Non-Sequitur Exquisite Corpse Pot Luck (October 24)

It is autumn, a long time away from the last Exquisite Corpse shindig. We've met again underneath Anita's apple tree, but with a variable cast:

Anita Lonergan

D. Shane Peterson

Craig Svonkin

Sandra Maresh

Tameca L Coleman

It's cooler now. There are no bees out doing their good work. There are greens left in the garden and apples on the tree. The tree has done well this year. The garden is tilled, readied for winter.

We have a wonderful feast, again. There's the Waldorf Salad that we almost all had a hand in. The apples and celery were cut in the car on the way to Anita's. There was a stop made to the store for walnuts and mayonnaise. At Anita's, we added the walnuts, mayonnaise, nutmeg and cinnamon and stirred them all together with a lovely old wooden spoon.

There were the sandwiches from a neighborhood Vietnamese restaurant, the Lonergan's buckwheat waffles, homemade jams from the garden, a lovely pan of greens and vegetables, and a beautiful, cocoa dusted Bundt cake. Tummies were pleased.

Despite a slight chill, and a greying sky, we decided to sit outside underneath the apple tree. We went three rounds, just as we went the time before. The first time, to warm up, we wrote with the ability to see the lines that came before. The second time, we folded the pages over, so that we were blind when we wrote our next lines. The third time, we wrote poetic bits on torn pieces of paper, scrambled them in a hat, and chose the pieces at random and read them in no particular order. The results of this activity follow:

Round 1:

We five sitting under the apple tree

contemplating life, love, & sex in the garden

A hole in the fence & grey skies

frame the circle, the squirrel in the compost,

taking chunks from the autumn harvest,

enjoying a discarded pumpkin,

The talk, the words, bees moving from

flower to flower,

none of us performing the role of bees.

The Bees do that.

Round 2:

The tree, the talk, enjoying an encounter between

diverse peoples, but similar

we are laughing, thinking, comparing life experiences.

Jets in the missing man formation. Who's not here?

The alliums are gone now, the peaches, too.

The pumpkins and the berries give way

to the greens, and the apples mulching

into the earth.

Can I live amidst the squalor?

Green of the hose, green grass, green

leaves, green house, all varied colors

by the same name.

Tapping and jet roar. Schmutz in the city.

Cover the windows. It's time. The season

has come to its next dot, resting

here until the next writer picks up the next sentence.

Schmutz dropping on his sweater, he

hesitates.

"Sum up air, sum up noise," Doe

says, but one can't sum up.

Round 3:

1) We are writers, the 5 of us, comparing notes, lives,

roommates, "I am best when I speak, not when I write."

2) I was gonna roll on the floor laughing.

I come from here. I ain't Chicano. I ain't shit.

No accent on the Dia De Muertos.

Kinda like the Hornada de Muertos.

3) Writing is not speaking

Is not singing or humming.

It has its own pains & pleasures,

rhythms & embarrassed pauses.

4) We're all just going to keep everyone guessing:

The hints of accents in our voices, misplaced & misinterpreted,

and the breadth of knowledge and interests

defy labeling.

5) Wrecked cars & broken sonnets litter the front yard: schmutzy.

Please stay tuned for future shindigs!