I think I’ve said last Tuesday’s poetry jam on Twitter was prolific. I was sandbagging. It was hugely prolific. Below are what I’ve collectively called the “Color Poems,” part 4 of the what is taking on the look of a small poetry volume. The poems include: “Colors,” “Color Has Clarity,” “Blue Flannel,” “A Mouth Empty,” “I Drop These Stones,” and “Planting Seeds.”

Five poems remain, and I will post them tomorrow.

Color Poems

By @lorrie58, @memoriaarts, @togetherforgood, @mmerubies, @llbarkat, @poemsandprayers, @doallas, @KathleenOverby, @TchrEric, and @lauraboggess, with a slight contribution from @gyoung9751.

Colors

I felt yellow
discomfort like a
wet bed in
the middle of
the night when
she said those things
to me.

Free words
from mind,
from heart;
collect them not in
schemes
of other poets
nor rhymes not your own.

Now I feel slightly
green anticipation,
fresh events,
when he, who grows
green with envy, purple
with rage, walks through
that door.

Broken phones,
communication
unsteady,
trashed pieces
of conversation.
She is caught, red
with poem passion.

Scarlet love knots not for
she; to be caught must feel
broken and lost. White with
loss of red from face turned
ashen by words unexpected;
cords of twisted pride
paint the landscape of her heart.

I never knew black and
white existed, not
till words flashed
green blue red,
mixed with
brown and gray, cells
pulled taut over bones.

Red face chiles burn holes
in heart and esophagus.
green chiles, green peppers,
green tomatoes, green onions,
green green salsa green,
pistachio green salutes boring
races ahead as art.

I think the angels are pink on
the inside of their robes.
Who has world enough and
time to give each word
a color? Paint the
whole lot petunia pink
and be done with it.

Color Has Clarity

Vermillion regret
because my frappucino
does not exist,
venti or otherwise.

Served real espresso to
snotty teen girls who
were used to gas station
cappuccinos. Laughed.

Color has a clarity
words may not.
Clarity is lost inside
dreams of the dayspring.

Blue Flannel

Petunia pink
does not suit
blue-flannelled man across
from me
who mocks my crimson
poetry lover.
Show me the way
to your heart. Is it
chilies? Is it words?

What does blue flannel
know of passion? It knows of
comfort and day-to-day/life.
Blue flannel
knows passion
when dimmed by candlelight.
My blue flannel is stripped away
revealing pink silk.
Be gentle/in the night.

Painting the roses red,
painting the roses red.
Turn the brush
upon myself;
I may just lose
my head.
Burn and be
done with;
it is a favorite verse.

A Mouth Empty

A mouth empty,
a mouth filled
with words
spilling into a well.
Years of words
add up
to stories
poems
novels
fiction
truth
questions
answers
more questions.
Shall I give you
the details of
a chili sliced
in two, bruised lightly
at one end,
seeded?

I Drop These Stones

I drop these
stones into your
hands.
I discard the stones,
then chase after them,
scattered by my thoughtless hands,
your heart there, broken.
I will take the stones,
put them in
a blue flannel pocket.
Count the days
and yet still lost,
whisper thin,
here and there,
questioning
staring at one white stone,
hoping.

Planting Seeds

Planting seeds makes tree-sized
futures promising, the
seeds from blossoms,
the seeds from sweet
sweet peas. I sow to please.
A garden sweet
she makes
of vegetables
bruised often to sprout,
of scents,
of all that’s new,

Or eggplant,
its purple coming on
with a touch of oil;
rose petals, dandelion green
violets crushed sweet.
Sweet garden,
edged in white stones,
plumped with beauty, spilling out light,
salvation. You don’t
bring me flowers
anymore.

We’re still posting poems from Tuesday’s poetry jam on Twitter. We have four more today: “Does God Wear Cashmere,” Rhythms as of Spring,” “Language Lesson” and “Coffee at Starbucks.”

When you’re in the throes of a poetry jam on Twitter, it’s hard to see how the entire flow of lines and phrases actually make sense. Some contributions are made in immediate response to others, and some are considered and chewed upon, and then the contributor poet hits “enter” or “update.”

But when you take all of the tweet contributions as a whole, and lay them out, you can see it. The flow isn’t like a slow meandering river, but more like river rapids, changing as some new thing happens or is uttered, rising, falling, eddying and crashing.

I’m posting these in small bites. You can savor small bites. There are still more to come, at least two and more likely three similar-sized posts.

