Tweetspeak Poetry

  • Home
  • FREE prompts
  • Earth Song
  • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • Teaching Tools
  • Books, Etc.
  • Patron Love

Alice and the Chinese Jar

By Glynn Young 6 Comments

Last Thursday night, there was another gathering of the Tweetspeakers for a Twitter poetry party. This time, the prompts all came from Neruda’s Memoirs: Poems by Maureen Doallas, who was one of the tweetspeaking participants.

Below are the first three poems from the jam, edited by someone named the Poem Weaver. Actually, someone else (cough – L.L. Barkat – cough – cough) named me that, and I decided it was the best job title I’ve ever had.

Alice and the Chinese Jar

By @doallas, @llbarkat, @mmerubies and @jejpoet

To make the hours race
she put elixir into
the Chinese jar, precious
oil, a garden of Eden scent,
those swirls of liquid
in the clear vase,
blue liquid, dancing
bubbles, purple stars,
asters from behind
rusted cars.

Dancing blue
she thought of you
and the asters
and the scent of Eden.
Tide in and tide out,
she knocked the vase
and watched it splash.
She beat her fists
in the blue and screamed.
But no one heard.

When the liquid grew still,
she moved instead, dancing
around the waves, wishing
for quiet inside,
swirling;
silent.

When Rage is Silence

By @llbarkat, @mmerubies, @LoveLifeLitGod, @jejpoet and @doallas

The Ocean

The ocean
rages, begs for calm,
yet when a land is silent
as an empty vase
who rages, does anyone
rage?
And when the land breaks
from drought and shatters man,
what then of rage,
rage as stars might rave?

The Land

The land I traversed two days ago
was rich with dark black soil
and my roots were reaching
down to drink, when the silver car
drove me away and now the vines
are tearing at my flesh, begging me
to go, back home again,
home to secrets
home to stars and vines
and Mississippi lands.
But I cannot go back home again.
Will it be a home?
I am falsely anchored to Mississippi
lands, with husbands hands and
children feet, clawing and curbing me.

The Ocean

The water is my home.
Pay to sip it
pay to hold it
pay to be silent?
Will the Chinese jar
hold the silence
will it fit your lip
if you try to sip
the darkness inside?

Last Secrets of the Chinese Jar

By @mmerubies, @doallas, @llbarkat, @jejpoet, @LoveLifeLitGod and @lauraboggess

Curbing my hands, my feet,
curbing my ache for home,
for its last secrets ,
plantation dreams
and old twin oaks,
I chose my trap,
my mama bear paws eagerly
taking on the silver spikes
and begging him
to close in ranks.
He did.

Who can keep a secret
when our walls are flung
into the gulf
and the gulf cries
like the hollow jar,
elixir gone,
mixed long ago and spent?
Dark water still swallows tears
and dimples light at dawn.
silence might be darkness;
darkness, temptation’s ghosts,
names of the forgotten,
and remembered.

I see a piece
with a Chinese symbol.
I don’t know what it means.
And now I pop white pills
in the new dawn, hoping
to keep the demons at bay,
the demons born in eastern hills,
with names that whisper
in my nights:
Stella.
Victoria.
Mary Jane
and Willie V.

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Glynn Young
Glynn Young
Editor and Twitter-Party-Cool-Poem-Weaver at Tweetspeak Poetry
Glynn Young lives in St. Louis where he retired as the team leader for Online Strategy & Communications for a Fortune 500 company. Glynn writes poetry, short stories and fiction, and he loves to bike. He is the author of the Civil War romance Brookhaven, as well as Poetry at Work and the Dancing Priest Series. Find Glynn at Faith, Fiction, Friends.
Glynn Young
Latest posts by Glynn Young (see all)
  • Poets and Fables: Steven Flint and “The Sun and the Boy” - July 3, 2025
  • Poets and Poems: Alison Blevins and “Where Will We Live if the House Burns Down?” - July 1, 2025
  • Poets and Poems: Paul Pastor and “The Locust Years” - June 26, 2025

Filed Under: poetry, Twitter poetry

Try Every Day Poems...

Comments

  1. Maureen Doallas says

    June 6, 2011 at 9:19 pm

    I was so relieved when someone guessed the source of the prompts. He said the giveaway was the line “Hazardous Duty: Ode to My Kitchen”. It’s always interesting to see what sticks in the mind.

    The jam was fun. I think about a half-dozen lines were RT’d.

    Thank you for dipping into the jar.

