Bucket List
I want to build a time machine so I can hear Linda Ronstadt sing “Blue Bayou” at a bare-lightbulb club in Memphis, or at Fred Alphonso’s Thunderbird Lounge down there on Adams Avenue—open till three a.m.—and the folks will be elbowing on the dance floor until Linda steps out in a frilled cinnamon-brown jacket, opens her mouth, and her vocal tremor stills us all. You can’t beet her voice, pardon my spelling, anywhere or anytime.
But for now I live as a whelk farmer in a Tucson subdivision, on Corte de Federico Street, named for Linda’s grandfather. I raise my whelks beneath the shade of this carport, in these large white buckets. Bayou Jasmine, Lake Pontchartrain, is where I get my whelks. It is true, they are carnivorous and mean-spirited gastropods—although the elegant curl of their shell is of great beauty. I sing to them to keep their meet (pardon my spelling) of sweet disposition. “I’m going back one day, come what may . . . .” We all get a kick out of that one.
[prompt to use the following words: beet jacket tremor bayou elbow lightbulb cinnamon bucket elk carport]
I love this.
Love how you worked Linda Ronstadt into this prompt. And I looked up whelk. Singing to your captured snails! Indeed, I got a kick out this poem and the world you captured.
Ahhh the beauty of Poetry Marathons
I bet when you set up your pens or keyboards or what-have-you Saturday morning/afternoon/evening/night — you didn’t think that 9 hours later you’d be creating a very cute’n’clever poem about crooning a Linda Rondstadt hit to your whelk collection … pure poetic gold!!
… however I feel compelled to just check one thing [*runs eyes over list of prescribed words, fails to find “whelk” anywhere*] hmmm does this mean we need to disqualify you ?
does it what hahaha. Being from Oz I had no affinity with either elks or bayous & to use them in my poems set in Australia would’ve been nutty … so I swapped out Cassowary for Elk (similar temperaments) & Mangrove for Bayou (similar geographic features) & they helped me come up with two of my favourite metaphors of the 24 hours neither of which I would’ve created without the PM
… so, my point is, I think, BRAVO!!!! cracking poem!
I love the way this works!!! The two stanzas have such a good dynamic together!