Does God Wear Cashmere? 4 Poems

By @lorrie58, @memoriaarts, @togetherforgood, @mmerubies, @llbarkat, @poemsandprayers, @doallas, @KathleenOverby, @TchrEric, and @lauraboggess, with a slight contribution from @gyoung9751.

Does God Wear Cashmere?

I only own
cashmere socks
shrunk in the wash;
no sweater for me.
Does God
wear cashmere,
I wonder?
So soft against the neck,
pushing away the cold,
clinging
as words, too, cling,
too long.

Dancing Word turns upon
laughter and smiles in
a New York City
space,
soft fall thoughts like
cashmere. I knew about
the cashmere because
I brushed your
arm in the subway,
stopped and wished
you’d stop, to
embrace a lonely nothing.

He makes cashmere
to leave you wondering
how something so rich
can yet divide.
He needs no cashmere.
What could clothe
Him but glory?
My skin is cashmere
when he touches it,
never too cold, never
too hot, cashmere just right
like baby bear’s porridge.

Baby bear
will dance with the
stardust words
and the camel’s humps
in a just-right cashmere sweater.
Porridge and broken
rocking chairs
litter my childhood,
a strange mix of too big,
too small,
just right,
just me.

Life spins
and so do I,
wearing cashmere,
dancing with baby bear,
my Spanish too rusty.
Pay for stardust?
A collision with words.

Embers, waiting for
breath, warm me.

Rhythms as of Spring

Rhythms as of spring,
rites played out
under moon’s light
at dreams begun,
at words finding place in hearts
warmed.

Why is it a witch’s circle?
Why can’t I dance in
the moonlight?
Worship my God?
Bow to the feminine
He made inside of me?

Venus feeds on moondust,
Mars on word-spears
made to stay the heart.
The dizzy dance of
poetry is rising a
rhythm in my
heart.

We meet in rough collision
Still
eight years past when they
think we should have broken.
Instead we grasp hard
at one another.

And thrill to touch, and
set adrift on starlight
flowering words,
the most shimmering feast,
feeding with the bloomin
the warmth of day.

I do not shrink, any
longer, when you
touch me.
I came alive
some time ago. I dance closer to
you now.

Wordpool spins and twists
in wind from
whispered words,
sucking me down into
its poetry. I
purr to the stroke of affection.

Fingers edge,
lift my chin
and I shall see.

Language Lesson

Moi? Soft and yielding?
moi? No, you do not
know… me.
C’est le vie,
que sera,
come what may,
that’s life.

Oui,
si,
no,
non.
Will your words
be more than
yes and no?

Foreign places inside,
big like a venti,
a mix of French
Italian
Spanish
words of love
languages.

El gato
es muy gordo
on words he cannot
digest.

Digestion suffers
when speed eating,
speed reading
not taking time
for myself.
Help me learn to
digest more than the gray.

Coffee at Starbuck’s

I rolled my eyes at
Starbucks customers
trying to order nonexistent
drinks from my espresso bar
in Mississippi.
Porridge and coffee,
the kitchen sings.

Gracias,
mi amore,
and all that goes between
dwell thou between the
gray or shall you have
it black and white,
piping hot?

You cannot freeze
cappuccino,
so there is no
frappuccino,
just ice and coffee and milk,
like a shake
you gave a fancy name.

Starbucks:
the very word is poetry.
Perhaps we should just
end now.

Despacio, el gato:
these words
purr like steam
sneaking, rising
from a camel’s
morning Starbucks
Venti.

Grande
is a camel’s cup,
more or less.

From poems about poems (“Meta-Poems”), last Tuesday’s poetry jam on Twitter took a turn toward love poems. Boy did it take a turn! Below are three, which I’ve entitled “Borrow My Life,” “Life Frail,” and “The Words in the Heavens.”

And there are more to come. It was one prolific poetry jam.

Love Poems 3

By @lorrie58, @memoriaarts, @togetherforgood, @mmerubies, @llbarkat, @poemsandprayers, @doallas, @KathleenOverby, @TchrEric, and @lauraboggess, with a slight contribution from @gyoung9751.

Borrow My Life

Borrow my life;
crush it between
your rough fingers;
secret weight of crushing hand
pushes it into words.
Last night, I dreamed of
secret weights
held back just barely from
crushing,
kept just slightly from rushing
to your arms.

Thighs carry secrets,
support their weight
below the heart and stomach,
holding up desire
above their flesh.
Ecstasy and sorrow float
alone.

Desire to couple can
sometimes make one single,
make one solitary,
even in that moment
when two come together,
Revealing words collected in net,
singing love song,
smelling blossoms
pressed in pages,
seeing the shimmer in the wind,
feeling the ecstasy.

