C - The Clairvoyante

 C - The Clairvoyante 

Not a cento, a poem made up of only lines from another poem.  Not a golden shovel (that will be my post for G), which takes the last words of an existing poem and uses them as the first words in a new work.  I have used some lines (shown in italics) from T. S. Eliot's The Wasteland, and added my own.  It probably has a form name, but I don't know what it is.  A type of found poetry at any rate.  

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,

Had a bad cold, 

resulting in her predictions being “off.”

No longer “the wisest woman in Europe,”

her congested sinuses blocked the flow of information.

“Here, she said,

Is your card…”

“But I’m sure it’s not quite right,

“… this card… is blank.”

She sneezes into her shawl,

excusing herself with a smile,

suggesting her shew stone instead.

...I am forbidden to see.

She gazes into her ball,

wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

“I do not find… death by water.”

I am somehow relieved by that,

although I rarely visit the shore,

my only bathing is by shower.

Madame Sosostis, famous clairvoyante,

had a bad cold,

I rise, telling her

“Thank you,”

and see myself out.

Once on the sidewalk

I reach into my coat pocket

for the hand sanitizer.

“One must be so careful these days.”

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