Impromptu 18: The Epic of Nerlz, Last City of Elogia

Amaranth Borsuk’s gave us three assists to use erasure as a jumping off point to create a poem, rather than the final poem. The first, the dictionary assist, asks us to pick a word that vexes us, find its Indo-European root and write all of its language, including synonyms etc, with the hopes that it would be the starting point of a poem. I admit that this flummoxed me all day, picking at my brain for a way to make this my own. The way I made it my own was simply to invent a word.

offnerlz  adj.

1.  a feeling of discomfort (Indo-Elogian root: nerlz; from the planet Elogia in the Quirkan Galaxy); 2. to be homesick; 3. to be estranged; 4. to be uprooted.

synonyms: upsetting, off key, painstruck, lonely, alienated.

antonyms: comfortable; in one’s place; at ease.

Nerlz n.

1. a city in Elogia that serves as an outpost for travellers and migrants; the sole-surviving city of Elogia, the bulk of which was destroyed when its two suns collided in the Great Battle of Solenia in 2305, burning all of the planet but Nerlz;

2. fragment or remainder;

3. secret;

4. refuge;

5. last chance.

The Epic of Nerlz, Last City of Elogia

Twas the year 2305

after the great battle

of Solenia when our

two suns collided &

all who remained

were the artists, bards &

balladeers, their

children, the children

of their children & the

children of their children’s

children, you see Elogians

lived for a long time until

the Sun & the Sun one eon

crashed & the sound was

the most beautiful music

ever heard so that the harpist

blind & weakfingered with age

plucked a tremulous echo

of the sound that she heard

& taught her children & her

children’s children & the children

of her children’s children to

play the sound that destroyed

the rest of the planet called Elogia,

Oh Elogia, the balladeers wrote

words for the harpists rendering

of the sound that was made by

the collision of two solar powers,

it was a ballad that articulated

the loneliness felt by survivors,

every one of their glistening golden

tears caught & used as ink by the

song writers. spilling forth as music

melancholy & jubilant

& the painters tried to paint

the colour, a most unusual

colour that sparked from the

thrash of light against light

they crushed the purple insects

of the sea against crimson rocks

& added woad & droplets of sweat

from the foreheads of all the remaining

Elogians & in the churches the Nerlz-folk

chanted in their solar-crash robes in the

dark for there was no more sunlight

only the hope brought by those who

came to the remaining city of Elogia

looking for a home

--

Thanks to Amaranth Borsuk for this prompt, which I had fun with.

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.