Sifted word-sand,
Shifting word-sand,
drifting on soft breeze whisper.
Whisper when you tell me
no, Lord. Please
whisper when you tell me
no.

Life, Frail

Life, frail,
twist turns leaf upon love
twixt black and white.
Life, frail,
tosses words out,
as from a mouth in anger.
Regret later
finds its home.

Free they flow,
when you
are near,
words harrumphed and
rocky make for
pitching dreams.
Lumpy regret twists
mouth into fragile leaf.

Words won’t heal him. They
don’t help him. I am powerless
beside him. She keeps right on
hurting him. Words hurt him, so
why, if words can hurt so
hard so bad so true,
why can’t they
save him too?

Give me your words.
Mine are finished.
I laid them all out
there for her to see and
she still left me. Her
stone-words
lie in my heart
as a weight unbearable.

The Words in the Heavens

Borrow a couple of
words, a single word, even
I will take it, frail
light as lips brushing
moonlight. Find words in
the face of the moon, on
tips of stars,
within the heavens deep.

Along the Milky Way,
words light up the sky,
bend toward Venus,
looking for Mars.
I do not feel
the burden of the words,
only the lightness
of their afterglow.

Whisper moonlight on
hard words,
lift lightly to
heal.
Venus, love,
Mars, war.
What words do they
share, so different?

Polished ruby red and cut
prettier than white diamond,
bloodier than who
you think I am.
Mars be the challenge;
Venus has words to spare
for love.
I feed them moondust.

Dip your words in
the well of Venus.
Lift them silver in the
dripping afterglow.
Thighs ache,
love rests.
The room is dark and
peace descends.

Perelandra sings as
Venus dips low,
collision of it all made flesh
Perelandra,
where God could start again
with a new Eve,
a day with no
mistakes.

Last Tuesday evening, 11 of us gathered for an hour on Twitter and created what is turning out to be the coolest poetry jam yet. The prompts from @tspoetry were all taken from Poem Crazy by Susan Wooldridge.

We had fewer interlopers and accidental contributors this time, except for a certain camel, whose autotimed blog post popped into the middle of everything and actually moved the poetry jam in a different direction. Such things happen. He’ll show up in a later poem.

Meta-Poems

By @lorrie58, @memoriaarts, @togetherforgood, @mmerubies, @llbarkat, @poemsandprayers, @doallas, @KathleenOverby, @TchrEric, and @lauraboggess, with a slight contribution from @gyoung9751.

1.
There’s a poem
in my dishwasher, somewhere
between soggy spaghetti,
olive oil, the spoils of day.
There’s a poem swishing
its way.

Under the couch
a poem is crouching,
trying to stick
its tongue to my heels
and lick its way to
my heart.
In weeds and dirty dishwater;
is this where my poetry begins?
Magnetic breath,
metallic grate,
words on plate
serve it up fresh.

The venerable dogwood
stood alone,
branches held out.
Weeds, noisy,
fought for ground beneath
the dogwood’s shade,
hauntingly dark,
outstretched limbs.

Noisy weeds,
they would steal away
the words that press my heart,
hiding under couches,
in tiniest places.

2.
Where do poems hide?
Dogwood sweet,
shaded near my feet,
reaching dark-limbed
to serve up day.
They also hide until
people die,
kicking at the dirt,
biting bottom lips

Words rise and grow
wheat from the tares
to fulfill prophecy
much needed.
A sea of weeds,
ready to be turned
by the wheels
or the heavy white van.
The doors open;
inside a hefty load
of small crabapple
and sassafras trees.
Alone in the shade,
tares hide,
hang out.

A poem held in hands
offers thanks
unspoken.
Poems hide
til people die:
does that mean
a poem’s life hangs
on death?
Where life is
in all places secret and revealed,
under branching tree or
above or within,
this is where the poetry begins

3.
At day’s break,
words surface,
fall as light rises,
caress sound,
each plant a poem,
Each poem a plant,
music pulsing with every
push upward
into the light.
Each poem a seed,
words
etched on stone
telling stories of loss
where souls dwell.
Writing opens seeds.

Turn and see
the seeds,
the weeds, the tree,
the dishwater,
the van full of boxes,
the stone with words etched
deep.

Poems, too, rise
with new life,
a mother’s song,
a father’s heart.
Secret freedom begins
Inside.
A poem’s life hangs
on death
of self to awareness of
other;
turn and see ghost words
drifting through vapor
at day’s break
and night’s gentle fall.
The words are here,
there,
never bound by two dark covers.

