And now the prompt. This one’s a bit tricky. Back in 1977, the poet Ronald Johnson first published “RADI OS”, an “erasure” of Milton’s “Paradise Lost”. Basically, Johnson took a copy of Milton’s long poem, and systematically erased whole words and even lines, while maintaining the relative position of the remaining words. You can see a brief excerpt here. Today, I challenge you to perform an erasure of your own. Go ahead and copy and paste the text into a document, and then start whiting-out words. Or make a photocopy of a long poem you like, and mark over words on the copy. You can form a whole new poem just by taking words away! Once you’re done, you can leave the spaces as they are (I rather like the “ghosted” look of all that empty space), or take the left-over words and keep playing with them, reforming new poems from them. Happy writing!
fire is your faithful friend
black eye-liner to go off to war
to the left edge of the galaxy
( the humidity of the garages )
our souls gasping for breathing
for a temporary occupation
it was an endurance race
take me to the blind with you
i’ll be the airship in your inconsolable storms
( give me 50 cents )
couldn’t realize your mirrored earrings
were shooting subliminal flashes
couldn’t realize the lines of your sight
you are a woman a woman a woman
we will put beds everywhere
we will fly dirty mattresses
( the smell of bleach spreads )
we will sleep with our clothes still on
we will be gipsy herons
but all the sparks you make
is not productive enough
such a shame now that you were so near
but you are still the sunset from a public office
( jesus christ hanging on the walls )
you are mine
to betray and shine
i will always keep your eyes as an amulet
in the hidden pocket of my coat
and you will come back from the world
maybe
one day
you will come back home
a.aime
( translated, adapted, erased and changed )
aaimepharmacy 