Poetry Friday -- It's a Clunker Exchange

Hello, Hello, Hello!

It's Poetry Friday and I'm extra happy because I'm celebrating the last day of this school year. Wheee! 

Each year, for the past several years, I've hosted a clunker exchange. I hope you'll play along this year. How? It's easy. 

• Choose any of the lines below to take as your own to weave into a poem.
• You may change the line in any way that pleases you (spelling, plural/singular, tense etc.)
• Leave a clunker line of your own as exchange in the comments

You may wonder what a clunker is

A clunker 

A clunker is a line or lines that didn't work in a particular poem. Mind you, there may be nothing wrong with the line itself. But, in the poem as it was, the line clunked...instead of sang. 

Leaving the line in the poem didn't lead to the poem's success, in my opinion as the poet.

I love Poetry Friday and I look forward to making the rounds, visiting all your blogs and reading your creative efforts. I am a much better poet for doing this. Thank you in advance. 

Clunker Lines for the Taking

• long, cold to freezy, dark time in March into late April

• and feast on sunshine

• Adorable! You still keep addresses on paper – giggles my sister 

• I’d promise to listen better this time.

• my one little word found me

• look for never-was-history/on ghost tours along cobblestone streets

• dangerous calms     before wild storms.

• I’m withdrawing like an outgoing tide/a branch pulled back/a quick and silent snake coiling.

• words tumble/from kitchen tables/leftovers/of heated conversations/that need oven mitts

• I did not vote for this so I was already in opposition

• the first shawl of true spring warmth

• so in love with the lilacs

• green lily pads float in a canal

• they don’t mind how many lives

• have lived and strolled this path.

• daisies nod hello springy stems

• autocracy growing hot/as democracy shivers in a corner.

• home / is the bridge in those photos he wants/ me to know he’s labeled for us

• I claimed green and grew into it

• Rose Weaver /carries a small pitcher/of kindness

• I was worried that I had tipped/too far into woo-woo world expecting rain/to hold a conversation with me.

• My mother’s hand-knit sweater/ I wear on days I need /to feel her arms around me.

• You could be what that star needs to mend

• I like to take a star/for a walk around the block.

• until we see our whole world crying./We ask, what do I do? What can I do?

• Quiet winter/silent entrance/snow is falling/as we sleep in

• A friend to moss/ Rust makes itself at home /in barn shadows/and junkyards

• stir stars in clockwise motion

• One nation under every god is a high bar

• I’m turning this jealous into joy for you.

• Mix the mess with a witch’s screech

Don't forget to leave a clunker in exchange in the comments below. 

Thank you, Ruth at There is No Such Thing as a God Forsaken Town for hosting this week's round-up.

Clunker in New Mexico 2024