roina_arwen

Another Cento or patchwork poem, composed entirely of lines from other poets to create a new and unique poem for you. Each of the poets whose lines I have used are given credit (in order) at the bottom. Enjoy!

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"It Ain't Bragging if it's True"

This is the bar of broken survivors, the club of the shotgun, knife wound, of
these delicious improvisations we show each other,
Then, too, there are my soldiers, my great, invincible army,
who had been perfectly nice when last seen at a poetry reading.

Truthfully, I am not enough to steer clear of. To fall in love again,
Maybe I listened to the wind sighing and shivered,
I mistook the train for a thunder storm,
my adrenaline raging without cease.

You know as you feel that first solid slam you are lost.
It pinned the Amazon queen and her horse together
at a stone image serene in a neighbor’s garden,
Breathing the warmth into their soul.

A smirk emerges like a shark fin. Circles
haiku me into 17 bursts of blossoms & cold saki;
Trophies at head, and kelp for a winding-sheet
and was it exhaled in exasperation or ecstasy?

And all have one credential that entitles us to brag—
just a few highlights from my résumé.


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Credits Go To:
Joy Harjo; Vicente Aleixandre; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Juliana Spahr
francine j. harris; Janice N. Harrington; Joseph Millar; Rasheed Copeland
Catherine Doty; Tony Barnstone; Mark Doty; Arthur Rimbaud
Kristi Maxwell; Regie Cabico; Herman Melville; Barbara Ras
Emily Pauline Johnson; Nicole Sealey.