Round 1:
shady seven, city sounds softly
chatting, asking suggestions for
words, but when silence says
everything. Everything, and what's seen
without words; the mini-bee turning in its flower,
part of the cycle. Or the dream.
While the Beats smile knowingly,
having done it all half a century ago,
when turtles went underground
under two inch thick cement slabs,
under lead pipes and earth packed hard
beneath years of traffic and chaos.
An ancient tool shop operator
gave dinosaurs several pieces
of shrapnel steak. Dinosaurs
ate pipes and lumber.
Cracking underneath the stone weight
each dinosaur's breath shimmering
in the plant's growth.
Round 2:
Summer hums around, circling the
salon. Tomatoes progress, onions double,
pumpkins travel down the path.
Just enough cloud cover, and just enough sky,
under the apple tree, next to plush clover--
myriad forms of cover....
Down South. South of the border.
Musical language, languid music.
It's not like here, ya know.
And to string a sentence
together you need pumpkin butter,
blackberries, half ripe, and Anitatea.
It was like ink bleeding through a piece
of paper. Or blood through butcher paper.
A sickening smell, like rotten meat wafted from
somewhere.
Over the rainbow there were
pieces of light.
The stillness of the wind
speaks to the leaves.
Round 3:
1) We were born after the war.
Then we were in the war.
Now our children and grandchildren
are gone to the war.
2) All of the rocks strewn along the path
and the constant chatter of the
passing cars, cans thrown.
3) The music was tangible. I felt almost as heavy as a mist,
but not quite. More like a tingle at the tips of your
toes when they fell asleep.
4) In exquisite corpse land
we never decided to leave
Point Pleasant beach.
Instead we launched
a hand-made book.
5) Died in the check out line
with a crab, he did.
Seafood is dependable.
Trees give us amnesia
good for the onion fields.
It's shell gave way
to red lobster.
6) Shadow and light spackled paper--
the pen courses over the pattern
another level of black and white.
7) Laughing, sharing notes & souls plot
a course in the garden, under the apple
tree, next door the door opens.
Participants:
(in no particular order, since Frank's suggestion that naming who wrote what would kill the whole idea of the exquisite corpse, as it's the product that matters, and not who wrote what).
Anita Lonergan
Michael Lonergan
Frank Bessinger
Kat Willow
Tom Gerlick
Sandra Maresh
Max Rommerdahl
Tameca L Coleman
