A cut-up

The poem-a-day prompt for day 11 (yes, I’m behind) was to write a construction poem. I decided to take that quite literally and wrote a cut-up; I used the cut-up exercise from this workbook. Paraphrasing, the instructions are as follows: take two pages from different sections of the newspaper, and two pages from two different magazines. Randomly circle interesting words and phrases. Then take one line from each of three poems. Mash them up and see what you get. Here’s what I came up with.

There is No Easy Street

With its foot in the door of your head
an alarming revelation:
the losers, the homeless and hungry,
the randomness of nature,
the primeval struggle for existence.
Fertile farmland, biotech foods,
genetically modified seeds.
A type of eggplant, Persian.
Yet it did not die.

Two minarets standing
on the broad avenue.
A grand mosque in a working class neighborhood
calling to prayers.
Changes in weather patterns.
Why can’t they be like me?

* the first line of my poem is taken from “Forced Entry” by Jack Marshall.