Erupting Typewriter

NaPoWiMo - Day 16 - Today’s prompt is a prompt of erasure or, if you like, recombination. Below, reproduce for your perusal is a paragraph from Annie Dillard’s book, The Writing Life. Your mission is to create a poem, either by erasing words from the paragraph, or recombining the words that are already there (you don’t have to use all the words, of course. And you can add new words, if you wish.

“I pulled down the curtains. When I leaned over the typewriter, sparks burnt round holes in my shirt, and fire singed a sleeve. I dragged the rug away from the sparks. In the kitchen I filled a bucket with water and returned to the erupting typewriter. The typewriter did not seem to be flying apart, only erupting. On my face and hands I felt the heat from the caldera. The yellow fire made a fast, roaring noise. The typewriter itself made rumbling, grinding noise; the table pitched. Nothing seemed to require my bucket of water. The table surface was ruined, of course, but not aflame. After twenty minutes or so, the eruption subsided.”

Erupting Typewriter

The yellow fire made rumbling,

grinding noise,

the table pitched.

I dragged the rug away from the sparks,

pulled down the curtains.

Fire singed a sleeve and

burnt round holes in my shirt.

The typewriter did not fly apart.

I felt the heat from the caldera.

My face and hands made a

fast, roaring noise and

required a bucket of water.

After twenty minutes or so,

the eruption subsided.

The muse had left.