From a writing exercise

tubgirl posted this exercise in poetryslamming

Found in The Practice of Poetry:

Rita Dove’s Ten-Minute Spill

Write a ten-line poem. The poem must include a proverb, adage, or familiar phrase (i.e., she’s a brick house, between the devil and the deep blue sea, or foot in the grave, a stitch in time saves nine, don’t count your chickens before they hatch, someday my prince will come, the whole nine yards, a needle in a haystack) that you have changed in some way,, as well as five of the following words.

Cliff, needle, voice, whir, blackberry, cloud, mother, lick

You have ten minutes.

I wound up using all of the words (I hope that it wasn't five and five only!) , and 'apple of his mother's eye' was the familiar phrase I started out thinking about. The capitalized words are varieties of apples (The names of apples rock!) It took four minutes total to write, then another three-and-a-half of revision (I accidentally had 11 lines at first and had to move some stuff together and cut something)- so I was under the ten minute time limit.

Apple of Her Eye

eyes like apples shine Golden Delicious in noonday son
her Braeburn voice calls him from the blackberry field
calloused hands purpled, thick lips blackened with juices
his Pink-cheeked Lady lover, peels away inhibition
tumbles him back into the hay that pierces flesh like needles
licks the summer's sweet stain from upturned palms
whirring locusts blend with sweet-nothings as milk-white teeth
sink into his shoulder and neck, Gala devouring in tender little bites
Jonagold clouds roll by... cliffs and valleys , peak of Fuji-- his mother's
Granny Smith face a cumulus of disapproval judging him rotted to the core