Step 1. Write word-centos of poetry by Joshua
Michael Stewart, Alicia Elkort, Don Kingfisher
Campbell and Melissa Studdard in the park, say
Hotchkiss Park (Santa Monica, California); and
write Don Kingfisher Campbell’s word-cento
listening to Quicksilver Messenger Service,
“The Truth.” (In non-shpiggidity-shpaggidity
speak, a word-cento is basically a rearrangement
of the words of a poem however you see fit, but
only using the words of the poet, particularly the
words in only one poem of said saint.)

 

I AM DANGLING YOUR MISTAKEN ANGELS

(a word-cento of Joshua Michael Stewart’s
“Ignes Fatui” *)

I am.
I am dangling.
I am dangling your mistaken angels;
I am dangling your mistaken angels over flames,
over evening, over breathless fire
in the window,
a caterpillar under dewdrop
over fire, my guitar, newly skinned—
I play the caterpillar,
dazzling white engulfing breathless
fire over evening, over you
in the window,
which I am dangling.
I am.
I am dangling.
I am dangling your mistaken angels.

* Original poem by Joshua Michael Stewart
from The Bastard Children of Dharma Bums
(Human Error Publishing 2020). First
published in Vintage Grey (Pudding House
Publications 2007).

 

NO REDEMPTION

(a word-cento of Alicia Elkort’s
“Sonnet For The Man Who Invaded
My Childhood, or Only Alchemy
Can Redeem A Life *)

Rose, a loop, the door. Erased.
A poem, the scream
stares, sanded someone.
Redemption? No.
No roads fire invective amethyst.
No softness shed in someone,
in someone else’s softness.
I’m editing the fires
with blood & salvation.
I’m filled with words
& everything rose in…

…roads cocked the threat
but I’m filled with words.

You’ll imagine a poem. But you’ll
hear blood melting.
Mine is
filled with words,
no softness.
No redemption.

* Original poem by Alicia Elkort
published in Vox Viola and
nominated for the 2021 Pushcart
Prize.

 

THE TRUTH

(a word-cento of Don Kingfisher Campbell’s
“In the Land of ICE, Who Can Survive” *)

Ice benefitted frozen logic
announced forget. Forget
controversy born tonight of angry,
born tonight shouting after me,
shouting FORGET! Forget
the FIRE of Sacrifice!
Forget the rising—
the rising chill amnestied
my life this summer:
this summer we forget,
forget the forgotten,
the forgotten faces free
uniformed by hell, eyes
imagine decades ago.
But I have forgotten.

* Original poem by Don Kingfisher Campbell
published in Spectrum.

 

UNTITLED

(a word-cento of Melissa Studdard’s
“The pain is so resplendent it has babies”*)

Refusing resplendent birth, babies’ backs
realize sound will swaddle sequined saws—
the pain into doves.

Half the pain is a cocktail.
Half the pain is open to everyone.
Half the pain is ‘I’ carrying
my blue ribs’ burlesque doves, making babies:
who nurtured the next ‘me’,
instead of ‘me’ now.

Half the pain is a hat
full of rocks.
Half the pain is not home.
Half the pain comes from epidurals,
resplendent epidurals,
resplendent onstage epidurals—
green mothered by me,
but not me.

The evening emcees announces all along
that the parking lot of pain saws ‘me’ into more
more more resplendent epidurals, more more more
resplendent ‘next’.

The parking lot of pain saws me, not the pain.

I am the sequined she
who conceived home,
a bed in a room of resplendent realizing and refusing
my blue babies’ birth
under my curtains.

* Original poem by Melissa Studdard
published in The Penn Review and
winner of The Penn Review’s 2019
Poetry Prize.

 

Step 2. Make your bed in the morning and meditate,
legs crossed, sitting on the couch; have paper and a
pen next to you. Write a meditative insert. Later,
after your meditation, share it with a friend, say Clif
Mason; have a discussion about “the window” and
the concept of talking to windows. Return to your
meditative insert the next day. Ask Clif if you can
use your conversation about “the window” and
include it in your meditative insert. *

 

MEDITATIVE INSERT

WHY DOES IT HURT SO MUCH
TO TEAR MY HEART IN TWO?

What do you do when you have no words left to say?
When you see mosquitos that never were on the floor?
Do you drip downstairs
& watch the walls of a room you’ve never been before,
splatter paint to mimic courage?
Last night, you told me courage is fear with faith.
I want to clean my glasses, wipe away
all the splatter paint.
But the splatter paint is invisible,
not really invisible,
but just words in my blood.
I can see it everywhere, even in the blue clouds.

