888.  Write a poem, and take it on a cultural journey by translating it progressively through several world languages, until you eventually get back to english.  

Before you read on, please take note that I have not written anything like poetry in about ten years. I love it as an art form, but I decided a long time ago to put my efforts towards art.  I wrote a small, not very good poem for this experiment, and then translated it from one language to another with google translate.  In this case I chose languages that have had some connection to me throughout the last ten years.

Here is how it started:

A decade between one verse and the next
Taught me less about life
Than about art.
The lines I’m most proud of
Loop and swirl.
My blood is thick in their borders,
But I miss the lyric path between my soul
And the blank page.

This was translated from from English through French, Spanish, Hebrew, German, Armenian, Polish, Japanese, Belarusian, and back to english.

This is the poem at the end of the Journey

Poetry in the next decade

He said to me, at least, for a lifetime,
What is art?
I am very proud of the line.
Loop and vortex.
My blood is thicker,
Nevertheless, I will miss the way my soul sang.
Blank Page.

I can’t say it’s the most successful poem, but it is a fun experiment.
edit- I edited the punctuation in the second poem a little.