somethingdarker

Airstrike:
airstrikes littering the litanies of my existence - Tajudeen Muadh "In a Goverment Class, I Discuss My Home"

Ambush.

Armistice:
The grateful armistice of sleep - Joyce Kilmer "The Twelve-Forty-Five"

Assail.

Assassin/Assassination.

Assault.

Attack.

Battle.

Beset.

Blockade:
Spraying black plumes across the blockaded sunset - Philip Schultz "Luxury: One"

Bombard:
Bombarding Earth with heavenly debris - Daisy Aldan "The Cometary Script"

The bombardments and aftermath - Mike Allen "Space War"

Brawl:
Starting a brawl over scone crumbs - Dorothy Chan "Triple Sonnet for My Father's Pet Goose, Pigeon Wars, and Daddy Issues"

Breach:
A breach in the wall of darkness - Helen Keller "The Song of the Stone Wall"

Camouflage.

Cease Fire:
A cease fire for even the wilder kingdom - Russell Brakefield "Pardon, Trout Farm"

Civil War: See Civil/Civil War.

Combat.

Command.

Commandeer:
Commandeering sight like caravans - Lola Ridge "Chinese Print (To E.A.K.)"

Conflict.

Conquer/Conquest.

Conscript:
Conscripted to say what I shouldn't - Dara Barrois/Dixon "We're All Ghosts Now"

Conscripted to their shadows' glow - Hart Crane “The Wine Menagerie”

you're a conscript to this battlefield - Elliott Dunstan "Inherited Battlefield"

Crusade:
The end of the crusade - Kwame Dawes "At Anchor: The Real Situation"

Crusaders from hallucinatory citadels - Mina Loy "Lunar Baedeker"

Shattered in the last crusade - Theodore Maynard "Don Quixote"

The betrayal of the following crusade - Pablo Neruda "Brother Bartolome de Las Casas" transl. by Jack Schmitt

Defuse:
The undefused bombs our bodies hide - Rasha Abdulhadi "Pocketful of Warding Stones"

Detonate:
Acid imbalances that detonate - Carmen Gimenez "Redaction"

Set to detonate into an unknown future - Lorraine Schein "Merlin"

The first lightspray of detonated creation - Catherynne M. Valente "Mouse Koan"

Duel:
In life's darkening duel - Gavin Ewart "To Margo"

Mind and will fought the cold duel - H.J. Hope "The Patrol"

Would await them at the duelling ground - Roz Kaveney "Twelve Steampunk Sonnets: Vengeance"

The duel of the wounded night - Federico Garcia Lorca "Gacela of the Terrible Presence" (translated by W.S. Merwin)

Enlist:
Mysteriously enlisted in a V formation of Canadian geese - Duane Ackerson "Three Urban Legends"

Enlists a fresh haunting - Luther Hughes "My Mother, My Mother"

Feint:
The oracular feint of a joke - Dana Levin "You Will Never Get Death/Out of Your System"

Feud.

Fight/Fought.

Flank.

Foment:
Fomenting revolutions on alien planets - David C. Kopaska-Merkel "Jumping into the System"

Fortify:
Your ramparts green with briar fortify - James Elroy Flecker "Brumana"

Fortified by wisdom's splendid armor - Gustav Melby "The Lost Chimes"

And fortify your self in your decay - William Shakespeare "Sonnet XVI"

To outgrow a fortified spiral - Amber Flora Thomas "Shed"

Fray.

Genocide:
My genocides folded into my wallet - Roger Reeves "Brazil"

Grapple.

Harry:
Now but a memory to bless and harry me - John Freeman "The Chair"

Hijack:
Hijack the next spaceship and travel to Mars - Julie Babcock "Dick and Jane Burn Down the House"

Hijacked the Doppler radar screen - D.A. Powell "Useless Landscape"

Undertake the hijacking of language - Prageeta Sharma "Poetry Anonymous"

Hit.

Insurrection:
The insurrection of a flea - Maxwell Bodenheim "Inevitable"

Full of hot surges of insurrection - Ivor Gurney "Song at Morning"

Sorrows quell our insurrection - F. Hartmann "Endlich bricht der heisse Tiegel" transl. by James W. Alexander

Invade/Invasion.

Kick:
The ribs of March are kicking through - Russell Brakefield "The Way We Learned to Sing"

When he kicks at the sunbeams - Furnley Maurice "Whom the Gods Love"

Kicking stones across the temple yard - Keith Taylor "Aegina: After School"

Kicked through seas of woe - Too-qua-stee [DeWitt Clinton Duncan] "Cherokee Memories"

Maraud:
Marauding mouse and rebellious rat - Edmund H. Yates "The King of the Cats"

March.

Marshal:
Marshalled armies in the silent air - Edmund Blunden "The Scythe"

Martial:
No queen of martial might - Shaemas OSheel "Roma Mater Sempaeterna"

Melee:
In an ancient melee of night flowers - Angela Liu "The witches are without work"

Mission.

Muster:
Mustered from the fevered sky - Edmund Blunden "Sheet Lightning"

A muster of pale stars - Lucie Brock-Broido "Basic Poem in a Basic Tongue"

Mutiny:
Malcontents and mutineers - Charles Cotton "Contentation"

Or thy lips in mutiny - Jeannette Fraser Henshall "The Chastening"

The mutiny of Memory's gloom - "The Ocean Wanderer"

Onslaught:
Lashed by an onslaught of echoes - Mary Jo Bang "Part of a Larger Picture"

Pacify:
So many attempts at pacifying this planet - Mike Allen and Ian Watson "Seventh Coming"

Parry:
That no mortal hand can parry - George Martin "Montreal Carnival Sports"

Patrol.

Punch.

Raid:
The treasure trove she raided while we dreamed - Duane Ackerson "Driving Across Idaho"

A raid on the inarticulate - Lawrence Ferlinghetti "Autobiography"

And robbers arm them for the nightly raid - Adam Mickiewicz "The Ruins of Balaclava" transl. by Edna Worthley Underwood

Meets the demons on their raid - Cardinal John Henry Newman "The Dream of Gerontius"

Reconnaissance:
Genetic reconnaissance at birth - fahima ife "our general banality"

Recruit:
Must recruit exhausted power - John Clare "The Harvest Morning"

Limitless recruits from Fancy's pack - Thomas Hardy "A Young Man's Exhortation"

Recruited into the legions of evil - J.D. Harlock "I Thought the End of the World Would Be a Bit More Exciting Than This"

Rout.

