Prompted Poetry: Oz Lobotomy

The other night, I was over at Robert Frost's Banjo, one of my all-time favorite blogs, because of the poetry and music, because of the title -- tis poetry itself! -- and because of John Hayes, a nice fellow blogger, poet, and banjo player who puts up with my late night, jackassy and sometimes intoxicated (though not anymore...) comments and online shenanigans.

Hayes has an excellent series -- and associated blog -- entitled Writer's Talk. He interviews his fellow writers, and while reading one such entry, about a writer named Tess Kincaid, I followed a link to an interesting site she founded, and dubbed 'a creative writing group blog'.

Now, I thought, Why don't I join something like that? Why don't I get out of my cave, and wander around, and make my neanderthal-ish noises amongst the poets who walk upright?

So the group blog is called Magpie Tales.

I had no idea what Magpie meant -- I thought it was a bird, and I guess I'm right -- but googled it, and apparently it means a collector.

Me cave poet learn good. ;)

And every week, there's a prompt in the form of a photograph, to which you write a poem, or a short 'vignette'.

I'm guessing 'vignette' means 'story'?

I didn't really notice that part at first, so for my first entry, I wrote a poem, on February 5th, in ten minutes, while staring at a picture of bricks -- which has now been replaced by a new photograph and prompt, because I can't read, and thought TODAY was the day to submit entries for last week's prompt.

Apparently not, and now I'm too late.

Oh well. I probably wouldn't have liked wandering outside my cave, anyway.

[Ginger slinks back into darkness]

Groucho shouts:

"Now be brave, my fine, French piece of bric-a-brac!"

How did Groucho know I'm French? ;)

-- Bastardized French, but French none-the-less.

Thanks, Imaginary Groucho!

I've lifted the photograph, and shall go about posting the cave-poem it inspired, whether the link to join the crowd has expired, or not.

And it has.

But there's always next week, right? Right.

Well, I hope there's a next week...

For now, just let me try your patience.

Oz Lobotomy

And onto the pavement I crumble
to my knees
are now my teeth
and I can't breathe through
my femur
but I guess you knew
that from birth

Onto the mossed and rotten bricks
my teeth chip their paint
and scrape my kneecap
like fish bait
slivered onto a hook

My eyes find time to study
the cracks
the rocks
the pores of the
sidewalk
cobbled and red
a blood-soaked
yellow brick nightmare
where the Scarecrow is missing
and Dorothy is brain-dead!

Follow the yellow brick road
and you'll find
the Tin Man
keeping time
with the oilcan
and laughing with the Scarecrow,
"So you stole it right from under her?!"
Right from inside her head

And as I bleed onto this pavement
this whetstone
a knife sharpened
for the killing of a
gramophone
plays Waltz Me Around Again Willie
for There's no place like home

Sure, Glinda, I've got it!
But the shoes won't clack themselves
and my legs are glued to the pavement
the cobblestone
a brick highway
I've been lobotomized by a
man with no spine
no bones
he doesn't want me anymore

I'll get used to this sight
of erosion
of death beneath me
as I bleed from the knees
and breathe from my eyes
and I always wondered what it would be like to die
in the open air
and sunshine

Your shadow cast beside me
makes for good company
-- You want to watch me suffer for a while?
He packs a picnic lunch
and keeps my panic attack
subsided
as my teeth begin to bail out
without permission from the pilot

Why does blood taste like pennies?
Copper flavored candy
drips from the corner of my mouth
drooling over his meal of
hot tomato soup
and the spoon is placed against my cheek
and now what he eats is the same as what I drink

I'll drown for the lack of motion in my own body's
incapable
commotion
torture chamber!
Out of date cobblestone highway
bricks of porous life, once clay
now petrified
art of construction
and I am decaying
while my lover finishes his lunch.

_____________________________