Poetic Form: The Cento

Weather You or Me

Dark, moist months I spent

Sliding my way along balance beams

You were made of white lace

Gazing in a fancy store-front window

Blowing in a moist, early evening breeze

An avalanche of colors

Took over my life

Devouring tears

I stood in windblown heather

To wrap you in a filament of words, and doing this

Each wiggle tangling me further

Exploded the night into existence

Our souls collide

You are like a mist flowing through me

I tremble in the darkness

The dreadful sweet song

Sweet grass softly moaning in my arms

I pull the scent of you deep into my lungs

You love that I was acting like an animal

And hold my fragrance in your hand

Wanting me in a horizontal way

Feel my skin, smell and taste a part of my heart

Salty sweat covers my body, it is yours, mine, ours

I taste colors spilling out of fractals from my sweaty hands

Staring out into a vast Irish space

Looking through the kaleidoscope

Scanning the horizon for collections

Of euphoric joy and anguished grief

Erosion takes place within my bones

In my dreams marked dead on a tree

I was dreaming of the darkness

Sweet agony this, too long

I was an amusement park

I mirror your reflection now

In my morning coffee

When thoughts of returning home

Slowly drift and creep

Hoping to see a familiar face

A cento is a poem made up of lines from other poet's poems. I asked a few Hubbers and one other poet if they would mind if I used lines from their poems. They agreed, and so the poem was made possible. A word in each line of my cento links back to their original work, and the contributing poets are shown at right.

I found this form very challenging. It is an attempt to unify fragments of disparate styles and points of view into a coherent whole. I did my best to do right by these fine poets. I give my thanks to them for making this poem possible and for providing such reading pleasure as I hunted for lines.

Thanks again to the poets.