Sabotage:
Mixing kindness and sabotage - Chia-Lun Chang "Vote Your Way to Hell"

Their favorite verb is sabotage - Monica de la Torre "The Script"

Sally:
Swift with satire as with sally - Harry Graham "The Last Horsed 'Bus"

My world too has its sallies and withdrawals - Mei Yao-ch'en "Shih-hou Pointed Out to Me That From Ancient Times There Had Never Been a Poem on the Subject of Lice, and Urged Me to Try Writing One" transl. by Burton Watson

Make brave sallies at the stars - Lola Ridge "Amy Lowell"

Salute.

Scout:
While the rat is on the scout - William Cowper "The Cricket"

Scrimmage:
Scrimmaging the hordes of Hell - J.D. Harlock "I Thought the End of the World Would Be a Bit More Exciting Than This"

Shoot/Shot.

Siege/Besiege.

Skirmish:
The muffled skirmish of the rain - Coningsby Dawson "Remembering in Heaven"

Slash.

Smite.

Spar:
Sparred the light for windows and won - Gaia Rajan "Dent"

Stab.

Strafe:
Strafed by the Milky Way - Leonard Cohen "The Lists"

Ducks strafing the unfrozen pools - Richard Solomon "Ice in Formation"

Surrender.

Surveillance:
Surveillance feeds on death - Farah Habad "And out of the ashes"

Convert surveillance into invasion - Rachel Rodman "The Past Is a Foreign Country"

Caressing surveillance cameras and blowing whisper kisses - Karen A. Romanko "The Invisible Woman Runs for President"

Tournament:
All the achieving of their tournament - H.I. Burt "From Their Dust"

Tourney:
Self with self in secret tourney - Edmund Clarence Stedman "Flood-Tide"

Clash in tourney on the least of points - Edmund Clarence Stedman "The Protest of Faith: to Rev. --"

Truce.

Violence/Violent.

Volley:
our small volley of prayers & dreams - upfromsumdirt (Ron Davis) "As The Universe Yawns Brer Rabbit Spins A Yarn"

Vollied lightnings cleave the air - Henry Kirk White "Time"

Wallop:
Crops walloped in their places of birth - Nancy Mercado "I Come to See for Myself"

War.


Navigation Links:
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Ammunition:
Dirt's ammunition against discipline - Sally Wen Mao "Anna May Wong Stars as Cyborg #86"

Wrapped in ammunition staircases - Valzhyna Mort "Guest"

Armor.

Armory:
All the weapons of Hell's armoury - Maurice Baring "August, 1918"

Arrow.

Artillery:
Not all his dread artillery could breach - Flaccus "Religious Controversy" (The Knickerbocker v.23:5, May 1844)

The tempest's artillery rolled - Hannah Flagg Gould "The Butterfly's Dream"

Axe.

Barb.

Battery:
Confront the battery's jaws of flame - Sir Walter Scott "The Field of Waterloo"

Bayonet.

Blade.

Bludgeon:
Bludgeons of light to force your seams - May Swenson "After the Flight of Ranger 17"

Bomb.

Bomber:
Where the grey bombers loose their metal thunder - Ruth Lechlitner "Night in August"

Boomerang:
A boomerang flung from your throat - Lauren K. Alleyne "How could I have known I would need to remember your laughter,"

Table tops zinging with boomerangs - Jenny Johnson "In the Dream"

Bow.

Bowstring:
Hangs by a bowstring from heaven's vault - Andy Miller "Diana"

Bullets.

Cannon.

Casque: see Helm/Helmet.

Catapult:
Fiery metamorphosed catapault - Daisy Aldan "Vertical Is Our New Sight"

The catapult from bad to everlasting - Carly Inghram "Last Night I Saw a Boat Just as it Was Exiting My Purview"

A child of some wild catapult - Herbert Randall "Plymouth Rock"

All of life catapulted into one day - Georgiana Valoyce-Sanchez "A Light to Do Shellwork By"

Club:
Club and shield eternally raised - Luisa A. Igloria "Custody"

Melt from clubs to hearts to doorsteps - Marisca Pichette "Are You A Good Witch"

From clubs to hearts to doorsteps - Marisca Pichette "Are You a Good Witch"

Corslet:
With lance, with corslet, casque and sword - Allan Cunningham "The British Sailor's Song" [Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction v.10 no.288, supplementary number, 1828]

Prepare your corslet, spear and shield - Humphrey Gifford "For Soldiers"

Crosshair:
how you hold a cottonmouth in a crosshair - C.T. Salazar "River"

Cutlass:
Under the cutlass of her tongue - Shivanee Ramlochan "Witch Hindu"

Dagger.

Dart.

Gauntlet.

Grenade:
Civilization's slow grenade - Jesus Castillo "Untitled"

Had turned into beds for grenades and shells and shrapnel - Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto "In One Sentence"

In her nest a lone grenade - Safiya Sinclair "A Bell, Still Unrung"

Gun.

Gunpowder.

Haft:
A starbeam on the dagger's haft - Don Marquis "Sea Changes III: Moonset"

Hand Cannon:
Wild cat with a hand cannon - Andre F. Peltier "At the Grave of Little Sadie"

Harpoon:
Harpoon barbs and arrow points - Theo Nicole Lorenz "Steve Irwin and the Unicorn"

Hatchet.

Helm/Helmet.

Hilt:
My hilt lies broken in pieces three - "The Avenging Sword" transl. by E.M. Smith-Dampier

Crimson velvet and a diamond-hilted sword - John Masefield "The Tarry Buccaneer"

Javelin.

Knife/Knives.

Lance.

