Gentleman Bandit by Allison Arth
Have a second blog post today as a treat.
Bored at work today, I picked up Allison Arth's phenomenal solo poetry game Gentleman Bandit, and whipped up a quick 13-line poem from the perspective of a melodramatic outlaw.
In Gentleman Bandit, you draw playing cards and roll dice to determine content and vocabulary for a 13-line poem your Bandit leaves at the scene of a crime. Very fun!
Black bile wells up where you used to be; I should have fled like scrub brush ripping free its roots. Sand sticks to boot heels, lest I plant myself unwilling, as I seek your terrestrial heart.
Beloved, I know you wait beyond a distant hill, adrift beneath a sea of stars. Oh engine of my soul! The memory of your touch dwells within my chest.
The truth, averred, is liberty rules my steps. I am the brazen comet and the blazing moon;
Lo, behold the gaping wound, the crater where the ghost remains, where cursed Atlas holds aloft the sphere; wind whistles in his hair and whispers that even dreams of you have merit.
The future is not inborn, it must be built brick by brick.