Today, Barbara came to the group in despair, feeling cold, as if in deep, dark hole. 

The writing exercise was to choose  from a pile of cards, each of which had a word on it.  The cards were turned over so the words were not visible.  Each writer chose five cards and was to utilize the words in a poem, story, essay, letter or stream-of-consciousness writing.  Barbara's words were analogue, appliance, breadfruit, columbine, logjam. 

PRUNE JUICE:  A STUPID POEM

This is an analogue.
What the hell is an analogue?
I don't know.
It's a word Robert-Harry gave me to write a poem.

The next is appliance.
The next is breadfruit.
The next is columbine.
The next is logjam--five meaningless words.
I'm supposed to make a poem out of this?

Let's see.  I sat on my analogue
on top of the appliance--the washing machine--
to keep it from rocking, while I ate my lunch of breadfruit
which was a prune and apricot sandwich
made by Columbine Bakeries,
which is located in lumber country
by a big logjam, where they produce breadfruit sandwiches
made out of sawdust and prune juice
which give you diarrhea.

I eat these every day while I do my wash...oops...
the machine just vibrated out the laundramat door.
I had overstuffed the washing machine
and it became a huge blanket logjam
of my sleeping bag and clothes,
as I'm homeless.
Sitting on top didn't stop it from moving;
I just got hemorrhoids in my analogue.

After reading the poem to the group, Barbara reported feeing lighter and warmer.