Art in Community among the Poor

I was really inspired by Joel's workshop at the staff retreat and have been writing some haiku as he recommended. it's been a really fun way to relax and practice writing for the pure no-pressure enjoyment of it:

ouch
sprain iced with veggies
pebbly potatoes dig in
wish for peas instead

street cleaner
municipal brush
roves, picks up roadkill, rocks, butts;
stop following me

from where i sit
expired light strings
cobra-choke iron railing;
dead footrest cools skin

this morning, i wrote a pageful of any word that came to mind, then tried to use as many of the words as i could in a poem:

Ramshakle rickshaws sit,
Scarecrowed outside Anousha’s bistro
A table of tourists—patsies—bow their shorn, bulbed craniums,
ponder a succulent crumb underfoot
and count the seconds until it is pummeled by
her squatty, asterisk broom.

--and--

Blistered stitches of rug
attempt to dry in the storm
Shorn edges coagulate,
Bulbed with strems of rain

the rug poem made 'sense' to me because i am drying rugs on my balcony and it rained last night. i've found that because i usually journal/read/write on my fire escape, much writing content takes place in that setting. the first poem would have never come out without my from-within word prompts, providing a change of scenery that i wouldn't have imagined otherwise.

incidentally, quite a few of the words that came out on my brainstorm page were nonsensical or combinations of other words: bulbed, prantalot, strem, rixal, agrizement. could be fun to incorporate made up words into poetry, huh?