From “A BOOK OF SURREALIST GAMES” by “ALASTAIR BROTCHIE
EDITED BY MEL GOODING”

ЕCHO POEMS
For one, two, or more players.
The aim is to write a poem whose two halves, laid out in two
columns, echo one another. The ‘echo’ may be achieved in various
ways: by the phonetic correspondences of rhyme or half rbyme, by
puns, by rearranging syllables; or by methods which do not depend in
any way upon the phonetic properties of the words. One might use, for
example, the literal or free-associating ‘opposites’ of the previous
game, as in the poem below.
Write the first sentence in the left-hand column. The last part of this
sentence is then transformed into the first part of the sentence in the
right-hand column (in the example, ‘the migrant triangles’ become
‘the circular suggestion’). The second sentence is then completed however one chooses, and this part generates the first half of the second
sentence in the left-hand column (‘fickle fleeces’ become ‘faithful
plumage’ etc.), and so on.
The poem’s title is the ‘echo’ of the final phrase.

Can we but give guilty to be kind

Victory is progress and is unique, History is regress and is oblique
and worth sharing the table, and worst is carrying the fable
because radiance is turbulence. Because cadence is an ambulance.
Defeat means there is always potential To cheat gleams where all says “too crucial
in the river for what you have is the giver for what you gave”
in the inevitability of decline. And see and live ability of the mind.