Landmines:
Through a tunnel of kid gloves and landmines - Fady Joudah "The Poem as Epiphyte"

Landmines in the garden bed - John McCarthy "Planting"

Mace:
Fate stuns as with a mace - James Russell Lowell "Agassiz"

Machete:
With sharp machete eyes - Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie "Forced Entry"

Machine-Gun:
Playing cards with machine guns - Mary Jo Bang "Ghost and Grays"

Machine-guns, tapping a code in Morse - E.W. Hornung "The Ballad of Ensign Joy"

Of the piano and machine gun - Jack Ridl "American Suite for a Lost Daughter"

Missile:
When rain falls like cold missiles - Anthony Butts "The Landscape for Growth"

A missile's flight away - Jess Hyslop "After"

a wire picking up missiles on the strip - Benjamin Krusling "what can I know what should I do what may I hope"

A missile from Orion's belt - Herbert Randall "Plymouth Rock"

Mushroom Cloud:
Mushroom clouds cluster along the crimson horizon - S.R. Tombran "A Time Traveler's Field Notes"

Musket:
Who bears the sword and handles the musket - "The Good Goddess of Poverty [A Prose Ballad, translated from the French]" [The Continental Monthly v.4 no.3, Sept. 1863]

Muzzle:
Under the lightning's muzzle fire - Agnes Nemes Nagy "Storm" transl. by Laura Schiff

Pike:
Hung around with pikes and guns and bows - "The Fine Old English Gentleman"

A field of spears, a lake of pikes, a sky of hawks, a hundred winters - Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris "gorse"

Pistol:
A pistol tucked into a stranger's belt - Sophie Klahr "Like Nebraska"

From a seaborn eternity to a pistol crack - Agnes Nemes Nagy "Storm" transl. by Laura Schiff

Pocketknife:
The pocketknife seducing the orange - Rigoberto Gonzalez "The Bordercrosser's Pillowbook"

Your pocketknife rage and love - Michael Lauchlan "Dad and I, in a Snap"

Rapier:
With a silver rapier by my side - anonymous? "The Famous Flower of Serving-Men"

To give that rapier lightning turn - Mona Gould "Sung in High Dudgeon!"

And the stars are rapier keen - Robert W. Service "The Atavist"

Rifle.

Rocket.

Saber/Sabre:
Flashed with a sabre's azure gleam - Thomas Bailey Aldrich "Monody on the Death of Wendell Phillips"

The black iris with their sabered blooms - Camille T. Dungy "Daisy Cutter"

Of votive goods and sabred fugitives - Seamus Heaney "Kinship"

Hide the sabre's hideous glare - Helen Maria Williams "An Ode on the Peace"

Scabbard:
As the swords ran out of their scabbards - Stephen Vincent Benet "The Last Vision of Helen"

Ribosomes in the scabbard of their maker - Gospel Chinedu "In a Tissue Processing Class the Lecturer Tells the Biafra War Through the Lenses of a Microscope"

A sword in a scabbard of meteors - Pablo Neruda "From Air to Air" transl. by Nathaniel Tarn

Scimitar:
A few stiff branches covered with scimitar thorns - Janet Kauffman "The Devil's Walking Stick"

Scythe.

Sheath.

Shotgun:
Into chrome and sun and shotgun confection - Catherine Bowman "Heart"

Electric fences and silos and shotguns - Laura Cranehill "We Let You Live"

kept her tears where they'd pass for shotgun - Douglas Kearney "The Black Woman's Tears Swap Meet Is Open Every Day"

Shrapnel.

Sling/Slung.

Spear.

Spike:
Spikes in the hostile night - Pablo Neruda "Commoners from Socorro (1781)" transl. by Jack Schmitt

Sten:
From gas and protest to gelignite and sten - Seamus Heaney "Whatever You Say Say Nothing"

Stiletto:
The magnificent extravagance of my beloved stilettos - Yi Lei "A Single Woman's Bedroom" transl. by Tracy K. Smith and Changtai Bi

Submarine:
Khrushchev took a crystal submarine down - Catherynne M. Valente "Aquaman and the Duality of Self/Other, America, 1985"

Sword.

Target.

Throwing Star:
Throwing stars and fortune tellers - R.A. Villanueva "This dark is the same dark as when you close"

Torpedo:
Torpedoes of disinterest - Kay Ryan "Don't Look Back"

Trident:
The trident-flame of the mind fails - Stephen Vincent Benet "Sir John Rimbeck to the Princess of Acre"

Trigger:
Allowing the thought to stray the trigger - Luisa A. Igloria "Custody"

concealing an infinity of hairtrigger malice - Monica Youn "A Guide to Usage: Mine"

Potential Titles: Vehicles [category] includes some military vehicles.

Weapon.


Navigation Links:
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Ambuscade:
Storm the ghosts in ambuscade - Jean Ingelow "Scholar and Carpenter"

An ambuscade of lights - Francis Thompson "New Year's Chimes"

Ambush.

Armada:
That proud armadas' trampled shards - Stephen Vincent Benet "Resurrection"

Nobody needs your damn armada - Lisa M. Bradley "Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas Lost at Sea, 1527"

Armada of the sky - Edmund Clarence Stedman "Summer Rain"

Beyond the wrecked armadas - Humbert Wolfe "England"

Armaments:
Accumulating stars and armaments - Pablo Neruda "Do Not Ask Me" transl. by Miguel Algarin

Arsenal.

Banner.

Barracks:
The black hole in the barracks - Seamus Heaney "Singing School: 2. A Constable Calls"

Barrage:
The creeping barrage of occupation - Key Ballah "Skin & Sun"

Rippling through the barrage of bubbles - Emma E. Murray "Drowning Machine"

Barricade:
Barricading places I won't go - Katherine Edgren "How to Form a Perfect Callus"

sleep amidst a barricade of trees - t'ai freedom ford "house hunting as an act of faith"

A barricade the color of fury - Pablo Neruda "Song for the Mothers of Slain Militiamen" translated by Richard Schaaf

Barricades of words and wire - Naomi Shihab Nye "Morning Song"

Bastion.

Battlement.

Bulwark.

Camouflage.

Casualties:
Tally the casualties of war - Eric Gamalinda "Factory of Souls"

Cavalcade:
That radiant cavalcade - Anna Hempstead Branch “While Loveliness Goes By”

Cavalier:
La Mancha's cavalier reposes - Benjamin West Ball "Elfin Land"

Chariot.

Citadel.

Convoy:
A convoy of suspended shadows - Pablo Neruda "The Unburied Woman of Paita" transl. by Maria Jacketti

Dreadnought:
The foeman's dreadnoughts ride - Don Marquis "With the Submarines"

Old maid or dreadnought - Kiki Petrosino "Doubloon Oath"

This dreadnought wreck cut loose - Adrienne Rich "Midnight Salvage"

Fort:
Dawn moon passing ruined forts - Ssu-k'ung Shu "The Rebellion Over, I See Off a Friend Who Is Returning North" transl. by Burton Watson

Bright forts against Oblivion - John Hall Wheelock "The Divine Fantasy"

Fortress.

