The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is a trivia game based on the concept that any individual can be linked through their film roles to Kevin Bacon. This week we are not asking you to write a poem about Kevin Bacon. But we are connecting all of your poems by these six words: lonely, energy, headlines, wander, music and joke. Use these six words in your poem; you’ll only be separated by your muse.
Marie’s Effort:
UNTITLED
For the first time in my life, I know
What loneliness feels like.
Sounds like.
Tastes like.
Nervous energy follows wanderlust.
Dismal music accompanies ominous headlines
That play as a round in my psyche,
And leave a peculiar tang on my lips.
I discharge a recurrent mechanical laugh…
Everything is a joke.
Walt’s Degree:
LOOKING FOR THE TRUTH
If you search the headlines
you know it’s not a joke.
Don’t waste your energy,
The answers are in the music.
The lovers who wander
are the only lonely people.
POETIC BLOOMINGS 
Responses
Curling Crepe Paper
My last evening energy,
wasted on wishing
for your cryptic call.
Tonight I sway my skirt,
a subtle slippery wave
willing you to wander by.
Yet no tap settles on my shoulder,
no lonely dashing dancer
coming to cut in.
I’ll be the juicy joke,
the horrid headline
in tomorrow’s tell-tale paper.
Yet tonight I tempt,
my princess parade wave
lost in your laughter.
This pulls on the heartstrings: but you’ve disguised the words well to make this poem.
Technically, I did not include the word: music, but I thought that the scene ‘implied’ music.
Here is the “lost” stanza, just to set the ‘record’ straight:
Curling Crepe Paper
My last evening energy,
wasted on wishing
for your cryptic call.
But melodic music
drew me in too deep
where I knew I shouldn’t wade.
Tonight I sway my skirt,
a subtle slippery wave
willing you to wander by.
Yet no tap settles on my shoulder,
no lonely dashing dancer
coming to cut in.
I’ll be the juicy joke,
the horrid headline
in tomorrow’s tell-tale paper.
Yet tonight I tempt,
my princess parade wave
lost in your laughter.
Love this poem, Patricia, and the lost stanza as well.
Well done either way, Patricia. May I have this dance?
Just like a cloud
October is a lonely month.
Summer energy has faded.
No more daffodils.
You can wander around the neighbourhood,
music playing in your ear but,
headlines aside,
Wordsworth saw them first.
No joke!
😀
[…] just knocked Brenda’s Sunday Wordle on the head, I groaned as I read the latest prompt from https://poeticbloomings2.wordpress.com/2011/10/02/wither-goest-thou-kevin-bacon-prompt-23/ You’ve guessed it, another list of words to use in a poem: lonely, energy, headlines, […]
Is this a cruel joke?
I don’t have the energy
to write verse today.
I wander about
lonely in this no-man’s-land
of forced poesy.
Musical poems
catch the headlines with their songs.
Today I have none.
Walt, why are lovers lonely? Marie, I hope you are not really this depressed?
Not at all, Viv, but thanks for asking. So sweet of you! This prompt stole my muse and dragged her to a lonely place.
meg
Lover who WANDER are truly lonely. If they’re looking for something else, something’s not Kosher.
“Viv and the Patricias” sounds like a musical group! Great way to start us off, ladies!
meg
Meeting Robert Lee Brewer
I wander into the bookstore
alone, but not lonely
anxious, but not nervous;
energy has driven me miles
yet the ambiance is the same
as Saturday hustles and bustles;
cash registers cling, music drifts
aromatic coffee becomes a magnet
and I am reading the headlines
waiting for a grande mocha
until I ask, “Where’s the poetry reading?”
a crooked finger points, I follow its lead
to Robert Lee Brewer
no trick, nor joke– a treat
four hours, a poetry buffet
(and he encourages me to read).
Now that sounds like a good day.
Jealous, jealous, jealous! 😉
meg
SOMEONE DO SOMETHING!
As I wander lonely
through the headlines,
I finally realize
That Lady Gaga’s music
Is more than a joke.
It is the reality we find
in the news everyday.
I wish I had the energy to care.
Poetic Reports
My eyes wander over the headlines
of the local paper looking for words
which capture the energy, the music,
the loneliness, the joke of life.
None do. Wouldn’t it be nice
if poets reported the news?
I like that! If poets reported the news, I might be able to stomach it!
At the very least, it would be more vivid.
Okay guys and gals, this is my first attempt in a while, so be kind.
Following The Urge
We allowed the energy of our Muse
To take us far and wide in search
Of weekly headlines for our readers.
