice,
I unsheathe my sword
And I become….

Well, actually, sort of depressed.

Working recently
At being more honest
With myself –
It’s just a plastic sword

From one of the kid’s
Halloween costumes.
And I don’t really have a lute, it
Was more like playing air guitar.

What did she say in therapy last week?
That for once she wanted me to take
The trash out without having to ask?
Just once?

Lord I hope though
She still likes the love poems
I leave on her
Pillow.

 

Charley’s first half: Minstrel

For  Casting Bricks Challenge.

Blow

~ qbit ~ 11 Comments

drifting into the Vanguard
in ’61, Trane blows a blue-bottle
fly into my silken ear

a nightmare
pursues me
through the streets
allowing a taxi
to precipitate me
home where I have never been

the blue-bottle fly
tips back its longneck vodka
bottle brown

horse fly
trying to find that fine
fine vein
shoot high then squeal
the tires and the reed
bent all the way to Harlem

 

Jilly’s first half: Trane Blows

For  Casting Bricks Challenge.