Galley:
Galleys miss appointments with the tides - Lola Ridge "Firehead part VI: The Merchant of Babylon 1: Before Dawn"

Those shining galleys of the stars - Lola Ridge "Firehead part VI: The Merchant of Babylon 1: Before Dawn"

Galleys waiting for the gale - George Santayana "A Hermit of Carmel"

Gilded galley-slaves of Mammon - Robert W. Service "The Rhyme of the Remittance Man"

Garrison:
Strange garrisons of emerald-mailed chameleons - Harold Acton "When Frigates from Long Voyages ..."

Militant:
Into this milieu of militant affection - Joy Priest "The Black Outside"

Oriflamme/Oriflame:
Golden oriflames and tents of pearl - Eleanor Downing "The Pilgrim"

Bearing Lucifer's oriflamme - Louis J. McQuilland "Ballade of Fight"

The rose shall be my oriflamme - John Oxenham "The Word that Was Left Unsaid"

Rampart.

Revolutionary.

Ricochet:
A ricochet from a sea surge - Charles Wright "Outscape"

Shellshock:
Shellshocked at needing anyone - Marilyn Hacker "Untitled [You did say, need me less and I'll want you more]"

Stockade:
The stockade and the bastioned gate - Laura Da' "The Honest Tongue"

Strategy:
A pure cruel strategy - Daisy Aldan "Frozen Frames of a Last Meeting"

Silence itself is strategy - Mary Jo Bang "Gretel"

A strategy for ignoring history - Louise Gluck "Parable for the King"

My strong strategy for the future dystopia - Jameka Williams "Self-Care is a Psy-Op"


Van.


Navigation Links:
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Water.

Potential Titles: Geographic/Landscape Features [category].



Aquifer:
Art's uncharted aquifers - Adrienne Rich "Rusted Legacy"

Atlantic.

Brook.

Canal:
Drink water from the sacred canals - Enheduana "The Temple Hymns: 1. E-Abzu, the Temple of Ea in Eridu" transl. by Sophus Helle

As the dolphin swam the derelict canal - Idra Novey "Nearly"

By a dark canal debating - Francis Brett Young "Testament"

Cascade.

Cataract.

Creek.

Estuary:
Gravetree estuaries against the winds of Paradise - Charles Wright "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted..."

Ford.

Fjord:
Deep fjords through the heart - Nava EtShalom "Iteration"

From the fiords of the sunless winter - Rennell Rodd "The Sea-King's Grave"

Freshet:
Jangled freshets to a dewless land - Michael Field "From the Highway"

Salmon race up into the freshet - Robinson Jeffers "Salmon-Fishing"

How these freshets scour our valleys - Edmund Clarence Stedman "The Freshet: A Connecticut Idyl"

Geyser:
A dark gas geyser - Steve Denehan "The Crevasse"

Glad geysers, nymphs of the sun - Harriet Monroe "In the Yellowstone"

Divining the heart of the geyser - Marin Sorescu "Fountains in the sea" transl. by Seamus Heaney

A bright geyser of metal-petaled sound - May Swenson "A Bird's Life"

Gulf.

Harbor/Harbour.

Lagoon.

Lake.

Moat:
Yield her moat of pear - Emily Dickinson "Book 2: Love IX: Possession"

Moated by mirage - Heid E. Erdich "Just Off the Highway"

Of castle moats and pixie clans - Deborah Ruddell "The Swan"

As one within a moated tower - Edith Wyatt "Sympathy"

Ocean.

Pond.

Pool.

Puddle.

Rill.

Riptide:
Riptide pulling me under - Camisha L. Jones "Tinnitus"

River.

Rivulet.

Runnel:
Water from a thousand runnels - William Carlos Williams "Spring Storm"

Sea.

Strait:
Through the Strait of Violent Returns - Marianne Chan "Counterargument that Goes All the Way Around"

Came to him in straits and travail sore - E. Fonton "A Vigil with St. Louis" [The Continental Monthly v.5 no.1, Jan. 1864]

Stream.

Tarn:
In some deepest tarn astray - Arthur Davison Ficke "Ten Grotesques: X. Song of a Very Small Devil"

Through the tarn a lonely cheer - William Wordsworth "Fidelity"

Tidepool:
Then the tidepool of my power fills - Devin Miller "Whale Mothers, Witch Mothers"

Tributary:
And ascended the tributary waters - Jennifer Elise Foerster "Tuccenen C"

Through my tributary veins - A.E. Stallings "Country Song"

Water Hole:
Drops each ghost into a water hole - Hala Alyan "Aleppo"

Thirst at the watering hole - Megan Fernandes "On the One Hand"

Waterfall.

Watershed:
Through the wild watershed of history - Terry Blackhawk "Diptych i. Drawing You In"

Wellspring:
Whose wellsprings fail or flow defiled - William Watson "A Child's Hair"


Navigation Links:
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Ace:
Knows the deuce from the ace - Frank J. Medina "That's My Beau"

Playing faro with no aces - Sonya Taaffe "Last Minute"

Ball.

Balloon.

Baseball:
Playing baseball with the dead - Chris Dombrowski "A History of Barbed Wire"

Flaws stacked like baseball cards - Andrea Gibson "Boomerang Valentine"

Down past empty baseball diamonds - Keith Taylor "The Skateboard Park, Seen from Afar"

Baton:
Twirls a baton of broken broomstick - Alexandra Lytton Regalado "La Cachiporrista"

Bicycle:
The dreambike had eyes on its spokes - Duane Ackerson " Proof of Existence"

Precarious choreography of bicycles - Safia Elhillo "Amsterdam"

Riding a bicycle towards the ceiling - John Yau "Music from Childhood"

Blind-Man's-Bluff:
Rough accompaniment of blind-man's-buff - John Greenleaf Whittier "Snow-Bound"

Card.

Carousel.

Checkers/Chequers.

Chess.

Contest.

Cribbage:
All of us playing cribbage on the lawn - Gabrielle Calvocoressi "An Inn for the Coven"

Croquet:
The mice play their games of croquet - Mary Jo Bang "In the Quieter Aftermath"

Deuce:
Knows the deuce from the ace - Frank J. Medina "That's My Beau"

Dice.

Doll.

Doll House:
In this doll's house lived together - Edmund Blunden "Almswomen"

Paced their dollhouse walls - Leah Bobet "Hold Fast"

Domino.

