Slow? Or Quick?
Frankenstein fish paddle every
rural creek, crackling neon-
streaked streams where freaks
flare and bite. Brain-stem stubs,
double-headed hornets with
lantern bodies writhe while
entranced pumpkin heads laugh
on steamy sludgebanks at autonomic
polyfluoroalkyl St. Vitus’ dance.
We, tho, roam jungle streets,
urban dinosaurs ceaselessly
jonesing for extradimensional
bliss. We prance, a parade of
costumed circus lions, soon blessed
with the grace of a quick death.
Shay is the host of Shay’s Word Garden Word List. Shay says:
What we do here is simple: write a new poem using at least 3 of the 20 words on the list provided below, then link up, and visit others. One additional thing: in honor of Brautigan’s brief poetic style, if you’d like to write two or three very short poems (all in the same post, and please, no haiku) that’s cool. It’s up to you!
Baudelaire
candles
ceaselessly
circus
costume
dinosaurs
fish
Frankenstein
grace
groceries
hornets
lanterns
lions
million
poem
postage
pumpkins
spinning
trance
wind
Tao Talk 
Profound poetry Li.
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Sadje, thank you <3 I love the word lists she gives. The poems are assemblage poems :)
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That’s a new way to prompt. I like it.
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Whoa, this is some kind of Chernobyl nightmare. Why is it so hard for the powers that be to see that it’s suicide to poison our own and only home? I guess because their concern is only on the immediate dollar. May they be eaten by wild lions.
I keep meaning to say how much I like the title side of your blog. It really makes for an attractive layout, side by side with the poem!
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Shay, I was thinking of that movie, “Dark Waters” which is about DuPont and their PFAs. You’re right it’s some kind of nightmare. Thank you for your comment and I like that layout also :)
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Urban dinosaurs…I think I’ve seen them…(k)
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:)
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Clever writing, Lil, the where life takes them compared to the “we”, ducks all over the place. We are colder than usual here so lots of black ducks (I’ve forgotten their breed’s name) all over the place. Streets, sidewalks, but grassy areas the most with their beaks turning the leaves over. They go in bunches of four to a dozen , families likely.
Your “parade of … circus clowns” tickled my fancy.
..
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Jim, delighted to have tickled you with this one. It’s a Baudelairian nightmare if there ever was one.
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Some nightmarish thoughts and some powerful truths swimming there together. A brilliant Brautiganish poem Lisa!!
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Thanks much, Carrie. Another writer added to my to-read list :)
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I don’t know if I’m right…but what I get out of it is polluted streams or radioactive waste seeping into nature…but I could be wrong.
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No, you are exactly right. The 2nd stanza are the crowd that live a fast life, abuse substances, and die young. Who is to say the slow death is better than a quick one?
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Yea it all ties with each other. Ok…see I didn’t put that together but I’m learning…it makes complete sense.
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:) I’m signing off early tonight. Have to watch TZ and a movie and get to bed fairly early. Going out for lunch with a friend tomorrow. Have a wonderful night, Max, and talk with you tomorrow.
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You also Lisa! Have a good time and be careful tomorrow!
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Max, I have a TZ thing to tell you later. You will not believe it…
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An interesting (and psychedelic) juxtaposition of the wholesale waste and slaughter used by the big killers around us who do it all under the hood of material success, and the personal kind we kill ourselves with. You’ve made the list words seamlessly vital, and the whole thing is a sad and pungent commentary on the way things have turned out in the 70 plus years since I was born, which may be the way things always are, and just a shock to our minds which function in a smaller time frame.
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Thank you for the detailed feedback and for seeing what I was getting at. I think you’re right about that last bit.
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i like the contrast in this with the techno and natural wording, throughout the poem, and then the contrast between the two stanzas, i feel like its man seach for something spiritual and or meaningful that he just can’t get a grasp of, no matter where he looks for it. love the sounds in this too. very well written
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Phillip, I appreciate your analysis of the poem and like your grok of it. Thank you.
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p.s. I hope you know what grok is. Do you know how long it’s been since I have used grok in a sentence? After reading Heinlein’s, “Stranger in a Strange Land” many moons ago, I used it all of the time. Maybe there have been less opportunities to use it in more recent moon times.
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well, it’s been a really long time since i read stranger in a strange land, so i had to look it up =) and i enjoy poetry have to grok, that kinf od poetry is more engaging.
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