Poetry Exercise

This is far from my best poetry, I assure you! It's a writing practice exercise we did at our last meeting. I was given a word list and had a few minutes to turn it into a poem.

My words:

gentle
rhythm
serendipity
svelte
suede
scrumptious
food
sturdy
athlete
raspberries
poet
saucer
garden
silly
commerce
joke
whole


My poem:

The ship swayed with a gentle rhythm
As it had all week
The motley crue of passengers had learned to sway with it
Had learned to love it
A gentle serendipity

The young svelte woman in the suede cape
Sat upon the fore deck
Facing the aft
Watching the creases left behind them in the water
A short-lived trail marking their course
Like bread crumbs left behind
Only to become scrumptious food
For squirrels and chipmunks
And owlbears and kender dwarves and garden gnomes

She watched the sturdy helmsman
As his fingers played upon the great wheel
He watched her too
They gazed at one another across the abyss
Between the two decks fore and aft

Between and below them the young athlete ran circles and figure-eights
Between and around the masts
Sometimes stumbling from the pitch of the craft
Finally he lurched to the rail and craned his neck
And hurled his breakfast of cakes and strawberries into the sea

Below her in the main salon
The poets gathered at the great wooden table
And with teacups and saucers scattered about
They crafted their poetry
Beautiful verses of gardens and princesses
And silly poems like this one
Built from crazy word lists!

And in the captain's cabin
The baron and the merchant
Sipped the captain's whiskey
And they spoke of politics and commerce

They joked about the other passengers
And how the whole lot of them
Could be cast over the board
And never be missed

FWG