Language and Humor - Language

Twitter Poems

These are some of the (non-haiku) short poems that I've written for Twitter posts.

They're more about initial creative bursts than crafting; some of them were written in fifteen minutes or so. They're all untitled with a word or words as a prompt (to the right).

April–June 2010
the past cast out
embarrassing tatterdemalion eras
now embracing the patchwork quilt
[tatterdemalion (=tattered)]
churlish fog surrounds
surly gusts churn
murmured words
converse
of discussion
[churlish]
strength sapped
countenance cracked
brood's burdens borne
unladen funeral chairs
[countenance]
painting murky depths
on cloistered canvas
finally made a splash
sunken treasure
[splash]
tricycle hunched in garage corner
concrete floor bespeckled
fire-engine red paint hobnobs with orange rust
won't inure
[inure]
work in progress
without paint or brush or canvas
walking shadow drawn thin by setting sun
journalism questions unanswered
and unasked
[shadow]
March 2010
life story
scrawled archipelago
arising from inky sea
beneath lies beads entwined
profound ties
[archipelago, bead]
life's account
bears no balance
of what's given and taken
only of what you reconcile
[account]
blind to opportunities
frightening fever dream
know it's not real
can't stop
must return to on redozing
replace everything
[blind]
ancient ritual
energetic elder still takes part
unstructured youths just float about
parchment of plants unabated
[ancient]
every yesternight yearns
to be the eve
of the greatest day
of my life
why should I disappoint it?
[yesternight]
the air of that world engulfed
gulped by lungs to blood to every cell
unnoticed
and unnourishing
[air]

one pries from group
trivial alone

bonny blanket
muddy mire

snowflake alights
catch for child's tongue

[pry]
she crafts a home
never complete
scrabble to eat
cloaked in the tapestry of life
spider sighs and poisons visitor
[complete]
February 2010
diamonds caress eyes
brocades embrace fingertips
feel opulent
when I behold
my child
[opulent (=rich, luxurious)]
Answer alternates
sneering patrician
giggling coquette
knows
I'm not ready to ask her
the question
[answer]
sitting on sidelines
regarding not rollicking
no bruises
no mark left anywhere
[bruise]
undulating chatoyant dreams
down mountainous steeps
phantasmagore on buoyant streams
through bounteous sleep
[chatoyant (=shiny like cats' eyes)]
[phantasmagore is made up from phantasmogoria (=ever-changing scenes as in dreams)]
pursuing the labyrinth
passed over the truth
the walls of that life:
paper-thin transience
[labyrinth]
unsaliently sailing past
on the slightest wafting
persisting but not wanting
to be incognito
[incognito (=in disguise, with hidden identity)]
eider down round my heart
beats bound from slightest brush
found myself in you
preterite pronoun
profit from loss
[profit]

diaphanous caress
conveyed me home to whole
you made me swoon

I never would've guessed
and tendered heart and soul
you turned poltroon

[poltroon (=coward)]
January 2010
gusts send desiccated grains of snow
slithering across the street
sizzling chatter of eagerness
to regale their peers
[peer]
snake and rat
lunge and jump
waltz of life
[waltz]
the lambent sun rends ivory shawls
bares the gangles but spares the tips
marshmallows for Titans' campfires
[shawl]
limpid shoulders delightedly share
for it's not a shawl
but a shroud
[shawl]

All contents of this Language and Humor page copyright © 2010 Kevin Sullivan, lahkevin at gmail dot com. Updated July 1, 2010.