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draft from tonight’s creativity workshop
Thought I’d share a draft from one of the creativity exercises for tonight. This one was “Associative Poetry” – after reading Charles Simic “In the Library” to the group, I joined them in writing a poem that began with an ordinary occurrence and ended with something surprising. I guess I had the idea of angels in mind from Simic:
The angels were once as plentiful
As species of flies.
The sky at dusk
Used to be thick with them.
You had to wave both arms
Just to keep them away.
Mine is only a rough draft – slightly revised – be kind. I love Simic’s style of declarative sentences juxtaposed without transitions or fancy compound/complex sentences, so forgive me if I really try to channel it – these exercises can really help writers move in new directions.
The 27 bus huffs to a stop.
The door flies open. The steps tilt
toward the pavement with a long hydrolic sigh.
As if from a chrysalis, out emerges a woman balanced
on a cane. She blinks at the amber sun, dirty gray
clouds, clods of snow, like peppered cottage cheese,
that litter the pavement. Her feet make long shadows.
As I watch these shadows, two black triangles seem to emerge
from her legs. They are the shadows of glittering
butterfly wings, green, black and gold. She taps
her cane, propelling herself forward
in a series of short hops. Her clothes part,
ripping and shedding like an old skin. She
takes off, fluttering over my head toward the westering
sun. The bus continues north, filled
with dour night-nurses, tired maids
heading home to mac and cheese, stunned college students,
and overworked administrative assistants.
At the next stop, the bus lets out a young man in tight black jeans,
carrying an overstuffed backpack, and a woman in a white nurse’s
coat and blue scrubs. They spread their wings, trot
toward the sun, shed their loads, and flutter away.