Faro:
Playing faro with no aces - Sonya Taaffe "Last Minute"

Ferris wheel:
A Ferris Wheel in winter - Lou Barrett "Coney Island Afternoon"

Ferris wheel with tickets for sale - Stephanie Heit "Solar Eclipse"

Went down to the ferris wheel - Brenda Hillman "Sediments of Santa Monica"

Football:
And pile them high like football fiends - Jennie Earngey Hill "Nature's Game"

Freeze Tag:
Tungsten for the fireflies' freeze tag - Cynthia Zarin "Summer"

Frisbee:
Throw my voice like a Frisbee - Ruth Madievsky "Electrons"

Game.

Games - Mental [category].

Go-Cart:
Their meteor go-cart running on a firecracker - Cynthia Zarin "Orbit"

Hide-and-Seek.

Hopscotch:
A dynamic rendition of the hospscotched [sic] past - Bruce Boston "Futurity Wears the Head"

Ice Skates:
My mind is loose on ice skates - Arthur H. Manners "Now You Know"

Jack:
In this field of tens and one-eyed jacks - Joy Harjo "A Winning Hand"

Jack-in-the-Box:
Chaos plays Jack-in-the-Box - Dom "Number Cruncher: Here's a Crowd"

Jackstraws:
And fall like jackstraws - Stephen Vincent Benet "The Quality of Courage"

Jigsaw.

Kaleidoscope.

Kings of various suits:
Between the King and Queen of Swords - Sydney Sackett "After a Line from Bob Dylan's 'Changing of the Guards'"

Kite.

Leap Frog:
Play at leap frog with the grass - Alexander Posey "The Idle Breeze"

Magic 8-Ball:
Our Magic 8-Ball fortune - Kiki Petrosino "The Maiden"

Make-Believe:
Birdhouse hanging from a make-believe branch - Rebecca Kai Dotlich "Room of Imagination"

No longer please himself with make-believe - R.C.K. Ensor "Ode to Reality"

Make believe mushrooms are pearls - Vandana Khanna "Parvati Practices Her Austerities"

his holy make-believe childhood - Vi Khi Nao "Fog"

Marble/Marbled/Marbles.

Marionette:
Defanged marionette, flattened clown - Simone Person "Awkwafina Clarifies That She's Appreciating, Not Appropriating (in Black American Sentences)"

Waltzing with your marionettes - Iris Tree "[O faces that look so coldly at me]"

Marionette running on the brain's dark marrow - Cynthia Zarin "Summer"

Meccano:
In this swirling meccano of empires and loves - Bruce Boston & Robert Frazier "A Compass for the Mutant Rain Forest"

Merry-Go-Round:
Somebody counts the merry-go-rounds inside - Janet Kauffman "He's Seen it Crawl"

On our spherical, miracle merry-go-round - Allan Wolf "The Sun Did Not Go Down Today"

Monkey Bars:
Upside-down on the monkey bars - Marilyn Hacker "Iva's Pantoum"

Musical Chairs:
An endless game of musical chairs - John Grey "Distant People Gravitate to Distant Worlds"

Paper Airplane:
Five paper airplanes poking at turned dirt - Taneum Bambrick "Driving to Cadiz"

A silken basket catching our paper airplanes - Bryce A. Taylor "Cartilage"

Send letters back and forth by paper airplane - Evan Williams "Yours, Stalagmite"

Paper Doll:
The violent side of paper dolls - Claire Millikin "Paper Doll Eyes"

Pawn.

Pinata:
The dandelion turns into a pinata - John McCarthy "Planting"

Pinwheel.

Play.

Plaything.

Poker: See Poke.

Puppet.

Puzzle.

Queen cards of specific suits:
I began as the Queen of Hearts - Conrad Hilberry "Jack of Spades"

Some ghostly queen of spades had come to mock - John Keats "The Eve of Saint Mark"

Between the King and Queen of Swords - Sydney Sackett "After a Line from Bob Dylan's 'Changing of the Guards'"

Ragdoll:
In the ragdoll physics of this world - R. Christopher Aversa "Gold Foil Experiment"

Rocking Horse:
The rocking horse dreams of riding the carousel - Duane Ackerson "Various Horses"

Roller Coaster:
This forest of drowned roller coasters - Terry Blackhawk "At the National Gallery of Art: Memorial View"

Roller Skate:
Rushing by on roller skates - Dorothy Keeley Aldis "Spring"

roller skate down the new sidewalk - David Trinidad "9773 Comanche Ave."

Roulette:
Playing roulette with my breath - Stephanie Heit "Dear Murderer"

Hear the insects' smooth roulette - Conrad Hilberry "Hunch"

Sandcastle:
The four dimensions fold into a sandcastle - Jennifer Elise Foerster "Origin of Planets"

Make myself a sandcastle and draw myself a door - Ada Limon "The Spider Web"

Skate.

Skateboard:
A cowboy reincarnated as a skateboarder - Tan Lin "RPT MC-60 00.27 8"

Snow Globe:
When the wind frenzied up a snow globe of petals - Nickole Brown "time bending / tongue / entwine / the betwixt"

Smash a snow globe in a parking lot - Ruth Madievsky "You Look Up Pictures of Icelandic Ponies"

Sports & Athletics [category].

Stilts:
An elaboration of stalk and stilts - Janet Kauffman "An Elaboration of Stalk"

Swing.

Swing Set:
A pair of empty swing sets - Aimee Nezhukumatathil "Forsythe Avenue Haibun"

Tag:
Tungsten for the fireflies' freeze tag - Cynthia Zarin "Summer"

Toy.

Trampoline:
The trampolined floor of a windowless room - Taije Silverman "Armageddon"

Trapeze:
Trapeze wires below the cloud cover - Caitriona O'Reilly "The Airship Era"

Rocked like a trapeze of fire - Lola Ridge "Firehead part I: He 1: Midafternoon"

Trapezes that our passion frenzies - Iris Tree "Nerves"

Tug of War:
The deadly tug of war at length must limits find - Sir Walter Scott "The Field of Waterloo"

A perpetual tug of war - Monica de la Torre "Equivalent"

Video Game:
still the tint of video game to your voice - upfromsumdirt (Ron Davis) "The Second Stop Is Jupiter"

Wild Card:
And the small death of the wild card - Frank Stanford "Embark"


Navigation Links:
Go to author indices.
Go to word indices.
Go to category indices.

