how great thou art
silhouetted in ocean
you lick salt off your lips
swallow futures
you grow trees tall enough to hide
regret, pulled
atmosphere ballooned like a belly,
stitched to the earth
like a parachute,
we breathe each other’s breaths
until we’re dizzy with fumes
a country with roads halfway finished
gravel stops suddenly
against a barricade of trees, bowed
carving paths only for those with
heels made of the earth,
I am covered in your bark
waiting to crack.
Yay! Michelle joined us in writing! Here is her response to the writing prompt:
How great thou art
My toes curl at the thought of you
wishin. waiting. wanting just to be
falls of water avalanche down
how great thou art!
How Great Thou Art
your flesh folds over
as you curl yourself
then open. you’ve drooled
on my shoulder twice
since we collapsed into
each other last. you twitch
in your sleep
and while you operate the day
you glow
between the fluttering
but my these random bursts
lead me home.
Now we are going to write a poem inspired by Lucille Clifton’s “How Great Thou Art”
listen. You are beyond
even Your own understanding.
that ribandrain and clay
in all its pride,
its unsteady dominion,
is not what You believed
You were,
but it is what You are;
in Your own image as some
lexicographer supposed.
the face, both he and she,
the odd ambition, the desire
to reach beyond the starts
is You. all You, all You
the loneliness, the perfect
imperfection.
So now we will write a poem that begins “how great thou art” and take it wherever we want.
With potential’s passing
hand and welcoming embrace,
the broken bright, cracke me
open slow. Another body pillow
soaked in sleep walking trails.
The loose leaves fossilized.
When they read, years later
maybe they can tell folktales
of these minor triumphs.
I am a mighty mythology
taken in vain .
I asked God if she needed a drink…
I finished first again, so here is my poem:
without warning
night turns backwards
and your face is lit with dawn,
quiet closes your eyes like pockets
stuffed with nervous palms and
I can still smell you.
You smell like morning, sour
soaked in sweet.the sun trips through the window
stumbles and spreads across your legs
I want to kiss your shadows
that’s where the flavor pools
the coolest water mellows in valleys
tucked in shade.
I want you.there’s nothing more potent
than early morning thirst and my
throat cracks, sticky silence
but your lips are closed
your tongue holding on to its spit
for dear life.stenciled in your body’s inverse
inhaling your sleep
I ask God to just this once pause time.
The next writing prompt is based on an excerpt from the poem “Upright Blues” by Terrance Hayes.
…When these knuckles climbed
the keyboard’s edge to the moon,they were my blues. I had a little song
for the departing day. I was a strayrooster-throated, bellowing hole,
I was a slim penny-colored skin.A bank of two-sided wounds
in phenomenal light. I had a little songfor the departing night. I transformed
& was transformed by pleasure.I was damn near invisible
like ice cubes fading into light.Friends, I want you
to never have a song for death.Once in the arms of a stranger
at the hour the paperboy wakes,I asked God to give me a different life…
Based on this excerpt, we are going to write a poem about waking up in the morning, that must include the phrase “I asked God _”
Here we go!
Connect the dots of today
Sketches of the branches sway
Holes on the horizon line
Hi-light the rising night
Magic eraser, we”ll lose ourselves
Blown breeze ring the fluffy bells
Shake our smudges clean
We’ll write another ream.