Pass-it-on Poetry

A few months ago at Writers Connect, I got one of thewriting exercises totally wrong. This week, as the organiser and assistant organiser were absent, I was thrust into the executive position and asked to run the meeting. For a warm-up exercise, I figured now was a good time to revisit this particular challenge to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it right-child!

Paul McCartney mode deactivated.

So. The CORRECT way is to give each person a sheet of paper. We pass this around between each story element that we’ll write. And the elements are:

Type of person

Place

Number

Colour

Object

A final pass should leave you with a sheet of paper written on by five different people. So. The premise of the vignette is: Your person is in that place. He/she has that many of those objects, and they are that colour. I had a painter in a flying tower with 3000 green vases.

As this is such a bizarre image, I figured an abstract poem might work in this instance. Not to mention, it’s National Poetry Writing Month and my head is in “that place”.

It hovers over Earth,

a mirage of architecture.

a once proud skyscraper,

deserving literally of that title

it’s his new assignment,

after his renowned success-

his wondrous painting of

the chapel of St Derek,

he has been summonsed to

the tower, a fortunate,

privileged appointee.

Armed with his brushes

and a Lake-Michigan-sized

vat of multicoloured paint,

he’s transported to the

sky-hooked behemoth

in his overalls.

Inside,

behind the decaying plaster door,

a room drained of life.

he opens the many windows,

the ground separated,

divorced beneath him.

Is the tower moving,

or the Earth?

Shafts of light stab through

each open window.

On numerous shelves,

pottery adorns the walls,

vases of countless eras-

every one of them

a shade of their own green

some envious,

some environmentally friendly

some sitting in peace.

The painter climbs his

infinite ladders-

the tower may fly,

but he cannot.

At the top of his ladders

woozy with vertigo,

the painter lathers on

a rainbow. He moves

each green vase with care,

brightening the tower

with each weird stroke,

bringing light and vibrancy.