Poetry Forum

Take one of your best/least bad poems.

Read it again.

Write a poem that is a response to it.

Hello all. I haven't been on in forever. Please allow me this "warm-up". Seth, I'm glad for these exercises, as I'm awful rusty! Need to dabble about a bit to get things going once more.



An old one of mine with a so-so title (titles always give me fits!)


To Hush an Ocean


It starts with the decadent decision
yawning through the torso
like the tug of surf at buoys, deep-chained
and leaning. You might be sitting

in an armchair, entertaining
fresh-scrubbed visitors, or on the phone
with the grade school principal.
It never matters. You obey

regardless. You walk outside.
The patio is yours, the bistro table,
the pink begonia bowing to the hummingbirds--
all yours. The ashtray, too.

The orange tip, the acrid pull. The way your hands
do this: autopilot, graceful. The smoke
a grey veil, curling. The old knowledge
in the veins; the tides now calming
on the surface. Calm.




And an attempt at response:


Thursday comes hectic, dizzy with doctors,
missed messages, bills and flat tires.
Janet calls; your brother will soon
be open beneath the surgeon, like a
red lily, wet and helpless.
What they don't tell you

on the back of the Chantix package
beside the dosing instructions
and side effects, what doesn't quite show
between the lines:
no matter how many
pages of calendars pass,
No matter how long ago...

when it all hits the fan, (as it will, and does)
that stupid patio still calls. That damn begonia.

I like it Sharon, particularly

be open beneath the surgeon, like a
red lily, wet and helpless.

Very arresting image!

Keep at it.

Ros

Ros wrote:I like it Sharon, particularly

be open beneath the surgeon, like a
red lily, wet and helpless.

Very arresting image!

Keep at it.

Ros

Hi Sharon! With Ros, very striking image.

Thank you, Ros, and Seth.