4.
There’s a poem in my closet
somewhere between the
jeans I wear most often
and the skirts I plan to wear
when I buy them and imagine
the swish swish swish
against my legs.
Swish, swish,
a poem wishes itself
past legs, up thighs,
rising to ecstasy.
There are poems in my house,
under blankets,
behind chairs
on the plates I use for dinner
and the clothes my husband wears

What does a poem
need to come to birth—
a bit of earth, a fallen seed,
ghosts of lilies,
vapored night,
extinguishing a dying
light;
vapor stories
disappearing with
a breath.
Dark opens into words,
filling space,
holding refrains
held long,
seeking release,
shade tree
respite from
words of sorrow.

5.
The blossom pressed
between pages
of white;
vapor stories
now and again caught on
white paper.
Magnolia sweetly held
as memory,
finding its way
into song.
She plucked flowers from
my heart. I did not
know that they
were there.

Open dark covers:
aroma of poetry pours forth
song and scent and vapor;
words of sorrow split loss from
remembrance
as rosemary
scents
some mornings.
I am mist. I hang.
You may float and
fly and dream. But, I
hang, hover, wander.
I stay alone, a
song as blossom.

6.
Dream catcher,
what dost your net
reveal?
That a love song
be reaching forward
into the past.
The words rise
and shimmer in
the wind.

In case you missed the live performance, there’s a replay available of L.L. Barkat’s poetry reading with Brooke Campbell’s singing at an International Arts Movement program last night in New York City.

The replay can be found here. L.L. is reading selections from her InsideOut: Poems.

The replay offers you a chance to listen to the real deal. And you still have this weekend to order InsideOut at the January special price of $6.03.

Joy at Memoria Arts talks about her response to last night’s webcast: A time for…

John Updike’s Endpoint and Other Poems was published posthumously last year, after a long and stellar writing career. Some of these poems were written in the last year of his life, some even in the last month.

The volume is divided into four sections: “Endpoint,” a series of birthday poems he wrote for himself between 2002 and 2008, along with poems written in the hospital as he was dying; “Other Poems,” an eclectic group whose subjects range from stolen paintings and singer Frankie Lane to doo wop and an elegy for golfer Payne Stewart; “Sonnets,” which cover music, places and people both real and imagined; and “Light and Personal,” which include poems on country music and his wife on her birthday.

A selection from the birthday poem for 2008, “Spirit of ’76,” written in Tucson, Arizona, gives a sense of the “Endpoint” poems:

Here in this place of arid clarity,
two thousand miles from my souvenirs
collect a cozy dust, the piled produce
of bald ambition pulling ignorama,
I see clear through to the ultimate page,
the silence I dared break for my small time.
No piece was easy, but each fell finished,
in its shroud of print, into a book-shaped hole.

And from “Baseball:”

…football can be learned,
and basketball finessed, but
there is no hiding from baseball
the fact that some are chosen
and some are not…

There is something of self-indulgence about many of these poems. But in the last years of Updike’s life, with the body of fiction, essays, articles, poetry and even movie reviews he left behind, self-indulgence can be forgiven.

Endpoint and Other Poems is the work of old age, when confidence and reputation is not something to be achieved and accomplished but simply enjoyed. And I think John Updike enjoyed writing these poems.

Our poetry jams on Twitter are supposed to last for an hour, and they do, but all of us tend to linger for a while, talking, chatting, congratulating each other, make the odd comment here or poking fun there. That lingering lasted for some 20 minutes last Tuesday night, and it struck me that we had another kind of poetry jam going on.

So I collected all of the comments from afterwards, along with a few others that happened earlier from some of those innocent bystanders who wandered in and left dazed. The results are the five poems below. And yes, I had fun with these.

5 Poems in Conversation

By @doallas, @llbarkat, @MonicaSharman, @memoriaarts, @TchrEric, @katdish, @redclaydiaries, @poemsandprayers, @lauraboggess, @kathleenoverby, @mdgoodyear, @gyoung9751, @BridgetChumbley, @sarammsalter, @mxings, @nitewrit, @mmerubies, @jamesrls, @togetherforgood, @lorrie58 and @moondustwriter, and a little #smooch of editing by @gyoung9751.

A Conversation Poem (1)

This is wild stuff here,
folks. Anyone else feel
breathless just
reading it?
I’m hungry too!!
Coming back for the
smooches! Good night to
all.

