Zelda's Inferno exercise: "loud ideas in his musical eyesight"

Posted on: Sun, 01/09/2011 - 19:35 By: Tom Swiss

Zelda's Inferno exercise: write a first line about the perception of emotion through the classic five senses. Then we mixed them up and everybody got one to use as a first line for a poem.

My first line: Unrequited love coated his tongue like the fuzz you get with a cold, deadening the taste of food.

The first line I drew: "I bounced some loud ideas off the side of his musical eyesight." I varied it a bit...

loud ideas in his musical eyesight
looked purple as they bounced off the side
and into the brain

jagged chords smelled like ammonia and pine oil
cleaning the floor of his heart

while a sweet bass line
soothed his nervous stomach

and all came into harmony