Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Back in the Bamboo Room.....

Just a reminder that everyone's invited to contribute to the
ClevelandPoetics collaborative sestina. It's grown into a torrid tale of boozy love and lust. Where will this romance end? Are "he" and "she" headed to the bedroom? To a little house in Garfield Heights with a white picket fence? It's up to you all. The more voices the merrier.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Stanza 1: 123456
Stanza 2: 615243
Stanza 3: 364125
Stanza 4: 532614
Stanza 5: 451362
Stanza 6: 246531


They met at the Bamboo Room;
there's no bamboo there, but plenty
of privacy, in the booth there
where smoky jazz tinged the air a translucent blue.
A guy could get lost in the dark
while fumbling for a last-chance breath,

her grass skirt rustling like when the wind breathes
as the guy gasps for air, give me room, room
to move, space to roam. She looks back, her eyes dark,
wide, an open field with plenty,
like a vast sea of ionic cobalt blue.
These colors kill me, he says. She says. There, there--

and takes a drag from her cigarette. Their
lips meet. He savors the rum and the smoke on her breath,
recalling last-night's dream, somehow crystalized and blue.
The color's different, she says, in my room.
There's wine and sad music and plenty
to do. Her pink orchid lei smells like dark

blossoms opening, like night flames for Jeanne d'Arc
and he's burning, they're spinning, they're
adrift in blue oceans; mad, mad. But plenty
of heat. Fevered moans erupt in gasps of rhythmic breath;
for every bride, a groom, and every room

Shelley Chernin said...

Just to let you know, I copied the poem with this newest addition back to the comments to the original post. I want to make sure that everyone participating sees the latest contributions, so let's keep the poem rolling at the "Anyone Wanna Play" post instead of moving it here.

Geoffrey A. Landis said...

Say, everybody, the clevelandpoetics collaborative sestina is still going on! Somebody, add a line that ends in the word dark!

Geoffrey A. Landis said...

We're one line short of finishing the fifth stanza! Anybody want to add a line ending in "plenty"???

Cited...

The poet doesn't invent. He listens. ~Jean Cocteau