Trying out something new. What do you think? I sent this video (a favorite song of mine) to my friend, Leo Campos, as a poetry prompt. Here’s what he sent me:
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Riots
When why what how much
Questions like chairs
Stacked end to end
To the burning end of town
You’re better off
Living in a dead end
Future, every end, every
Stone you throw at the police,
Every fist upon fist, mad boys and girls
Many circles growing to the size of Lake Geneva
Whispering end on end, East and West
You’re mad, you think. Too many whispering voices
Too many
Faces ending in more faces
Boys with faces like glass, girls like stone
Take the last chairs
At a Finland dive bar with stone tables
Watching for home
Watching for home
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My response:
Did you see the nun in the video?….
Convert
Convert or die!
Madmen rule the world.
They are us –
kicking in chairs,
tantrums
knocking down
tables, East and West.
Maybe a dead end
but better than death
whispering, yes,
it’s best.
Which option to choose
when we need
too much, damning
the past, fearing
the future.
Convert now
to find rest.
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Leo sent:
Mannequins in love
The beautiful people
Whispering sweet nothings in
Public displays of affection
Like mannequins in exclusive shops
In expensive malls
Plastic attraction
Surface tension
The chemistry between us
is perfect
I love your augmentations, you
Love my financial acumen
We love
the perfection
of our mutual reflection
When you are all surface, all opaque
It does not matter what side of town you come from
East or West End cross over histories
Prejudices. Lust and greed are the
Great equalizers, the engines of democracy
Love, true love, is the melting of polymers
In fashionable clothes, in fashionable bars
Fashionable smiles, posed, poised,
Polished
Complete each other
What are your thoughts?