The final six poems from our recent Twitter poetry party are below. I believe this sets a record for the number of poems from a one-hour jam session – a total of 32 prompted by lines from The Republic of Tea: The Story of a Creation of a Business as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders by Mel and Patricia Zeigler.
Thanks to all of our 20 participants (including a couple who wandered in by accident).
Governments of Tea 7
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.
Tea Leaves Clues
If Miss Scarlett has a cup it’s
filled with coffee and she
drinks that by candlestick light.
She’ll forget her crush on
Professor Plum, which might
get him murdered.
Professor Plum took his tea in
the library, while Mrs. Peacock
took hers in the conservatory
with the lead pipe, or was it the
rope? No, the revolver.
Tea meant murder, turning the
harbor red; fragrant or not, the
victim’s destiny was manifest.
Murder would be more fragrant
under plum of cinnamon night.
Miss Scarlett and Professor Plum
were gone with the wind; Miss
White wore a uniform too short
for my taste but Colonel Mustard
did not seem to mind.
We lost the game but won the tea;
maybe next year.
I haven’t a clue how to play,
I haven’t a clue how to write,
I haven’t a clue where I am.
She read the tea leaves,
and called it fate.
He read the tea leaves,
and called it love.
Could any of us have a clue
without tea?
Dreams of Tea and Empire
Tea has always civilized
the untameable continents
on the surface of the cup.
With colonial boilers cooling,
and machinery intact, no crisis
was available to avert. Time for tea.
What is in the machinery
of destiny? Leaves, or simply strategy?
Now he sits, alone, cup in hand,
dreaming of empires that are no more.
But still he dreams.
And because he dreams,
he hopes, he lives,
he starts the journey new.
It all comes true in tea dreams
Hold me, cup your hands,
and I will dream, whispering
words of bliss, lips to ear,
lips to cup, warm to warm.
Hold me, cup in hands, and I
will dream. We will watch the
dream come true in enchantment
white, vanilla dreams.
Recipe: make this thing more
than a dream. Liven it up with tea,
any kind will do; imagination is,
too, essential.
I would climb into your cup,
if you would drink me down,
heartache and all,
heartache and dreams.
We have hidden behind leaves
since that first garden. Put a bag
of black tea in your hand;
carry it a thousand miles for me.
But now they comfort;
the leaves are modestly calm
when dreams are tired;
call it confession and leaves win.
Say it was for me,
say it was for you.
It all comes true
in tea dreams.
I spilled cinnamon tea
I spilled cinnamon tea and slept in fragrance;
I dreamed oceans of rest. Over my head,
cultivation, weeds like trees, sickle blades,
twenty one lost, gone while voices rise.
I swam in lychee blossom, green-leaf
wrapped against the currents.
I loved in warmth; I spread my fingers and
took hold of a blushing cup of you.
The tea twists my tongue and torques my mind.
How soon the cup is emptied, and the night.
The universe in a teacup
Someday, I will drink the universe
in a teacup and I will remember, yes
remember that a teacup large as the
universe holds all our dreams.
I would like to have tea with God,
our table set on top of the stars,
a cup filled to the brim,
a conversation face to face.
He would ask what I thought of
the story He had written
and I’d try not to edit His words.
Come back to me, one sip at a time.
A cup, a change of scenery, and
all the voices quiet down.
Now what was that you said?
A single sip; the restless busy fades.
Raspberry currants lapping upon
the sea of what used to be;
never again my sweet tea. A time
to discard, leaving the leaves cold.
- Poets and Poems: Beth Copeland and “I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart” - July 10, 2025
- A.E. Stallings: the Parthenon Marbles, Poets, and Artists - July 8, 2025
- Poets and Fables: Steven Flint and “The Sun and the Boy” - July 3, 2025
Maureen Doallas says
A stellar editorial effort, Glynn. Thank you. Some of the lines come vividly back to memory; others I surely missed during the tweeting. How well they all came together.
Erin says
“The Universe in a Teacup” has to be one of my favorites of all the poems that have ever come out of the poetry jams. Truly delightful.
L.L. Barkat says
Tea Leaves Clues totally made me smile. Others are just wonderfully poignant. I am always amazed. Always.