Write five words. Include nouns and verbs and adjectives and one important abstraction such as "truth."

The next person writes a poem using them and leaves five more words.

I'll start:

riotous
glazed
slip
leaves
longing

[ December 10, 2002, 07:03 PM: Message edited by: Argeaux ]

Wow! No takers?

Maybe you didn't like my words. I thought it could be like the game where you draw five lines and someone makes a picture out of it.

I'm reading a book on writing and it's very inspiring. One of the suggestions is to find words and save them. Maybe we could just do that here. Anyone want to add some interesting words?

I have a few more:

gravy
sunflower chips ( I saw this on a sign)
thistle seed (same sign)
flowsoft (it doesn't have to be a real word)
bodysack

I'm going to wwrite my own poem if no one will play

I'm siting on this riotous mountain
watching the sun glazed rocks
slip below me.
My leaves are
longing for
another day.

i wanna play--really i do. but i'm short on scrollin' time. i'll try to soon...

I'll play soon too -- I've gotta get to the housecleaning chores now with Thanksgiving coming and all, but I wanted to let ya know I'm interested in playing too.

~Gabber

Innocence

In those days of sunflower chips and thistle seed
Lollyacking around the river bed
Haystalks between your teeth and clover in my hair
The water gravy swelled and frothed between my toes
As I splashed diamond ringlets into your hair
Now your bodysack lies still and soft
A pillow for your dreams into the netherworlds
More curse than comfort for distressed kin
It slides into the deep and the waves flowsoft over you
Whispering "Remember"

Argeaux 2002

Here are the next five words:

forgiveness
dappled
swirling
frond
plinket

I like your wrods Argeaux. I would use them but I will give someone esle a chance.I have request though. Can you please give this subject an edit and make it Ficter's Challenge # 11. I just didn't check to see what # it was. Thanks.

[ December 10, 2002, 06:49 PM: Message edited by: Cynical One ]

Done.

Thnaks for playing Argeaux. I like the feel of place in this, like a memory half remembered. I'm still tempted to use your words. I think I will but I'll hold the poem to give another person a chance.

Using Argy's words:

I can't lie to you-
not when I'm swirling
in a frond
of my own regrets

You come in dreams
where you lay down a
plinket of my former selves
and I must choose between them
and you-
before the morning sunlight
has dappled all my forgivness.

new words:
Solstice
savor
foreign
breathless
bond

Inspiration has struck...and Nanzar's words fit me perfectly...although this is prolly not how she expected the poem to go along with her words, but it's what I've got...so hopefully ya'll will enjoy.

~Gabber
============

"I Need You to Warm Me"

I feel a chill in the winter air
An alarming promise that hits me bare
Solstice eves are suddenly so lonely again
More moments of having to smile and pretend

Shakes move through my bones
Words, or lack thereof, begin to feel like stones
I'm breathless in this not so foreign state
Didn't think I would have another one of these Solstice fates

There's wood next to the fire, a match lying there
But I'll only light the fire with a simple prayer
For warmth from the only arms I need
Your chained heart to be freed

For unless I can feel your heart beating in time with mine
And our fingers reach out to intertwine
There won't be much on this holiday to savor and treasure
For our love is my one true pleasure

So please, don't break but instead strengthen our bond
Give me the love we know will go above and beyond
For I've only one wish that's true...
I don't want to spend one more Solstice without you.

--12/23/02 Copyright Keri S. (Gabber)

New words:
memories
falling
cynical
renewed
cherish

Hey! No expectations here! Beautiful poem Gabber and great use of the words. I'm glad they fit your mood!

QUEEN OF ANCIENT FUTURE

The gentle queen of dreams appears to paint Arcadia
Sunken in white sighs of mist
She sits on grass as dark and blue and green
as moods of saddened hearts

Her finger's tip picks up one early morning pearl of dew
to raise it up against the cherish'd sun
Her eyes as dark and blue and green
as pools in sleeping gardens

The pearl sprays shards of day through night's grey memories
falling on feather'd sleeping messengers
Through deepest forests cradling remainders of old silence
now unfolding cobalt wings to flight
Flocks of bluebirds rise and stroke her face with racing shadows

The Queen weeps and lets the pearl of dew turn red
add blood and life to morning's water
Crimson wings unfold to ride the light
Flocks of redbirds rise and fill the sky with new-born breath

The Queen smiles and seals this day renewed
to ease the shadows on the cynic's painful sense
that this - again - will not be Arcadia

***

Sorry for bending a few of the words.

