Here are three more poems from our recent poetry jam on “The Republic of Tea.”

Governments of Tea 4

By @mdgoodyear, @llbarkat, @SandraHeskaKing, @arestlessheart, @doallas, @cfraser83, @jezamama, @mattpriour, @togetherforgood, @MeganWillcome, @charsingleton, @TchrEric, @JennyTiner, @gyoung9751, @ThinkArtWorks, @thegypsymama, @PensieveRobin, @ElizabethEsther, @mxings, and @moondustwriter. Edited by @gyoung9751.

The Orphans and Rebels of Tea

Who are the orphans of the families of
tea, the homeless tea, the teas alone,
the teas abused, the teas raised in
catholic schools by hard nuns doing
their best; the teas with rulers smashed
across their knuckles?
Homeless teas, he asks; no brands dare
we say. Are there black sheep among the
tea families? A rebellious blue tea or a
tea of vibrant orange standing out?

Not the rebels but
it is those orphans and widows of
tea for which we are to care. Do the
tea orphans wish they could be dried,
crushed,
steeped,
drunk
deep?
Is that the crowning achievement of
tea leaves?

A Universe of Tea, Diverse

Tea so good for earth, green it is.
Tea so good for the sky, white light
brews me the arm of Orion, the arm of
Perseus.
Did Orion clip leaves, send them through
time, to the water, to me?
Alone, Orion lays his head on a star, puts
jazz on Andromeda and spins his dreams.
Does Orion drink tea, or only Betelguese?
Orion uses a dipper, large, to sip his tea, but
drinks his Betelgeuse straight up.

Tea Like Jazz

How do I tweet tea? Let me steep the ways.
Call me any time; just not yesterday or
Tomorrow. I’ll hear your voice, taste your lips
Today, gather you into my tea drawer.
Would a tea by any other name steam as sweet?

Tweet me any time, steep me, play me
like a keyboard sax. Jazz and sweet tea: play
me all the way into the arms of the South.
The arms of the South call me like jazz
on an opal-blue morning.

Tea of white with scent of cherry, very light;
Steep the cherries in white of morning: scent
your dreams in dew of me, the ways of mothers
with babes who don’t sleep, lacking rest they seek
solace in a cup filled with leaves and dreams.

I will steep you.
Can you stand the steam rising like
mournful jazz?
Rising, rising, this steam, this tonic, this
chug-chug-gulp, this Louie in a cup.

I love this jazz, this buzz, from tea strong like
Irish Breakfast. African Red has its own beat
and dance, rising and mourning and singing
and weeping, the steam undulating with the
music, breaking her heart.

The mixing of teas, green with black, mint with
Orange, a recipe of improvisation, big, strong,
from the western cape of South Africa, Zululand,
perhaps, black tea on bass, green tea on the horn
and red tea on drums.

Louie met Mary Lou over a cup of tea,
their hands brushed past as she took the cup.
They danced to jazz, of course: Oversteeped,
understeeped, unsweet, sweet, the room swirls
among the steaming cups of leafed intoxication.

Those last sips go down like a melody ending.
The song of tea becomes a chant, a dirge,
a funeral march.
Impressario of jazz, what take you with your tea?
Who ever got drunk on tea? But we did, yes, we did.

Is it tea and jazz or tea and sympathy?
I’ll have whatever she’s having.

Here are six more poems from our recent TweetSpeak Poetry jam on Tea. And there are quite a few more to come.

Governments of Tea 3

By @mdgoodyear, @llbarkat, @SandraHeskaKing, @arestlessheart, @doallas, @cfraser83, @jezamama, @mattpriour, @togetherforgood, @MeganWillcome, @charsingleton, @TchrEric, @JennyTiner, @gyoung9751, @ThinkArtWorks, @thegypsymama, @PensieveRobin, @ElizabethEsther, @mxings, and @moondustwriter. Edited by @gyoung9751.

A Thousand Miles Away

I was a thousand miles away,
sipping orange with the Mandarins.
I was a thousand miles away from
home when I sat with him for my
first cup of tea, Tea made in a squat
ceramic pot.
I was a thousand miles away, and
in the unfamiliar morning
light fell into my cup, inviting the new.
I was a thousand miles through time,
past you, wishing for a return.
I was a thousand miles away tonight,
perhaps the sleepytime variety
wasn’t the best choice;
I am perhaps too still.
I was a thousand miles away in the
Stillness of steeping, seeping peace.
I was a thousand miles away, between
our cups, the contents of which
kept us close.
I was a thousand miles away
but still could feel your lips
sipping at my memory.
I was A thousand miles away while
a thousand cups were poured.
I was a thousand miles away, at
a thousand different tea parties,
sipping at the edges, hearing
the call home.
As I sip you, I lose my thoughts
a thousand miles away.