Whoa, that moved fast.
Lots of fun too!
Is there an easier way of
tracking who is talking on #tsp?
Tweet newbie here.
I’m using tweetgrid. Only
way to keep up, and
I use the term loosely.
For what it’s
worth, I use
Tweetdeck and
create a column for
#tsp . Click on the
hashtag; all will
be revealed (even
the corset talk).

Editor does gather up the
threads and sew
them all together (and
quite fashionably).
Good night you all…well done!

Once again it’s Tuesday
evening, I’m working &
catch a glimpse of your
game. Longing to join
but only able to sigh
& watch. Peace.
One of these days
you might get a word in;
glad you were here.

Oh sure, I’m still
thinking over that
last one… so
slow, so slow;
good thing it’s
not a dance. Standing
ovation here; amazed at
the quick brains. Clap.
Clap. Clap.

Seriously? Drop the link over
at Seedlings and we’ll add
it to the next RAP.
A slow goodnight, and thanks to all.
Big bunches of #smooches to
all of you. What a
#smoochfest! Ciao!
 

A Conversation Poem (2)

Yeah, I think I’ll go
back to Tweetdeck. Web
confused me mightly! My
#tsp tag/search doesn’t show
everybody- like couldn’t see @katdish.
But could tell there
were more people
talking than I
could “see.”
We will have to figure that out.

If you all go to
@tspoetry, you can
see who we follow. Follow
everyone and it will
make the party
easier to “see.”
Thanks for a
nice evening. Have a
restful night of
poetic dreams.

Glad I’m not the
only one! Fish out of
water, indeed. But
total blast. I will
be forever fascinated with
turn of phrase and
word. I need to
check and see who I
need to be following.
I did an add column on
Tweetdeck then
entered #tsp. Pretty
much real time.
Did M. Goodyear stick
around? It’s half his
“fault” I’m here.
Yeah, where did that
boy go?
Liked take-off on
Goodnight, Moon.

That was a wild ride.
My cheeks are stretch-marked
from laughing.
Thanks so much for
moderating another
great event.
I second that.

Oh boy. Big
work for Midwestern
Man, whoa!
That is one hunk of words.

A Conversation Poem (3)

I think if I
kept a tab open to
@tspoetry on Twitter,
and the #tsp tag
open on HootSuite, that
would work for me.

Got a long phone
call in the middle of
everything. Better luck
next time!
Good night all.
Tme to go rest up so
I can deal with
the cherubs in
the a.m.
Good nite, teach.

Making Bad Choices

Watch American Idol or
do poetry jam? I think #idol
wins. #tsp folks, I’ll
be in the audience.

Pppbbbtttt!
And again I say pbbbtttt!
Sounds like a Sunday
School song.
Had to go back and
re-read what I wrote;
again I say rejoice!
And get thee in here!

The Tangled Nonsense Part

Can I use that
line sometime? The
tangled nonsense part? That’s
AWESOME!
I was about to tell
you how proud I was of
you for attempting this. Then
I saw that tweet & all
went out the window!

A rose by any
other name, is still
a rose. Besides, I can’t
help myself. TWSS.
We do get dramatic, no?

Husband
glared at silver fish,
wishing them back
to places she refused
to send them.

“Red clay”? When did
you arrive in GA?

I’ve now got you
and @sarahmsalter in
the poem.
What did I say?!
If by “no” you
mean “yes,” then “no.”

Silver fish do send up a
@katdish.
Gaaaa!
(Gaaaa! is a registered
trademark by
@katdish.)

Okay, well the
tangled part wasn’t
mine, just the
nonsense. Go figure.
Well, it’s not like
anyone is ‘watching’
or anything… #pressure.
I was amazed when
they actually
incorporated my
nonsense into the poem.
(Got that line, too.)
THAT is the joy of
words and language!
Our nonsense is
someone else’s poetry;
there you have it!
(Well, that didn’t hurt,
too much!)

We may call this
#tsp “Red Clay and
Breadcrumbs in a Katdish.”
For red clay?
Oops,
maybe I should go pick
up my daughter from
dance practice.
#Twitterdistractedme (Smirk).

I’ve got tears streaming
down and
my family thinks I’ve
gone straight over
the edge with all y’all.
That was a great line!

That, my sweet @doallas
is a secret
but you knew
didn’t you, even
as you asked.
Those words come
not from me;
poems and prayers
eve would prefer.

Well, I think I’ve
done enough damage
here. Gotta go
write a guest post intro.
Bid a fair evening
Thanks for your words.
Tis the end. Sigh.