    Reply
  2. Maureen Doallas says

    June 6, 2011 at 9:21 pm

    I should have said “…. line from….”, which was “not just any Bloody Mary will do.”

    Reply
  3. L. L. Barkat says

    June 6, 2011 at 9:26 pm

    I love the way the first poem shapes down to silence. I also love the end of the last one. It was Heather, wasn’t it? I’m so glad she brought those names to the party. Especially Stella 🙂

    Reply
  4. Heather says

    June 7, 2011 at 12:57 am

    Yes, the names were me. Struggling with the worst possible thing to have inherited from Grandma Stella. Visited home (eastern KY) just before the party. Hence, Obsessive thoughts.

    I love how our words wind around and through one another. This concept never ceases to amaze me.

    Reply
  5. laura says

    June 8, 2011 at 7:50 pm

    The poem weaver made magic with these threads! (I love “poem weaver”. So very you!). These are wonderful. Such a fun party! I wish I could have stayed through it all. Looks like I missed some good stuff ;).

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Alice and the Chinese Jar | A Poetic Matter says:
    June 6, 2011 at 9:59 pm

    […] I was fortunate enough to be a part of another Twitter poetry party at TweetSpeakpoetry.com. Some of my lines made it into the poems. Check them out! […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Take How to Read a Poem

Get the Introduction, the Billy Collins poem, and Chapter 1

get the sample now

Welcome to Tweetspeak

New to Tweetspeak Poetry? Start here, in The Mischief Café. You're a regular? Check out our July Menu

Patron Love

❤️

Welcome a little patron love, when you help keep the world poetic.

The Graphic Novel

"Stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations"

Callie Feyen, teacher

read a summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

meet The Yellow Wallpaper characters

How to Write Poetry

Your Comments

  • Megan Willome on Poet Laura: Poetry in Space
  • Katie Spivey Brewster on What Happened to the Fireside Poets?
  • Dheepa R. Maturi on “108”: An Ecothriller by Former Poet Laura Dheepa Maturi
  • Dheepa R. Maturi on “108”: An Ecothriller by Former Poet Laura Dheepa Maturi

Featured In

We're happy to have been featured in...

The Huffington Post

The Paris Review

The New York Observer

Tumblr Book News

Stay in Touch With Us

Browse by Topic

Learn to Write Form Poems

How to Write an Acrostic

How to Write a Ballad

How to Write a Catalog Poem

How to Write a Ghazal

How to Write a Haiku

How to Write an Ode

How to Write a Pantoum

How to Write a Rondeau

How to Write a Sestina

How to Write a Sonnet

How to Write a Villanelle

5 FREE POETRY PROMPTS

Get 5 FREE inbox poetry prompts from the popular book How to Write a Poem

Shakespeare Resources

Poetry Classroom: Sonnet 18

Common Core Picture Poems: Sonnet 73

Sonnet 104 Annotated

Sonnet 116 Annotated

Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet

Character Analysis: Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill the King?

10 Fun Shakespeare Resources

About Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright

Top 10 Shakespeare Sonnets

See all 154 Shakespeare sonnets in our Shakespeare Library!

Explore Work From Black Poets

About Us

  • • A Blessing for Writers
  • • Our Story
  • • Meet Our Team
  • • Literary Citizenship
  • • Poet Laura
  • • Poetry for Life: The 5 Vital Approaches
  • • T. S. Poetry Press – All Books
  • • Contact Us

Write With Us

  • • 5 FREE Poetry Prompts-Inbox Delivery
  • • 30 Days to Richer Writing Workshop
  • • Poetry Prompts
  • • Submissions
  • • The Write to Poetry

Read With Us

  • • All Our Books
  • • Book Club
  • • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • • Literacy Extras
  • • Poems to Listen By: Audio Series
  • • Poet-a-Day
  • • Poets and Poems
  • • 50 States Projects
  • • Charlotte Perkins Gilman Poems Library
  • • Edgar Allan Poe Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Blake Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Shakespeare Sonnet Library

Celebrate With Us

  • • Poem on Your Pillow Day
  • • Poetic Earth Month
  • • Poet in a Cupcake Day
  • • Poetry at Work Day
  • • Random Acts of Poetry Day
  • • Take Your Poet to School Week
  • • Take Your Poet to Work Day

Gift Ideas

  • • Every Day Poems
  • • Our Shop
  • • Everybody Loves a Book!

Connect

  • • Donate
  • • Blog Buttons
  • • By Heart
  • • Shop for Tweetspeak Fun Stuff

Copyright © 2025 Tweetspeak Poetry · FAQ, Disclosure & Privacy Policy