Chainsaw, Milkshake, Ragged, Biscuit

The next in my 3RW posts where I'm putting up the poems I have written based upon three random words given to me by other people.
I’ll start by thanking everyone who has so far given me ideas to work with, I am having almost indecent amounts of fun writing poetry this way. I’ve been playing around with ideas for what to do with all of these poems and I’m still unsure but will just keep writing them until I run out of ideas to work with. I've now 28 sets of words through and have written fourteen of them. This is group three of the poems so far.

The first of the poems here was written to the words “scintillating, erstwhile, chainsaw” by Vincent Holland-Keen (@fiskerton). He’s also the reason that I’ve not written as much the past couple of days because his debut novel The Office of Lost and Found came out over the weekend and I’ve not really been able to put it down. It has been published in eBook format by Anarchy Books and is completely fantastic. I can’t recommend it enough.

“Shenandoah”

A skyline of broken trees and moths.

Streams of cars not water

along the only direction through.

The erstwhile daughters of night and stars

lay forgotten in the shamed past,

only deer in the woods remember.

They stare at each other, the ants

as if scintillating enough to last

and outlast the natural installations.

The old men grow just tall enough

controlled by chainsaws and budgets,

watched by escaping crowds

protecting their destruction.

Sam Strong (@SamaelTB) gave me “pizza, milkshake, geese” which I think might have been the strangest process to try and fit those words into a poem. I also seem to have had a sort of green-theme to both his and Vince’s poems. Not intentional just sort of happened that way!

“Migration”

The world reversed its time

springing back and falling forward

turning nature on her head.

An arrow of geese flew too low – hiding

from a strawberry-milkshake sunset

pointing them away from home.

A confused heat trapped

in feathers over summer

encouraged by tourists eating pizza

in Neapolitan towns while the Alaskan ice melts.

Broad streams of defrosted tears

mourn the loss of un-caged birds

throughout the ever extending winters.

As we look on

troubled but understanding.

Charlotte Naylor (soon to be Charlotte Strong…as in Sam Strong of the poem above!) sent me “ragged, loom, surreptitious” via Twitter (@mithciriel).

“A Grave Hall”

Double doors swing inwards

by hands unseen

all eyes gazing up to the gallery.

A high ceiling framed either side

by ragged tapestries of

noble love and ignoble wars.

The box room with barely space

to stand beside the silent loom

with threads still caught in motion.

Everyone walks slowly along

taking nothing far away.

A surreptitious movement on a hidden staircase

and furtive knowledge lost to yet another generation

behind too many layers of wallpaper.

I’ve had so much trouble with the words that Tom (@ThermobaricTom) gave me. I think this had more entire re-writes than any of the others. I have been working with “educate, biscuit, indeterminable” and I think I’m okay with the poem now, there's a small chance it might change again though!

“Paper Lanterns”

The first time view walking in, nerves,

rows of labelled bottles under

multi-coloured flowers on pegs

names taken from the images.

Days divided in half

eased into the fast lane

on an extra stable wheel.

Bright colours educate

with fingers paints and chunky pens.

A kitchen full of biscuit tins

and orange squash.

As many options as there are hours,

as many as there are people.

An indeterminable future ahead

paths of choices not destinies.

That's all for now, there will be more in a few days time. Thanks for reading down this far!

Vick.