Learning from Randomness

This is another poetic exercise born of my Twittering. Through a fellow poet's tweeted stream, I discovered a Web app called Twitter Magnets. It's the Internet's version of the poetry game that used refrigerator magnets to build poems from a random selection of words.

I tried to use as many of the words and punctuation offered as I could without going over the 120-character limit. This is what I came up with:

soft yesterday of reproach, always present
picks cold heart
i growl glass,
two-fist embrace it.
flick needle?

I really liked some of the unusual word combinations it forced me to use. I liked them so much, in fact, I decided to build on the skeleton of that magnet exercise to create the following slightly longer poem.

Needle
By Francis Scudellari

A soft yesterday's sharp reproach,
always present,
pricks my calloused heart

I growl out glass
caught between gritted teeth
and two-fisted embrace it

Pulling the knot tight,
I flick this needle's glint
a spiked drop, acceptance