TFE's Poetry Bus hits Lucanland

So, the Poetry Bus is back in Ireland this week, and who knows where it'll take us this time?
We've spent the last few hours picking up the petals from between the seat cushions, scraping the medical charts off the windows, and windows and clocks have all been replaced with the original parts. Swiss was an excellent driver, and has entrusted me with the keys, (the power! the power!) complete with stethoscope keyring, it's hard to know how to top his great trip - so instead I decided to do this...

Before we begin you will need:

1. A list of people you know - either use your mobile phone phone-book, or your email inbox (with each sender counting as a different name), or a little black book if you have one.
2. A number between 5 & 10 - write this down
3. Another number between 10 & 20 - also write this down
4. A word from the last text or email subject that you have recieved - write this down too
5. A headache tablet of your choice

Now -

Take the list - using your first number - go down that amount of people in the list - eg - if your number is 6, and your list reads: Ann, Ben, Dad, Elf, God, Ike - you pick Ike - because he's the 6th person in the list.
Then using your second number count up from the bottom that number of people, and again note down the name.

So - you end up with two people's names (or you might have a person and a business say - ie Ike, and a pizza place) plus your word from the text or email subject.

Now -
Take the headache tablet if desired.

Now -
Use some or all of these as prompts to write a poem. You don't have to use both people - ie if one of them reminds you of a strong memory go with that, or one of them plus the word evokes a strong idea, or you could meld them together in your head, imagine if they were one person - what are their strongest personality traits? what kind of mix would you end up with? Would you get any interesting contradictions? Or you can imagine them meeting if they've never met before... or use the text as a starting point to think of a scenario which might involve the two of them and/ or their relationship to you - or just take them and fictionalise the hell out of them.... Don't forget you don't have to reveal who the people were that prompted the poem, or indeed the piece of text... they're just the jumping off point after all.

There ye have it... no one said it had to be easy...
or straightforward...

Good Luck!