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March 2020
Early Temptations
Hopeful spring-chicken greets golden morning
where the ravenous hungers of the earth awaken.
Whispers of change diminish chill from the air
as lingering unkept promise remain everywhere.
A carpet of thistles, deadly nightshades for your eyes—
cherry blossoms drop within days, mocking our hopes of the future.
Green now becomes the color of death blooming to decay.
I crush the buds of flowers with my feet that will now never breathe.
Flowers droop in heavy death, my mind sheds thoughts like petals.
I once counted myself among the living, all now dead.
Friends radiating joy; tombstones scattered among bare trees.
The wolf’s-bane howls, the angels trumpet, a herald of lust and death well met.
Passion replaces sensibility, a vale of pleasure blurring all obligation into obscurity.
The spring moon hangs low, like a silver sickle clearing away the death left by winter.
The serpent crawls amongst apple blossom,
a snake seeking Eve, a worm turning…
There is an exquisite beauty in venomous creatures—
instead of repelling, their markings draw us in.
—Ryan Aussie Smith, Anton Cancre, Tina Swain, Russell Hemmell, Carol Gyzander, Juan Perez, Harris Coverley, Rebekah Webb, David E. Cowen, Maggie Appleton, Carina Bissett, Chelsea Hunter, Angela Yuriko Smith, Stephanie Ellis, Elsa M. Carruthers
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What is an Exquisite Corpse?
An exquisite corpse poem is created by different people giving a line unrelated to the previous line. A poem is built from many authors, following the same rule or theme. In this case, there are no rules but it is a line, so no paragraphs please. You can read more about them here.