Drinking Tea

My tea is not fancy; it comes in a box
from a grocery shelf.
Some clerk stocked it; it was on sale
so I bought it to drink in
a slender class of splendor, or in
dragon pots with jade eyes,
three thousand years told in the
bottom of a cup. Or to allow the
tea maids squat their ceremony of
tea past wishing or sleeping or sipping.
Or to drink from the elephant pot
At Grandma’s house, part of her
collection, never pouring tea from
that ceramic trunk, of course, but still
drinking tea sweet and aromatic,
behind thin screens and scrolls
retelling history.
Perhaps I should drink my tea
in coffee mugs

Tea and the Nightingale

In the Far East, somewhere west of
the moon, a nightingale sings as she
waits, her tea steaming. She wishes
a wish of time, when nights end just
just like this, with a cup of tea and
poetry, a blending of sweet and
smooth with rhyme and verse, small
chips of love, porcelain sweet.

Tea, Madness and Alice

Away, away, awash in this sea of Pekoe
making my heart flitter, I find tea and
madness, madness and tea, just like
the story for King George III.
Tea. I am mad about tea. Haven’t you
Heard of the mad hatters and rabbits
and girls who shrink and go mad for tea?
I love my tea weak and iced; my coffee,
like my children, blonde and sweet.
The anti-purist father and daughter,
share tea and life surrounded by
stuffed friends for an afternoon
tea party.
I am not mad about tea but if I were
I would never tell you because that
would be crazy, like Sipping loss.
it is true: nothing makes me forget I
am mad about you.

Tea and White Rabbits

Because it is not coffee, because
they are chasing white rabbits,
I am mad, mad for my tea,
my honey-bee, my honey-tea
myhoneyed Alice growing wildly.
Set up the table; do a jig and stay
still within the pot this time, this tea,
my madness gone, except for thee.

Oh, a verse with mad hatters and
white rabbits, or was that white
hatters and mad rabbits?
Perhaps white habits and mad ratters.
Curiouser and curiouser those
white rabbits at the tea party, their
madness fragrant in a sea of tea,
honey sweet.

They were mad enough to drink it
in mugs, whatever they had at hand.
The cup crushed, the mug smashed,
she held hot tea in her hand.
The queen of hearts smashed her
tarts and poured out her tea like a
vein opened; the Hatter was mad, but
not over the tea, perhaps?

The blossoms make the delicate
jealousy rise, bubbles of air coaxed
from the water by the element’s
red heat. Is this thetea that makes
us mad or are we mad over the tea?
But this is a flavor too delicate for
rabbits. Careful of white rabbits:
such magic as they do undoes thee.

Hatters and peaches, creme and noon,
falling white rabbits trip, sip my dreams.
while chasing white rabbits to the party
of tea, she forgot to wear the hat.
she forgot her name was Mary Ann, a
name as old as this drink. Alice chased
the rabbit down that deep, deep hole
to find a cup of tea, the whisper of her soul

Tiny tea cups; crumpets and clotted cream,
a feast on lawn so green.
Five thousand rabbits jumped from the past
balancing teacups on their apricot hats.
Someone’s spiking their tea.
Temperatures rising, heat,
a summer night humid. Perhaps tea was
better left to autumn or winter weather?

The Hatter was mad, mad, mad but quick-
thinking, too, no doubt, as Alice did he save.

Five Thousand Years of Tea

As old as the drink, as young as her pigtails,
five thousand years, a girl’s first sip. Her
trembled hand and tumbled tea;
hope smashed in a china cup. Five
thousand years of leaves and steeping
and ceremony, a drink five thousand years
old, Egyptian,in the Nile Valley, perhaps,
first tea as first writing.
The universe within five thousand light years,
where light was born with the first cup of tea.
I poured the tea onto the ground, this drink
as old as the earth itself. I make no ceremony
for its age, only allowing it to endure in
its quiet way: in throats, down hearts.

Here are the next four poems from our recent poetry jam. The subject of tea takes a business, then political, and finally a personal, turn.

Governments of Tea

By @mdgoodyear, @llbarkat, @SandraHeskaKing, @arestlessheart, @doallas, @cfraser83, @jezamama, @mattpriour, @togetherforgood, @MeganWillcome, @charsingleton, @TchrEric, @JennyTiner, @gyoung9751, @ThinkArtWorks, @thegypsymama, @PensieveRobin, @ElizabethEsther, @mxings, and @moondustwriter. Edited by @gyoung9751.

Where the Leaves Grow

I wonder where these leaves grow,
I wonder what they look like when
they’re green. And then
dried
cured
crushed
baled
shipped
stored
sold
drunk,
sold drunk, sold stored, sold crushed
to souls torn by the long day.
Cheap tea.
High tea.
All tea.
And then
more tea, more baskets
brought down from the mountains,
the hillside air aromatic with
tea ceremonies.

