This little poem came out of an exercise in a poetry workshop run by Stephen Knight. Five random words were picked out of a hat and we had 10 minutes to write a two-stanza poem, one of the words per line. I rather liked the result: the point of the exercise being that sometimes we work better with constraints than without them.
Rooted in waiting at bus-stops
she drifts off like a bird,
flits in and out of dreams of stairwells,
a pillar of deepest longing,
to bring tidy smell of wax.
A bird trapped in his rust-cage,
wax coats his wings and beak.
He comes to a glottal stop
halfway up the stair,
watching her turn to a pillar of salt.
Marina Sofia – This is really powerful. Such an evocation of what it’s like to be trapped even if one’s mind is free. Great stuff!
Thank you, Margot – it was a delight to clear my mind of work-related issues and drink from the well of poetry again.
very cool what you did with this…that is an awesome exercise as well… i’ve been doing this on a poetry workshop in heidelberg once… we were collecting the words first and we collected some really weird words as well… but was even more fun..smiles
The chap sitting next to me had ‘hippopotamus’, so I was very relieved at my pick!