09-29-2016, 07:21 PM
I used the words as a word bank, and assembled something from them, changing tenses and adding connector words, but sticking closely to the supplied list. Apart from the repeated line, which I overheard someone say once, and thought instantly of Virginia Woolf's book, which is all about having it in front of you and talking about it but never actually going to the lighthouse. Is it a poem? Not yet. I think it could be, though. The title is something I read and wrote in my notebook yesterday.
The heart is a map of the earth
A puzzling geography, medieval, located
on the longitude of drowned knowledge, all
the earth an island, shrinking, surrounded
by savage dreams, gardens of golden poisons,
puzzling presents and hopeless nonsense.
Miles of yesterdays locked underneath
marmalade cupboards in the house of cards.
I’m leaving for the lighthouse.
Before my telescope can shed all directions,
wind questions narrow measures overhead
downwards, pattering into the saucer like
tears. Alone in my narrow lodging I cry for
escape from letters and jobs and knives,
the cat and mouse grammar of antipathy,
stifling pardons and earnest school degrees.
I’m leaving for the lighthouse.
Sherry bottles and offended whiskers bristle
from the rug of fitted stockings. Hanging ringlets
hastily venture a grand curtsey but the gallant
carrier has been locked. I can still get there by
trotting, splendidly cheerful and sleepy, until
fountains burst, tumble and shrink lazily.
For one curious moment I’m brave.
I’m leaving for the lighthouse.
The heart is a map of the earth
A puzzling geography, medieval, located
on the longitude of drowned knowledge, all
the earth an island, shrinking, surrounded
by savage dreams, gardens of golden poisons,
puzzling presents and hopeless nonsense.
Miles of yesterdays locked underneath
marmalade cupboards in the house of cards.
I’m leaving for the lighthouse.
Before my telescope can shed all directions,
wind questions narrow measures overhead
downwards, pattering into the saucer like
tears. Alone in my narrow lodging I cry for
escape from letters and jobs and knives,
the cat and mouse grammar of antipathy,
stifling pardons and earnest school degrees.
I’m leaving for the lighthouse.
Sherry bottles and offended whiskers bristle
from the rug of fitted stockings. Hanging ringlets
hastily venture a grand curtsey but the gallant
carrier has been locked. I can still get there by
trotting, splendidly cheerful and sleepy, until
fountains burst, tumble and shrink lazily.
For one curious moment I’m brave.
I’m leaving for the lighthouse.