How do you talk to the window?
I’m asking because I don’t really know.
Perhaps, I’ve always wanted to know.
‘Soul’ is a verb, witnessing
my own image step outside of
somebody’s reflection
in the windowpane, a pain
unpresent, never truly
here. Two poets descending: my image
and somebody’s reflection.
MY IMAGE says:
We talk to windows when
we go about our day.
We’re all windows staring
at a painting of ourselves,
trying to clear the dust
but not forget ourselves.
SOMEBODY’S REFLECTION says:
Or we’re wondering,
looking at paintings,
what it might be like
to wear paint
instead of dust.
MY IMAGE:
I read about this term the other day
for words whose meanings conflict
with each other.
I forget the term,
but I feel like the word should be
people.
SOMEBODY’S REFLECTION:
Let me know if you discover
the word.
I’ve often wondered if there
were one.
MY IMAGE:
We’re always fighting
with our image,
trying to clean something
that wasn’t dirty
or paint perfection
into imperfection.
Perhaps, that’s why we like
to stare at windows.
My image steps back into somebody.
I see a reflection of myself in the window;
the windowpane, a pain present
always here.

Perhaps, part of me has known to
fountain flames
when I feel exiting invisible breathless.
But this is not that kind of sonnet,
nor is it a chalice of hope.
I’m just writing my day into existence,
trying to feel sunshine warm my skin.

I know you told me I was blind yesterday,
but that’s in the past— and I have walked over
the river, into tomorrow: I am nowhere to be found.
You know how to find salvation,
it looks up at me in the night,
because resting in a bleeding heart
is resisting reality or temptation.
I see a mosquito that found out it’s
without words
& never spoke a sonnet,
never played the piano,
never cleaned its vision,
massaged glasses with a handkerchief,
or run hands through the walls,
an empty canvas
broken into blood of words,
roses I give to you
when you wake up
in tears.

* Note the lines “Or we’re wondering, /
looking at paintings, /what it might be
like / to wear paint / instead of dust.”
and “Let me know if you discover / the
word. / I’ve often wondered if there /
were one.” are from Clif Mason’s end
of the conversation about “the window”
and the concept of talking to windows.

 

Step 3. Combine the meditative insert and word-centos
in Hotchkiss Park (Santa Monica, CA) while practicing
mindfulness meditation, listening to The James Gang,
“Tend My Garden” followed by Tibetan Gyuto Monks
until half an hour after dark. Walk home, make dinner,
then return until it feels like you’ve exhausted enough
of words and lines from the word-cento in combining
that it feels you have a final product.

 

TALKING TO WINDOWS (combo)

dedicated to Melissa Studdard, Don Kingfisher
Campbell, Alicia Elkort, Joshua Michael Stewart
and Clif Mason

What do you do when you have no words left to say?
When you see mosquitos that never were on the floor?
Do you drip downstairs
in someone else’s softness,
filled with words? amnestied by resplendent, sequined
amethyst,
frozen-ice logic.
& watch the walls of a room you’ve never been before,
splatter paint the pain into doves to mimic courage,
refusing resplendent birth?
No redemption? No softness?
Last night, you told me courage is fear with faith.
I want to clean my glasses, wipe away
all the splatter paint and scream a poem at the door.
But the splatter paint is invisible,
not really invisible,
but just words in my blood.
I can see it everywhere, even in the blue clouds.

I am.
I am dangling.
I am dangling your mistaken angels;
I am dangling your mistaken angels over flames,
over evening, over breathless fire
in the window.

How do you talk to the window?
I’m asking because I don’t really know.
Perhaps, I’ve always wanted to know.
‘Soul’ is a verb, witnessing
my own image step outside of
somebody’s reflection— No softness shed in
someone else’s softness—
in the windowpane, a pain
unpresent, never truly
here.

Half the pain is a cocktail.
Half the pain is open to everyone.
Half the pain is ‘I’ carrying
my blue ribs’ burlesque doves, making babies:
who nurtured the next ‘me’,
instead of ‘me’ now.