We found how lonely empty miles can be
When one wanders without home or roots.
The joke turned on us as Nature’s
Weather symphany ebbed and flowed
Through the notes of Winter’s concert.
You captured your experience well in few words, Clauds. Bravo!
meg
from Bad to Verse
Her headlines
are lonely
missing
energy and music
the fruity filling in between.
Words wander off.
Muse is MIA, a joke.
Is her poem button broke?
Nice! Mine is rarely broken but it is often turned off!
Great title and poem. I have felt a little less than inspired recently myself.
My poem is here:
http://firmlyrooted.blogspot.com/2011/10/unspoken.html
Celebrate Life
No time to be lonely
as a cover-band headlines.
Music thumps in my ears
the beat energizing,
propelling me
into the scene.
I wander the room
hang on each word,
comment, and joke;
tomorrow may be my last
so tonight I live life to its most.
Newspaper Hoarder Buried Alive
She read the headlines each day
though sometimes she wished she hadn’t,
wandering through stories illuminating loneliness:
someone shot, someone left,
someone took, or someone kept,
a joke gone awry leaving a mother
to mourn and cry.
She could almost hear the ominous tone
like music from a horror movie
dangers foretold.
She read the headlines each day
and in her house she decided to stay.
Missing the Point
I wandered into the middle of a joke.
You know how that can be.
Everyone is laughing; you’re the only one
who doesn’t get the punchline.
So then I remembered an old line
about puberty – about the time in life when
you laugh at dirty jokes you don’t understand.
But that’s not me. I’m way past that era.
I figured it all was because I missed the beginning
of the story…something about a tragic headline.
You know there will be jokes
but how can that be funny?
Then I thought, even if I did come in at the start,
would it really make me want to laugh?
I mean, here’s the point:
do you
ever hear different music
than everyone else hears?
I do.
I don’t feel lonely about it
since it’s all I know,
but I didn’t want to bring down the party
so I laughed with great gusto and energy
just like everyone else.
Does that mean I’m still at puberty?
###
My Career Path
It can be lonely writing headlines.
You wander from story to story,
spending all your energy
on a big joke…should have stayed
in music!
As usual, JANE SHLENSKY’s muse responded to the prompt with more than one creative take on the prompt. 🙂 Personally, I love them all, but especially #1. Jane says there is a story behind her own favorite (#3): “I like the 3rd best, a reminder of walking across a campus in Shanghai years ago and listening to the music students rehearse out their open windows. You don’t expect to hear an Italian opera being sung by a Chinese student, which heightened that experience for me.”
(1)
Music has its own lonely, lovely energy
that wanders a person’s deeps,
that smoothes the headlines of world noise
away on a sweet crescendo
and makes of human desires a joke.
(2)
He reads the headlines first,
a lonely habit, to judge
the world’s state for each day,
wandering from page to page,
alarm to alarm,
until he hardly has
the energy to embrace
the lift and lull of music
or to laugh at a joke.
(3)
Opera music wandered across the strand,
changing the energy of all
who walked those streets,
making the lonely linger,
the joker sigh and listen,
the headlines of the day
unimportant.
College money (an octain refrain)
There’s bacon frying on the grill,
fresh eggs, a fractious coffee pot.
The jazz-cat music and the hot
breeze sap your energy. You fill
a lonely cup and wander up
to joke and read the headlines. Still,
you can’t escape. Like it or not,
there’s bacon frying on the grill.
There is an energy in lonely.
A soft, soulfull music
which cries and breaks
so loudly,
yet is only heard by one.
It is late nights,
spent wandering
dark, cold streets,
making pitiful jokes
which no one hears.
Reading newspaper headlines
through the glass
of a shop window,
trying to connect
this world with that
while knowing
this ache inside
renders that world
meaningless.
Love that first line which set the tone beautifully for this poem.
Love this, Jerry. Your usual pithy brilliance.
LIfe Melodies
Music sings memories, engaging
your mind to wander
back in time when the only
headlines that mattered
were the ones you created.
You soared on wings
of energy, and laughed
at the joke of ever winding
up aged, with the possibility
of life running past
all the stages you acted
upon, leaving you lonely,
humming old tunes.
I have another one at my blog: purplepeninportland.wordpress.com.
[…] Bloomings has come up with a wordle for its prompt #23, https://poeticbloomings2.wordpress.com/2011/10/02/wither-goest-thou-kevin-bacon-prompt-23/. The words are: lonely, energy, headlines, wander, music and joke. Wordles are too much fun to […]
BROKEN
by Mike Patrick
In a funk, he wanders the street,
lonely, living on old headlines,
hoping someone will recognize him.
