#16 THE LIST

This "game" was taken from a website called "thelistanthology.com," and was suggested to me by Jane. These are the instructions as posted:
"Since we believe writing exercises are often the start of new, innovative work, our anthology will be a collection of poems that use six words supplied by six of our "showcased" poets."

These six words are:
1. Anteros
2. crippled
3. spindles
4. stairwell
5. threshold
6. whirligig

Come again?

The first time Anteros was awake
and each kiss was a spindle from which
Love drew on.


The second time the god
slept, and afraid of speciously committing
Eros flew away
and crashed into a stairwell.


So, the crucial one never made it,
And love was left outside the threshold.
My heart like a whirligig
battered by the wind
searches for direction…


elf

________________________

Attack

Once a great spindle of hay to gold,
once the witch of wine
-- forgive me if I brag but -- long ago
the magic maker, my heart now is the long
hobbled road to Oz. Don't bother picking Anteros'
pockets. Look for no requited there - find nothing
but a thrift store of whirligigs and termites, flea-bitten
hope and a bin of free double-headed nickels.
For the long spinners of tales and woe?
Oh, nothing. Seven years in the making of oh
and nothing to show for it. Not one
story to tell. Nor a crippled, pee-stained stairwell
to heaven; not even doggerel to cash in.
Carson said the heart is a lonely hunter. Or is it
the heart is a deer hunter? No matter.
Mine plays Russian Roulette
on the threshold of a Cambodian shack
built from regret.

----Jane