Coming soon, Red. That’s our theme for the month of February. We’ll have posts from two different poets here at Tweetspeak, and we’ll have a whole lot of Red poems at Every Day Poems.

In the meantime, here’s an interview at Redbud Writer’s Guild, all about writing. (What color is *your* writing? )

Photo by Kelly Sauer. Used with permission.

And of course we want you there with us

Every Day Poems on Twitter

She’s listening for sounds and trying to see them with her camera. You are invited to take what she sees (or what you see) and turn it to sounds.

The villanelle is a perfect form for sound-capturing, as it mimics a song. Will you join us in this writing/photoing project?

Post your villanelle and/or photos by Wednesday, December 28, for links and possible feature at The High Calling, here, or at Every Day Poems.

Photo by Kelly Sauer.

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Subscribe to Every Day Poems— Read a poem a day, become a better poet. In December we’re exploring the theme The Villanelle.

With a poem in her head, and a camera in her hand, Tina Howard went searching. The inspiration she found came from looking up.

Now, don’t blush, but here’s a poem of mine that decides to take advantage of a different perspective too, a looking up…

The Coming

Muse needed,
I hung the sign at the top of my door.

Meantime, you’d been passing by every morning,
checking out the way spearmint gum
looked different from bubblegum
when pressed to the sidewalk
by Italian leather, white rubber, dragon heels.

Once, I think without either of us realizing,
you looked up my skirt

(it was my fault, really, for getting back
on the step-ladder to fiddle with the flat head
of the nail I’d placed the chain upon, and really
you did it without thinking—but maybe
a lack of thought makes it your fault).

What happened next
cannot be explained except perhaps
by a directional taboo (you must ask Genji)
that turned you away from the bubblegum
and led you straight through my front door,
sign banging behind you. You came to me
in a great rush—no pretense, no pride—
and have been, ever since, unfastening
and opening my skirt.

How about you? Could you find a poem by looking up? If so, post your link on our Facebook Wall by Wednesday, November 16th, for links and possible feature here, at The High Calling, or at Every Day Poems.

News Whip photo, by Claire Burge. Used with permission. Post by L.L. Barkat. Visit L.L. at Seedlings in Stone, for more on writing, poetry, art and life.

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Subscribe to Every Day Poems— Read a poem a day, become a better poet. In November we’re exploring the theme By Heart, on memorizing or becoming one with poetry.

In August, poet and writer L.L. Barkat published Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing. It is extraordinary, and not the usual book you find about writing. It is filled with sound counsel, perceptive observations and stories about daughters coming of age. Check out this interview with L.L. at The High Calling, and get writing tips and more of the inside story…

From bees, our recent poetry jam on Twitter began to transition to swans (that’s how these things can go). Here are next five poems. All of the prompts were taken from Anne Overstreet’s Delicate Machinery Suspended: Poems.

Stories of the Bees 2

By @mmerubies, @llbarkat, @AnneDOvers, @Jeff_Overstreet, @Doallas, @SandraheskaKing, @lindachontos, @gyoung9751, @poetryinabottle, @rosanneosborne, @togetherforgood, @LoveLifeLitGod, @strangejkp, @quietlybananas, @mrsmetaphor and @dthaase. Edited by @gyoung9751.

Swans

The swans, serene, glide across the water, glass.
The swans, their necks of silk fingered softly,
shimmer their wings frosted by spun sunlight;
drift, leaving a trail of memories;
hiss thundering their wings like horses.

Swans in love

The slick of her neck in the bee-fingered sun
sang of summer, summer sweet as honey,
summer soft as a swan’s neck.
Her hand touched his cygnet ring.

The swan girl picked bees from the air,
rescued the ale boy from a sure gold drowning.
The seventh swan-boy, she loved him best.
Spin me a honey tree; kiss my signet ring,

Ring around a tree, golden dance of honeyed autumn;
ring around a stone thrown in.
The swan grays; the temper of that muscle
in the neck the back a ridge of brokenness.

The leaves turn into the gold of honey;
the afternoons cool with the flutter
of swans’ wings. We are past the season
of milk and honey: the swans sleep.

Forgotten are the swans of summer,
the bees floating through the heat.

A story told

A story told in a tracing of palm against palm,
she combed the nettles from her silken hair;
he combed the honey from the hive, he said
wipe the sting of nettles from my hand.

Wipe the memories too and the shadows
and the sour trace of raveled silk. I try to leave
the rind of summer fermenting into harder months
and dreams that begin on soon-dark afternoons.

Let me trace your palm in silver sunlight,
in golden moonlight; let me trace the lines
that lead to hope and leave behind
the memories trailing paths of grief.

