This is an exercise based on "Twenty Little Poetry Projects" from our usual text, "The Practice of Poetry". We had four people there and each contributed three little "projects", things to put in a poem, for a dozen total.
1. use a color under many names
cloudy perlescent smoky indeterminate
2. describe an emotion
left him feeling like an empty cup, full of possibility, light, ready to hold anything the cosmos might poor into him
heart singing, like Bugs Bunny,
3. use a sentence that bugs bunny might use
carrots are divine, you get a dozen for a dime, it's magic
4. reach for french vanilla in your thoughts
the day, or rather the night before, had a lingering aftertaste, sweet and slightly spicy
5. describe something that could never happen
a promise like the sky might finally open to show an apologetic Goddess, saying "Sorry to have left you here alone for so long, my children, let's clean up this mess you made while I was away"
6. use a metaphor in which you compare a person to a beverage
or maybe that was a lingering taste of her, not of her kisses, not of her body, but of her self, sweet and a little spicy
(it was trite, but cliches become that way through expressing some truth...if yo u could extract her essence, some steam extraction of her soul, it would smell o f french vanilla)
or maybe that was a lingering taste of her, not of her kisses, not of her body, but of her self, sweet and a little spicy
(it was trite, but cliches become that way through expressing some truth...if yo u could extract her essence, some steam extraction of her soul, it would smell of french vanilla)
7. you have five words left before you die, what are they?
no fear. we are one.
8. make up a character unlike yourself
he believed this could last forever. he believed she could be the one and only one for him, the one positron fated to meet his electron and become together a flash of light
9. use a specific place name
walking past the old One Word Cafe (it was a new place with a new name now, but it would always be the old One World to him, an indelible label placed on the place by his mind)
10. but you can't step into the same river twice - or least if you try,
you'll get your feet wet
11. smart people step in shit with attitude
you can however, step in the same dogshit twice, if you don't pay attention to where you're going
12. bananas are best eaten without the peel
or step on banana peels strewn by the gods of slapstick. the banana provides nutrition for the monkey body; the slapstick slipping and sliding nurture the monkey mind