The Cento for January 7, 2020

Cento

1.

Undulating and free,
the strippers were masturbating customers
on the garden bed of Blake’s fairy procession,
this movie shot in hell,
coiled between treachery and adoration,
an opportunity to redefine self-immolation.

2.

You, Poet, do the magic of making sounds
and always find the language we all understand,
tales of woe, scrambled into static.

3.

Look all you want you unscarred motherfuckers,
after four decades of non-communication!

4.

As soon as they leave, there is more junk.
We are lost in the forest of the road less traveled,
the quippy analogy that is not quite right.

During every First Tuesdays open mic, we communally compose a cento using language taken from each open-mic reader’s offering. This cento is composed of lines from the work of: Margaret Carson, Peter Marra, Sarah Sarai, Dan Fleshler, Herb Rubenstein, Pat Duffy, Liz Lara, Tonia Leon, Shams Momin, Henry Sussman, Norman Stock, Lydia Chang, Marty Levine, Phil Demise Smith, and Sonny Gutfeld.