It occurred to me that I ought to check back to see what's going on with the Tupelo Press Poetry Project. There's another installment, and this time, the titles on which to base a work are:
If You Only Knew
Midden of Dreams
Snails, Worms, and Other Losses
A Process in the Weather of the Heart
Deadline's April 30. I'm drawn to title No. 4, so perhaps I'll play with it. Meanwhile, a start on a ghazal, which I may expand. I began it about a month ago with the first line, the refrain and a riffed-up list of possible rhymes--a more "scientific" approach than I'd taken in the past. Ghazals open up different corners of the mind, I find, even with planning. They always surprise me.
#3. The world dissolving
The bargain in this corner of the fire-sale universe?
Entropy wrapped in prayer. Feel the pull, the world dissolving.
Land bares its deeper skin, scarred with memories of water.
An endless thirst fills our beggar’s bowl, the world dissolving.
So little binds us: a subtle gesture, a chemical chain.
Then the din of a shattering fractal, the world dissolving.
The jeweler’s floor fills with the dust of flaws ground out of stone.
He loses sight of diamond, sees only coal, the world dissolving.
Our planets spin apart but still we bless them, waterski behind.
Even in longing, love, imagine us whole, the world dissolving.
04/04/07
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