Moondustwriter: you guys
did #tsp without a
little moon dust. I’m
broken hearted.

In that one short hour Tuesday night, we had a considerable number of contributions to our poetry jam on Twitter. Some 21 people participated, although a few accidentally wandered in, asked a question or two, looked around, found themselves suddenly being cited in a poem, and promptly left to watch American Idol on TV.

In the editing of the contributions, I’ve often had to move a few things around, because of the timing of each contribution. And, for the first time, I’ve actually added a word here or a short line there, after the fact, to retain the context and flow for those who didn’t participate but read afterwards.

The two poems below are the last of the “official” contributions during the jam. I’ll post one more tomorrow – taken from the conversation that happened after the jam.

Tara and Birds: 2 Poems

By @doallas, @llbarkat, @MonicaSharman, @memoriaarts, @TchrEric, @katdish, @redclaydiaries, @poemsandprayers, @lauraboggess, @kathleenoverby, @mdgoodyear, @gyoung9751, @BridgetChumbley, @sarammsalter, @mxings, @nitewrit, @mmerubies, @jamesrls, @togetherforgood, and @lorrie58, and a little #smooch of editing by @gyoung9751.

Rhett/Adam and Shirley/Eve at Tara

Suspended chord moves
the dance until tension
breaks like cinnamon fragrance.

We are back in Tara, it seems;
Corsets
did women of a certain age
rein in.
Can you fix
a sodden sheet?
Beneath the sodden sheets,
Adam
hemmed in,
as usual, trapped in unchanging
ritual, the same
dark
butter
sugar.
Ahh sugar, my darlin’ puddin and pie.
Can you meet again,
the place where
skin did sink
into cotton weave?

All your talk of corsets and ties,
five, as fingers,
not exactly forgetting this,
but not found, reaching,
remembering lines, notes,
shape, touch of skin.
A corset, surely
sodden and red with clay,
corsets pinned,
hemming in flesh
like pudding,
chocolate, vanilla,
butterscotch.

In Tara, Rhett ordered
a chocolate malt
& pudding pie,
everything spilling over into
something else, another
trail, one more thing.
Eve smiled and said, please
don’t call me Shirley;
I think I shall be sick
if talk continues
of flesh like butterscotch
and pudding. Bad
memories of butterscotch
is why,
butterscotch sunrise over pallid wave,
sails slack, folded in.

Hem me in,
pin your heart
to my sleeve
thick as a southern
summer.
Summer sounds of
freight on worn rails;
summer’s heat
weighs down,
not unlike an endless meal
of green tomatoes and fries;
a freight of words
run forth
over well-used tracks
lose meaning.

Storm Birds

Showy birds
billow on air
blue, red,
purple beneath
green storm clouds,
heat and lightnin’
living, dancing evidence billows
white with dark stains.
Ashen sails
hang slack
on a coffee
black morning
going nowhere.
Too heavy, this one,
this day,
she winds herself tight
against its weight,
knotted against flight.

Touch my chin;
it is fragile as eggshells
beneath your trembling
fingers,
eggshells so delicate
now shards,
bird’s wing torn,
jawbone of he knew not.
Eggshells fractured
like pond ice cracked;
cracked ground,
fractured wind,
signs of death;
the ashy fragment of a wasp’s nest,
signs of loss.
Tin on ice fusing
away from lamp-heat.
Methinks a truck of cows
and ducks
has captured our showy birds.

And yet he would
make of them
a new night’s play;
a new, anon, a night
beyond, it flees toward a day.
Ashes rise
on wind;
you cannot pin this
loss to the ground.
Ash bone turns
glorious morning
live and dance again anew,
till morning’s coffee
black (as usual)
did greet him.
Another morning,
going nowhere,
over easy please.

Eggshell hems,
cracked corsets,
we fall out of favor with
the tailored perfect.
Can you tailor
death to a day?
I think not.
Adam does read the signs
well;
love be dead
where roses pale.
I think yes,
Madam,
the clue remains
in that Chinese jar.

Turn over the tailored shirt,
put on your glasses, and
hold your jawbone tight.
Jawbone held tight
does fight with words,
for words to get word out.
A staring contest,
don’t have the time,
carry on if you like,
I’m movin’ down the line.
I can read
to my ruin.

For some reason
I am hungry now.
I cannot resist
words dipped in honeycombs
and licked clean
with milk.
eftovers, every one,
discards, covered over,
left behind, and he?
But leavest thou not
also finding that’s what she said
& don’t call me Shirley, for
tomorrow is another day.

