The found poem hates the way
the egregious disruptions of fashion
have shaped his hideous form;
a misshapen picaresque, he lurches.
He is angry as blackbirds in a pie
croaking of their wonderful fortune
to be mere ingredients, gimmicks,
encased in another’s recipe.
Found poem finds himself quite
unsatisfactory. Gone all lovely
fantasies, the shimmy of catwalk.
They brushed aside the dreamer
in his dreams, and left him lumpy,
daggy, and bereft. He would soar
O singing heart turn hawk.
None of that here, no, just
remnants; bits of discard —
here an ear and there an ape.
The Baskerville-shaped shadows cross the floor.
Poem scratches someone else’s metaphors
that pull his skin right out of shape.
All thumbs he tries to text himself
a message, but random eyes can’t focus.
“If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear.”
*
Sources:
- Thy poetry and thy pathos—all so strange!— from Ada Cambridge ‘A Dream of Venice’
- egregious disruptions of fashion from Peter Porter ‘St Cecilia’s day 1710’
- a misshapen picaresque from John Kinsella ‘hydrography’
- They brushed aside the dreamer in his dreams from George Essex Evans ‘The Master’
- O singing heart turn hawk from Douglas Stewart ‘Turn Eagle, Lark’
- The Baskerville-shaped shadows cross the floor from Peter Porter ‘The Puppy of Heaven’
- “If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear.” Mary Shelley Frankenstein
Note 1: the poet has sometimes changed punctuation and line breaks, and almost always meanings
Note 2: the creation of this monster was inspired by a discussion at Under the counter or a flutter in the dovecot
P.S. Cottier has never won the Blake Prize. Neither has she won the
Montreal Poetry Prize. The Newcastle Poetry Prize has eluded her, and the Bruce Dawe Prize adorns no wall owned by P.S. Cottier.