🎉HI POETS! HERE’S OUR
GROUP CHAIN POEM!! 🎉
Thank you for participating in this 700-year-old tradition of collaborative chain poetry. Some of the lines were posted as Comments rather than Replies, so I have taken the liberty of organizing the lines in a way that seems coherent. The words are still all yours. Many thanks to Tom Cleary for so generously providing our first line.
TRAPPED UNDER THE CAR OF LIFE
Trapped under the car of life
While wheels churn through rough terrain,
Shifting gears like electric clouds clash
Dodging boulders, as fearful of impending crash,
The mark of wheels get washed by rain.
Hiding from life’s trouble and strife
Cheek turned from screeching tyre
A child cowering from the rain under
an old oak tree
Afraid of wetting his world with nature’s tears
Seeking the road that finds us all.
Dodging reckless drivers yet putting trust
in a higher power
Sleeping policeman speed bump
gonna smash my brain
Dash, smash, crash into the wheels of life
that are crass!
Knife under seat to cut my belt, jaws of life
is coming to help
It now seems time is finite or so I fear.
Perhaps we pass while still unknown
Like ships that drift alone
All that is will perish with or without fear
All of us travel together to reach
the final destination.
Shangri-La where the air is pure
And the rain is still wet, yet,
Its rainbows are the cure
Finding the love beyond all recalling.
©️ 2026 Tom Cleary, Imelda Garcia, Karin J. Hobson, Karen Burns, Madhura Mitra, George Valler, Zac Warden, James Alexander Crown, Ugochukwu Asiegbu, Douglas Penn, Carol Lease, Leon Vander-Molen, Malak Kalmoni. Chehab, Neal Klein, Dave Ismay, George Valler, Lorna J McLaren, Celeste Quackenbush, Jyothi Bhagawat, Terry Bridges, Malak Kalmoni, Chehab, Linda Powers O’Dell.
My poetry book, Perfectly Flawed poetry for change, is available on all eplatforms including Amazon. It was on the finalist list for the Canadian Book Club Awards 2023.
https://www.amazon.ca/Perfectly-Flawed-poetry-Malak-Kalmoni/dp/1525582518
