Last night, a terrific poetry workshop was given by the lovely Gya at the womyn’s house.

The discussion covered poetic aesthetics and devices, verse form and rhyme, rhythm, symbolism, ambivalence, cliches and pitfalls, etc.

At the end of the workshop, the attending poets-to-be each wrote a poem based on an exercise that Gya put together. It involved listening to a melody, tasting a questionable violet elixir, and of course being caressed by a feather on one side of the face while being nearly scratched on the other (what else would we do for creativity to kick in?).

Poets-to-be then combined their writing into a collective poem, made up of lines from each individual poem. Needless to say, a mere bottle of perfume (perfume being a word we were not allowed to use) triggered *some* bitter memories with *certain* people’s exes (hence the ambivalent dramatic title?)

Here’s the final outcome:

“Bitter Embrace”

Splish splash, a splash

of dew or vin rosé,

a mix of forced sweet temptations

or simply the poison you poured
in my tea.

Inside the apple, an unusual
apple of deformed
seeds barefoot, running in a field
and the sniff of cardboard smell.

I tend to forget that
a whiff of her scent comes in
little pink bottles.

She left the lake behind and

a shadow of birds’ flock
dripping in ten lumps of sugar.
She’s the sweating flower
that goes through my veins

sweet sea in my mouth.

The lasting irritation

of her callous hands.