We now have an additional seven poems from our recent Twitter poetry party. All the prompts were taken from Harvesting Fog: Poems by Luci Shaw, including the title of one of the poems below, “The Body Curled, Like a Comma.”
The Cinnamon Beetle 3
By @memoriaarts, @mdgoodyear, @llbarkat, @EricSwalberg, @luci_shaw, @gyoung9751, @RuminateMag, @mrsmetaphor, @doallas, @LoveLifeLitGod, @nmdr_, @KathleenOverby, @Sand_RAD, @mxings, @mmerubies, @charsingleton, @CherylSmith999, @lauraboggess, and @VinaMist. Cameo appearances by @LuvStomp, @poemblaze and @annkroeker. Edited by @gyoung9751.
When You Turn Away
When you turn away
what blue anger heats the air.
The air heats, melts
Venetian glass, beetle blue.
The glass I got in Venice
is a mirror,
is the iris in your eye,
is the color of bruises.
I am always hungry for cinnamon
and air thick with desire.
I desire stars and raspberries
and the softness of you
when waking and
for water wending,
for the turn of your back
down which a gentle hand
might slide and find
its way to love.
I turn you in a glass, darkly,
smoky with desire,
renting space on charcoal skin,
smoke disguised as desire.
Seasonal Fruit
The raspberry concentrates summer
in each tiny drupe, surrounding
seed with sugar sunlight. Desire is
Christmas in July, raspberries rather
than hollies, summer’s scorch rather
than quenching snow.
Send July heat please,
melt me like butter; my tomatoes
ache for angry red.
The Letter “W”
The letter ‘W’ turned round
becomes the ‘M’
for mine own eyes
might see you
sweet beside me.
The letter W is like me and you,
double dose, melded into one,
wending our way
conjoined
like twins;
one heart,
many limbs.
The Curse of Language
Words are the curse of language.
Words are walls between us.
I will not partake of verse,
this curse of words.
Pour the curse out,
turn it into care.
Give me cities of walls,
stack word on word into towers.
Poems know games
prose cannot imagine;
this is why prose
keeps poems around.
I’m the blue in the glass,
I am the questions.
I am the poem
you could not write.
But poems are such stains
as only death can bleach;
there are questions no poem
can answer. Speak only in prose.
The Final Pouring
At the moment of the final pouring
the glass melts; furnace heat destroys
use, introduces possibility.
Melting glass, bubbling,
waiting to be formed
and twisted, like waves
of words spilling like juice.
In the final pouring,
see such shape as
may be made and quick
as smoke rise.
The Spilled Poem
During the party the host
writes a poem on his coaster,
then spills his wine to hide it.
It bleeds onto the rug, spilled wine,
but the deep pile white shag
reminded me of the sea.
I meant to choose berber
because the stain wouldn’t show.
“The Body Curled, like a Comma”
The body curled like a comma
takes its pause as light grows dim,
for feet like a question mark,
the curve of toes that say, “When?”
The body curled like a comma
offers a pause in the muddle of chaos,
smoke clouding my memory, my body
curled in arms, in hope, a comma,
a paisley comma, upside down tear
with a curl. Breathe between
thoughts, balancing
on the comma,
resting on hope.
Periods are like gunshots
through the heart.
Colons twist in the belly.
This is my punctuation,
pause and eat,
and remember me.
- Dana Gioia Defines the Enchantment in Poetry - June 12, 2025
- “I Am the Arrow”: Sarah Ruden Tells Sylvia Plath’s Story - June 10, 2025
- A Novel in Verse: “Eugene Nadelman” by Michael Weingard - June 5, 2025
L. L. Barkat says
“The Spilled Poem.” Love that title.
Heather says
I love the image of the body curled like a comma. Brilliant.
nancemarie says
scatter the words lightly
dusting the surface of calm blue
buoyant gliding smooth
the right ones slide between
the two
connecting
care and caring