His music is gone now, forgotten.
There are no adoring crowds,
no paparazzi trailing behind.
The energy he generated
has dissipated.
His name is not even a joke,
it is forgotten,
an unvisited page of Wikipedia.
A Heart-to-Heart
If home is where the heart is,
then is a heartless man homeless,
and a homeless man heartless.
And so, I asked him
this homeless man who was cold
and lonely, sleeping in a foetal curl
below a slatted bench. Was this man
heartless from lack of home and hearth.
Does his heart wander through dark
leaf-strewn paths, searching bushes,
seeking shelter, a home, picking
at food discarded, bits of crusts, crinkled
pickles, a suggestion of meat, anything
to restore his energy for another
night. He walks the shadows behind
the mission’s cafe where music
bounces into the alley along
with tattered drunks from the tavern
next door. Another night under a bench,
newspapers tucked down his shirt
and a double layer over his chest.
The broadsheet headlines facing him
so he can read what he calls the comics.
He loves a good joke.
And so, he replied
If home is where the heart is,
Then have a heart for this man.
[…] https://poeticbloomings2.wordpress.com/2011/10/02/wither-goest-thou-kevin-bacon-prompt-23/ Rate this: Share this:ShareEmailFacebookTwitterLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. Pen, Poetic Bloomings Sunday Prompt free-form, pen, poetic bloomings, poetry ← TOM’S BEACH, Scène Fifteen: A Study in Channel Surfing […]
Imagine in the future Kevin Bacon has become one with Reverend Spooner and Mrs Malaprop.
I’m making myself work on revision this month. One thing I’m doing is taking poems that seem to need “something” and packing them full of new words, then coming back later to take out some of both old and new. So here’s an old fragment with your words added.
In the Condo’s Granite Kitchen
lonely in another place
she might have dreamed
incising boars and tortoises into the leaves of palms,
or tapping hardened wood drums with steel-tipped
fingers, energy humming while she made daily art
in another life she might create unpolished paper
from lavender, the skins of onions, the music fallen
from spine-broken hymnals,
and marigold petals.
In the condo’s granite kitchen, she pulls fresh sheets from the dryer
imagines
draping sheets on lines in the wind to dry, or on rosemary warm in the sun
imagines
she wrote love poems in milk,
jokes in lemon, headlines in the blood of onions and folded them all
into gliders three or ten or forty-seven,
launched them,
from the white iron chair by the balcony rail to wander the world
in her place.
Can’t get enough of certain poets … you being one.
meg
It Had Been
his energy waned
he was fearful
he didn’t mind being alone
except that he was lonely now
it hadn’t always been this way
he had lived a life of adventure
his face had known many smiles
he had myriad loves
he could play music and jokes
it had been that way for a long time
he had wandered
and been lost
had looked for signs in headlines
and slept on concrete
it had been that way for too long
he regretted leaving the church
he remembered the circle of love there
he hoped the philosophy he’d cobbled together
would hold him in his final days
it had been his way
he just hoped it was the right one
/ / /
Combined these words with the dozen from The Sunday Whirl. Also at Sadly Waiting for Recess.
Richard
How very impressive, to combine so many mandatory words to create a cohesive piece that speaks volumes.
meg
As My Mind Wanders…
I read the headlines
but not the words
I hear the music
but not the song
I hear the laughter
but not the joke
it takes more energy
than this lonely, broken heart can spare
2011-10-05
P. Wanken
Paula, this one got to me. Wow.
meg
[…] for Poetic Bloomings prompt to use these six words: lonely, energy, headlines, wander, music and joke. Echo […]
NOWADAYS
He’s tired of being lonely.
It takes a lot of energy
to keep everyone away.
He sits alone behind stained
roller shades, wrestling
with a newspaper. The headlines
about someone he doesn’t know.
Some guy who suffered wanderlust,
strolling in and out of town,
playing music on his guitar
for pennies pitched in his direction.
Wanderlust got him in the end,
the police said. Outside on the street
a girl and boy exchange kisses
and laugh. He assumes they’ve shared
a joke at someone else’s
expense ’cause that’s the way it is
nowadays.
Six Degrees of Separation
The headlines read of wicked Wall Street greed.
The music soothed another kind of need.
His heart was for her as his one and only.
Together, yet still separate made them lonely.
No joke, those souls were cast from far out yonder.
With blinders on they’d blink but would not wander.
By Michael Grove