Centos
A "cento" is a poem composed of liines written by others.
The term comes from the latin word for "patchwork garment."
At a No River Twice performance, we track the lines that have connected words or ideas from one poem to the next. We assemble the lines into a cento that we read at the conclusion of a round of reading. Kind of a meta-poem of the reading.
A verbal collage. A motley thing. The poem made by the audience!
Here are some centos from our most recent readings...
Angels
They are nude and shameless-
ly sagging, mute seas,
stunning and saltless.
We are landlocked, yet pine-
scented salmon, flailing
like ballast, too much basalt
in other women's kitchens.
They are a canvas, almost
birdsong, constant
on the riverbank.
We are scentless roses
and cardboard flags, a Styrofoam
wilderness of stars, dance
recitals, snoring dogs.
They are costumed cars,
catastrophes floating away,
I love you on the rails.
We are migrations of angles,
regrets and last breaths,
full of problems and yet
not unsolvable.
NRT on Zoom 9/9/26
Grant Clauser, Chad Frame, Shawn R. Jones, Vasiliki Katsarou, Joanne Leva, Ethel Rackin, Kathryn Weidener
next river 10/14/26 on Zoom!
Becoming Endlessly
At what point do we change legally, unknown
in the depth of our smallness, the only thing
death forgot, say c’est la vie, our likeness
a threefold grace, Mario and Orgasm and Truth,
or Gun and Shock and Shine, or Burn and Wrath
and Always. What you need to remember
is this: how to chalk-walk a straight line
through an assemblage of flowers
into the sweet-setting sun, its irregular
lightning, blue from body heat.
NRT at Drexel University 8/24/26
How to Make Paella
Start with a not-quite-done crab, the half-
finished dragon of its exoskeleton,
paprika and dismemberment, deep blues
turned to murky red, something alive
changing before your eyes into sacrifice,
did it hurt, does anyone miss you,
no legs, no eyes, no face, burrowing
through the vibrant castle of the earth.
Have you heard? God's slimy little much-loved
digger, body curled, is delicious.
Lynn Levin's Class, Drexel University 8/24/26
One Unlasting Sentence
It hustles to us out of memory,
a clock always later than science says
nostalgia can still reach us, unwrinkled
time at the tip of this moment, the wet
collar of a night drinking in bars, sun-
plumped apples in afternoon, year-round
sweetness, sip the coffee of this moment
and let it carry us through the decades,
carried outside the rushing creek of grief
that's been chasing us, coffee that puts us
to sleep instead -- to sleep, dear ones, to sleep.
NRT Zoom 5.13.26
--Mike Cohen, Chad Frame, Joanne Leva, Lynn Levin,
Lorraine Henrie Lins, Camille Norvaisas, Cleveland Wall
Rallied
Under the peach tree facing the cold stream,
years spent waiting for the magenta dawn’s
arrival, every sound like velvet
in the church of our ears – it nudges us,
pulling by the string, our canvas bodies.
That Sunday we met, sky crowded with stars,
I said to you, Please do not stop scraping
the cup with your spoon. I believe you will find,
like struck oil, there is always more pudding.
NRT at Princeton Public Library 4/22/26
--Joanne Leva, Chad Frame, Luray Gross, Hayden Saunier,
Dara-Lyn Schrager, John Timpane