Between-the-Lines Poem: Choose your favorite poem from the readings. Type out the poem, leaving triple-space between lines. Then, between the lines, fill in a new line of your own which is sparked by the original line. Eliminate all original poem lines at the end. The poem that remains is your own. Tinker with it and make it cohere.
13 thoughts on “Found Poem”
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From in “Fourth Grade Autobiography”
We live in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
We have a front yard and a backyard.
My favorite things are cartwheels, honeydew,
and playing tennis with my mom. I squeeze the grass
and dirt between my fingers. Eat my tongue
white.
He tosses balls into orbit
Every ball drops like a raindrop, delicate or heavy
of riots and falling and the dark.
The sunset of flames ringing our block,
groceries and Asian-owned storefronts. No one
to catch me. Midnight walks from his room to mine.
I believe in the devil.
I have 2 brothers
and strong headlock. We have a dog named
Starr, fluffy and white.
We have a cherry blossom
tree. A black walnut tree. A fig tree.
We lie in the grass and wonder who writes
in the sky. I lie in the grass and imagine
my name, a cloud drifting. Saturday
dance parties. Everyone drunk on pink
panties.
Strobe lights and people dancing close. Sometimes Mama dances with the dog.
Sometimes my brothers dance with me. I feel free
In the comfort of my house walls. They are careful to protect me.
I’m careful to not let them go.
Inspired by: “How to Triumph Like A Girl” by Ada Limón
Work, Women, Work
I enjoy watching women work most,
they make it seem so pleasant,
as if constantly exerting energy
doesn’t take a toll.
I enjoy the care they take
with their appearance. Hair brushed, girls, add some blush!
To tell you the truth, I enjoy
their demeanor. It reminds me
that something is lurking in me
deep inside the fragile home
surrounded by muscle and bone,
the heart of a woman, a lost girl
detached from the rest, heavy with regret.
You believe me, don’t you?
Here, let me show off my chest, bare
see what’s left behind
the remains of a working girl,
who knows she can never win.
Found in “Wade in the water” by Tracy K. Smith
The breath is a response
to the syllables
Sucked into blood,
What could be more truthful
Then slumping over
Covered in honeydew
I love you
Yellow in the chin
I love you
Blue in the ears
I love you
Red
Breath for you
For the honeydew
Of the past
To be water but now
Air
Fuller than any of us every will be
I love you
In popping ears
In filling mouths
Till the red gives it back
And will track us always down
I love you
bone bubbles
The the need
The breeze
I love you
It will blow back around
It would go back into the yellow
The blue
The red
The blood
The ears
The honey dew
The Eclipse – Inspired by The Wild Iris by Louise Glück
I feel alone
no one understands it
Hear me out:
they are forever in my memory
surrounded by noises, sounds of life, but
an eclipse of my mind, an overpower nap
until a voice re-awakes reality
I survive
consciousness drifting
Mind both present and absent at once
In an instant, life returns to normal:
my unable mind able again
unable again, I’m acutely aware of oblivious surroundings
alone, I crumble, but
birds serenade outside my window
No one else seems to notice
If only I could control the mind train
It’s time to be human again: whatever
Into the oblivion
Silently crying
Since the beginning of my life
A great mystery,
neuronal misbehavior
Found from “The Years” by Alex Dimitrov
Those phone calls day and night
Seeing the lives of others
Through nothing but their words
During which friends joined, left,
and hung their words dry
Maybe we all felt discontent,
Wondering if we were wasting our youth,
Refusing to say those words out loud
Behind the melancholic blue of our screens,
Fearing saying even a brief word
Because in just a moment
Our fears become real and cosmic
By acknowledging their existence.
Inside the phone weighing on my being
My friends live and share.
Share their joy, their sorrow, the
State of their heart. In these pictures
They were everywhere, and
They were nowhere. A party
In the now or trapped in cyberspace.
I know I should join them, leave
The world I’ve trapped myself in—
Make my youth an explosion
Of colors or a book full
Of anecdotes. Laying on my bed,
The night sky fills my senses.
The stars take the initiative, dedicating
Their lives to painting their masterpiece.
We are all enveloped under this same work
Of art. Yet they have gone to the party,
While I cannot move.
Found from “Spa Days” by KEETJE KUIPERS
Leaves dripping onto me like lemonade
Making me arch my back,
To be, big and strong, the absence of hair
A phantom tickling of my shoulders. Yesterday, swimming
In the stock, I found a carrot’s crown
A top barely hanging on to it’s orange root
The remnants of its flavor, and remembered
The months I spent underground,
The dirt thick around me,
while worms danced carefully around my body
as slippery and spry as a lick
I did not fear those worms, or their feces I took
Into my bones, though I was always trying to out
grow them to what I believed was hidden
Inside their wrinkles. I knew it would require
A persistence, a lengthening towards the light.