Tea Cups

Tea steeps overnight in a pitcher,
a vacuum filled with brown or green
or yellow.
Sleeps well. Awakes strong.
And more to steep,
more color to drain,
more to chamomile nostalgia
poured into blossomed cups,
two blossoms cupped in the hand.
Gentle are the hands
that take me more and more
like tea takes the emptiness of old china
cups.
What is truth, he asked, but this cup
before me, a cheap steep here and now?
And what is tea, he asked, then took a
sip and breathed his last.

Tea Plantations

I hold a photograph, sepia,
of a plantation of tea. It is
still a fragrance in the dying light,
within the sips of another life,
another age more graceful than
my hurried shoes.
Before the republic, the colonies
stake their place, a thousand months
carving this wilderness into tea,
Plantation mint, black and spearmint
mix, rich in antioxidants,
sweetest when unsweetened.
The sound is not; stillness reigns on
sweet-tea summer porches
on warm-tea winter nights,
the same warm winter nights
you held the spring.
It was an empire of tea,
an empire built on tea
an empire afloat on sips of rose hips,
green and currants, peaceful flows.
Tea dumped in Boston harbor
sent the English home,
eventually.
The party of tea overthrew
the empire of tea.
A rebellion of tea created
a republic of tea.

A Stillness of Tea

Within the stillness, a further pleasure
sought: apres tea.
Apres tea, le deluge.
The water flows over bag and leaves
a mixture of honey and chamomile,
a sleepytime blend of flowers and
sweetness, a still pleasure,
a pleasure still, further and further.
A double-dipped bag, a further
pleasure, stillness waiting for
the weary leaves; home to more
tea, a stillness after the war,
bitterness softened by cream.
Within the silence, you;
within the sea, me;
between the two,
Earl Grey crème.
When I was a younger girl
my friend’s mother made
tea in a great big pot,
covered.
Time made the water strong.
The English way, no doubt.
A further pleasure: how could
I have known when I first chose?

This completes the series of poems from July’s poetry jam here at TweetSpeak Poetry. Too much has been going on, and this got pushed back. I’ve started the editing for the most recent poetry jam, held last tea and on a very different subject than robots – tea. I’ll have the first poems up this coming week.

All prompts for the Robotics poems were from the text of Robert Pinsky’s “Death and the Powers.”

Robotics in Verse 4

By @lorrie58, @togetherforgood, @llbarkat, @goung9751, @mdgoodyear, @PoemsPrayers, @lauraboggess, @jezamama, @duane_scott, @CherylSmith999, @SandraHeskaKing,@LoveLifeLitGod, @mattpriour, and @RLPreacher; edited by gyoung9751

Love Among the Robots

I am quantum,
I am your dream;
ardor blows my
circuit, a short
circuit of spinning
malfunction.
The smoke shoots
from my eyes and
head, pouring
burnt from
my mouth in
beams of light.
Sing to me in
your beautiful
eternal code,
universal system
of life.

I sing to thee
eternally copper,
eternally bright.
Hold me close
in copper love;
drink me in mercury;
take flight like
a startled dove
What is this
weirdness that
we do? What do
we name the new
thing that we speak
in circuits?

Warm chrome,warm
lips like a mirror
sun-kissed
I am your dream;
I am more and less
than I seem,
quantum leaps in
between.
My heart, the
color of graphite;
my silicon blood
disappears like
words in the wind.
The system may hold;
the center does not.
What system do
I use to hold you
closer?

My rusting heart
hovers near the
junkyard weirdness,
poking through wires,
hoping beyond hope
to find our lost poetry.
Is it silicon or
is it real? Silicon
ashes to ashes,
electirc dust to dust.
I yearn for a droplet
of water, a form of
real loved by a pretend
heart, cold and broken.

Robots Gaze at the Purple Moon

We once dreamed of walking on the moon;
now we know that the moon is not made of
blue cheese and men are merely men,
maybe even less.

Purple moon of chrome and nickel, hold me
close in copper love; drink me in mercury;
take flight like a startled dove. The man in the
purple moon man was standing by, casting his
line to catch the stars. Are the stars biting tonight?

I am lost among the words, purple moon
Above, machine clacking beneath my fingers,
lost in a purple fog of mindless metal. The moon,
that lesser sun, ebbs and flows with the sea, a
constant reminder to me that nothing stays the same.

Man in the moon, cast your reel, catch me,
fly me high above the clouds; let’s whisper
sweet nothings into the night. Mirrored moons,
piles and piles of me searching for crumbs of you in
dark corners of eternity.

Hey, diddle diddle, metal man with a fiddle,
fly me over the moon. Hey, man in the moon,
let’s dance from crater to crater; let’s watch the
sunrise together, let’s watch the melting moon
in silent dreams of purple.

The man in the moon and I will share coffee and
discuss our names and eternity and the color of fog.
At the end of purple night, moon man cast your line
and send me home. The night the moon melted; I was
drinking hot strong coffee with my metal lover.

