Poetry Prompt 1: 10 Words From Philip Larkin

[Todd]

We are adding poetry prompts to the site because it's hard to start writing from a blank sheet and one of the main ways to get better at poetry or any writing for that matter is to keep writing. Use these prompts to jump start your own writing.

This is an exercise I've enjoyed over the years that was used on another site I visit. Take a known poem from a famous poet, choose ten words out of the poem, and make a new poem out of it.

Let's start with Ten Words from Philip Larkin:

trees, something, relax, old, written, trick, castles, die, year, new

Take these 10 words from a poem, incorporate them into a new poem (you can make small changes like making it plural, add or subtract an "ed"), and do it (write and edit) in one sitting. Post all poems into this thread. Enjoy!

There is no end date. After one week (on Friday) the source poem will be posted,

[billy]

Wooden Parapets by William Marsland.

Building castles for Catherine Beckett wasn't a hobby.
At the manly age of nine; it was an act born of longing;
something to do with my incandescing puberty.
The silver birch were all scared.

It was that time of year when the new growth urged sap to rise.
The trick was finding a tree with supple enough limbs;
to mould its bendy branches into leafy turrets
and light spangled halls lined with green tapestries

A vapour of old mulch permeated the woods and would enter
in through glassless windows and up through woven floor.
The furniture was sparse, non-existent really but that was okay
to relax, me and Catherine would only need a bed of moss and a cup of cocoa.

when done I carved our names in the trunk with a piece of sharp stone.
She'd see them written over a heart with the words 'never die'
though it did as love does when your nine, and the queen of your dreams
is something of a swine

[Todd]

Billy,

This was really cool. I loved incandescing puberty. Great descriptive writing throughout. The last four lines closed this one out strong.

Thanks for getting us started.

Best,

Todd

[Todd]

So, of course my own prompt was a pain in the a..well you know. I will probably do a hard edit on this and move it to serious critique later.

Here it is in it's rough unedited glory.

~~~

The Amazing Sexual Exploits of Harry Houdini

He liked to be handcuffed—
and not with those
fuzzy pink novelties
sold near tattoo parlors.

He liked the ones that bite
against the wrists,
the exquisite challenge
of something like helplessness.

Some preferred the foreplay
of card tricks. They wanted
written instructions,
the predictable patterns
of other men.

Old pleasure is a faded stage
bouquet of plastic flowers,
a dehydrated dove.
Without risk, it is unsatisfying
Without misdirection, it will die

Any amateur could perform
in private.
The thrill was in being
before an audience exposed

showing off a new spectacle,
suspended upside down
lowered into the dark

water. Each second
a year, an eon,
like the pulse of a metronome,
the ripple of eternity.
Excitement is the little death
Must slow like the mountain
peaks jutting up like castle turrets
crumbling.
Slow like the tree in a deep forest
Slow like the rolling veldt
breath a green mist, relax
as the forest burns.

Escape is always possible,
though not desirable,
not the same as release.

[billy]

and then they were two

i love the title.
and the content. with your edit i think you'll have a great write

thanks for not leaving me hanging

[billy]

i poeted it in the wrong thread

trees, something, relax, old, written, trick, castles, die, year, new

What was granddad like?

We never had a Christmas tree
though dad fooled us with a dead branch
one year; how we larfed when we saw it.
Dad died in the January,
old age they said.
empty booze bottles told us something different
he was 42, I think it was a trick to console us.
Now if they'd said his liver died of old age?

I found the written note he'd left behind,
it said:
1 bottle of Smirnoff.
1/2 bottle of johnny Walker.
8 Heineken's
2 pkt's jaffa cakes.
he said the jaffa cakes helped him relax:
I carry it still.

Each year me and my kids build
a castle with jaffa cake pkt's
at the base of the fir tree,
and I tell them all about their granddad.
On New years morning, after Santa had been
we'd sit and eat the castle walls.

[Todd]

Billy, that one is great. I loved the I found the written note he left behind with its litany of alcohol.

[billy]

thanks todd, i'll have a go at the new poetry practice later today.