The black cat

There is a black cat at my door,
jingling his collar, telling me
summer is gone, and he’d like
to come inside. The black cat
is not the only thing that tells
of winter’s coming.

And the black swan sang and
the black cat wound her tail
around the silver birch.
The cat is made of black silk,
cut from one special bolt
of cloth, lightening bolt, snap!

Snap! went the birch and
the lines and Snap! went
the taut silk. Winter comes
but first, autumn spills
honeyed sunlight upon
the trees, upon the ground.

Eat my rind

Eat my rinds, too,
there is still some
sweetness left in me.
Even the core has
value. Taste it, spit it
out if you must.

Tonight, September 20, at 9 pm EST, please join us for an evening of improv poetry with Anne M. Doe Overstreet.

Here is our standard explanation of a Twitter poetry party :

The rules are simple because there aren’t any. Well, maybe one (the hashtag). We announce a Twitter Party date and time; party is hosted on Twitter. It lasts one hour. @tspoetry provides the prompt — an idea, a line of poetry, even a tabloid headline. You write a few lines of poetry in response to the prompt and then play off the other participants’ lines.

You work within the 140-character limit set by Twitter for all tweets — just make sure each tweet includes the hashtag — #tsptry. That way, we can find your contributions. It’s a good idea to follow @tspoetry and the best way to make sure you include the hashtag and see everyone’s tweets as they are tweeted, is to come to our @tspoetry Tweetchat room.

After the Twitter Party concludes, we usually tweet around and congratulate one another.

Most of the tweets from the Twitter Party will be assembled into larger Twitter poems. We’ll feature some in Every Day Poems and some on this blog, with the best lines singled out and identified by contributor. You’ll get credit and links as a co-author, too. As for royalties, don’t hold your breath. We’ll let you know if any show up!

Here at Tweetspeak, we’ve been exploring the question, “What is Poetry?” and we’ve got some intriguing answers. Poetry is a net, a bowl, a loaf of bread.

No one has declared yet that poetry is rust, but now you could in a poem of your own. Because we’re teaming up with PhotoPlay this week, where photographers have been asked a similar question, “What is photography?” and they’re gathering rust photos as an answer.

Post your poem with your photographs of rust, or post it alone. Say that poetry is rust, or say it is oxygen, or even chrome polish. We’re game for where your imagination might take you. Share your link on the T. S. Poetry Press Facebook Wall, by Wednesday, September 21st.

Want to photograph some rust too? Check out the PhotoPlay challenge over at The High Calling.

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All PhotoPlay and Random Acts of Poetry submissions will be listed at The High Calling on Friday, September 23. You might even get featured at The High Calling, here at Tweetspeak, or at Every Day Poems!
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Photo by Darwin Bell. Used with permission, via Flickr. Post by L.L. Barkat. Visit L.L. at Seedlings in Stone, for more on writing, poetry, art and life.

Subscribe to Every Day Poems— Read a poem a day, become a better poet. In September we’re exploring the question “What is Poetry?”

Below are five additional poems from our recent poetry jam on Twitter. I call these our Kansas phase. All prompts came from Kingdom Come: Poems by John Estes.

The Kingdom Comes III

By @llbarkat, @SandraHeskaKing, @gyoung9751, @jestes, @Doallas, @jejpoet, @CeliaNickel1, @togetherforgood, @PensieveRobin, @kellysauer, @sethhaines, @theeagleacademy, @mdgoodyear, and @elizabethesther. Edited by @gyoung9751.

I came to Kansas

I came to Kansas to do a job,
to find a home,
to sing a prairiesong ,
and fell asleep on the drive.
I expected Kansan flatness,
but it wasn’t there. It was
a flatness that rolled, and
moved like a wave, a wave
of grass and cornstalks tall.
I came to Kansas to stop
the plastic bags right
at the kitchen door.

There is no ricochet in Kansas;
the song plays forever,
ancient like the moon,
like the trees it has never seen.
Kansas leaves me
longing, for i am missing
the Oregon trees and
the Oregon woods. In Kansas
the innocent rivers dwindle
to streams of wheat.

The best way to Kansas

The best way into Kansas
I have found is by flying
the house out of Oz:
there’s no plane like home.
What if Dorothy couldn’t
live without plastic, without
fake red jeweled toes?
Her ruby slippers were really
orange, I saw them once
in real life back when I was a kid.

What if Toto barked at the latex
moon? Would there be a shortage
of gloves come morning? Or would
the little dog chase the bouncing
moon, the bouncing latex moon
to California, or chase the moon
to Oregon woods? Pull that latex
moon, measure its give and take.

