Her Technicolor Years

Beloved friend Greg Fraser and his wonderful colleague, Chad Davidson, came to speak to my creative writing class last Friday. Just being around their passion and energy was enough to kick my poetry writing habit, (oh sad, bruised thing) back into gear. One of the things Greg and Chad encouraged my students (and me) to do is to experiment with language, something I know I should do but don't do enough. Hence the poetry dry spell.
So, in the spirit of free play, I gave myself an assignment. I have 13 students in creative writing class. I assembled a couplet from each of their most recent poems, pasting the whole thing together into one long, 13 stanza poem. What has emerged is actually kinda fun.

I have no idea who this woman is I've ended up writing about, but I like her.

Here's the result:

Her Technicolor Years

Wars just simply lean against her.
Out the train window cities smear into names.

Somewhere a butler loses his bowler, driftwood and sandy,
but her kiss remains, ginger spooned.

Somewhere a rider falls from a horse,
and she, her own worst enemy, sucks a bone clean.

It wasn’t always like this. Guardian angels solved
the music, broke the silence, and she used to listen

to their warm guitars. She used to break down,
breathe deep, twist into poetry and paradox.

She used to give herself over. Seditious.
But soon, mutiny and tequila. The highest degree

of accidental epiphany, and her sky, weak in the knees,
called her name, unsung fragment.

Soon continuously cherry. Not soon enough,
her labyrinth fate. So it goes. We all grow old.

We all think in latitudes, read the Times,
excuse ourselves, return to our metal seats,

but not her. Tell her fairy tales. Tell her the war zone will turn
out to be liquid possible. Tell her a getaway ride

will appear, a benefactor. She appears quite shocked
but her ginger kiss belies the prize. What she cannot have

reveals another shift, another city, what she cannot muffle
she learns to rupture until only a tendril of sound,

ceaselessly tangled, shambles its way up. Somewhere her duties
remove their spectacles, stare her down. Shyly she smiles.