Final: Thanks for the memories folks. While not always showing the best of us, this was a great shared experience, i think.

I was blown away by the achievement of the last editable poem. I think the end product that was created was something truly special. While I think it would be foolish to attempt to recreate an experience like that, I am a fool and I loved watching it grow and shift in my feed. I would love to see one grow again.

Therefore, I messaged thenewgreen and asked if I could steal their idea wholesale. they agreed, and so I copy/paste now:

Using this random poem generator I received this:

  Noise, death, and work.
  Action, death, and work.
  Windows shrink like old workers.
  Walk slowly like a misty worker.

My idea is that people be able to add to this poem. We can add stanzas, lines, we can remove words from what is currently there, and we can change it all together. We can erase and start over. There is no loyalty to what exists here. A number of us have been given access to "edit" this post. If you would like to be added to this, let me know. You need not tell people it was you that wrote whatever.... do this under anonymity. Let's see how this thing changes. Please do not edit the above original poem, but do so here:

  Close your eyes.  This life is tiresome,
  and hurled against the wind, it burns. 

  The scalded flesh reveals your figure,
  And you become un-wounded.  Bones 
  exposed through burning facade.

  I could work all day and never 
  move an inch closer to you. 
  I'm a weathervane pointing 
  beyond the storm, into the blue. 

  I polished windows until I didn't 
  like their bright new veneers.  
  False rooster, rubber rocket, listen 
  to Roethke: go away, somewhere 

  you think you need to go.  Foothills 
  of hysteria.  You'd expect the dead 
  man's curve: xerox zero Rosie,
  but it's bowties and trumpet tubing

  from here on out.  Little ram-shackled 
  summer-homes baking together
  like cookies, every one a family.

  Under the words that were omitted
  lie the noise, work, and death
  Missing workers walk slowly,
  stop to take each breath.

  Under the words that were deleted
  I sit here with the few
  Trying not be defeated
  I move an inch closer to you.
 
  Cut me down a tree,
  Dragged it to the sea.
  Made me clearly see
  How much you mean to me.
  

I've added all of the previous editors here. anyone else is more than welcome to join. I have no expectations for how this attempt will really go (though of course I would love it to succeed), so allow your creativity to flow free of expectations.