The days of white bread and men walking on the
moon are passed. Now we must eat grains,
crushed whole, and find men who will stand.
White bread, white men, give me instead
a purpled moon.

Bread crumbs and moon vanish; how shall we find
the way? Fog the mirror with your voice and spell
my name. Piles and miles of mirrored moons
reflect through eternity. Speak my name from the
mirror where you found it, traced by my hand.

What are we but a faint breath on a cold glass, a
random bit in the stream of eternal consciousness.
What trace can we make without a name? Eternity
has no light; no light, no shore, no crashing. Squash
me flat to the mirror; press me into the eternity of you.

I do not want to forget my dirt, my dust, my name in
the fog of the mirror, the mirror, a glaze of silicon sand,
reflecting what the heart desires.
We can trace in the fog, faint against glass, then press
into each other’s consciousness.

Robots in the kitchen

Heartbroken, as compactor takes trash, crushing
Love, squashing metal lips. The system slowly
Crumbles, leaving broken bits of chrome to rust.
All its artifacts have long since turned to dust.
Steam dissipates, words disappear; intimate
memories never do.
Remember the old and real, and
the musky feel of the cast iron steel where
we cooked our meals of meat.

Robotic beauty

Beauty like a marble found in the grass,
like a flash of skin above the water,
like the smile of someone gazing into the
distance; beauty like familiar faces in the
timeline.
I am real, the robot said;
I do not need a name to prove it.

Robots name their dreams

A name in the reef, waving purple,
waving to thee. Your name is fungible
but your soul is stamped with the
make of he who is.
I plumbed eternity in the heart of a man,
a man of no name, who knew no name.
Even if you never heard my name, would
you not know I was real when you pressed
me to a silver mirror?
My name is written on the hands of the King;
the answer is in my dreams, I fear. If my
dreams hold the answers, I fear the questions.
Electronic dreams and generated reality have
become the only world so many know;
the dirt of life is fully foreign and forgotten.

Robotic artifacts

Footsteps so heavy there is no chance of
being lost, of being a name in the fog, miles
from shore where old houses light-warn us of
reefs. Is my love an artifact that no longer
crushes your heart?

The machine of things itself a dream,
all of seems to make me reel and fall.
An artifact bespeaks the blurring of the
separate spheres of art and facts.
Let our artifact be love.

Let our artifact be love? I am not
romantic. I dream of work and
home and you. I crave milk,
not diamonds, bread not roses:
life as it is and as it can be.

Robots have families, too

Foreign tongues and forgotten dreams:
we speak and act like circuits are wings.
But you will forget miles of memories and
melting moons and mirrors in my mind.
Draw the bath, light the candles;
the children are nestled all snug in their
beds, tucked in under sheets of metal.

Here are seven more poems in our “Robotics in Verse” series from the recent TweetSpeak poetry jam.

Robotics in Verse 3

By @lorrie58, @togetherforgood, @llbarkat, @goung9751, @mdgoodyear, @PoemsPrayers, @lauraboggess, @jezamama, @duane_scott, @CherylSmith999, @SandraHeskaKing,@LoveLifeLitGod, @mattpriour, and @RLPreacher; edited by gyoung9751

When Robots Sing

Hum and strum, and
play black keys with
both thumbs, one
tongue breaking the air,
laughing in code, singing
arias to metal father’s and
ghosts of metal fathers. I’ll
blink my aria to you in code.

Blink to me in code? Sing to
me in arias; feed me melted
love from your sweet hand.
Sing to me of metal mother’s
milk, frozen in time, frozen in
a terrible rhyme spit from
robots like shots of vodka
spilled cold at a binary bar.

Robots in Dark Woods

All of us were struck by the sudden
words of white robots in dark
woods, wandering lost. When
did robots become so human?
When did humans become so
electronic? Did the iPod melt into
my hand?
The machines always cough and
the flesh can do nothing; a once
useful body is but a shell; while
the soul and mind are wild with
life.

Robots in Love 1

For a robot o kiss a robot,
cold lips to cold lips, sends
chills down my spine. To hold
still in a stone embrace, a
disembodied voice calls across
the ether, prompting a deep
wash of algorithmic memory.
You make my metal cling, clang.

Keepyour stone lover with
arms of embracing metal.
I prefer flesh and blood and
rushing passion, life’s hot
breath, warm lips kiss, true
ardor never found in the
circuits.

Robots in Love – The Sequel

Refresh me with copper,
comfort me frozen, eternity of
eternities near the algorithms of
your heart. Reboot my poetry;
find the heart in me, hunt my
bright body on a moonlit night.
Oh my word, or my work, how
will I rise from this dirt when
my electron blood ceases to flirt?

Frozen like stone, we are left
alone, disembodied from our memories,
a frozen screen, a frozen lover.
I’m lost.
I was lost somewhere between
metal and ashes, my machine frozen,
my poetry rebooted.
Browsing your face, your eyes,
I am refreshed.

