Ready for a poetry writing exercise? Here are eleven words. If you’d like to make something out of them, feel free to share what you’ve written in the comment box below.
wheel
flash
anchor
infinity
lungs
scratch
stillbirth
test
piano
germ
tap
It’s okay to use variations of the words in the list. Eventually I will reveal the source of the words in a separate post.
Robin Reagler 
New York-Bound Train
the wheel flashes steel
like an anchor in the sea reaching
out to infinity as my lungs fill with
scratchy salt air and the morning is
stillborn a test of my endurance against
the just-lifted darkness like a jangle of
piano melodies played out of key in
the germ of the day and the tapping of
the morning rain against the windows of
the New York-bound train
Iron Lung
I see your infinity
and raise you one.
Writers is to infinity
as scratch is to germ.
Where do you flash to
when all the anchors are gone?
when even the medicine wheel
is too concrete?
Can you drop the piano
from high enough?
No, higher. This is a test
(tap tap tap).
What’s crazier than this, really?
Stillbirth after stillbirth:
we’re still trying. Clearly
something’s wrong with us.
I see your infinity
and raise you too.
Infinity is to writers
as air is to blank?
I see wheels like yours all over the city, and I like your lungs, even though germs have tapped them for infinity. Probably, you should get a test. Aw shit, scratch the test and get a piano. Music and death are okay together; still, birth is better. Anchor yourself to the flash, baby.
tap
tap tap
germ
on the lungs
that catch
like autumn
in a bike
wheel
scratch
scratch scratch
infinity takes
a test
an anchor
flashes
in the bright
i: stillbirth
no violin,
no piano
Ok better late than never. I thought you posted this list in Sept.
Wheels of the cars
flash the sun back.
While the hour anchors
to the infinity of sameness.
Lungs take in more air
and the mind scratches
out a poem to save me.
It will be stillborn.
To test the opaque shell
of this life. I want – not to drop.
Will there be piano music
in the midst of this reel? .
Or has luck, ended the projectionist.
Poems are the corporeal germs.
And no taps should be played
for their death. Mark only
with the broken twigs crosses.
Who will decay, receding
into the earth, after a winter.
I keep words in order they were posted. It more fun that way.
A flash of epiphany:
I sit on the piano, tapping keys
Somewhere a tap is singing
Spewing germs of wisdom
Testing my patience but I can’t let go
Legs are anchored by the pull
Of lyrics unwritten and songs waiting to be sang
Of an ode stuck in its stillbirth
Scratching my lungs as it tries to escape
A noise of genius and kitchen fixture combined
Infinitely waiting
Waiting for the drip to stop
For the muse to pop
For the wheel of time to release it