Lawrence Upton has started a new collaborative text - a game - over at Poneme, a poetry list. It is impossible to give you the entire text yet, because we are in mid-stream, maybe even early stream, so here are two of my responses out of context. (Besides, I really only have permission to flaunt my own wares, don't I ...)In fact, I don't even know who the other writers are. It is like a masked dance with us all singing different songs.
Response to TEXT 048
it walks out before you
a parody a panoply
thinner
it tricks and shrinks
and walks beside you
thinner sinner
it puddles at your feet
the black between your toes
thinner sinner
meaner
it trails behind you
slothful are we there yet?
thinner sinner
meaner betweener
Response to TEXT 020
Pain is the pleasure. It is the principle of the sting, the prince of lightness and the prince’s pal. Don’t horse with me, p … But then we could go on, and I do, it wasn’t the same back then, is it now. The stern look afore court, the skills of criticism mixed with the cut and thrust of large family life, remembering forms, glancing passes. Unformed in uniform, the daily parade before the prepubescent eyes of ignorant love, the hasty hands and jumping film stock, lolly kisses and burnt frames. When you’ve got nothing to say, sing it … ‘April love – it slips right through your fingers – so if she’s the one, don’t let her get away’ … It’s a bakelite prediction on the Craven A Top Ten, sister in matador pants, brother in black priest outfit – training for their future, slewed by the past. ‘I’m seeing the real you at last …’
finis
Is every text we ever write a collaboration with the texts we have read? Are there spiralling family trees of influence and collusion? Can you trace my latest writing back to 'A is for Apple' past Sherlock Holmes through Kerouac?
The humming sounds of indecision are in my head.
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