Be Not Idle

When I attended a writer’s workshop last week, one assignment was a sort of salvage-yard poetry. We were SUPPOSED to take phrases from our own failed stories and poetry, then make something new.

But I’m terrible at following directions when it comes to writing (even God’s), so of course I used James Healy’s failed poetry.  Yes, Ireland’s Greatest Living Poet offered, among re-posts of his greatest hits, three that didn’t work. I was stunned.

I posted my homage at his blog, and since he didn’t curse me and threaten me with barristers, banisters, or barristas (the great horrors of modern life), I thought I’d post it here as well:

Love in a Post-Christian World
(An homage to James Healy, from his three unfinished poems.)

A fire is dying
upon the bare
shadows
above the ashes.
All the myth
in rome in lyons and in paris
even so in gaigue na manaigh
is dying.
A curse
is there
if you want it.

-Jean M. Balconi (the greatest living poetess in her own house – but only because she owns no parrots)

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