8:20:
Space went to war with itself at 8:20 - Mike Allen "Space War"

Afternoon.

Coffee Break:
two tragic martyrs on coffee break - upfromsumdirt (Ron Davis) "The Maternal Otherhood Of Mythematists Will Now Come To Order"

Curfew.

Dawn.

Day.

Daybreak.

Dusk.

Evening.

Eventide:
The hare that feeds at eventide - Robert Bloomfield "May-Day With the Muses: The Forester"

Conquering kings at eventide - Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton "I Watch the Ships"

Food - Specific Meals [category].

Gloaming:
Braiding in drops of the gloaming - Henry Scott Riddell "When the Glen All Is Still"

Thin blades you sharpen in the gloaming - G.E. Woods "How to Skin Your Wolf"

Matins.

Midnight.

Months and Days of the Week [category].

Morning.

Morrow.

Night.

Nightfall.

Noon.

Noonday.

Noontide.

Rush Hour:
By the daydream of lawless rush hour - Amber Tamblyn "To a New Dawning"

Sunrise.

Sunset.

Sun-Up:
Jewels harvested before sun-up - Zilka Joseph "Man hu? Man Hu?"

Today.

Tomorrow.

Tonight.

Twilight.

Vesper.

Yesterday.



Where a century fits comfortably inside 10 am - John McCarthy "Gravestone"


Navigation Links:
Go to author indices.
Go to word indices.
Go to category indices.

I'm jamming these together because I have no desire to try to draw the line between real/unreal on such a fraught subject. I have my own beliefs and opinions, but I don't want to impose them on others.

Some overlap with Allusions - Places/Items [category] and Allusions - Historical/Mythological People/Beings/Groups [category] and Rank/Titles - Religious [category]. If something's not here and might fit one of the other categories, it might be there.

Afterlife.

Alchemy.

Altar.

Amen:
The amen in the prayer you never say - Jack Ridl "American Suite for a Lost Daughter"

Amulet:
Amulets of pine - Emily Dickinson "Book 1: Nature IX: The Grass"

The sun's strange amulets - Jennifer Elise Foerster "Sixteen Shadows 5"

Will prove an amulet to guard - William H.C. Hosmer "Impromptu: Written on Receiving a Rose-Bud from a Lady"

The amulets of home entombed for solace - Maureen N. McLane "Populating Heaven"

Angel.

Apocalypse.

Apotheosis:
The apotheosis of Ra's rivals - James Hannaham "Apophasis Now"

Apparition.

Archangel.

Astral.

Astrology:
The lottery, the multiverses, and tomorrow's astrology - Regie Cabico "Morning After the Election"

Augur/Augury.

Aura:
The wind will still carry their auras and prophecies - Emanuel Xavier "Legendary"

Avatar:
Love's radiant avatar - Edward Dowden "Poesia"

What dark god's avatar awaits - Ann K. Schwader "A Voyage(r) Too Far"

Tossed to their height by endless avatars - Helen Hay Whitney "Etoiles d'Enfer"

And my shadowy avatars renounced - Francis Brett Young "Envoi"

A timeless avatar of never-ending dooms - Francis Brett Young "Thamar (To Thamar Karsavina)"

Banshee:
Have you heard what the banshee said? - "The Geraldine's Daughter" [A Book of Irish Verse ed. by W.B. Yeats]

Carts whose banshee wheels cry havoc - Ann K. Schwader "The Laundrymen"

All night did the Banshee weep - Dora Sigerson Shorter "The Priest's Brother"

An echo and a banshee - Su Hwang "Little Matrons"

Baptism/Baptize.

Basilisk:
The basilisk of the Steadfast Chapel - Enheduana "Temple Hymns: 16. E-Ana, the Temple of Inana in Uruk" transl. by Sophus Helle

A basilisk and a great serpent intertwined - Enheduana "Temple Hymns: 33. E-Dimgalkalama, the Temple of Ishtaran in Der" transl. by Sophus Helle

Bible/Biblical:
Spools of biblical jazz - Philip Schultz "Luxury: One"

The Bible never changes its mind - Peter Twal "This Sunday in Ordinary Time"

Blasphemy.

Cantrip:
With cantrip kisses seven - William Bell Scott "The Witch's Ballad"

Centaur.

Changeling.

Chaplet.

Charm.

Cherub/Cherubim.

Chimera.

Christmas:
Curtailed by the ever-growing Christmas trees - Nwuguru Chidiebere Sullivan "Gosh, It's Too Beautiful to Exist Briefly in a Parallel Planet"

Conjure.

Consecrate.

Creed.

Cross.

Crystal Ball:
Its crystal ball, buoyed by all the vacuum - Duane Ackerson "Various Horses"

A crystal ball lowered into low-hanging helium - Ian Goh "Firework"

Chthonic:
Keep the meddlesome chthonic wordslingers cranky - Bob Holman "Scotty and the Rib Tips"

Cult:
Join Hercules' cult to Mammon's - Ruben Dario "To Roosevelt" transl. unknown per poets.org

Curse.

Cyclopes:
Where crashed the cyclop's head - Jennifer Elise Foerster "Hvmken 7"

Deep and wide as an old Cyclops' drinking bowl - Aldous Huxley "Behemoth"

Daemon:
Death's fell daemons through the flashes glare - Luís de Camões "The Lusiad; or, The Discovery of India: Book I. Argument" transl. by William Julius Mickle

Give me no coil of daemon flowers - Muriel Stuart "The Cloudberry"

Damned.

Deity:
The chief of blue Valhalla's deities - Benjamin West Ball "A Hermitage"

Some deity preparing to depart - Leonard Cohen "Alexandra Leaving"

Your dollarstore deities - Amaud Jamaul Johnson "Black Dragons"

Awash in a fog of deities - Maggie Nelson "Proposal"

Demigod:
My children half wild screaming demigods - Saida Agostini "black aphrodite entertains a mortal lover"

Demon.

Dervish:
Giant dervishes dancing under the ancient stars - Jenny Blackford "Power Men"

Devil.

Devout:
At Pleasure's shrine devoutly kneeling - Mrs. Lois B. Adams "Hath Not Thy Rose a Canker"

Having fashioned so devout a snare - Tommaso Campanella "XXXIV. Hypocrites" transl. by John Addington Symonds

Devoutly mended her wasted taper - George Santayana "Cathedrals by the Sea"

More daring than devout - Louis Untermeyer "Prayer"

Disciple.

