" W O R D S . . . magical figments . . . metaphorical mirrors flashing in mankind's primordial dreams."
- create mental tapestries of logic, fantasy, wit and feeling -
For children and adults.
It's easy. Surprising. Magical!
IF / THEN began in a happy-chance interchange with my granddaughter, Kyla Kegler, in 1993, when she was eight-years-old. Since that time the family has played the game and we have produced and sold copies; but it languishes among the many projects awaiting attention in our family repertoire.
- jack bice
Poems from a precursor to If/Then
The following poems are the surviving remnants of a game my wife, Amy, and I played with our children in the Nineteen-sixties and -seventies. I am not sure where the idea originated of having a group conjure words and then requiring each person to write a poem using those words; I like to think it was original with us, but perhaps not...
These poems exist as scribbles on aging paper-scraps written at our cabin in Colorado, in Siena, Italy, and Buffalo, New York. About fifteen minutes were allowed to write the poems, so they are really mere sketches.
Word games were common in our experimentations in art. For example, in 1963, I lent some personal, early piano improvisations to high school creative writing classes led by Harriet Noret, in Boulder, Colorado. The students listened in a darkened room and wrote spontaneous poetic responses with impressively imaginative results.
And audio tape-looping compositions from productions in 1968 and the 1970s, including experiments by our then thirteen-year-old son, Warrick, were word-manipulations based upon chance usages.
- jack bice
Words
chosen by the group:
magnetic
bagpipe
zipper
influenza
crutches
riddle
happy
orange
able
feeble
Izzipper Able
Izzipper Able, that feeble man!
An orange nose,
No coat of tan.
Influenza, with monkey's hunch,
Crutches, and eyelids with bagpipe crunch.
But Izzipper Able oft riddled me well :
"A happy gurgle from
magnetic north
Went forth from his
oppulent orbs twice torn.
How comes such creature
non-forlorn?"
...Why, he's close-shorn !
- jb
fire
fork
meagerie
constellation
replica
red chair
convict
expectation
carpet
chips
Four convicts of the realm
In fire, flood and foolish pitch
Do roll.
A constellation foiled and green
To quell the chips of Hell.
In expectation rife,
No replica of life's menagerie
Can fork and spit
and flare so foul
To run the red chair's carpet now
And pull the Devil's hair.
-jb
captivating
fantasy
serene
night life
leprosy
tape
conversations
marshmallow
dust
bag pipes
veins
Vane captives dance a pirouette.
Dust billows from their wake.
A leporous caravan to Hell full bent,
Their conversations quake.
Night life's sweet taste
And marshmallow chords
of serene tasks forgot . . .
The bagpipe sound,
The Devil's hound :
Farmer Flop exchanged a glance
with Orange Nation's wife.
Her vibrant eyelids fast did dance
preamble to a knife.
For classic tales oft fair are writ'
of errant men and maids
Whose calm composures deep are bit --
Calamity remains !
For fools are husbands --
Fools more wives --
Who challenge faith to bide,
Allowing spouse decide
Love's fate
As mate regains a point.
Disjoint !
- jb
recall
virtuous
dreary
creeper
blatant
melodious
festival
crop
palace
chrysanthemum
Romance !
I recall a festival !
Blatant notes on wind did sing
of palace flowers
my love did bring :
Of Chrysanthemums and Daisies.
Of Fen and Fern.
Vined ivy :
That crop of creepers' deep virtue
Burned melodious colors,
Cast uncommon day in
riotous scent.
Left no dreary play in.
horizon
copper
cedar
potent
rainbow
crochet
grove
fickle
curlicue
castle
Fickle horizon past yon castle !
Swirl and curlicue of love's respite !
* * *
In potent grove of cedar --
Crocheted rainbow of cuckoldry --
* * *
Brash coquette !
Rash Collette !
Of copper bawdry.
- jb
slack
perfect
slang
ponder syllable
conscious
roadrunner
anybody else
gad! I had
beige
dirge
Slack, slang syllables
of perfect beige --
Ponder !
* * *
Conscious dirge
of purple beats
Cast the roadrunner
'neath the streets !
Anybody else ?
* * *
Gad ! I had a dream !
- jb
meander
golden
munch
parrot
repel
liaison
crestfallen
rustle
rejected
exuberant
Cockney Conversation
Me and 'er !
Gol den' !
Munch more pear rot !
Reep 'el !
Lie ! a son of fallen Crist !
Rus ! tell Reg !
'Ek Ted !
Ex Ub
'er aunt !!!
- jb
embarrassment
sabre
rosey
disc
hot sulphur
electric
awning
pebbles
A Heist in a London Fog
An electric sabre cut
with hot sulphur pebbles.
The gut.
The disc.
tHE ROSEY RISK
A complacent embarrassment
is a draft-y-awning
Frisk !
gilt-edged
twine
Giovanni
rock
tipple
panther fur
gracious
rosette
candlestick
orb
Lament of Don Giovanni
An ignorant romance irritated me.
It was a bravo challenge.
Dignified ! No nonsense !
But an icki tamale
(dip - loma of pleasure),
Curdled her milk.
* * *
The gilt-edged panther fur
of gracious ladies,
Their rosette orbs
Lit like dolls' cries
Bit him.
Don Giovanni rocked,
his candle stick
thrust white before him.
He twined, tippled, reeled.
Deep is death
- jb
Dream Recitation
(awoke reciting this to myself);
Doggedly he ploughed starboard against the volley of oaths
that peppered him from his bow.
"Damn that dam! Dam it! Dam it!", he screamed silently
as the waters lapped at the chessboard of his life
like a forest fire lapping at his heels.
"She can't speak to me like that!"
