July Challenge and Alien Artifacts

Ever Growing

Jillys2016 offered a July Challenge for collaborative poetry.  One poet writes the first half of a poem and then another poet finishes it.  My four line poem “Home Tour” may be used for this challenge.  Pretend it is supposed to be an eight line poem and write the second half.

Here I try to complete Charley’s first half.  Charley’s part is in bold red.  It is a quadrille, a poem of 44 words.  He provided the first 22 words.  I have to add the next 22 words of the poem.

The bird broke
my concentration
when he pecked
the door.

“Anatomy of Melancholy”
from my fingers fell.

Closed, it hit the floor.

The bird came in.
He said, “Lenore.”

I said, “What?”

“Nevermore.”

“Never mind?”

“Anymore.”

I boot¹ the bird
and shut the door.

¹Some may argue that what I should have written is “I shoot the bird”, because it sounds better and that is what they would have done, but I will refrain from comment.

Photo: “Ever Growing” by the author linked to K’lee and Dale‘s Cosmic Photo Challenge on the topic of alien artifacts. I am hoping the pots will serve as alien artifacts where we are the invaders and plants are seeing if they can make use of our advanced technology.

Author: Frank Hubeny

I enjoy walking, poetry and short prose as well as taking pictures with my phone.

30 thoughts on “July Challenge and Alien Artifacts”

  12. SMiLes.. reMiNds mE oF
    smAll childhood as
    My Sister angrily
    shoos the cat away
    From Bird as the Cat
    DeLiGhts iN Nature
    GivinG more Food
    than what can
    and WiLL
    never
    be a Guarantee
    of Human Plates
    with no future or past
    but the Hunt iN fiGHt and
    fLiGHt for LiFe and the Cat Naps
    oF Peace that coMe Free afTer thaT..
    anyWay at age 4.. i told my Sister
    forGive the Cat
    for
    he
    is
    not
    Conservative
    thaT Cat IS A Liberal
    HuNter FRee NoW iTs
    jUSt hIs NatUre WiLd aLiVe..:)

    Liked by 1 person

  13. This particular collaboration must be challenging. In architecture I have seldom heard of welcome joint venture. When continuing a historical building (Sagrada Familia in Spain) or restoring world famous paintings have always faced critics. We can not really expect an artist to copy, can’t we. Then why do we complain about their own artistic features found on the work of art? As Victor Hugo wrote in The hunchback of the Notre-Dame all the medieval buildings are the footprints of various architects throughout the centuries. And the same goes for medieval literature, it has been copied so many times that nobody knows who wrote which part.

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    1. In a sense the first half of the poem could be thought of as standing alone as well as the second half. However the second half uses the first half as a prompt and imitates the theme of the first half. The collaboration is not over the whole piece which would involve posting it as one whole by both writers. It is not so much copying as writing something new but similar.

      Liked by 1 person

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