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Cento for January 7, 2014

During every First Tuesdays open mic, we communally compose a cento using language taken from each open-mic reader’s offering. The cento from January 2014 is made up of lines from poems read by David Pas­tor, Jason Gani­tis, Peter Marra, Jay Chol­lick, Tim Fredrick, Fer­nando, Herb Ruben­stein, Nancy Agabian, Jared Harel, Lyn Oestre­icher, and Jack Feldstein.

Cento

A part of me feels washed out,
turn­ing the color of a just-bit peach
adorned with chains of rust.

When cor­pus­cles swell major with bright dis­ease,
my right armpit sweats more than my left,
an infi­nite space willed with noth­ing­ness,
danc­ing the fugi­tive rhythms of time foreclosed.

Our lives are poems, not sto­ries.
I must begin again.
Let me begin again.
Shmedamor­pho­sis.

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