Step 1. Write word-centos of poetry by Alfred Kreymborg,
Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound and Gerard Manley Hopkins.
A word-cento is one of my invented forms of poetry.
It is a rearrangement of the words of a poem by a single
author. I try to exhaust every single word of the poem
(though lately I’ve only been doing some). I lose the
structure of the original poem, do not position any two
unique words next to each other, and the resulting poem
is a response to or a continuation of the original poem.)

 

THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY

(a word-cento of Alfred Kremborg’s
“Clavichord” *)

In the early morning
the spirit of democracy
is cheap.
Tobacco sun powders the grave
with an arpeggio of persuasion.
They auction happy off to a king:

Escape this solemn mistake.

* Original poem by Alfred Kreymborg
from Imagistic Poetry: An Anthology,
edited by Bob Blaisdell, pp. 69-70.

 

SUN OVER SILENT SEAS

(a word-cento of Wallace Steven’s
“Sunday Morning” *)

I.

Sunday morning flocks over sky
Sun pigeons free, inescapable
Sweet spontaneous wings over silent seas
dissipate in dreams,
freedom sepulchre,
sink in wilderness,
undulations of darkness.

II.

Prophecy awakened sun, summer seraphim
chant golden sorrow in a choir
where spirits sit and gaze at a naked god,
melodious chimera, a visionary of desire,
a ring of devotion
to test reality in our dreams
content to the grave
where spirits gaze
from mountains
passing silent blood over holy water,
a wide island,
freedom darkens freedom
over silent seas,
spontaneous and inescapable.

* Original poem by Wallace Stevens
from Imagistic Poetry: An Anthology,
edited by Bob Blaisdell, pp. 115-117.

NOTE: I added “Sunday Morning.”

 

WHEELS IN THE SEA

(a word-cento of Rihaku’s
“Exile’s Letter,” trans. by
Ezra Pound *)

Mouth-jewelled organs, jade flakes
interrupting clouds,
Broken bridge, songs returning moonlight
to blue mountains.
Still, I wrapped you in sleep over heavens
to seal my thinking,
cutting pleasure, flowers, a song met
in the distance
at a cost we drank, forgetting the sea of purpose.

Snow went up a thousand miles,
gold wouldn’t keep it from falling,
a phoenix of music, I regret
the temple full of voices singing over ripples,
reflecting a white willow palace
twisting over memories
into our hearts.

* Original poem by Rihaku, trans. by Ezra Pound,
from Imagistic Poetry: An Anthology,
edited by Bob Blaisdell, pp. 106-107.

NOTE: I changed “drunk” to “drank.”

 

UNTITLED

(a word-cento of Gerard Manley Hopkins’
“Il Mystico” *)

Rainbow morn across the room born
gently snow, low! hath birth clot thou soul
faint ere sober day gloom
aching desires in the prism,

Sickly hill, slime sleek, shapes spirits’ silence
that clad dark mysteries’ sin
wings aloof the throne
lifted darkness over hills alone.

Questioning the aether air,
Spreading the firmament nigh:

Grey grudge, gross, close
to conjecture
angels in the rain—

Clusters, lustres of sapphire lanes
Spread unvéxed this sunlit breast
A gem so fair and rare,
amber arc glows double on heaven

Throbbing flesh in the sun
whose heart won
breath upon the sea
to purify me
of why.

* Original poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins
from The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins,
4th edition, edited by W. H. Gardner and N. H.
MacKenzie, pp. 111-115.

 

Step 2. For the meditative insert, first go to
an impromptu, masked dancing party at your
local park; then write stream of consciousness
watching the sunset. Do not edit. Keep it raw.

 

MEDITATIVE INSERT

SUN

Chariot-driven sun
drown, shmang past the temple
Ocean, shine my eyes out!
Yesterday’s abyss befalls tomorrow,
Today has risen in a sea somber.

Sun fog,
flashlight hope dimming
dust demarcate the cosmic wave
Psalmic palms glisten
against the alabaster haze
dazed in rays
drown!
Go down!
Solar Sinai, on your knees!

People dance passed your demise.
Feel the rising tide bellow
with wind, hot-prophetic breath
Asphyxiate into dream, drama
Dance your oceanic heartache –

Your heartbeat insanity
eclipsed by the temple
we shmanged past
life’s gift
awakened drowning
only to rise
ethereal from forgetful darkness,
our fates sealed to blind ourselves yet again
in a myopic kaleidoscope fantasia.

I wander, naked,
my own effervescent infinity
shines,
even after I fade
down the slaveway.

 

Step 3. Combine the word-centos with the meditative insert.
Note I didn’t utilize the Gerard Manley Hopkins word-cento.

SUN (combo)

Chariot-driven sun,
drown, shmang past the temple.
Chant golden sorrow in a choir.
Ocean, shine my eyes out!
Escape this solemn mistake.
Yesterday’s abyss befalls tomorrow.
Today rises in a sea somber
to test reality in our dreams,
passing silent blood over holy water.

Sun fog,
sweet spontaneous wings over silent seas,
flashlight hope dimming,
dissipate in dreams.
Tobacco sun powders the grave.
Dust, demarcate the cosmic wave
content to the grave where spirits raise
psalmic palms, glisten a wide island
against the alabaster haze.
Freedom darkens freedom
dazed in rays
drown!
Go down!
Solar Sinai, on your knees
over silent seas
returning moonlight to blue mountains.

Mouth-jewelled organs, jade flakes
interrupting clouds,
people dance passed your demise.
They auction happy off to a king.
The spirit of democracy is cheap.
Feel the rising tide bellow
an arpeggio of hot-prophet breath.
Asphyxiate into dream, drama,
melodious chimera, visionary desire,
ring of spontaneous, inescapable devotion.
Dance your oceanic heartache
we drank, forgetting the sea of purpose.

Your heart beat insanity,
broken bridges
eclipsed by the temple
we shmanged past.
Still, I wrapped you in sleep over heaven.
Snow went up a thousand miles,
god wouldn’t keep it from falling,
a phoenix of music
awakened drowning
only to rise
ethereal in forgetful darkness.
I regret the temple full of voices singing over ripples,
our fates sealed to blind ourselves yet again
in a myopic kaleidoscope fantasia,
twisting our hearts into memories.

I wander a white willow palace
and gaze at a naked god,
my own effervescent infinity
shines,
even after I fade,
sinks into quicksand, undulations of darkness
down the slaveway.

 

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. Ezra Pound is blue, Alfred Kreymborg black and Wallace Stevens 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 2021 Spillwords Press Award for Poetic Publication of Year 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.