IMPROMPTU #6: Ladies Delight and Knock Me Down

Noah Eli Gordon offers ten prompts one can sink one's sharp little teeth into. I would like to revisit and try all of them, especially #1, invite seven friends to dinner. Take a look for yourself.

I chose  5. Write a sonnet in the modern key:

Line 1: narrate action, include at least two nouns

Line 2: ask a question without using “I”

Line 3: make a statement without saying “I”

Line 4: now say “I” in another statement

Line 5: use a fragment

Line 6: narrate another action, include one of the nouns from line 1

Line 7: ask a question using “I”

Line 8: use a fragment that

Line 9: spills into the next line

Line 10: now say “I” and include the other noun from line 1

Line 11: answer your first question

Line 12: make a statement that is in total opposition to line 3

Line 13: combine phrases from lines 5 and 8 here

Line 14: answer your second question

Ladies Delight and Knock Me Down

A juniper is disturbed by the notion of spirit alcohol.

Of all the possible deaths, why a fatal drowning?

Gin began as medicine, a cure for gout and indigestion.

I prefer to think of this botanical concoction as a road to ruination.

A brief deviation with ne’er do well gents in doorways.

Spirits of debauched Victorian ladies and gentlemen still quaff the drink.

Do I drink too much gin?

Coriander, angelica, orange peel, lemon peel, cardamom,

cinnamon, grains of paradise, nutmeg.

If love is inebriation, I am in love with the murdered berry.

There is naught more divine than to be thoroughly drenched.

This rotgut is merely a placebo for malaise.

To deviate with Angelica and her lemon peel is Gloria in Excelsis.

My darlings, I am not a respectable woman.

Title is from Mother’s Ruin by Ellen Castelow in Historic UK, The History and Heritage Accommodation Guide

Perhaps my modern key is a bit off kilter...

Art is William Hogarth’s Beer Street and Gin Lane (1751).

Thanks to Noah for these wonderful prompts. A brief sidebar here while I simper girlishly over how fond I am of his work. Please read his books, particularly, The Year of the Rooster (Ahsahta Press, 2013) and his collaboration with Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Figures for a Darkroom Voice (Taurpaulin Sky Press, 2007). I have yet to read The Word Kingdom in the Word Kingdom (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2015), but am looking forward to it.

Play along!

For those of you who are just joining us, The Found Poetry Review is celebrating National Poetry Month by offering daily experimental writing prompts from writers. I will be responding to them at poetic whim.