Exquisite Corpse

When Grace O’Malley, Pirate Queen (aka @octoberesque on the Twitters) tempts you with a game, you say yes.

Or I do. I’m a sucker like that.

If you aren’t familiar with Surrealist party games, check this out. In her version, six players each sent her a piece of the puzzle, for my part? Seven words, evocative, meaningful words. She went to work in the alchemist’s laboratory that is her imagination, and spun our words into gold. Strange, enchanting, unusual gold. (and yes, Rumpelstiltskin and alchemy into the metaphor blender–whee!)

In the spirit of collaboration, she’s offered us the piece to share. If you’d prefer to read it in situ, feel free. Stick around. Her poetry and prose is wondrous strange and gives me the best kinds of shivers. But for your amusement, I present our exquisite corpse:

Orlak, where have you gone? I have searched the shimmering flames

for the timid giant of Medicine River, salesman, king of my secret heart.

His ocean-blue eyes fierce, comings and goings as mysterious as his name.

Surfing the wake of an adagio of hurt, I pile my listed hates into his cart:

Portabella mushrooms, driving to work in the snow, political pundits make me weary.

Ignorant passers-by, heat, the taste of meat, lazy writers, noisy interfering Denis Leary

and the weighted, unanticipated fist of Orlak’s child pressed into my leaden womb.