Jennifer Jowett is our host at ethicalela.com today. She inspires us to rewrite previous poems using antonyms.
I love this new form. It’s a great new way to rethink and have hope for all of those half-thought-out unfinished but once started wordplays and poems I nearly discard every time I go in my Google Docs to do some cleaning and then get overwhelmed with all the junk in my closet. I found one this morning from when my grandson and I were playing with senses and colors and rhymes – quite a long time ago! Each of us would add a line and we came up with an AidaNana original – it held special memories, so I kept it. I’m using it to change the rhyming words today to a new verse. I’m loving the form – it could be called the CPR poem to try to save what was needing a breath and heart pump or two. And finally, perhaps, it may even help me play around with songs to make sense of all those lyrics I’ve always wondered about, and like McArthur Park is melting…..in the dark….all the sweet green icing flowing down….someone left the cake out in the rain….I don’t think that I can take it….’cause it took so long to bake it…..and I’ll never have that recipe again…..
Original:
I’m going to blue sky Montana
Wearing my red bandana
Sitting under a green cabana
Eating a yellow banana
Listening to Carlos Santana
Hasta Manana!
* * *
After CPR (Antonymic translation):
I’m drifting to blue water coves
lifevestless seams
basking in sunshine
drinking a tiny umbrella world
as waves crash all around
lifebestness dreams…..
Common Threads 