It was a small but wildly enthusiastic group that met Tuesday night for the Twitter poetry party. Well, “group” might be a slight exaggeration. There were two of us. And we watched the prompts – lines from Richard II by William Shakespeare. Richard was the last of the main-line Plantagents on the throne of England. Shakespeare made him into something of a villain, but a lot of historians differ with that fictional portrayal. He was deposed by Henry of Bolingbroke, otherwise known as Henry IV; he’s believed to have starved to death while imprisoned at Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire around 1400.

According to Wikipedia, the play was written about 1595 and has one of the most detailed and unusual performance histories of any play by Shakespeare. Records exist showing the play having been performed in 1595, 1601, 1607, 1631, 1680, 1719, 1738 and more. In the 20th century, actors who played the title role have included John Gielgud, Maurice Evans, and Ian Richardson, and by Derek Jacoby and Kevin Spacey (so far) in the 21st century.

Such is the source of the prompts for our December TweetSpeak Poetry party. This is the first of two posts.

The Leopard’s Smile

By @llbarkat and @gyoung9751; edited by @gyoung9751.

Tongue and Heart, Deaf

My tongue
is deaf
but for the sound
of your kiss.
Hasty I have been
to speak poetry
to your deaf heart;
to deep incision,
slander adds salt
like kisses lost
long.

A Leopard’s Smile

A leopard’s smile
through silent lips,
tamed by a kiss
for but a moment
of savannah sleep.
Sleep leopards,
on savannahs
dry and golden,
sleep.
Swift are the leopards
and swift the wind
that executes
my dreams.
Lightning strikes
with leopard stealth;
no one told me
lightning is
circular,
a lightning circle,
a flashing circle
surrounding
the leopard.
The lightning
speaks and wakes
from gentle sleep,
yet waking
with vengeful life.

Lancelot Speaks of Vengeance

Lancelot and Guinevere come
riding.
Ah, Lancelot,
you speak of vengeance.
Let us close our eyes instead
and sleep,
to sleep, perchance to wake;
to cry, perchance to baby.
Cradles gone
and sleep gone
and gentle night,
gentle knight,
withdrawn.
To wake, yes,
I would wake
in soft light
of your eyes.

A Child Stares in Sleep

A child stares in sleep,
lightly moving
through rhythms of night,
aching towards a dawn.
To sleep like a child,
dreamlike,
is to speak to angels.
A child sleeps
amid the unstrung woods,
the unwound harp.
In sleep the child
dreams the dawn,
aches for night
receding like
a voiceless harp.

Wind the harp,
string the child
to angels.
We carried the harp
into stringed mists,
winds in the woods,
to play for angels,
and carried mists
and carried woods
on backs unstrung
from time.
An instrument, cased,
Swaddled, hidden.
Times bides,
hiding its cunning.

The Hood I Always Wanted

Swaddled in time, hidden in
a child’s wood
where sleeps Red Riding,
Red, riding into the hood,
riding into the wood.
I cannot help
the riding
the red
the wood
the hood
I always want to wear

Six Winters Spent

Six winters spent
in ice and frozen air
bound by snow
chained by sleet.
Chained by red air,
six leopards bound
in snow, sleeting
through mist and time,
sleet made more sweet
by the presence
of your red
unspotted heart.

The six wait for the seventh,
stuck in a forgotten ice age,
How can I forget thee
and the ice we fell across
like angels?
The age of ice,
of ice aged in casks
and hidden within
a crevasse,
while snow angels
left an imprint
of frigid gossamer.

Can ice be aged
like wine;
can it seethe
in darkened glass?
Gossamer
visits sleep
in dreams,
in angel kisses,
gentle as the mist.
A gossamer kiss,
left beside a child,
dreaming.