The Exquisite Corpse

First, I’d like to make clear that this poem is not about death or dying, not in any way.  An Exquisite Corpse is a poetry writing game.  You start with one line and then each person adds a line.  There are several variations.  You can go around the room once, or just keep going.  You can let people see just the previous line (fold the paper once), no line at all or the whole thing.  You can play child friendly, or allow bad language.  The results are usually somewhere well short of great poetry, but they can sometimes be amusing.  The game is often accompanied by the consumption of large amounts of alcohol.

Anyway, my friend Chris Crawford, who is a pretty good poet -intense, heartfelt stuff delivered in a Scottish accent because, you know, he’s Scottish and all, tried to start one of these on Facebook the other day but it fell apart pretty quick.  Oh, well.  That happens.

I’d give it another try, though.  Anyway, this poem is not an exquisite corpse itself, it is just ABOUT an exquisite corpse.  Enjoy.

Exquisite Corpses tend to decompose

Quite suddenly, as any given line

Can be so unexpected, it exposes

The interstellar space between our minds

That’s the point, I guess, to shine a light

Down the path, to see a little more

Otherwise, we stumble through the night

After all, what is a meta for?

Whatever thought you had, what grand design

Before you passed the figurative baton

Remains entombed within that single line

As the poem, and the universe, moves on

Though endless monkeys who all type like mad

All Shakespeare’s works eventually will write

most of what they write is pretty bad

because monkeys, really, aren’t so very bright

We’d have to generate these random lines

Forever, for the corpse to be divine