Following Instructions Really Awfully

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Following the following the following (sorry, I got stuck) twenty simple instructions is all it takes for writing a poem from today’s NaPoWriMo prompt.  I have dealt with each one methodically and – mainly – sequentially, and have completed it in *puffs out chest* eighteen lines!

1. Begin the poem with a metaphor.
 2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.
 3. Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.
 4. Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).
 5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a place.
 6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.
 7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.
 8. Use a word (slang?) you’ve never seen in a poem.
 9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.
 10. Use a piece of talk you’ve actually heard (preferably in dialect and/or which you don’t understand).
 11. Create a metaphor using the following construction: “The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun) . . .”
 12. Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.
 13. Make the persona or character in the poem do something he or she could not do in “real life.”
 14. Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.
 15. Write in the future tense, such that part of the poem seems to be a prediction.
 16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.
 17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.
 18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.
 19. Make a non-human object say or do something human (personification).
 20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that “echoes” an image from earlier in the poem.

‘O my luve is a red, red rose’,
Is something every parrot knows,
The pointed stab; the wafted sweet;
The song seen on the tongue, a treat;
But Robert, born in Alloway,
Had nothing for a bird to say,
Although all parrots say it – swell! –
But as they’ve never learnt to spell,
‘… tauld thee weel thou was a skellum …’
They’ve all inscribed it onto vellum:
That twinkling star of memory
Much dimmer than the sun could be
For Col to find, as will then prove,
The essence of a rampant groove,
Which must soon set the clearest course
(Ag, hierdie is ‘n groot gemors!)
For making  spheres declare, with glee,
‘Those parrots and some ecstasy!’ 

Here is a brilliant selfie of the poet – after going through this exercise he’s just a shadow of himself.

Colonialist April 2014 (WordPress)