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Tweetspeak Poetry acquires some poetry for Every Day Poems. The best way to get your work in front of our editors is to participate in our Monday prompts. Note that ourVerseWrights journal is no longer accepting submissions, as the final publication was December 31, 2017.

Learn more about just some of what Tweetspeak offers our poets and readers.



    The Opener...

        Before I get too comfortable on your couch,
        pull my Bostonian's off, slide
        my feet, still twisting in those brown
        dress socks, over the Saxony rug...
​​
                                ~ Read "for some Americans passing," 
                                   by Dana Rushin
              
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​Sejla Srna Bears The Brunt,
​Finds Compassion

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Sejla Srna
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Father 

Grey stains under eyelashes;
faster than humming birds 
you shake in your sleep, 
clench fists full of nothing,
bite lips lacking kisses,

curl toes, twist guts, gnaw nails.

There’s a crack in the door
from kicks of misplaced anger,
passionate touches from knuckles,

and games of catch with wine bottles.

You throw me resentment,
confusion, repressed memories,
lost childhood friends,
war scars, lust for death,

and a mother selling lies.

I forgive you.

Read the poetry of Sejla Srna
Read a profile of Sejla Srna

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​Claire Scott Suggests Writing At Home

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Claire Scott
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Charon at Starbucks

hunched over his laptop
haggard, hairy
feverish eyes
an oar smeared with seaweed
propped by his chair
 
said he was posting on Craig’s list
bored with dealing with the dead
checking under swollen tongues
no plastic gloves provided
said he’d cut a deal with Hades
 
to perform one last job
to ferry a writer who
scrawls each morning
at Starbucks coffee shop
seduced by an illusion of skill
 
he wraps his cape
around his shoulders
picks up his dripping oar
glances back as if
to memorize my face

Read the poetry of Claire Scott
Read a profile of Claire Scott

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​Amauri Solon With A Vision Of Life

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Amauri Solon
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​Under Construction


​And then there was
earth, sun, wind
and rain
Under the fertile soil
coiled thousands
of iron wires
and pain

And then there was
me, you, them
and hunger
Under the dry ground
hundreds of starving
hounds
howled

And then there was 
clay, bricks, stones
and anger
Under the roof
people clung to each other
trying hard
to survive

And then there was
space and time
and void
Under the sky
birds and reptiles
fly
aimlessly

And then there was 
just me, newly born
and a storm
Under my head
body, arms and legs
thorn
bleeding

And then there was
nothing more
but my inner core
Under the surface
a furnace
ever burning coal 
and fire

Nothing more
to be said
nor heard or felt
Under construction
it all fled
steadly
ahead 

Read the poetry of Amauri Solon
Read a profile of Amauri Solon

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​Ryan Quinn Flanagan's Take
​On Baseball Strategy

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Ryan Quinn Flanagan
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Fever Pitch

The closer went down with a migraine
so it was fastball by committee.
 
The starter trying to go as long as he could.
Everyone else on a pitch count.
 
Trying to stay ahead of the count
from the mound.
 
And the batters on the other side
were instructed to wait on each pitch
as if waiting on a bus.
 
To extend the count
with runners in scoring position.
 
It was to be a matter of attrition.
Each trying to outlast their first sexual experience
twenty-fold.
 
As the crowd waved their foam hands
and bought up ballpark dogs.
 
In a way the pooches down at the local kennel
could only dream of.

Read the poetry of Ryan Quinn Flanagan
Read a profile of Ryan Quinn Flanagan

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    Featured From Poetry/Aloud...
PictureAmy Billone


Amy Billone, "First Words," (audio)


    Featured Short Poem...

     What Isn't Mine

        my hand
        separating pages
        into holy moments

        my bosom
        the waiting cradle
        of what he meant to say 

        my exhale
        the collusion 
        in letting go
​
                          ~ Jessica L. Davis
​
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​Mikels Skele: We Take
​The Blows And Move On

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Mikels Skele
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​Who

The morning grew clear toward mid-day,
no clouds, just a west wind
to stir your memory.

