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Welcome to Poetry Poker for March 12th!

If you want details on the rules, you can find them here, but essentially it works like this: we deal five cards from a Poetry Poker deck: one of our writers or a guest poet will write a poem using all five words.

The words can be changed to fit the poem, like swim for swimming, but cannot be changed entirely, like night for knight. Got it? Good. You can see the example of our first week of poetry here. We had a couple of really good entries in the comments. Ready for this week’s words?

Keeper
Whip
Uncontrollably
Carousel
Fast

Here is our example:

Keeper of the Cards

The wind in her face, her on a purple unicorn and he on a stallion
as the carousel spins, the music soars, and she determines that
he is a keeper.

He hides his left hand, refusing to show her the deformed talon.
The feathers on his head are hidden by a wig and a giant black hat.
If she saw, she’d call him a creeper.

He’s changing, his body uncontrollably shifting into something else.
It often happens before without warning, everything changing so fast
he can’t resist.

His wings whip out of his coat. Lost now is any form of stealth
his appearance as anything approaching normal can never last
He wishes they had kissed.

She screams first, others follow her lead as soon as they see
what he has become. He cries out in loneliness and anguish
and takes to the sky.

His transformation is double edged: he is both imprisoned and free.
One way or the other, he has no idea what reality he should wish
for, but he loves to fly.

Far below the forgotten stallion
his other hand also a now a talon.
He does not wish to be anyone else.
His condition its own kind of wealth.
But not to be lonely, for there to be a “we”
Her by his side would fill him with glee.

They were merely players, the two hopeful hearts
both held captive by the keeper of the cards.

Your Turn

That’s it for us this week. Let us know what you think and leave your own poem in the comments below. Stay tuned for another game next week!