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?
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.
By @lorrie58, @memoriaarts, @togetherforgood, @mmerubies, @llbarkat, @poemsandprayers, @doallas, @KathleenOverby, @TchrEric, and @lauraboggess, with a slight contribution from @gyoung9751.
- A History of Children’s Stories: “The Haunted Wood” by Sam Leith - May 20, 2025
- World War II Had Its Poets, Too - May 15, 2025
- Czeslaw Milosz, 1946-1953: “Poet in the New World” - May 13, 2025
Maureen Doallas says
Wonderful!! We need to get our twoems published in a collection. These are some of the best yet. I will be back to re-read them.
It’s just so much fun to see how you arrange our series of tweets. I wrote a poem from my tweets that I’ll publish Thursday. I had looked at them several times without “seeing” the poem until yesterday, when all the lines wrote themselves onto the screen.
I’m staying turned for your next batch.
Heather says
The last one made me giggle. That was me, getting snippy about frappes. 🙂
Erin says
I told my husband that these poems just fascinate me. Some lines I remember– some I know I wrote– and some I swear I never saw on Tuesday night. I love how you turn it all into something cohesive and truly poetic.
Kelly Langner Sauer says
Wow, these are beautiful! I love what you say about the lines coming like river rapids, never knowing where they’re going, but so beautiful when you look at the words flowing over top of one another.
I seriously have to make the next party…
laura says
OH, this part:
I do not shrink, any
longer, when you
touch me.
I came alive
some time ago. I dance closer to
you now.
shivers.
L.L. Barkat says
Nothing to add. so complete. so beautiful.
Heather says
Just looking over these again, and Laura’s comment made my night 500 times better. I wrote those lines. 🙂