Divination/Divine (prophecy).

Divine (holy).

Djinn:
The djinn shows me many moons - Tarik Dobbs "A Djinn in Sakhnin"

Dogma:
That renders dogmas bashful - Max Bodenheim "Reluctant Lady"

In equal scorn dogmas and dreams - William Lisle Bowles "Banwell Hill: Part Second"

All the dogmas of our life - Arthur Davison Ficke "Ten Grotesques: VI. To an Outrageous Person"

The monarchs of dogmatism - Aimee Le "The Age of Hypocrisy Widely Derided"

Dowser:
The motto of modern-day dowsers - Thomas Lux "Indigo Felix:"

Dragon.

Druid:
Weave a low and druid chant - Fanny Stearns Davis "Profits"

Left me under the Druid moon - Joseph Millar "One Day"

Dryad.

Eerie.

Eidolon:
Blossoms stirred by wings of eidolons - Clark Ashton Smith "Ode on Imagination"
[phantom/ghost/spirit]

Eldritch:
Eldritch visions of the Armageddon of the Elder Gods - Jenny Blackford "Eleven Exhibits in a Better Natural History Museum, London"

Eldritch ship of the sea - Clinton Scollard "The Mist Barque"

Shivered with outcry of eldritch voices - Clark Ashton Smith "Remembered Light"

The eldritch laughters of the wind - Clark Ashton Smith "Saturn"

Elf/Elves.

Enchant.

Eucharist:
Drained floodplains and eucharistic jimson weed - Megan Fernandes "The Jungle"

Exorcism:
A troupe of exorcists - Catherine Chen "My Poem Asks to Be Read Right to Left"

Diving into a dark, incenseless exorcism - Jack Kin Lim "Kuala Lumpur Urban Legends"

In an exaggerated exorcism of breath - Rusty Morrison "please advise stop [the rustle of a Sunday bundle of newspapers tucked under my father's arm stop]"

Fairy.

Fantasy.

Fate.

Faun.

Fay/Fey.

Feng-Shui:
The neatest feng-shui'ed produce aisles - Mouna Ammar "In a Fancy Supermarket"

Fiend.

Firebird:
The storm that douse the firebird - R.B. Lemberg "Firebird, Stormbird"

Folklore:
In fable and folklore from farmyard to seashore - Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris "jackdaw"

The folk-lore of each of the senses - Wallace Stevens "The River of Rivers in Connecticut"

Fortune.

Four-Leaf-Clover:
Painted with four-leaf clovers - Martin Espada "The Trouble Ball [excerpt]"

Gargoyle:
Like the soaring gargoyle - Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey "Spring Song"

The Ghost of a Gargoyle riding his night colored mare - Michael Marsh "Gargoyle Poems: Spiders Dance"

Like a gargoyle with nothing better to do - Jenny Zhang "under the chiming bell"

Genie:
A tarnished lamp with a genie inside - Tom Sleigh "Three Wishes"

To trick the genie back into the lamp - Tom Sleigh "Three Wishes"

Ghost.

Ghoul.

Giant.

Glamourie:
And taught me art and glamourie - William Bell Scott "The Witch's Ballad"

Gnome.

Goblin.

God/Goddess.

Golem:
A golem from a palmful of dirt - Susan Comninos "Bequeathal"

Some Texas limestone golem - Elisheva Fox "Tzedek: The Wild Hunt"

Gospel.

Grail.

Griffon/Gryphon:
From her griffin steed alights - Benjamin West Ball "Elfin Land"

Folded up like griffons - Maggie Nelson "Nap"

Kings six cubits high with gryphon's wings - Robert Nichols "A Faun's Holiday"

Hagiography:
holographic hagiographies remember our heroes - Davian Aw "Those Who Tell the Stories"

That is no obstacle to hagiography - Catherynne M. Valente "Mouse Koan"

Hallow.

Harpy.

Haunt.

Heathen:
We are heathens not researchers - Henry Farnan "How to Make Contact with a Lost Star System"

Heaven.

Hell.

Hell-Hound:
Hell-hounds on her heels - D.H. Lawrence "Purple Anemones"

The dragons of the air, the hell-hounds of the deep - Henry van Dyke "Lights Out"

Heresy/Heretic.

Hex:
Through the metal hexes of fence - Rodger Kamenetz "The Living Hive"

Hexes, unwanted gifts, and othersuch hexes - Alyza Taguilaso "Add to Cart" [sic]

strung their frosted hex-cells starwise - Amanda Gafford "Tigerlily"

Holy.

Horoscope.

Hydra.

Idol.

Ill-Starred.

Illusion.

Imp.

Incantation.

Jinx:
This year's jinx rides us apart - Anne Sexton "All My Pretty Ones"

To wish and not jinx it - Brenda Shaughnessy "Me in Paradise"

Kabbalah/Cabala:
Admitted to the cabalas of the light - Lola Ridge "Firehead part I: He 3: The Light"

Karma:
Where trauma starts and karma loops - Votey Cheav "When a Kingdom Falls/Shakti's Kisses"

Free from the fetters of Karma - Shinran Shonin "Buddhist Psalms" transl. by L. Adams Beck and S. Yamabe

Kraken:
Crakens and coils of mystery - G.K. Chesterton "The Ballad of the White Horse: Book VIII. The Scouring of the Horse"

Beware Old Kraken's pledge of faith - George Meredith "Archduchess Anne"

Lamia:
And curse her for a lamia - Stephen Vincent Benet "De Bellow Civili"

Lares:
Burying my Lares in the basement - Sandy Florian "House"

Unto the Lares consecrate - Mary E. Hewitt "The Hearth of Home"

Stole right in among the Lares - W.P.P. "Epistle to the Editor" (The Knickerbocker v.23:5, May 1844)

Our Lares shivered on the hearth - Richard Henry Stoddard "Abraham Lincoln: An Horatian Ode"

Libation:
Spilling libations from the brim - Eleanor Farjeon "Pan-Worship"

Limbo.

Liturgy:
This liturgy of pragmatism - Emily van Kley "Last of the Month"

Lorelei:
The crooning notes of a lorelei - Herbert Randall "The Derelict"

Drowning in the tresses of a darker Lorelei - Humbert Wolfe "Heine's Last Song"

Maenad.

Magic.

Magician.

