fallen verses

She’s a good witch!

And, perhaps unfortunately, I don’t recall enough of the Wizard of Oz to be really clever about that, so, please, pardon the inane cliche. Carolee and I were playing catch-up with this week’s Read Write Poem prompt, provided by Ceridwen, to work on a collaborative piece. It was an enjoyable experience and a tad bit tricky working with someone else’s ideas, but that also helped the poem open up in directions I wouldn’t have gone. (an aside: i hate the word “collaborate” and the derivative words. It does not have pleasant feel when speaking it, or when typing it.) Other people have collaborated and posted their poems over at Read Write Poem already, so check them out if you wandered here from elsewhere, and be sure to check Carolee’s site for her thoughts on this. This is the Carolee and Tom poem:

Expect Longing

Countdown counted out suddenly
face to face with tomorrow
drunk on imported champagne,
I look to you for a midnight kiss.

For a kiss, I ask, for lips
around this open wound, a tongue
to lap away my worry-words.
This new day tell me, tell me….

Tell me of tomorrow’s failures:
the resolutions forgotten,
the weight that will wait
to be taken from suntanned flesh,

the light I’ll waste with longing,
nights paced away in planning
as if lists and flowcharts led
anywhere but the bottom of the page.

For tonight, I’ll map my designs,
roll smooth, crisp blueprints into tubes,
wonder tomorrow how to stop the ink
from draining through these purple veins.

What mouth will meet these lips
blue with the residue of faded ideas?
What tongue will taste this mouth
rank with discarded promises?

You kiss me slowly then press your cheek
against mine. I look past your shoulder
at the other revelers, still holding
each others’ tongues and I am jealous.

During the process, Carolee suggested we each take the poem we wrote and use it as the base text for a “found poem” exercise. I took… well, most, of the words from the poem, played a little with capitalization and punctuation and have the following “gem” (ironic quotes here) for you all:

Residual Expectations

Down- sudden.
Tomorrow drunk
and a midnight kiss.

I ask for lips,
a tongue
to lap my
new day.

Tell me…
tell me…
tell me of tomorrow:
the resolutions,
the wait for flesh,

the light,
the longing,
the nights.

Tonight-
smooth.
Wonder.
Don’t stop the ink
from draining
through these
purple veins.

Meet the lips
with the
residue of ideas.
Taste the mouth
with promises.

Kiss me.
Slow.
Look past,
revel,
hold each other
and I am.

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