How strange to discover what Spring has done
Through that slow, stubborn ascent – the light
Itself, every velvety bit of it like the kiss
Of a loved one: warm, softened butter where you
Are the edge. And the water, all these months later,
Still absorbing into my skin from that dirt below me.
Found poem from The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck
You still come back to me
Through a door painted by kids, a yellow door.
It feels less permanent
The crossing off of another something.
The candle in its tin flickers and goes out.
It shines stronger in my memory,
A pond disturbed by a thrown rock.
To feel your bones crack, the same as
Your flesh, unwilling and too visceral
Your body, sorrel curled around fingertips
Turned into only memories
To remember the marrow you kissed
No longer bends to your love,
your silence, a gaping chest wound.
The songbirds are finally out for spring.
The night I let you crawl in
A boat across the styx, a promise
You needed me to – I need you.
A heart pushed back into motion –
I would leave you at the door.
The space you carved, caving, craving
The depth of which I promise to know
A coin tossed, a wish dissolved in brine.
Inspired by Detail of the Woods by Richard Siken
…
The towering pines encircling me shrink me down into something unimportant.
Put me in a jail of bark and twigs.
I’m straining my ears but can’t hear a sound. Is anyone there? Maybe it’s too late, already.
In this space I am alone, and yet it is not mine. It belongs to the forest.
Some can tell time by watching the movements of the moon. All I know is that it’s been forever.
From the friendly animals: a sense of loneliness.
From the playful wind: a sense of loneliness.
I pretend it doesn’t matter, that this was meant to happen. To take control.
Everything makes a sound.
In my mind, you hold my hand, and the loneliness is gone.
Dented grass
Sweeping masses above like mushroom clouds, me pulled close like a speck of dust, waiting.
Inside of me the forest beats like an unsteady footstep and I hold my knees to my chest.
I listen for movement. Even though
I shouldn’t stay in the forest, a lost infection searching for something to grasp. I have nowhere to go.
The moon glints through the trees with only enough light to illuminate a single blade of grass.
Cold moon, long nights moon.
From the moon: a sense of direction.
From the bomb: a sense of direction.
The air breathes itself in and out without word, without meaning.
I try to consume it for yourself. I try to cover you
as though there is nothing to fear.
As though there is nothing
Based off of Meditations in an Emergency by Cameron Awkward-Rich
The light is too bright, it stings my eyes, yet another day of not wanting to wake
up. It is cloudy and gloomy, but I go on anyway. I
force my little legs to carry me down the road, passing those
far more beautiful than I. People walking in groups, laughing and smiling
forming a circle, I am on the outside looking in. They
move like they do not have a care in the world, the blonde, and the blue
make this just another day. Sometimes when I close my eyes
I am somewhere else. Not here and panicking pulling at
My hair trying to look busy. But I am somewhere safe and sound.
But I am not like them, I have to change and soften myself
so I don’t appear dangerous. Just don’t
appear dangerous
Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota – by James Wright
Wings fluttering lazily,
Almost imperceptible.
In the backlit glow-hazy fields,
Ambling along with purpose
Sigh.
I turn my head to see
Where the farmer turned them out last,
Still lying where they fell,
Embracing the fibers of the hammock,
Night bugs begin to fill the silence.
Eventually, it coasts out of sight.
Based off of Meditations in an Emergency by Cameron Awkward-Rich
The Hamster Wheel
I wake up and instantly try to go back. The light is too bright &
The sun hurts my sleepy blue eyes. I force a trip outside the solace of my house.
Get in the car. Pick up groceries. Observe the morning commute.
People, like ants in a colony.
On the sidewalk, driving their cars, the occasional retiree
Free from the chains of unfulfilling work,
But what is my purpose? It has to be
More than this. Life has to be more than this.
I get back in my beat-down twenty-four year old car
Making yet another seemingly expensive new noise.
Tik-tik-tik. Like me, it will soon explode.
Like me, nobody knows when. Like me, nobody knows why.
Nobody knows.
Found from “How to Triumph Like A Girl” by Ada Limón
I wish I had a lady horse’s heart,
moving easy, like it’s nothing,
like the hardest thing I’ve ever done
is a walk in the park,
and I can strut and toss my head
like I’ve already won.
Honestly, I like that they’re bitches
to prove a point. If she can stamp a hoof
and pin an ear to get her way, then maybe I
can set a boundary for my own skin.
She is clothed in muscle, but we have
the same heart, her and I,
attitude and boundaries and all.
Hey, don’t you trust me?
Don’t you trust I have it in me,
a classy bitch and a powerhouse,
to trust enough in myself
to put myself first.