Wednesday Workshop
09 May 2018
Recycling 1
grandfather said, finger-nails cracking red-
waxed parcel string. Bright sealing wax rained down
on the tablecloth, covering it with hard,
scarlet chips, wax cracked, tight knots emerging.
One by one, my grandfather first loosened
them, then sought the string’s free end, following
it along its snaking way from knot to
knot. Like Theseus following his twine
through the labyrinth below the palace, my
grandfather mused, hesitated, followed
the clues given him by the knotter’s mind.
Set free from its parceled knots and lashings,
he looped the string around his fingers and
tied the twine into a tight bow that he
stowed away for future use. Reef knots, slip
knots, sheep-shanks, bowlines, bowlines-on-the-bight,
he showed me how to tie them all. He taught
me too how to never tie granny knots.
“Never cut string with a knife: untie knots,”
strict his advice and followed still today.
Recycling 2
finger-nails
cracking red-waxed
parcel string
sealing wax rained down
staining snow white tablecloth
wax cracked
hard scarlet flakes
tight knots emerging
loosened
now seek the string’s
free end
then follow it
the way it snakes
linking knot to knot
muse
hesitate
unknot
the mind of she who tied
set free these
parceled knots and lashings
loop string around fingers
tie tight the twine
a child’s bow
to be stored
for future use
Recycling
Haiku 1
[7/11/7]
string yields blood-bright scarlet wax
a thread to lead through the parcel’s labyrinth
open now the magic box
Recycling
Haiku 2
[5/7/5]
blood-bright scarlet wax
a thread through the labyrinth
open now the box
Commentary:
There are many ways to recycle. All are valid. Some are more valid than others.
rogermoorepoet 
The red sealing wax is an apt symbol. My mom saved string and I just used her last strand.
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Funny, isn’t it. We were talking about this yesterday!
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Yes. Saving string is a thrifty practice. And string has magical properties … what else holds so much together and can be released with a tug or a snip?
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No snipping in my grandfather’s house.
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As I wrote that I almost reconsidered …
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I know the feeling. That’s why we have edit and delete.
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I saw what you did there, R! So…recycling implicates more than just string… Chuck
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Indeed it does: it incorporates completing the Tour de France for a second time! Good to see you here. Thanks for reading and commenting.
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This is terrific! I love the continuous sparing of words. What a great exercise for a writer to experiment with. I might try this myself!
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It was fun to do. I was wondering which is the best version, which should I keep, and then I realized that Recycling is now the title of a four poem sequence, with all the earlier versions having been recycled. The end product is “obscure” when it stands alone, but very understandable in sequence. The second sequence is “spread all over the page” in the original but the formatting flattened out when I put it online. Glad you like it and thanks for commenting. And yes, please do give it a go. It’s fun and well worthwhile.
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I really like the second one! It is so interesting to watch the poetic mind at work!
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I just wish the formatting had come out. I tried to format it, but it kept going back to left margins. They’re all different (obviously!) and carry different weights.
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Ah, the WordPress reader always messes up the formatting I do when I include images. It’s very frustrating. Like they know what I’m thinking… 😏
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