LJ Idol, Season 9: Week 4 - "Nobody can ride your back if your back's not bent" (--MLK Jr.)
In honor of National Poetry Month, I used this week's topic as the basis to compose a Cento, and have listed my source authors at the bottom. Enjoy!
(Per Poets.org: From the Latin word for "patchwork," the cento (or collage poem) is a poetic form made up of lines from poems by other poets. Though poets often borrow lines from other writers and mix them in with their own, a true cento is composed entirely of lines from other sources.)
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
After the first millenium, we were supposed to die out.
Much as old Saturn ate his progeny
The ashes still smolder. They rise, surround me, then fall again,
I was almost to the gate when a hand reached out and pulled me backwards by my hair.
How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
I see a flap of wings so black
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
Creeping and crying, till they seized at last -
Thanks to you, my sense of honor is gone.
The iron bit he crushes 'tween his teeth / Controlling what he was controlled with.
When insight comes in a dream,
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
The blind wall rocks, and on the trees
Not the blue the orthodoxy of the day
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Then was the fear a little quieted
The tiny hands of her generation
Always took a little tabula rasa with her caffeine -
The apology wends off as smoke ground to gravel.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
(Source authors, in order: Lucie Brock-Broido; George Gordon Byron; Tahar Ben Jelloun; Bhanu Kapil; Derek Walcott; Maurice Manning; John Greenleaf Whittier; Geoffrey Chaucer; Virgil; William Shakespeare; Mei-mei Berssenbrugge; John Keats; Lord Alfred Tennyson; Kamau Brathwaite; James Russell Lowell; Dante Alighieri; Stephen Vincent Benét; C. D. Wright; Joshua Marie Wilkinson)
(Per Poets.org: From the Latin word for "patchwork," the cento (or collage poem) is a poetic form made up of lines from poems by other poets. Though poets often borrow lines from other writers and mix them in with their own, a true cento is composed entirely of lines from other sources.)
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
After the first millenium, we were supposed to die out.
Much as old Saturn ate his progeny
The ashes still smolder. They rise, surround me, then fall again,
I was almost to the gate when a hand reached out and pulled me backwards by my hair.
How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
I see a flap of wings so black
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
Creeping and crying, till they seized at last -
Thanks to you, my sense of honor is gone.
The iron bit he crushes 'tween his teeth / Controlling what he was controlled with.
When insight comes in a dream,
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
The blind wall rocks, and on the trees
Not the blue the orthodoxy of the day
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Then was the fear a little quieted
The tiny hands of her generation
Always took a little tabula rasa with her caffeine -
The apology wends off as smoke ground to gravel.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
(Source authors, in order: Lucie Brock-Broido; George Gordon Byron; Tahar Ben Jelloun; Bhanu Kapil; Derek Walcott; Maurice Manning; John Greenleaf Whittier; Geoffrey Chaucer; Virgil; William Shakespeare; Mei-mei Berssenbrugge; John Keats; Lord Alfred Tennyson; Kamau Brathwaite; James Russell Lowell; Dante Alighieri; Stephen Vincent Benét; C. D. Wright; Joshua Marie Wilkinson)