“As with dancing you have to learn the steps”
– Jim Harrison (Day Three – 28 Days of Unreason)
Stairs like Rubik’s cube
Dance steps to infinity –
We are amazed
Haiku – Where to Now?
Category: Jilly
Salamander Mind
“Why does the mind compose this music well before the words occur?”
– Jim Harrison (Day Twenty-Eight – 28 Days of Unreason)
My salamander mind
Has nestled itself into place
So there it is
Cold-nosed
Like an inappropriate
Dog
Renga – Swan Dive (qbit/sarasouthwest)
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)
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
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.
Haiku – Last YASP (Yet Another Star Poem)
“On some clear nights in the country the stars can exhaust us”
– Jim Harrison (Day Twenty-Six – 28 Days of Unreason)
Dull constellations
The Crutch, The Old Hats, The Snores –
I have seen the light
Bernoulli Effect
“Such fragile wings”
– Jim Harrison (Day Twenty-Three – 28 Days of Unreason)
It is this air
That is fragile –
Carries your hints
But cannot hold them,
Gives way to gesture,
Breaks into wisps,
Suggestions
Easily swept aside.
But when you caught
Your breath,
Amassed its density,
Felt portent spreading
Like wings,
You took flight –
Your anger aloft
On nothing but words
Road of Ashes (Charley/qbit)
The following is a voice recording of the Renga that Charley and I wrote, called “Road of Ashes” The link to the written text is here, but it really comes alive when read out loud.
Renga – “Road of Ashes” Charley/qbit
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!
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 “Playing Fetch” Jilly/Qbit
Come read some sharp word-play in a Renga by Jilly and me!
Qbit has taken up this challenge. I will update our ongoing collaboration through 10 couplets. If you are interested in joining in, stop by the original post for Playing Fetch with Knives and let me know! This is a part of the September Challenge of Casting Bricks; join us.
He didn’t stand a chance
She was as fetching as a boning knife
He would slice his fingers
On the cut of her dress
Exquisite sting
he considers the price
What is fair game
For a member of the criminal sex
She would welcome every pain
Lay the blame at his feet
The hollow-points of honor
Reach escape velocity
Parting the sea of obstacles
Leaving his armor in the slipstream
Of unmanned missions
Impossible
To describe how charming she
found his melodrama in her 39th week
Her eyes spinning like daggers:
“Here’s looking at you, kid.”
qbit 