WILL WE -- FOUND POEM #2

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Today's nudge is from Collier Nogues who suggests we "start with any piece of junk mail or advertising, or any legal document or bureaucratic form (it’s tax time!). Choose a few sentences. Remove the nouns. Replace them with:

            •words from a poem you’ve abandoned

            •words from one or more poems you love (by anyone,  

             yourself included)

            •any other source that works

From there, work what you’ve got into a poem. This prompt can be a throwaway prompt to generate a few lines, or it can become the engine for a situational poem."

No junk mail kicking around here, and how nice is that! Instead, I had a look at my email, then went over to AirMiles' website and grabbed a few sentences from a little section of some of their legalese. They looked like this (no need to read; does anyone, ever?):

You may allocate the miles that you collect to the separate accounts (“Collector Accounts”) under your Collector Number that we may establish from time to time.

The Program, including all miles, Collector Cards, every certificate or other document which can be exchanged for a Reward ("Certificate") and all rights relating to them, are and will remain our property.

You must identify yourself as a Collector and present your Collector Card or provide your Collector Number when dealing with Partners.

We may refuse to record or honour miles in your Collector Accounts, or if already recorded, we may cancel them, if we cannot confirm that they were properly issued or obtained.

 Partners will determine the conditions under which they will issue miles and may change those conditions at any time and without notice. Neither we nor any Partner is responsible for any offer of miles which is no longer in effect.

Next, I went into my "poems in progress" file, found a couple that I'd pretty much forgotten about, and as per directions used them for words and phrases to replace the nouns in the above dry stuff. This eventually resulted in:

Will We

Determine the falls beneath which

great golden shawls and horses ride,

neither responsible for traces of burning,

identifying worn slate, tectonic plates,

no longer refuse but honour.

And as recorded, many times,

will we cancel and forgive,

ignore and reprimand until

we cannot confirm they were proper?

Or not proper. Separate the stages

of a life and you have storms subdued

by rock-ringed tickles exchanged with grace

for rust-coloured light.

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