On this week's installment of Next Line, Please, contributors were tasked with writing poems with lines quoted from participants' submissions in the previous week:
“He’d rather be listening to Beethoven”—Patricia Wallace
“will one day pack her suitcase”—Cheryl Whitehead
“And once, I took a turn at the bedside of a dying man”—Donald LaBranche
“and all the Patron Saints of Paranoia”—George Kaplan
“an illusion, / like loving /without losing”—Courtney Thrash
“I have been to the abyss”—David Lehman
The results are quite varied and ever satisfying. Shout to to Millicent Caliban’s “Forgive Me” which gives a taste of all 6 lines:
I have been to the abbess. She told me
to pray to the patron saint of paranoia
because I fear my faith is an illusion,
like loving without losing. How can I
be sure of my vocation? We sing hymns,
but I would rather listen to Beethoven:
more passion, less devotion, reluctant
to obey, unable to desire renunciation.
Will I one day pack my suitcase and leave?
Tonight I will take my turn by the bed
of a dying man and pray for his soul,
for his release from guilt and sin and mine.
What comes after? Is it bliss or only the abyss?
Another gold star to all the newcomers to “Next Line, Please,” specifically Koahakumele's “Baggage”:
Once, at twenty, I took a turn at
the bedside of a dying man.
Though he slept fitfully, and
snorted and wheezed his own melody,
I knew he’d rather be listening to Beethoven.On the other hand, I, faced with his reality and
with silent time lingering,
realized I had now been to the abyss.
I prayed to all the Patron Saints of Paranoia,
recognizing my own small suitcase would be
one day packed for my own last journey.Believing I could avoid the blank midnight corridors and
antiseptic smells was only an illusion.
Like loving without losing.
Next week’s prompt is inspired by the charming lexicon of chess, particularly the names of chess openings, including:
“Queen’s Gambit Declined”
“Sicilian Defense”
“Hedgehog System”
“Grand Prix Attack”
“Napoleon Opening”
“Vienna Game”
Choose one and do what you can. Your poem can be or not be about chess. Fourteen lines or less.
Visit the American Scholar's page to read all the other poems with borrowed lines and to enter your candidate for next week!
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