nrt centos (community made poems)
Like a Knowing Ghost
Round-bellied in lamplight, we are lambent
tropical treasures underfoot, seaglass
and purple-footed whelk, silk-banded peels
around plump oranges. We are honey
circling the woodworn bowl, a reminder
of palm-smooth porcelain, aromatic
with swirls of summer mornings, baked by sun.
We are pale and empty balloons twisting
in the breeze, a labyrinth of blueness,
silhouettes of flowers waiting to bloom.
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NRT Zoom 4/8/26
nrt centos (community made poems)
Lessons
Just at the edge of the paisley and the sharp
kick of the steel gun, we're learning to hum
at night, we're learning again and again
like a furnace-yellow sky lined with flint.
It's a lesson that's really a story
like a fogged road, a tongue in sauce
bubbling horseradish, resting in crystal
jars on dusty shelves. Take them off, press them
to your ear, and listen -- this classroom's lesson
is the rhythm of the heart, grease and bone,
blood and vessels, we are, we were, will be.
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NRT at Moravian Story Summit. 3/28/26.
A cento is a poem composed of lines 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 at the conclusion
of a round of reading.
Kind of a meta-poem of the reading. A verbal collage.
A motley thing. The poem the audience made.
We'll even send it to you afterwards...
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Here are a few recent centos...
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New Centos from Our 2026 Readings!
My Buoyancy
In your mug — grief and guilt,
an unknown girl in the current,
her eyelashes three vertical windows,
her boredom a white vase
with flowers, her anger a bite
through skin, but she is a garden
in early April, apple blossoms,
a sweet kite of flowers, the stems
ascending, her hunger a moon,
a legacy of want, a needful wish,
tailfeathers trailing in the embers.
Don't listen to anyone else, she says.
To live is to plunge and to burn
sometimes, but also to trust
we deserve to be alive.
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NRT at Princeton Public Library 10/18/25
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Convinced We Were Beautiful
Porcelain angels
pirouetting, frail
blades stirring the waters,
small things, late light
through a pinhead,
iridescent, our fragile
wings folded at rest,
we can endure almost
anything, these brief lives
a chill of exhaled breath,
a supple ache, a throbbing
in the neck, everywhere
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like fallen crumbs, this fountain
of the unburdened --
light hearts, quiet joy, flight.
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NRT Zoom 10/9/25
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The Radio Harmonized
Cold whiteness, powder jar, a clean, gloved hand
pinching the dial. And maybe one night,
we drive by velvet moonlight, headlights off,
two hundred miles in sharp-angled shadow,
following the old simple lane, its wisps
of joy like nips a dark-caked dog has taken
from the moon. There, lapping at the edge
of the circle of light. There, its hot breath
murmuring through the tall grass and the oaks,
sifting through sycamores, it follows us home.
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3/11/2026 on Zoom
If you have lost your marshmallow and now
are hungry, whisper across the pillow;
linger in the saving while you may;
create your catalog of tears for protection.
All the novels, by this time, will have fallen into the sea.
Seawater rushing through splayed fingers
reminds me of my visit to East Jersey State Prison.
The small of him in the rearview mirror.
I couldn’t pronounce the words to cast the spell–
an awkward fumbling—a regathering of pieces.
With each change of the moon I sweep
through my ribs in the walled garden.
You’re absolutely perfect, says the dog, the goat, the bee—
In the little town, the fields of fruit and bees, he revives.
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2/11/26 on Zoom
Hope that Carries
Life's black waves toss inside your head, a horse
turbulent and waiting. You, cowering
in your dark coat away from the windows.
Your insides feel lightless, just at the edge
of urgency. Learn to seek your calm. Cue
the summer light, shining straight from the throat.
Give birth to gold, fluid brilliance, whorl
of moon and soaring bird and jellyfish.
Don't be swallowed whole. Let memory breach
the water's surface like a kind-eyed god.
Let bright stars light the dark world.
Let reassurance quiet the klaxons.
Let understanding cut through the smoke
to find your sanctuary.
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NRT ZOOM 1/14/26
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Gray Saturday
In how many childhood friends
did you seek solace, irreverent
in prayer, the music washing
over you, the tambourine
of your laughter, hot blue notes blown
from the copper pipe organ
as your father was being lowered
into the ground? The marquee read
White Bread Body, Psalm and Response
or maybe Song and Response
or maybe Solemn Response.
"You'll know one day," the other
parents say, pumping their fists,
their mouths tasting Yuengling.
"Who knows what we'll know," you answer,
mouth quirked, eyes cast toward home.
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NRT Zoom 11/12/25