Under a latex moon I thought
she called me polysemous.
I later found I was mistaken.
There’s no plane like home
except I roam. Kansas, don’t
feel lonesome.

It happens in Oz

Wheat streams golden while I dance
in glass slippers under the Ozzian moon,
a rubber moon, a contraceptive or a big
bouncy ball, if the moon were ever to fall.
Corn stalks pretend to be a yellow brick road
I step across cornstalks, I wade through wheat
in slippers of ruby, slippers of polished
cornstalks, ruby slippers with cornstalk tassels.
If you danced on a rubber moon in ruby slippers
would you be able to tap? Or would your dance
just be a bounce? Oz just doesn’t deliver what
it promises; it makes good on all claims.

Rubies matter, too

She wants to think that rubies matter,too,
and the latex and the windmills she saw
on an old blue dish. Orange latex makes
for good dishes, clean scrubbed, with Oz:
that’s what she wants to think. Crickets
sing as she dreams of rubies and slippers
made of green. Ruby slippers behind her,
she embraces their echoes running wild
through the poems of ancient trees.

Whither Toto?

Toto stepped sprightly
in those ruby slippers,
bounced all the way
to a latex moon, bouncing
in a stitching rain, bouncing
like wheat or corn. Toto
swings on tassels
passels of ruby days.
With a fork and a spoon
he swings on the moon
over the trees of Kansas.

This past Tueday, TweetSpeak Poetry hosted another poetry jam on Twitter. Fourteen intrepid souls participated, jamming to the prompts from Kingdom Come: Poems by John Estes. And the poet himself joined us, and at the end offered this observation: “The poetry-tweet-jam is a thing like no other. An exquisite corpse on ritalin. Nice invention.” We think that’s a compliment.

We posted our review of Kingdom Come here in May. In 2009, we reviewed his chapbook, Breakfast with Blake at the Lacoon. John’s web site is here. He is an assistant professor of English and driector of Creative Writing at Malone University in Ohio.

The first five poems edited from the jam are below. In honor of the poet and his new collection, we’re entitling this group of TweetSpeak poems “The Kingdom Comes.”

The Kingdom Comes I

By @llbarkat, @SandraHeskaKing, @gyoung9751, @jestes, @Doallas, @jejpoet, @CeliaNickel1, @togetherforgood, @PensieveRobin, @kellysauer, @sethhaines, @theeagleacademy, @mdgoodyear, and @elizabethesther. Edited by @gyoung9751.

If I Am Guilty

If I am guilty, let it be
with moss, never with
milk, not linen nor silk;
silk, like moss, appears
between the cracks of
innocence,
innocence with rain
innocence with woods
innocence with poets
and authors and love.

I love you by moss, in rain
beckoning like white stitches
against the grey, stitches
between layers of skin,
fastening tight, holding,
overrunning with stories
remembered no longer
the stories I write,
the stories of clouds,
white galleons sailing.

The Woods of Ancient Trees

The woods of ancient trees
are calling, beckoning;
the echoes of trees
are crying, sighing.
I am called by the tears
of the woods, come be
washed innocent.
My guilt drips like
Spanish Moss, a tangle
of ancient deceit.

I am full of deep clouds,
falling rain, climbing up
and up. I am grown heavy
with burdens, echoing deep
Can you stitch a tree?
What would it take, what
echo might it make?
Tears evaporate, become
the clouds grown heavy like
roots and underground rivers
coursing through canyoned walls,
washed with canyoned tears.

History Speaks Here

History speaks here; I hear it calling, carrying
words we dare not speak. Unspoken, sapped
of life, soured tastes, scoured from our mouths,
they fall heavy, tinder underfoot. Meant as
nevermores, they move away, trading
innocence for embarrassment

Laugh, laugh, wash all guilt away with sweet
cleansing laughter, with laughter and pain,
birth tears. I laughed at a river, once, and
the river laughed back. I didn’t know
the river smiled, staying true yet always
running away, meandering in woods.

I Hear Echoes Laughing

I hear echoes laughing, stitched
from nether parts,
I see galleons laughing, stitched
from rivers of roots,
I feel birches laughing, stitched
from roots of rivers.

There’s a galleon, and a canyon,
galleon ships on canyon shelves,
tilting tips toward sandstone waves,
galleon ships and canyon laughing,
echoing where the river used to be.
I can jump off into water or
jump down and fly.

A Child’s Quick Wit

A child’s quick wit
brings us to a close;
a child’s quick close
brings us to a wit.
A river’s a river,
So let’s drink tea.