Remember your body,
remember this party,
remember the way we talk with
fingers and browsers and
bold algorithms.
Landscape flies from beneath
my feet; flesh machine grounds to
a hulking stop. Where will this soul
packet alight?

Remember closer; search me in circuit;
trail back, come ’round, remember nearer.
My lover needs a reboot; he has a virus.
He’s backed in, packed in, his words are
a racket, a packet of bits searching through
circuits and networks and fact checks.
Packed in between neurons not on my
own time, but wireless skin, a hub
where others break in.

I wonder where robots really fit in
the world of poetry? The system
doesn’t hold jack. It’s a broken
lamp with a dusty shade.

Whispers: The World Without Robots

You looked up to me but when
I fell from the moon you no longer
recognized me ; you thought me
hard and small.
Before, a a blanket was spread in
meadow still, covering sweet
whispers of binary thrill. My heart
rang from your whisper, even as
we remembered the danger
lurking there.

You poured me like milk into your
soul; you carried me in a hidden
pocket. I remember that milk
warm like breath, pouring like ardor,
whispering, whispering.

Drinking Tang

Let us go and drink some Tang,
Tang for brave men making giant
Leaps, yet we’re still thirsty.
Tang is best drunk cold,lips to
the rim, slurp.

The Body Weakens

That faithful old dog, my body,
grows weaker and fonder day by
day; I treasure it more for this, for
seeing its end approach.
Even the stongest granite and
oldest trees succumb to rot and
death; why should be believe our
machines fate will be different?

All the world’s a code and we are
just players; a code by any other
name–God, DNA, fate–sounds
defeat.
All the world’s a body, bones
coded copper bright.
The milk of my youth that nourished
my bones feeds my soul as I age.

To bed with thee; let the milk of
dreams calm you like wine, and
bring you peace
The days of Kool Aid have passed;
the days of wine are ripe.
Can we dance closer than this?
I left milk-white bread crumbs in a
trail beneath the moon.

Come to me soon.

It’s been a few days since I posted the first poems from our most recent poetry jam on Twitter. I have no excuse other than it’s been busy – a wedding, a funeral, a baptism, some travel, normal life. You know how it is.

Here are the next seven poems in the “Robotics in Verse” series. And there ar emore to come.

Robotics in Verse 2

By @lorrie58, @togetherforgood, @llbarkat, @goung9751, @mdgoodyear, @PoemsPrayers, @lauraboggess, @jezamama, @duane_scott, @CherylSmith999, @SandraHeskaKing,@LoveLifeLitGod, @mattpriour, and @RLPreacher; edited by gyoung9751

Dreams for Robots

Do flowers grow in electronic sets?
Do electronics flower in sets?
Suffering, a metallic echo of
electronic sets,
dream bits a flutter in pain.

Why can I not find a poem
in a robot?
What is it about metal and
conformity that leaves me
word-cold?

Can a robot suffer? Does a
robot feel pain? Can a robot
feel what it cannot perceive?
A robot can only dream. I dream
of R2D2 with the light brown hair.

I cannot write of metal screws,
Wires, hearts where fires do not
Burn. Perhaps the metal feels
too cold, the lack of beating
flesh uneasy.

Yet some of us go rogue,
forget commands, turn corners
we cannot dream. A robot’s dream
never gets off the ground,
confined to paths and flat commands.

The dream moves beyond the sets,
the dream of burning without fire,
seeking the hand that creates,
the mind that moves the hand.
Can I perceive what you do not feel?

Divided

Divided I type. Divided
I tweet. Divided I fall and
find only dusty sweet
dust at my toes.

I’m as cool as a robot, baby,
get that straight right now.
Don’t be crossin’ any of my
wires, man; hands off.

The Soul of a New Machine
(with apologies to Tracy Kidder)

There was was a soul of a
new machine,
a vibration metallic, a vibration
in blue, white hot copper.
Burn it down to copper, tin,
mercury; you’ll find no heart
within, no sonnet, no coupling.
Could there be the dream of
a new machine, a soul of
sweet dust?
Can a microchip hold love?

Can a thing without heart live?
A twisting of wires, copper
Meeting, maybe we’re more
alike than different,
robot and I, going through the
motions.
It is not the dust i fear,
the division of mind and
body. No, I fear the cold
metal clank of loss in
this machine.

The ghost in the machine
gives the imitation of life.
Your spirit can not be
programmed Deus ex
machina – God from the
machine. How can I see
God from the machine of
my flesh and bones? My refusal
to show fear, to suffer, to feel
compassion–this is the oil for the
machine, my body without a ghost.

Robotic Poetry

With a burning heart he
vanished into the sunset,
just one cog in this vast
machine turning mindlessly,
vanishing,
lost.
No matter the work,
no matter the rage,
hell’s hand basket warns
“error on page” in a
couplet so drab that we
fall off the page.
The burning heart of a robot is
a microchip, a couplet of
bits and silicon sonnets.