***

The new batch:

steel
steal
mourn
torn
happiness


The Xenatizer

[ December 26, 2002, 08:36 PM: Message edited by: The Xenatizer ]

Those were some beautiful poems people. I loved them... what a way to restart my scrolling then with another challenge....

gabber... that was cool and so you. Xenatizer... same thing.. damn... funny how the same words can have such different sounds... like argy's and nanzar's... i don't know.. it just interesting how your personalities will make just five words completely different... give them life... damned writiers! great job... and as i said i would:

steel
steal
mourn
torn
happiness

Skipping Work

Leaning against this cold bar of steel
Lost in the dizzy rotation of Parkway passing pedestrians
Some ambling, some sauntering, others trouncing and bounding
I wonder if their questions mirror mine
Torn between living to work and working to live
I wonder if they mourn for the parks abandoned at 8 a.m
Frolic in the happiness of swaying playground swings and melting icecreams
I wonder where they steal their motivations from
To keep them true to this heavily guided path
of street signs, lights, and lines
And away from the wild chalk ladden pavement of yesterdays freedom

shook out the moths.... first "poem" in months... i may need to come here for therapy.

mons

OOPS! FORGOT MY FIVE WORDS TO PASS ALONG!

languid
beauty
run
slipery
coconut

ever vacant,
monsie

[ February 26, 2003, 12:20 PM: Message edited by: mons ]

Yankee Transplant

I was a stranger climbing coconut trees
It was hard to crack the shells
but it was worth the time when the milk
would run down my chin

I would run across the slippery grass
fake a fall and let the beauty of the night
fill my lungs and heart and mind
with the languid freedom of the south.

Mons- It's good to have you back!
I had to try your words but they were hard! This doesn't seem quite finished but it was fun to re-live some of my memories of the time that I lived in Florida.

new words:
coin
worth
sticky
curl
spinner

[ March 02, 2003, 03:08 PM: Message edited by: Nanzar ]

Anzac Day

The old digs watch the coin turn
Straining necks for all they are worth
Heads or tails
A few bob more or less
Today it is legal
They drink with shadows
Telling it all again
Rivers of loss and glory
Those who left legs in other lands
Feel again the itch of youth
Forgotten names roll easily off tongues
Slaked with too many beers
Hands sticky from overflowing heads
Eyes rimmed with red
Love makes their lips quiver and curl
As mates are mourned
The pass that fell
Bullets that missed or hit
Snipers
Muck and mud
Luke warm tea and stale toast
Thread bare blankets
Bucket fires
Irises shining then fading
"Come in spinner!"
The penny drops
Cries go up and money changes hands
Everyone is a winner here today

Argeaux 4.3.2003

Next five words:

refurbishment
totality
neck
zebra
affirmation

to say i've been uninspired of late would be an understatement. so i figured the Ficters' Challenge might start a spark. well,it didn't really, but i forced this out anyway. forced being the operative term...

ice storm

i turn my face skyward,
upward to the storm.
ice bites my face and neck--
i rage back gust for gust,
hurling my own shards into the night.
the arrows of my anger
are but bitter words,
unworthy of the totality of my pain.
my soul is a ramshackle disarray of neglect
eternally primed for refurbishment--
all drywall and spackle--
forever thirsty for that fresh coat of paint,
that small awakening splash of color in the
monochromatic malaise of my existence,
a tiny rainbow in a zebra world,
some remote affirmation of my reality,
my validity,
my life.
the steely sky rains down,
indifferent to my diatribe.
its comfort is cold;
my anger is unabated.

next words:
sleep
bile
Spartan
magic
sisterhood

[ March 05, 2003, 01:28 AM: Message edited by: Irish ears on fire ]

Loved that poem, zoom. Still trying to figure it out.

Aha! in the style of Sylvia Plath as promised.

Awakening

There is no sleep
No sleep for me
Crouched in my poison web
Netting and bile wet over me
This foul cocoon
This nettle bed

I thought it was you
Comfort and caress
Piercing through
This messiness
Yet it withdrew
There is doubt where once I knew

My heart flew
Beating into the ether
Soaring over wasteland
Searching for rest
Spartan bones calling to it
Drawing it down
Into the fiery abyss

Then I found you
Peat moss and stingy leaves
Tearing my flesh
Until I no longer cared to breathe
Leaving my essence in the air

All around the sisterhood
Beat their magic
Heating me with their pounding
Sticks on my spine
My back stretched tight for their drums
Tom tom tomorrow

So now I grin
A beckoning reckoning grimace
Come see my love
I have saved this space for you
In my nest
Lay down in peace
Suffocate yourself in this embrace

Argeaux 5.3.2003

Five more:

hemlock
quill
twitter
bowl
mercurial

I so totally LOVE these poems! You are all writing some wonderful stuff. Argeaux- "Anzac Day" was terrific. I can't find one thing to point out, it's all so good.

Zoom if you were in a slump it hardly shows in "Ice Storm." Perfectly turned feelings in word pictures, and how you used those hard words- just great!

Argy- "Awakening" has me guessing the meaning, but the feelings are so pure and deep I hardly care!

Great work everyone. Carry on. I'm just passing through for now.

Well I cant Sing & I cant Dance
& I cant write poetry
But I can use 5 words to paint a mental picture.

He landed on the edge of the bowl.
Twittering happily in the morning sunshine.
There he was again at in the birdbath by the Hemlock.

Preening & cleaning a quill before he dashed off to due whatever hapy birds doon sunny mornings.
I sat & watched a bit longer enjoying the sun glinting its golden mercurial way over the lazily moving water.

Actually that makes me think of my Dad..he loved watching birds.

now the Hard part..
5 words!

itchin
stuff <------*pssst* THIS is the Important Abstraction,OK..??LOL
paragon
intellect
profuse

YaY!! Even Linxi would have trouble with THAT!!