At our recent Twitter party, things took a decided turn toward the planet Saturn, silver ribbons down the back stairs, or perhaps the front stairs, and lemon custard (don’t shoot me, I’m only the piano player). A digression into dirty dishes (likely latent guilt for tweeting poetic lines while filled sinks remained, well, filled) was soon left behind.

The prompts were taken from The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets by Ted Kooser, the former U.S. poet laureate. I’m not sure if he ever imagined his book would be pressed into service for a poetry jam on Twitter, but something tells me he would be pleased.

What’s rather fascinating for an editor of poetic tweets is to see how the thoughts and inspirations flow and play off each other. It’s hard to follow that when you’re in the thick of rapid-fire tweeting, but once the tweets are brought together and, in a sense, stop moving, the underlying inspiration can be seen.

Below are the next six poems from our Twitter party.

The Poetry Home Repair Manual 2
(Dedicated to Ted Kooser)

My poem, in ribbons

Sweet poetry my heart finds
silver and gold wrapped
in ribbons laced in broken silence,
and you poetry, I am confident,
you speak moon dust, dusting
a silvery trail of light, loosed
silver ribbons slipping, splitting,
shimmering.
I’ll lace my poem with silver
ribbon slivers, soft moon
shimmering. Unlace, unleash
these slivers of hope,
word by word,
in the poem,
in the poem.

The back stairs

Time winds away like a red ribbon
down the stair
I take the back stairs,
wind your ribbon round
my little finger
and hold it to your lips.

The back stairs,
the lemon yellow walls
the right word
slipping through red lips
take your red line of hope
and streak across the night.

Draw no red line
across my lips;
utter a single poem
in a word
and let me see the world
little song woven

like a silver–ribbon dream
you are my undoing,
you, and the final stair.
No time with you is wasted.

The rings of Saturn

Inscribe a word on one of Saturn’s rings,
lift moon dust from your eyes.
Poetry prompts a break in Saturn’s rings,
dust is dripping from the moon
and settles in my eyes.
Saturn’s ring is but a rosy shade of red,
a shade poetry wears on her lips.
Poetry rings around the planets each
but none more beautifully than Earth.

Maybe it was the poetry.
Maybe it was the sliver,
Saturn’s ring against the moon.

My pockets full

My pockets are full of poetry
blushed and flushed
with childish play.
The song’s been sung
a thousand times
by the puckered children
smothered in kisses, singing
to children at the door,
asking, more, if it please you,
always more
if it please you,
always more.

Lemon custard

They’d all give kisses for the lemon custard,
children puckered at its tart little song.
Make my day, you lemon custard tart.

No day-old tart, she be,
though she be well used.

And used to what, be she?
You notice lemon curtains
and the custard that is gone.

Custard gone? Hear, hear!
Who ate the custard?

Your curiosity grows,
you question the custard,
the lemon tart.

Question the pastries!
What did they see?

Pie, m’lady? Be it mince or not
the dough has seen such better
hands round it.

Sneak below the stairs,
share a pastry or two with me.

Knowledge creeps

Knowledge creeps around the edge,
waiting to be seen. Such words as spoken
leave one as broken
hearted.
We’ll piece it together
with silver ribbons,
that broken heart.

By @TanteWillemijn,  @llbarkat,  @graceappears,
@Doallas, @lwlindquist, @Geyer_M,  @SoniaJoie,
@annkroeker,  @christawells,  @SandraHeskaKing,
@NatalieSalminen,  @VickiAddesso,  @monicasharman, @lauralynn_brown,  @WmAnthony,  @flaxenprint,
@elizabethesther, and @nancemdr; edited by @gyoung9751.

Image by wolfraven. Sourced via Flickr. Post by Glynn Young, author of the novels Dancing Priest and A Light Shining.

Read the first set of poems from our Twitter Party.

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