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Saturday, 27 April 2013

NaPoWriMo - Day 27 - The Pleasure-Dome Deflated


Yesterday's prompt was an exercise in erasure: take an existing poem, erase some of it, and see what remains.

I chose Coleridge's Kubla Khan, which is generally believed to be the result of what the poet could remember of an opium-induced dream.  The trouble is, once you take away the drug-fuelled ramblings, there isn't a tremendous amount left!  


THE PLEASURE-DOME DEFLATED

Xanadu.

Stately, sacred, measureless,
sunless, ancient, deep,
savage, holy, enchanted,

haunted.

Wailing, seething, breathing,
rebounding, dancing, meandering,

lifeless.

Ocean voices, mingled with caves of ice,
and music, loud and long…

Beware! Beware!

Close your eyes…

…and dread the milk of Paradise. 

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