Two poets descending: my image
and somebody’s reflection.
MY IMAGE says:
We talk to windows when
we go about our day.
We’re all windows staring
at a painting of ourselves,
trying to clear the dust
shouting FORGET! Forget,
but not forget ourselves.
SOMEBODY’S REFLECTION says:
Or we’re wondering,
looking at paintings,
what it might be like
to wear paint
instead of dust,
shouting FORGET! Forget
MY IMAGE:
I read about this term the other day
for words whose meanings conflict
with each other.
I forget the term,
shouting after me: FORGET! Forget
but I feel like the word should be
people.
SOMEBODY’S REFLECTION:
Let me know if you discover
the word.
I’ve often wondered if there
were one.
MY IMAGE:
We’re always fighting
with our image,
trying to clean something
that wasn’t dirty
or paint perfection
into imperfection,
with blood & salvation.
Perhaps, that’s why we like
to stare and talk to windows,
filled with words & everything rose in…
My image steps back into somebody.
I see a reflection of myself in the window;
the windowpane, a pain present
always here.

Half the pain is a hat
full of rocks.
Half the pain is not home.
Half the pain comes from epidurals,
resplendent epidurals,
resplendent onstage epidurals—
green mothered by me,
but not me.
I am conceived under curtains
of resplendent realizing and refusing
my bedroom, home, my blue babies’ birth.
All along the parking lot of pain,
you’ll imagine a poem.
But you’ll hear blood melting,
shouting FORGET! Forget,
but I have forgotten
the FIRE of Sacrifice!

Perhaps, part of me has known to
fountain flames
when I feel exiting invisible breathless.
A caterpillar under dewdrop
over fire, my guitar, newly skinned—
But this not that kind of sonnet,
nor is it a chalice of hope.
I’m just writing my day into existence,
trying to feel sunshine warm my skin,
dazzling white engulfing breathless
fire over evening, over you
in the window.

I know you told me I was blind yesterday,
but that’s in the past— and I have walked over
the river, into tomorrow and I am nowhere to be found.
You know how to find salvation
looking up at me in the night— shouting FORGET! Forget,
because resting in a bleeding heart
is resisting reality.
This summer we forget,
forget the forgotten,
the forgotten faces free
which I am.

I am dangling.
I am dangling your mistaken angels;
I am dangling your mistaken angels over flames,
over evening, over breathless fire
in the window.
I see a mosquito that found out it’s
without words
& never spoke a sonnet,
never played the piano,
never cleaned its vision,
massaged glasses with a handkerchief,
or run hands through the walls,
an empty canvas
broken into blood of words,
roses I give to you
when you wake up
in tears.

 

Right side displays the word-centos. On the left is the meditative insert. Writing shows the ordering and inserting the one into the other. Yellow highlighted lines are lines not used in final piece. Yellow highlighted bracketed x’s – i.e., [x] – indicate the lines were indeed used after typing up this image. (Note: some of the yellow highlighted lines might not have corresponding highlighted [x]’s where there should be some.) The color of writing shows to which word-cento the words correspond. Joshua Michael Stewart word-cento is blue, Melissa Studdard is green, Alicia Elkort black and Don Kingfisher Campbell red. Black writing in brackets indicates rearranged lines or rephrased from the meditative insert part.

 

Joshua Corwin, a Los Angeles native, is a neurodiverse, 2-time Pushcart Prize-nominated, 1-time Best of the Net-nominated poet and Spillwords Press Publication of the Month winner. His debut poetry collection Becoming Vulnerable (2020) details his experience with autism, addiction, sobriety and spirituality. He has lectured at UCLA, performed at the 2020 National Beat Poetry Festival and Mystic Boxing Commission Festival of Sound and Vision, read with 2013 US Presidential Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco, Michael C. Ford, S.A. Griffin, Ellyn Maybe, among others. His Beat poetry is to be anthologized alongside Ferlinghetti, Hirschman, Ford, Coleman and weiss late this year (Sparring Omnibus, Mystic Boxing Commission). He hosts the poetry podcast “Assiduous Dust,” writes the weekly Incentovise column for Oddball Magazine and teaches poetry to neurodiverse individuals and autistic addicts in recovery at The Miracle Project, an autism nonprofit. Corwin’s collaborative collection A Double Meaning, with David Dephy, is currently seeking publication. He also has forthcoming collaborative poetry projects with Ellyn Maybe including Ghosts Sing into the World’s Ear (Ghost Accordion series 1st Wave, Mystic Boxing Commission). Corwin is editing and compiling Assiduous Dust: Home of the OTSCP, Vol. 1 (forthcoming April 2021, TBD) featuring 36 award-winning poets, all demonstrating a new type of found poem (OTSCP) he invented.