#4 word poem

[cottonsilhouette]

1: I kissed her, everywhere

[penisbutterjellytime]

so much talk about men who whimper and moan but what about our women who grunt and groan. who's with me?

[poemsonmars]

it is late and i am alone,

sitting on the front porch,

and i wish, more than almost

anything else, that i had someone

that wanted to sit with me.

someone to look at the stars with

on the nights when the weather

is nice and the clouds

feel like sharing their secrets.

someone that will ask me

to stop by the store on my way home

and pick up a couple of bottles

of that champagne that we like.

someone to wake up with

the next morning,

instead of sleeping in,

because a walk in the park

and a sit by a fountain

cures everything, even hangovers.

someone that will share

those kinds of secrets with me.

someone to stop me from arguing

by reaching over and

plucking a few flowers for me.

someone to say, "here,

i know these will make you sneeze,

but i also know you would rather

have them and be sneezy

than not have them at all."

i want someone

for the little moments.

i want someone that gets

that the little moments

aren't little at all.

-mars

[env0writes]

A Gust of Words Vol. 4, 8.12.24 “What Room Could Be Made?"

@env0writes C.Buck   Ko-Fi & Venmo: @Zenv0 Support Your Local Artists!   Photo by @env0

My feelings too big Too cute to date I am not a fruit that will spoil Not white silk to be stained How small would you make me?

What could you make of me That I cannot myself Humble me to one knee And make of me what I cannot

Bind me with a ring So that in servitude I obey Take me as too much Overflow with my joviality

Let me spill from your lips My love and my sorrow Hang like sweet summer honey Hardening sap come the autumn Will you love me for my winters?

Will I fit within your life?

[nangua]

@nosebleedclub march prompts: viscera !

[mumblingsage]

I think I've recommended it in passing a few times, but writers seeking more craft books: I would run, not walk, in the direction of Matthew Salesses's Craft in the Real World. It's one of the most exciting books on writing that I've read in years (up there with Ron Carlson Writes a Story, Samuel Delaney's The Jewel-Hinged Jaw, Kim Addonizio's The Poet's Companion and June Casagrande's It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences). I think it might be most helpful if you've already read some other books on craft--it's a sort of 201-level response to 101-level advice, and if you aren't familiar with the 101 advice you might miss some of the significance. But parts like the revision exercises definitely stand on their own.

Salesses re-evaluates and explores a lot of common writing ""rules"" with the understanding of how culturally contingent they are, and how this is a disservice to writers and readers from backgrounds and cultures outside the presumed "norm." At the same time, he offers modifications of the tools and new techniques/new ways of thinking of old techniques. I'm in the middle of his re-definitions of terms. For instance, Salesses recommends looking at Characterization as "What makes one character different from everyone else." Character + Story Arcs are "What changes or fails to change." Craft itself is "a set of expectations."

Lightbulb moments everywhere.

(While I'm sending out book advice: for less 'exciting' but super solid grounding in techniques designed for nonfiction but applicable broadly, try anything by Roy Peter Clark. Ursula K. Le Guin's Steering the Craft is short but rich; it's one of my first recommendations to writers just getting started on reading craft advice. In the Palm of Your Hand is another poetry workbook that has advice on vocabulary, detail, and narrative that applies well to fiction too. For anyone looking into self-publishing, it's out of print and parts are dated but if you can secure a used copy through your library or secondhand sales, Catherine Ryan Howard's Self-Printed: The Sane Person's Guide to Self-Publishing is hugely informative and amusingly written.)

[vividiangelo]

Abuse can feel like love.

Why?

Because starving people will eat up anything.

-Penelope Douglas(Nightfall)

[daughterofchaosstuff]

‧₊˚ ☁️𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ 𝐈 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐈 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬,

𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐈 𝐞𝐱𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐢𝐭.˚‧｡⋆🌻⋆｡‧˚

[northern-passage]

i wrote a 500 word dynamic poem for neo-twiny jam :-)

i rewrote this in a few different ways with a handful of different drafts before settling on just doing a poem; this originally came from a full branching narrative i've had stewing for a while, and i might come back to it one day. but for now i enjoyed channeling that into this poem, which has also been very influenced by the fact that i've been writing hungry vampires for almost 2 months now.... it was also my first time messing with audio in twine, which ended up being way easier than i expected (i'm sure it helped that i only used one audio sample tho)

faith does contain sexual content, and while not super explicit, it is the main theme of the poem.

anyways hope you enjoy and check out the other entries here!

[pyschologicalrocketgirl]

richard siken the torn-up road // stranger things s4 ep 8/9 & s3 ep 3

[yesyesokayalright]

tehe im so silly

[fudgecake-charlie]

currently living a coming of age movie because I sent my apartment neighbour(s, there are two of them) a letter one night under their door to say "Hi, sometimes life is real hard but I got to hear you and your friends have genuine fun singing to music and playing your acoustic guitar, thank you for reminding me that there can be good things everywhere, have a good night"

and then they slipped a note under my door saying "thank you! we loved hearing from you! we were celebrating a birthday, our friend who plays guitar is very happy, we hope the music was good for you, have a good night as well" and now we are having a back and forth recommending songs to each other!

literally the coolest fucking thing ever i am glad strangers can be kind

[poemsonmars]

i want to go back to writing

happy little love poems again.

i don't want to feel

like this anymore.

i want the grief out of my body.

knowing that i'm the reason

that it's there doesn't

make it any easier to digest.

if anything, it makes it worse.

i can't swallow down my words

the way that i used to.

it is my fault that i am alone again.

it always is.

i always end up here somehow.

-mars

[env0writes]

A Gust of Words Vol. 4, 8.22.24 “The Book of Life”

@env0writes C.Buck   Ko-Fi & Venmo: @Zenv0 Support Your Local Artists!   Photo by @env0

I skimmed the book of life And found myself, what? Thirty-two and greying Already preparing to fade away Was the sky always so destined to be blue Telephone wires far from view Cloudless, starless night Between the mass-printed paperback cover Life flies so fast I skipped Winter, Spring, and Summer It feels as though Autumn is here too soon When did it become August What breeze blew me over Spun me round I fled the Widwest alley’s Tornado’s my friend, nor foe, no more Where in life did it say the word fair When not followed by weather Fair-colored complexion Multi-home complex The units are in houses The unit is the home I can’t afford one unit One litre One ounce One life How do I weigh this life The book is only half a pound Yet its mass is immeasurable I flipped the pages too fast And here I am Busy looking back at what I missed Scared of what Is on the pages ahead I keep turning pages and more appear Will it end? How far – how near?

[getcareless]

Your Eyes Taste

Your eyes taste like sadness,

I never knew what to do.

I think I prefer the silence

and that means closing you.

Leaving you out’ the blue.

Leaving you on read.

Leaving you to fix my own heart instead.

JEP