Robotic Lightning

I watch the metallic lightning,
matched by the lightning liquid
fire I drink.
Lightning flashes this metal
heart, blanches at the heat.
What I love in you,
gentle hands of flesh,
heart of flesh, none of this
harsh and cold coffee-like
oil, your flesh a wretched
waste, reduced to this metal
hull, a shell, where once a
flame furled high.

I conspire with white hot
Vibrations to stealth-penetrate
your heart, hot to touch, flame
red and yellow around the
edges, a hot flash in a hollow
heart. Thunder roars outside my
window but fire burns
inside a robot’s heart, hollow,
wired, sets of green and
yellow and black twine of
plastic and copper and
memory of heat a flash of
hot air on a face.

What’s Left After?

I watch the flame consume,
flicker its dance before my
eyes, bones into dust, alloy
melting, an electronic flame
of electronic love.

What’s left after fire meets
metal, the drip, dripping of
liquid? What’s left of me when
fire burns, stinking of ash?
What’s left after metal meets flesh?

The ash of an ash,
the death of a quest,
ash grey like tin ghosts
clanking across a moonlit
night.

Tears flow at what can not be
Held, fire tears at what can not be
Contained. Heart? The robot feels
nothing but green and black and
yellow.

The bomb squad deserves
to clip and swallow when they cut.
brittle bones of metal music
Save the hollow, stifle the fire;
there’s a ghost in tin embers.

A ghost writing in basic,
laughing in code,
stirring the ashes,
kindling the flame,
touching the silver lips.

Cool touch, hard thoughts,
who is at risk?
I refuse to show my fear,
wrap heart chills in bodies
without dust, toes.

The Children of Robots

Across the floor, the electronic
gadget does his dance, scaring
robotic dog and cat and child.
Is that robot someone’s child;
was it ever; can it have died
into this from flesh and blood?
On the phone my metal father,
speaks in my ears, across
the air, ghosting through walls.
Touch, I need to touch; regard
not my tin, my copper tarnished
black, my silver dross.
How can I see eternity from
such finity?

I can see your reflection in me,
a reflection of silver metal,
white against the dark night, as
we motor across moonlit moors,
whirring our lighted vibrations.

At last Tuesday’s poetry jam on Twitter, all poetic prompts were from Robert Pinsky’s Death and the Powers. Fourteen of us gathered together on Twitter (and at the “well” at TweetSpeak Poetry) and rhapsodized about – robots, among other things.

Here are the first two of the poems devloped from the jam.

Robotics in Verse

By @lorrie58, @togetherforgood, @llbarkat, @goung9751, @mdgoodyear, @PoemsPrayers, @lauraboggess, @jezamama, @duane_scott, @CherylSmith999, @SandraHeskaKing,@LoveLifeLitGod, @mattpriour, and @RLPreacher; edited by gyoung9751.

Looks Like We’ve Got Robots

Looks like we’ve got robots.
Ooh, robots. Maybe I should get
my boys down here to help me out.
Ground control to robot.
Ground control to robot.

Robots dust cobwebs before the
party; eat the popcorn. I don’t
want to be a robot all automated,
controlled with a switch, dancing
metallic dances metallic sheen of
metal, whirring of gears, gears
grinding slowly into motion.
Maybe I can remember how to do
this thin.

Command me
like your favorite robot;
I might work for roses
if you dance.
But if you dance, would that
be a ritual performance for
command or a command
performance for a ritual?

Failure is not an Option

The teaspoon tray was assembled by
Command, the only thing it could do.
Command is struggling today.
Switching to manual override.

The system, the system has failed yet again.
Even if failure is not an option,
it is still a metallic echo, not a repeat, an echo.
thundering gray against blue metal.

The command is repeating itself.
Danger, Will Robinson.
Command has left us in
robotic arrears
I, Robot, said Asimov;
I, Isaac, said the robot.

When is data a dream; when do bits
become literature?
I was always a fan of Data on StarTrek
with his greenish skin and longing to
be human. Comprehension begins
when the echo ends.

How shall I show/that I am frightened?
Comprehend to grab with the hand,
flesh or metal or the echo, the order, the
other wires like flowers growing behind
my electronic sets. Comprehension is not
understanding; an echo is not a big bang

I do not understand;
I just do not understand.

Here are the “final 5” – the last of the poems developed from our poetry jam on Twitter last week.

On the Butterfly’s Blue Wing 3

By @llbarkat, @mdgoodyear, @mxings, @SandraHeskaKing, @PoemsPrayers, @lorrie58, @LoveLifeLitGod, @gyoung9751, @memoriaarts, and @thegypsymama; edited by @gyoung9751.

