Image courtesy Wikipedia.
Beth Ayer’s prompt at FPR today (prompt #29) asked us to write a poem from a text source on a subject completely unfamiliar to us. In the spirit of heading into darkness after all things unseeable and obscure, write a poem using a text that could be from quantum physics, thermodynamics, mathematics, aeronautical engineering – or something else altogether that to you speaks in incomprehensible language. Choose a text or texts and begin selecting words and phrases as they spark associations. Write a poem using the collected words and phrases. Let your imagination fire, and don’t worry about what these terms mean in their original context.
I chose a Brittanica text on smelting/metallurgy.
Metallurgy Of A Relationship
Smelting love from weary everyday ness
from the simple-compound ore of years of companionship
Sometimes heated beyond melting point
Sometimes bereft of air drafts
Furnaced by a coppery wisdom 5000 years old,
We must turn carbon to diamond
Disallow the gangue of indifference to creep in
Remember always the molten matte of our bond…
Remember, that amidst the slag-heaps
Precious silver has been separated from lead for many years now.
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Source text: http://www.britannica.com/technology/smelting