Good night moon.
Goodnight corset strings.
Goodnight eggshells and
jawbones and blue words.
Goodnight friends.

The editing of Tuesday nights poetry jam on Twitter continues apace. Three more poems are below: “Breadcrumbs Leaving a Trail,” “I Wake Up in the Morning,” and “”Breakfast at the Greasy Spoon at 3 a.m. with Eve the Waitress.”

And something else as emerged as well — several side conversations (and editorial comments) fashioned themselves into a kind of poetry, all on their own.

There will be one or two more poems after these three, and then the poem of Twitter conversation.

Three TweetSpeak Poems

By @doallas, @llbarkat, @MonicaSharman, @memoriaarts, @TchrEric, @katdish, @redclaydiaries, @poemsandprayers, @lauraboggess, @kathleenoverby, @mdgoodyear, @gyoung9751, @BridgetChumbley, @sarammsalter, @mxings, @nitewrit, @mmerubies, @jamesrls, @togetherforgood, and @lorrie58, and a little #smooch of editing by @gyoung9751.

Breadcrumbs, Leaving a Trail

Breadcrumbs leaving a trail,
a circle trail.
That’s what she said,
having known a thousand ways
to circle round him
and his ice-breaking ways.
What words she said,
the words swirling around.
Circle me
with silver waves,
pleat my mind
with fingers
fringed promise.
Hold auburn strands
between fingers;
let them
fall like rain on
his knees.

She’d give but breadcrumbs
to hear him speak
once more,
so annoyed she was.
Birds and words
swirled with promises.
breadcrumbs leaving a trail,
a circle for her eyes to follow
I caught red clay
between my fingers,
smeared my knees
with earth’s trail.
And then the
quaking hunger
sheds him.

His words swirling around,
she began to sing,
a song it was
of tender bread and jelly tart
as she herself might be.
Bread upon water,
walking still,
to satisfy his quaking hunger.
Ravenous,
he was anchovy?

Petals fell in silent procession,
striking the keys,
playing silent melodies
to the season.
And some she left there,
particles of house mingling
with the crumbs, ashes, dust;
sprayed kisses
like perfume
and wished
her friends
adieu:
cool tea and cloves remind me,
thread generation to tilting generation,
standing outside of time.

Black keys spun their own dark song;
the Chinese jar beckoned.
I like the black keys;
they dance
on my knees in Georgia with you
that old sweet song,
dance to dark songs,
the black keys dance
though flat and sharp.
Open the Chinese
jar, smell cinnamon, clove,
rose, cinnamon;
roses
I beg of you.

Ashes, dust, roses, crumbs,
cool tea and cloves,
red ribbons curl
and black keys play
and one then another falls to knees.
Find Melo’s words;
they are in the jar,
swimming with cinnamon,
pressing sharp against
porcelain.
Melo’s word float to top,
their cinnamon scent
reminding of days
spent on knees,
begging please, please, please.
Yes, I beg you
not forget,
gaze upon the sea,
remember me.

Five serene years for her;
Maybe
Adam and Eve
had their own trials to deal with.

I Wake Up in the Morning

I wake up in the morning,
forgetting all
yet forgetting not.
They gather begging
and I find you gone.
Found time, lost time,
given, taken, offered, carried, loved.
Remember what my grandmother forgets,
forget what she
should never have
forgotten.
All I can do is cry.
Words do twist the tongue at times,
and words sometimes doth twist
the fingers, too.

Petal-clothes gone,
shivering into quick
ice façade.
Wonder and gaze at the trial now gone,
find you gone,
like a whisper
never heard.
f you must, cry then,
but cry not for him.

Twist your fingers
in the curl of my
dark hair;
lick my lips
like sweet butter,
twist the whisper in the dark.
Who is it
that is doing the twisting,
the curling,
the licking
of lips?
A song,
a song of a yellow bird.

Breakfast at the Greasy Spoon at 3 a.m. with Eve the Waitress

Eve they did beat
with their words
of wanting.
Eve, she thought
of Adam,
how he left
her to deal
with three.

Cry, the coffee
is too dark
and the morning
came without
sugar.
Sylvie, Helen, and Molly three
Coffee
Toast
no butter.
I wanted to yell,
ain’t no restaurant we got here.
Sipping coffee, buttering toast,
forgetting sustenance.
…no short order cook to answer three…
Yell the order:
coffee, toast, two lumps;
the waitress bumps,
into the counter,
slaps the mug down.