The Buildings Themselves

The buildings themselves
a river of activity; a bedroom,
if you must, refreshing windows
of truth; the cafe
a tumult of dishes and pans.
A white tablecloth, polished
silver, empty wineglasses,
slender asparagus speared on
fine porcelain plates.
Slice and roast them,
sprinkle slivers on a plate.

Slivered silver, silvered slivers,
empty glances to fill empty
glasses. Silences without
wine are
always more dangerous.
Testosterone is the roast
that warms the plate,
slices silence
like dangerous wine.
I knew where the door
opened, but no more.

Whispers of Grace

Whispers of grace gently
brush against the curtain; the
faraway comes on the edge
of the curtain, pushed by
gentle breezes.
Your faraway comes in
on breezes of blue.
Near comes on the fringe of lace,
swaying by the open window.

I knew the door,
the faraway.
I knew you would come.
I waited at the edge of time
like a white curtain, trembling.
My faraway comes
from faraway, from
away far away until
I return to you.

My hand, quivering,
pulls the curtain aside,
embracing the night-filled air.
The light shines down on my
fingers, wrapping them in a mist
of moon and time and echoes
of what once was.
I hear you say,
I am a blossom in your courtyard.

In the glanced silence
I find silver confessions
dancing like moonlight
across the emeralded
screeds and hills of
faraway, wispy thoughts
and lacy memories of faraway
Let me confess: it is not true
I waited; I waited/for you.

Hidden Confessions

I know where
you hide the almonds,
where you hide confessions.
I know how to discern
the fire in your heart.
Someday, if the willow
stops her weeping,
if time opens the door,
I will bring you back;
I will feed you almonds
from a faraway time.

Summer blows warm,
it confesses our distance
from the sun is not what it was.
I yearned once, for the dark side
of the sun, the dark side of the sun
that burns cold, always burns,
a mute minister, dumb enough
in the darkness, the dark side
of the sun, filled with scarlett
ice cream, frozen. Tomorrow
I fly, running before the sun.

The Call of the Moon

With blue whispers and
lowered lashes, the greater
moon, the blue moon,
calls me back.
I am in a room with
empty glasses, half eaten
almonds and silver, although
I’m not sure
why the silver.

Yearning for the Night

I yearn for the night to extend
for the words, the poets,
for my lover, but the end
did come like almonds
crushed and blown away.
I knew I must be dreaming;
such are the trysts of a maid.
Now for the washing up.
But for what it is and what it was,
swallowed words buried alive,
I will go smiling, remembering
the yearning of the night.

Below are five additional poems developed from last Thursdy’s poetry jam on Twitter.

On the Butterfly’s Blue Wing 2

By @llbarkat, @mdgoodyear, @mxings, @SandraHeskaKing, @PoemsPrayers, @lorrie58, @LoveLifeLitGod, @gyoung9751, @memoriaarts, and @thegypsymama; edited by @gyoung9751.

A Rose Grows in an Ancient Wall

A rose grows in an ancient wall,
or maybe better surrounded by
21st century Snow Whites.
We can’t want for dwarves
plucking she loves me,
she loves me not
seven times seven.
Not one rose, not
one Snow White rose
plucks surety for me about
you.

There is life on the thorn if
you look close enough, thorn
pricked bleeding weeping seeing
she loves me he loves me not
seven times seven
or maybe the rose in its whiteness
loves me or maybe the night
or not asking he loves me,
he loves me not,
her garden will be bare,
a carpet of white.

Or stop walking, turn
around and around until
the world spins
seven times seven
and you
fall to one side, giddy, loopy,
sick,
shattered surety in the textured
fall as pink to gray to black.
I am sure, now, I know nothing
about roses; not one has lived.

You pluck truth from me
petal by petal
until I am left blushing
daisy bright cheeks
and not much else.
Pay my price; blush;
the roses/in the ancient walls
fear not exile.
What is ancient, but this cracked
concrete wall, stretching
with the seasons.

And then the wall laments a freedom not
known. Let’s go together, glide back,
lose ourselves in the wall of you and me.

Does This Music Love Me, Too?

And this music.
Does it love me too?
This harp, this fountain, this apple?
All are priests.
In the beginning, there was
a word and all these followed after,
flowing before me.

Or did you go to the back door
for the dogs, your whistle a quick
high pitch that draws them in?
A moment of recognition
before it flits away.
I, still calling names, am lost
in the wail of me and of thee.

Olive Shrubs, Olive Branches

Jasmine scented, our mail came,
the tendrils bound in blood,
wound tight round the post.
All blood is a Persian gift from God,
and olive shrubs and
brown postal boxes.
Let’s go as blood
brothers, to the olive shrubs;
let’s watch a tender night;
let’s be free
a lover and her poet.

What is loyal? What is free?
Poetry has no priest.
They have no we; we
have no they.
Nothing is ever free
for asking; everything has
a price enormously high.
You are loyal, you are free;
I see you in the olive shrubs,
calling yourself a poet.