How you thought truth was in you,
how you swore allegiance to companionship,
how you lived in the night
and passed judgment on the light,

a light you rejected, a payback,
a settling, a comeuppance,

how you failed to notice, even then,
that you hadn’t the status to be rejected,
how you slowly saw, slowly, grudgingly,
that rejection was neither of you nor for you,
and how little it mattered.

Later, you try to start over,
still wearing the skin you were born in,
all those scars the only evidence.

Read the poetry of Mikels Skele
Read a profile of Mikels Skele

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Ria Meade
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​Ria Meade Lets One
​Color Tell Her Story

The Shifting of Blues

I relied on that view of the bay.
      I relied on that bench to hold me,
      was in love with watching
      the sun's shifting of blues.
Remained too late one night on the bench.
      The sun never performed for me again.
 
I am caught behind a one-way mirror.
      It denies me the reflection of my father's blue eyes,
      everything I learned through them.
Teach myself to catch inner lights,
      prey to be followed to it’s source.
 
Without a prayer to meet that view
      behind the mirror with its shifting of blues,
      lives my terror and its truth.
Wind became a friend in my darkness.
Her passage over fine hairs awakens and reassures.
      I am still here!
 
I choose the dance of the rocker on my porch.
      Choose evening breezes to calm panic,
      wait for the night wind's friendship.
      Rock—to spark an inner light.
 
Fingers, spread over my face, reflect me.
      Thirty years without colors blue.

Read the poetry of Ria Meade
Read a profile of Ria Meade

 _________________________________


Amy Soricelli, Allison, And
​A Long Ago Christmas

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Amy Soricelli
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​
​The First Noel

Allison from high school had a paper smile 
torn at the edges-
ran for a bus against the windy round corner
of her jumbled-up neighborhood. 
Black eyed boots and three lonely brothers.
I ate cookies at her house one soggy 
morning before holiday break.  
Her mother swaying around the 
kitchen to Frank Sinatra,
the tossed family mail covering crumbs 
on the thin plastic tablecloth.   
No one in her small kitchen dreamed 
of fancy cars on the highway 
or globes spinning;
soaring planes against wide open skies.
They were 
trapped between countries, their 
language getting lost on the rim of a glass.   
Her father studied me hard then 
barreled down the stairs  
returning hours later 
with a small Christmas tree - 
slanted and confused
he held it up like a prized fish.
She told me once - 
as she puffed her Marlboro lights 
in the deep tunnel of our high school staircase
 -
that no one listens to 
her screams;
she could crawl her way out of a cloud 
and had eyes in the back of her head.
Allison from high school pulled me with her 
into the top shelf of the hallway closet 
to search for stars, glass balls - long tubes of snow. 
Made from detergent and baking soda 
they sat in a marked box 
trapped like time and stuffed with tissue.
We spent hours tossing tinsel, stretching ribbons - 
and when each skinny branch 
was somehow given a fix - 
placed it on a covered box. 
We sat holding hands looking at
​the shiny cones of silver;
candy canes hanging their necks 
dangling like question marks. 
Look at what we made 
Allison said. Look at what comes from 
nothing.
​
Read the poetry of Amy Soricelli
Read a profile of Amy Soricelli
​
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​Stefanie Bennett On
​Past Youth And Style

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Stefanie Bennett
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Jeunesse Dorée - 1969 
 
Today, or sometime in the near future,
You will be gone. Winter is already
Drawing her cauldron in.
 
You lie beneath the bed cover
Of fur – of love – assailed
By your dream spirit.
 
I know, you’ll rise... and... but it is
Enough that we have shared
Those tidy sins and word pronouncements.
 
On days colder than this I will have
Your resources to draw upon.
Also, you will take what you need of mine.
 
The jewel of caring, my petulant one,
Cannot be fixed – not at any price,
For, if at a moment’s notice, I should
 
See you displayed in some other window,
I will not be sad or displaced.
Once, you entered my chamber. Because of that
                                      It is – far brighter. 

Read the poetry of Stefanie Bennett
Read a profile of Stefanie Bennett
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