And then the customer doth say,
Can I get fries with that shake?
Out spills more than coffee,
butter slides
and toast
burned black,
she makes her point.
Into shake she pours
from Chinese jar,
remembering how to fix ‘em good.
Fries went south with shake
of fist.
Eve had had enough.

Hey!
What about my order of fries?

It was a classic poetry jam Tuesday night, and the number of participants continued to swell. I’ve decided to break the contributions into at least two posts, possibly three. This is the first.

Adam and Eve by the Narrow Lake

By @doallas, @llbarkat, @MonicaSharman, @memoriaarts, @TchrEric, @katdish, @redclaydiaries, @poemsandprayers, @lauraboggess, @kathleenoverby, @mdgoodyear, @gyoung9751, @BridgetChumbley, @sarammsalter, @mxings, @nitewrit, @mmerubies, @jamesrls, @togetherforgood, and @lorrie58, and a little #smooch of editing by @gyoung9751.
And a special nod of grace to @moondustwriter, who, missing the party, was brokenhearted.

Such bright fruit
did Adam want
yet Eve denied.
Showy birds in boughs
did turn the landscape
red and blue,
like a basket of flowers.
I am a soft bird
nesting near your heart
in narrow hopes of
discerning the beat.

Eve would sit by narrow pond,
mostly wondering
as Adam wandered
amidst grass and black leaves,
looking for temptation.
Air in the pond
and inverted trees reaching
out for clouds.

Come closer, Eve bid,
and Adam,
as he dared,
bent an ear
to hear the music on high.
Into pools of deep
she would
gaze long.
Light the lamp;
I will cast a shadow
in its golden slant.

At water’s edge, Eve,
Lying,
hair flowing
lit by lamps as gold shines.
And the water of his word covered me;
I am the fallen branches,
lost in thought,
shuffle stomp,
blue gaze and yellow eye
searching deep within.

Adam had not patience
for Eve’s gazing, seeking
to be the
source of a reflection;
she so soft
heard his heart beat not.
Knock against tin,
hear the hollow beat
of hope
for her,
not for her. She looked to
sun for solace,
to sky so bright as tin,
hoping to read the clouds.

Hushed whispers looking on
at edge of word of world
all tin;
the hollow beat of two hearts
once one with one
but for the bright fruit
that separated.

Out of league only if
thee cannot swim;
just jump in, she said.
Hope
rises;
hope falls
as a heart beat heard not
by one not loved.
Just jump in the water and
Swim.
Eve
hangs her head
in the shame of
not being poetic.

Fragments of tin
cut by time’s warp;
fragments of words
that sound as tin to her ear
break a heart
that once held hope,
break a part that
once was whole.
Hanging head and
wounded heart.

If my heart were
transparent,
you might
see the ice forming,
breaking, floating away
on raveled waves.
Warp of time
did distort
her reasoning,
leaving he
no good words
on which to fall
back in love.

No more
taste fruit;
let breath
fall on
empty sighs.
“Cut by time’s warp:”
slivers of silver
reflect across time,
offering glimpses of sacred
to those who dare
to gaze.

She of wounded heart
still could not give up;
once more she looked
to see him,
translucent hope
hovering upon the waters.
Eve hath no need to be poetic
when heart is broke. Words make
haste from mouth and
sometimes shame.

Songs of old
Faint
slither sings,
and teeth grate.
Ice torn
like bright tin
urged against
the wind.
Her heart did turn
to ice
but for that membrane
where it cleft,
forming black as her feeling,
like ice over a flame.
Sun burns
No more.
Will it rise?

Tap against my skin;
feel the sorrow
sealed within
like fish silver
silent lined.
The flame splits the
membrane of ice;
sealed stone never
to be rolled back.

Urged back,
moving once toward and
then against the wind,
Adam realized his great mistake
too late,
for by evening
the lake there
had sealed itself over,
and dare he think his love
lie below.
And rainbow rays
reflected upon surfaces
shone hope to those who witnessed.

Wretched hand
no longer grasps
chaos;
blackened spins,
hope undone,
whispers on shore,
night not over yet.
Those who witnessed
saw how Adam
turned his back,
and back against the wind,
did venture onto lake,
his love grown cold.

And skin burns,
darkened sun
folds;
fringe tangles the talk.
Heat of ice
shards
left behind
breadcrumbs.
Ice breaker,
he was
no indolent talker;
he would pleat her hem
with his fingers,
ply the fringe
about her eyes,
sometimes.
And in the tangled
nonsense, one voice
cried out,
“That’s what she said!”

Knit knowledge pummeled them
but He promised
hope’s questioning swirl.