No olive branch to
be found.
Find the olive branch
in me; pay my price.
It is light, almost free.
There is a price to your
blush and
I will pay it.

Old Wooden Words

Old wooden words sail on the sea,
still hoping for another moment
to glide back.
Kind is a word I have heard,
the only free word given away
without thought, before thinking,
released.
The only wrong words are no words
at all. Explain how separate is not
broken; I know, but tell me anyway,
kindly.
We are the opposite of Becket’s anxiety,
over flowing fools, two paths branching
and kindly drifting apart.
We speak of wrongs
together, break silence,
separate ourselves
into one love.

The Tryst of the Willow

Weave the willow into a tryst,
you the slender branch,
I the weeping leaves.
‘Tis said, “Speak the truth in love;”
sometimes to hear in love will do.

I hear in love the willow weeping;
I speak the truth of love to you.
A dangerous silence is shared
between us, waiting for water
and menus.

The willow says
smile, share almonds
instead of tears.
The weeping willow weeps for love,
for want of love, for love’s wants.

Love hews down the willow tree and
makes of it a fire.
What is more dangerous
asks the willow:
you, or poetry?

For last Thursday’s poetry jam on twitter, 10 of us virtually assembled to participate in responding to prompts by @tspoetry. All of the prompts were taken from Mahmoud Darwish’s “The Butterfly”s Burden.” And the result was — rather surprising, at least for the editor. This group of poems required the least amount of editing of any of our jams to date. The first five poems are below.

On the Butterfly’s Blue Wing 1

By @llbarkat, @mdgoodyear, @mxings, @SandraHeskaKing, @PoemsPrayers, @lorrie58, @LoveLifeLitGod, @gyoung9751, @memoriaarts, and @thegypsymama; edited by @gyoung9751.

On the Butterfly’s Blue Wing

Time to walk, time to look
off the side of a blue bridge.
Time to ride memories
on the butterfly’s blue wing,
feminine soles to kiss
the toes of necessary
moments.
Loneliness is an aching breaking
parting of the ways
and the days drift into the dark
of American night
after night.

I hear the dog’s bark/beyond your arms,
I close my eyes,
forget the space between us.
So I sigh
and miss the deep, blue, black African sky.
Let there be no end
to the deep/to the blue
to Africa and starless skies.
The Southern cross calls
a haunting refrain
that draws me home
time and night and night again.

On the Bird’s Wing

Cut impossible down to imp,
cut the river trip short,
load the tubes back in the car,
call the kids out of the water.
On the birds wing I find myself
lost in the chores, far down
the river of dreams.
Fry me some eggs, don’t
change the hash or I’ll be lost.

Cut the wings/birds and chores,
cut the river from the
child, afflict the afternoon by
riding the mower along the shore,
bouncing over stones and
and nettles and nests hidden
in the tall reeds where the dry
ground cracks.

Until the water sings us clean,
treat our wounds with wet and cold.
My night is short like my breath
when I land in nettles,
slip into cracks and cannot
find the shore.
Unbind my wings,
throw me into the sky;
I know the way home.

Like every night, like
every train, like every
handful of change I find in
my pocket, like every penny,
I can be your good luck,
just pick me up, bend down to
where I am and pick me up.
Lincoln has wings too, until the
briny river washes him green, calcified

Silken Waves of Memory

Silken waves crash,
pockets of lost time
tracking away from memory.
Tired of memories early and late,
lessons that appear from nowhere.
Lessons precede tests,
tests precede jobs, jobs
precede life and war and time.
Can time hold in memory
the poetry of our days,
our cracked slips and musical
shreds? No, no. No lessons and
practicums, fewer sums, more
drums, little hums and flee behind
the fountain.
Tear petals from the memories.

Saxophone Sing Me Clean

Sing me clean
with your breath
with your voice deep
like the jazz moan
of a tarnished saxophone.
Write your music on a
shred of paper, bind it
on my foot.

Walk in my thoughts,
brassy saxophone;
briny song that longs to open
my secrets to the night.
Harps play in the distance,
polished souls whose voices
call deep unto deep and still
I am tarnished.

I know this tune.
The whole street knows it.
The sleepers roll and breath a
sigh that hums in harmony.
If I write a poem, will you let it
relieve you of your shirt, will
you let it undress your cares,
your unpolished soul?

The Confessional

A New Jersey Turnpike sunset
makes us fugitives; just as well
close the book, close the door,
grab a stool. Let’s play
confessional via!

You run and I run and we use
petals for mortar via, a
fugitive confessional caught in
the wall of thoughts swirling
apple red.

Grab a confession, bite a cry,
pluck an apple, put it on the
stool; this should be
enough for the priest.
Flee the confession; it is not real.

It is a show you have made for
the priest to pretend you do not
deserve exile. If I twirl the green-tailed
bird, will it give me an apple?
will it play the priest and listen to
my confession of love for you?