The moon drunk on honeysuckle

Another surrealist poetry draft

The moon drunk on honeysuckle
No destination but the road rolling out ahead
Rain-damp chickweed through open window
White knuckles on stickshift knob
Playing the wheel like a jittery harpist
Keys and teeth in the passenger-seated shoebox
AM radio razzle-dazzle crackles through blown-out speakers
Shifting rows of gravestones glimpsed at highway speeds
Road signs leapfrog
No magic but in motion
No suitcase but a trash bag
Distant memory of waitress beehived and honeytoned
Firepods and bramble race to the moon-soaked horizon
Swerving, surviving, lucky or unlucky
Jupiter occludes
Pass the cup of poison

This is another poem (draft) from my recent surrealist poetry workshop with Kelli Russell Agodon. This exercise was a high-wire act: We were given the first line, then had a fixed amount of time (8 minutes?) to write from that prompt. But every 15 seconds or so, Kelli would throw out another word or short phrase, and we were to try to incorporate those into our poem-in-progress on the fly. It’s an exercise that really forces you to stop planning and just go with your first thought and your unconscious associations.

Nevertheless, my linear, story-driven mind still tried to stitch together a coherent scene. I think that’s pretty obvious in the result. Is it to you?

The first line of this poem was provided to us as a starter. Kelli didn’t mention where it came from, so I’m not confident in this credit, but I searched the phrase and came up with one result, and it seems likely. So here’s a link to a poem by Ronda Piszk Broatch, which starts with this exact phrase.

BTW, why am I posting drafts rather than polished, gleaming poems? There are a few reasons:

• April is Poetry Month, so I’m just generating a lot of ideas this month without editing. Ideally, at least one a day. And since my notebook is filling with them, why not pop them up here for feedback?

• I’m trying to become more intentional and more regular about putting new stuff on Read Write Repeat.

• I feel much less confident in poetry than I do in fiction, so I’m exploring, evolving, allowing or even exhorting ideas to just burst forth.

• Even after editing, I don’t really turn out polished, gleaming poems. I prefer things a bit ragged, crackling, confounding.

Thanks for reading. Leave me a comment so I know you’re still with me.