#responsepoetry

[sailorpoet]

Go Dog Go, Response Poems, and Back-Catablogging

I have been asked by several people about the Go Dog Go Treetop Café. So I thought I would explain this and a couple of other concepts I have been talking about in my blogging adventures: the response poem and the Back-Catablogging (just made this term up!). All three are tied together in the blogging philosophy of connection, inclusion, and attention probably best summed up as: I am listening to…

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[responsepoetry]

Response to "Cleopatra" by Meggie Royer

Read the Original First Here

I have witnessed the great void It has found me in my many nights alone and detached from The fingers and lips and curves I once knew and now only half remember as ecstasy and warmth Even then, after we untangled our pulsing bodies Straightening anything we could make straight I felt the shame of not feeling enough Halfhearted towards the lover that unknowingly gave everything All to someone who had nothing real to give A child that couldn’t muster up real care So now I sit with the great void, and it knows me too well I place all that I deem as precious around it, because that is as close to filling an abyss one can get By letting others near it, showing them that it exists, hoping they aren’t afraid to fall in But it swells and sometimes I think that it’s stretching So I lock my precious things away before they are swallowed forever Though I’m not so good at mending myself, it seems nobody else can find where to place the tourniquet My heart will mumble hackneyed motivations on these nights He will even quote Mark Antonius in an attempt to promote sanity “Consider how much more you often suffer from your anger and grief…” Grief is grief, I tell him, no matter how it breeds We cannot hide from what it so deeply rooted in our being, we cannot run from our own existence And if I’m mistaken, if you find a path that leads to a lesser pain Please take all of us hurting ones with you

[responsepoetry]

Response to "Thrown Together" by K.P.K.

Read the Original First Here

Dear stranger of mine One who stands calloused and weathered by Too many naïve hands pulling at your limbs On far too many occasions That you no longer hear the subtle truths of love Or no longer care to listen Love never promises to stay and wait It merely stays and waits and gathers up All the broken things After life comes marching through your home Carelessly wrecking and stomping around And causes you to ache in all those secret places Love is not what snaps us like dry twigs underfoot Or pawns us off after we’re blemished and dulled As if it only wanted us before it found out We are hopelessly imperfect And no longer of any use No longer of service No, my lovely statue stranger Love is what helps hold you together When the cowards have fled or you have fled the cowards All those children that chiseled at your bones Love is what makes you pity their foolishness And teaches you to feel again