So, yeah. Our Powerball numbers (is it numbers if it's one $2 sequence of numbers?) didn't hit. But my wife gave me an amazing birthday gift just after midnight.
A little background: Because of our neurotic tendencies, we were agonizing over our choices of MFA critical thesis topics when Jessica became enthralled by the French Surrealists, as so many young women have been (*accepting chauvinistic comment slap here*). I would have been more intimidated if I didn't have empirical evidence that I could indeed, if need required, rock a beret. This focus led to a furious spate of exquisite corpses, slowed only by graduation and the ensuing turmoil.
Spoiler: We work together (and had identical class schedules, because, why waste time away?) and had used many textiles for our corpses, based on available materials. No College Ruled lined pages here, we're talking the backs of receipts, wastefully expended blank receipt paper, email club cards, server check-ins, (as Texas Will called them) Create Your Own Problem order sheets, even magazine subscription cards.
Being the pushy guy I am, I persisted after any possible academic progress could be had, hoping to keep alight our collective poetic kindling. It only takes a spark, right? (Also, big ups to Nolan Hutton, seriously. The poetry volley emails we've kept up have been invaluable.)
I would channel Finding Nemo seagulls while I waited for a folded paper response to my last corpse addition. "Line. Line?" When I knew she wasn't busy, and after I'd asked "Do you need anything?--No? Line? Line?"
She puts up with me. And even indulges me.
Lately we've been tweaking our corpses--hey hey pervs. Slow down. Our cooperative poetic adventures. We've been slightly altering the rules. Taking the ABBA rhyming inspiration from other poets, adding a first word for the next person's line, a last word, a word randomly spaced, a theme, assonance... We've been rolling the dice. Are your still there? This is indeed a pipe. Anyway...
Today her shift started an hour after mine, and she surprised me with a new corpse-- Z-words. Any Z-words? I asked, Or only words starting with Z?"
Whatever.
The best answer for collaborative poetry in my opinion.
We passed it a bit, half done, get home, talked our way over the Chris Hayes repeat while finishing the poem, and here we are.
It was titled without my knowledge at the start too. (How I somehow unwittingly identified myself so well in my first line I have no clue--and I must say, it was based not off of a Z-word but the z-sound of exacerbated. It still amazes and troubles me.)
A Birthday poem for Zebulon
O! Zebulon, zenith of all I adore,
exacerbated by apathy as well as zeal.
Together our zilch transforms into treacle
zapped by a laser beam in a fever dream
as a deskinned lemon mourns its lost zest.
Like Byzantines topped in topaz and iPads
on days when the sky is Zebra-sprint gray.
Flensed by zealots overdosed on Extenze.
for hours we stream. Our zeros bloom
along byways that zig-zag in dull blazes.
Absurd or not, I long to call your eyes azure,
razing lives beyond zipper repair.
We realize these days fade faster each year
with the pizazz of a Liberace Pez dispenser.
No stumble could halt our zombie-shuffle toward each other
as rebel Zorastorians, carving zees into holy books.
