…and I broke up a ‘party’ with my big mouth.

A colleague, seventhvoice.wordpress.com, organized a Collaborative Poetry contest. In these “contests”, poets build lines of verse, one at a time, into a complete work of art. Like painting a picture, one stroke at a time; each painter adding one brushstroke.

It sounded interesting to me. I can’t paint worth a damn. With oils, I could make quite a mess. But words… … …what harm could I do?

I thought and I thought. And I recalled a story I once heard:

Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo were once challenged to write the shortest possible English sentence. Dickens wrote furiously, editing as he scribbled along, producing, “I win”. But Hugo won! His sentence:

“ ! “.

I wanted in on Seventh Voice’s contest, but I don’t have the “cojones” to go quill to quill with Dickens or Hugo.

The collaborative poem went along like this:

I used to have a perfect mouth,

That spoke of days gone by (Ruth2day)

Where imperfect syllables came out (Ian Moone)

funny, often wry (Julia Dean Richards)

As I greenly kissed your azure heaven (Lady Day)

but none listened (Ariane Zurcher)

And you hear of many truths (Boomiebol)

From the heart my words would flow (paulaacton)

Glittering in a pretentious dye (parshant)

With dirty words I just can hold back. (Silentlyheardonce)

to poison those I love, (Sacha Black)

distorted but defining (Cathmae)

We look to the heavens above (Nutsfortreasure)

The repressed taint redounded (Angel Fractured)