The Poetry Circle

In poetry circles, poets write poetry inspired by the poem that was
written by the author that went before, and though the subject or scene
might change, the focus is upon keeping the spirit and energy of the
poem alive from poem to poem.

A
sort of free form, stream of multiple consciousnesses, a couple lines to a couple stanzas long. If you get
stuck, pick a couple words from the poem before and use those...the
energy will follow.

Posted originally elsewhere by Amberwillow, posted here with her kind permission.


We say lot's of crazy things..
lives to short to be serious all the time
Look at Death trying to develop a sense of humour
.... and cocktails with umbrellas in them

Poster children for romance embrace, flattened in a shopping trolley
The wind gusts ripple over rainbowed puddles on dark asphalt

Head down, shoppers scurry to the unnatural haven
of heady lights and red spot specials.

Those looming glitzy heights,
glassy bead promises and gloss resin colors, life
on sale now for something ninety-nine,

on sale then for a bit of fur and animal skin,
our terra cotta ancestors, our neon violet dreams,

little silver bells on fishing poles
call the sleeping angler
the hook is set,
reel it in,

Sprinklers made cement-curb streams
and Saturday morning rivers shine,
and children racing along the novelty of water
racing along the street-side
under blue desert sky
of Southern California promise
turned my olive twigs to heedless adventurers
doing god-knew what in those imagined river rapids
golden lit and cool
but they were doing it fast, until
clear-light hose-water streaming along
with all the joy boyhood could muster,
it slid through the sewer grate at the end of the cul-de-sac
an image of childhood called back
watching the river brown and rushing
three days of rain swollen
advance through the woods
behind the house.

innumerable
birds swirl above the park
their ebb and flow
anemone reminiscent
awash with the unseen current
of one mind
among many.

The dark water swirls and froths
over the slick rocks and
submerged logs
moss-covered
sodden...

discarded
haphazardly

the air is sharp
cuts like a mirror-shard
as I stand beside you on the bridge
watching our sticks
brave the waterfall.

I've all but lost those
Autumn memories ---

drenched like fire in apple crisp air
sweatered she and I

ambled and lingered
paired, inter-fingered, and lost in dreams

of what would always always surely be
the deepest, best, loveliest, purest ...

watching leaves rush waterborne
beneath the same bridge we crossed

leaving the car that morning.

I search the halls
trying every door
rifle through empty drawers
and piles of mental boxes

I avidly follow seven heart-breaking stories at once
and trace the shadows
flicking across the windows of the train
while composing an angry conversation with my boss

I wonder why all of this seemed so unlikely when I arose
fresh in the crisp morning's dawn
that I would spend my day
lost in dreams...

See this ghost?
He weighs a lot more than he appears to.
A slip of ectoplasm like this emaciated and imagined me
weighs one down with a special gravity, stark and cold
like a bagful of frozen headcicles.

See, this ghost,
I made him up, though he was given to me drip-by-drip,
like an ice cream cone of late spring snow
scooped from the gutter,
gray and runny,

I'll not have you talking about him!
He is meant for my personal condemnation, not yours!
I shall hate him and we shall all suffer for it.