F - Found Poetry: a Cento

My B post was Blackout, a form of Found poetry.  Today, F is for Found Poetry in general, with an example of a Cento.  

Cento is Latin for "patchwork," and is written entirely of lines written by other poets.  It is sometimes referred to as a "collage" poem.  I find them quite fun to write.  I probably spend a bit too long on them, starting with as many lines as I do!

My cento takes the lines of two poets, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Robert Lowell.  It also has an introduction with lyrics from a Jackson Browne song. The poems are listed after my found patchwork. 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Full_moon_setting_over_Lanai.jpg

“And the heavens were rolling
Like a wheel on a track
And our sky was unfolding
And it'll never fold back
Sky blue and black”

Jackson Browne, Sky Blue and Black

 

Tonight a blackout. Twenty years ago,

 

when time was open-eyed,

I saw the sky descending, black and white.

 

My breath came short, and scarce at all.   

   

Last night the moon was full.

I stand aside and marvel; for a while,

 

now here, now there, the starling and the sea.

 

Where are you?  You were with me and are gone.

Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more!          

 

My soul is all but out of me, - let fall.  

 

There’s no long struggle, no desire.

Mother, my bones are trembling, and I hear,

 

“Cut your own throat. Cut your own throat.  Now!  Now!”

 

And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,        

on and on eternally.  

 

I run about in circles till I drop

 

©2022 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved

#cento #centopoetry #centopoem #bloggingatozchallege

 

Robert Lowell

The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket

Christmas Eve under Hooker’s Statue

Last Night the Moon Was Full

France (From the Gibbet)

Katherine’s Dream

Mr. Edwards and The Spider

After The Surprising Conversations

Where the Rainbow Ends

The Dead of Europe

 

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Renascence

The Suicide

God’s World

Ashes of Live

Memorial to D.C.