It was another Twitter Poetry party, and this one started with a few rumors. All of the prompts were taken from Rumors of Water by L.L. Barkat. And it’s rumored that quite a number of poems emerged during the jam. We’ll have to wait and see what develops. You can’t be too careful about rumors.
Here are first seven poems from the jam.
Rumors of a Blue Geography
By @llbarkat, @Doallas, @kellysauer, @pathoftreasure, @amberleepb, @RachelleEaton, @divyaasachdeva and @shewhodid. Retweets by @wichmans, @cathiejoy, @shellartistree, @KChavda, @Skookum86, @kruss984, @LaundryLineDiv, @EscapeIntoLife, @umeshnrao, and @CarlyRocks. Edited by @gyoung9751.
Rumors of girls in white dresses
I’ve heard there are rumors
of girls in white dresses
and a woman behind a lens
and a boat with no dress.
Float at your own pace,
fingers dangling,
catching the current.
If I tread the water,
will it weep?
And what of the woman
and the white dress asleep?
How will I write
the white dresses
and the boat
and the fingers.
Oh, I want to write
the fingers…
White moon in a white dress
and me wishing for the next dance.
Can a dress dance
alone?
And a dress:
can it have wings?
How will I write?
How will I write
how the color of your eyes
falls at dusk,
lighting my way?
If life has no symmetry
but the water has waves
the color of your eyes,
perhaps that is symmetry
enough?
She follows the moon
She follows the moon
and dances with the stars;
her fingers disrupt,
catch a wrong chord,
cause disharmony.
She says:
Catch me without disharmony
catch me at the chord
to the left of the little hollow
at the base of my neck.
Catch me alone
or with a purple moth.
I really don’t care
how you catch me
with or without cause
with or without story.
She says:
There will be a purple moth
in every chapter
wings bent as a page
where the story waits to be
picked up again.
At the base of my neck
you’ll find the point
where our story
once began.
The fingers are playing
The fingers are playing
with keys and with strings
and silk faerie strands,
the touch light,
as the moth’s wings
the shivery slide of a nail
against skin
leaving me
rumors of water,
or the touch
that echoes the wing
the memory of lightness
Nails, skin
again storying my dress
and its whiteness.
Pan does laundry, too
Pan could play a laundry cup;
he still knows how to play.
The flute is in the movement;
I will follow Pan,
play his notes again
to echo your message written
inside this laundry-soap cap
you twist and turn with no effort
Shivery slide,
caps glide,
a twist, a turn
you’ll learn my message:
that Pan might make music
to woo us
into the lightness of a bubble
ascending.
The cap flies, spilling words
on the white-winged dress.
In the bubbles
we could rise and
see the world
through rainbow eyes.
A stroke it will be
dear lady
to make laundry of our love;
Just don’t leave me
rumors of laundry.
Spilling words
Spilling words
spilling wings
all this spilling
and I am ascending.
Pool the letters into hands;
pour them into words;
drink them down.
Pool the letters
into my mouth
and my lips will
spill them sweet
to you again
Laundry love
Love is tangled shirts
the hem of a skirt
caught in the brass button
of your jeans.
We hang it out
to dry,
a line of words
glimmering
like those rumors
rising among night whispers.
Ascend to the moon, dear love,
ascend to the moon;
follow the eyes
leading the way.
Let them fly
snapping in the wind.
Laundry love on a line
Ascend to the moon
on a brass button;
ascend the hem
on a line of thread.
- World War II Had Its Poets, Too - May 15, 2025
- Czeslaw Milosz, 1946-1953: “Poet in the New World” - May 13, 2025
- Poets and Poems: Alfred Nicol and “After the Carnival” - May 8, 2025
Maureen Doallas says
We had a great group that night! Thank you for putting the lines into poems. It’s fun to think back to how different lines cropped up throughout the evening.
Kelly Sauer says
Oh now this was fun! We made some really beautiful poems, didn’t we?
Thanks for the editing work, Glynn!