Malediction:
With awful maledictions on the two who were such fools - Stephen Vincent Benet "Come Back!"

A day so black with maledictions - Edmund Clarence Stedman "The Ordeal by Fire"

Manna.

Masjid:
On the Masjid's cobalt globe a ghost - Aria Aber "Can You Describe Your Years in Prison"

Mermaid.

Messiah:
Spoke our own gospels like mad messiahs - K. Iver "Gospel for Missy During Our Three-Day Birthday Season"

Metaphysics.

Mind Reading:
Only a mind reading God could unfold - Phil Wright "Howling with Ginsberg"

Minotaur:
The Minotaur weaving toward its meal - Mike Allen "Picasso's Rapture"

To stuff the Minotaur back in his Harlequin cloak - Mike Allen "Picasso's Rapture"

A minotaur of your own making - Julia Alvarez "Touching Bottom"

The ones rage has twisted into minotaurs - Cyrus Cassells "Soul Make a Path Through Shouting"

Miracle.

Miraculous.

Monster.

Mummy:
And mummified for eons in a jar of brine - Ted Kooser "The Celery Heart"

Muse.

Mystic.

Myth.

Naiad.

Necromancy:
The necromancy of a Prospero holds in thrall - Don Marquis "A Golden Lad (D.V.M.)"

By Titania's necromancies - Don Marquis "Silvia"

Nephilim:
Nephilim, invincible as David - Elisheva Fox "Tzedek: The Wild Hunt"

Nirvana:
Lure them deeper and deeper into a quest for Nirvana - Duane Ackerson "Infinite Zero"

Pardoning hapless prospects to nirvana - Leyla Guirand "The Abstract Maker"

Our souls shall taste nirvana in such sleep - Ann K. Schwader "Ossuary"

Nymph.

Occult:
Outlines occult of abstract scope - Coventry Patmore "The Angel in the House: Prologue"

A charge transmitted and gift occult - Walt Whitman "Starting from Paumanox"

Ogre:
Scarce like to feed the ogre - James Russell Lowell "Fitz Adam's Story"

Ogres, toads, and nursery rhymes - Deborah Ruddell "The Swan"

Omen.

Oracle.

Orthodox:
Those content with stale orthodoxies - Diane Seuss "Poetry"

Pagan:
What the pagans called god - Atticus "Love Her Wild"

In lost pagan caverns dark and deep - Charles Baudelaire "The Accursed" transl. not credited

Wrought dice-cups in Pagan temples - Amy Lowell "Solitaire"

Pantheon:
Claim the pantheon of dream - Clark Ashton Smith "The Masque of Forsaken Gods"

Paradise.

Paranormal:
To organize my thoughts on the paranormal - Timothy Donnelly "Globus Hystericus"

Peri:
Blush of a Peri that smiles in a dream - A.J. Requier "Love" [Graham's Magazine v.XL no.4, April 1852]

Phantasm:
Dream phantasm it spread aloft at night - William Rose Benét "The City"

Exhaling phantasms of steam - Jaswinder Bolina "Portrait of the Self"

Phantasmal flux of moments - George Eliot "I Grant You Ample Leave"

When phantasms could appease - James Russell Lowell "Endymion"

Phantom.

Phoenix.

Piety:
Where newborn pieties spark and strike - Joan Houlihan "Turn of a Year"

That draw their fellows deep into impiety - José María Heredia "Niagara" transl. by Thatcher Taylor Payne

How the volcanoes stand piously over the water - Ariel Francisco "On the Shore of Lake Atitlán, Apparently I Ruined Breakfast"

Pilgrim/Pilgrimage.

Pixie:
Of castle moats and pixie clans - Deborah Ruddell "The Swan"

The pixy-pears burn in yon hawthorn tree - Walter de la Mare "Sam's Three Wishes; or Life's Little Whirligig"

Poltergeist:
Poltergeist among the grand spirits - Sir Geoffrey Hill "Genius Loci"

Poltergeists in the rooms of each other - Jamaal May "Love Poem Moving Back and Forth Across Glass"

Portent.

Pray.

Prayer.

Predestination:
In predestination's kiln - John Updike "Marine Hotel, North Berwick, Scotland, May 1998"

Priest/Priestess.

Prophecy/Prophet.

Psychic:
Color provokes a psychic vibration - Mike Allen "Kandinsky's Garden"

Our vast psychic habitat shrunk - RK Fauth "Playing with the Bees"

The dim psychic crystals of my soul - Iris Tree "[I met an Indian underneath a tree]"

How psychic storms survive to power flesh - Dana Wilde "Abductions"

Purgatory.

Reincarnate:
Climbs the tower of reincarnation - Mihee Kim "time travel"

A cowboy reincarnated as a skateboarder - Tan Lin "RPT MC-60 00.27 8"

Relics.

Religion.

Reliquary:
Reliquary for the off-white light of January - Michael Dumanis "Joseph Cornell, with Box"

Reliquary for what the World has seen - Michael Dumanis "Joseph Cornell, with Box"

A reliquary in a wall of silence - Carolyn Forche "The Notebook of Uprising"

Revenant:
A revenant in worlds Edenic - Clark Ashton Smith "The Star Treader"

Rite.

Ritual.

Roc:
Shards of the engraved roc egg - Jenny Blackford "Eleven Exhibits in a Better Natural History Museum, London"

Sacrament.

Sacred.

Sacrilege:
Lights of sacrilege and scorn - G.K. Chesterton "The Ballad of the White Horse: Book III. The Harp of Alfred"

Their bold and sacrilegious flight - J.S.D.S. "The Poet" (The Knickerbocker v.10:1, July 1837)

Saint.

Sanctify/Sanctity.

Satan.

Satyr.

Scripture.

Sea-Serpent:
Replacing the usual mermaids or sea serpent - Duane Ackerson "Trawling for Trolls"

Where the coiled sea-serpents dwell - Danske Dandridge "Lost at Sea"

Second Sight:
Witch and troll and second sight - John Greenleaf Whittier "Abram Morrison"

Sect:
Of sect, surplice, or synod - "Father Prout's Inaugurative Ode: To the Author of "Vanity Fair""

And melt not in an acid sect - John Greenleaf Whittier "Snow-Bound"

Secular:
Only the secular powers of the Atlantic thundering - Seamus Heaney "North"

Seer.

Selkie:
Neither selkie nor siren am I - Lisa M. Bradley "Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas Lost at Sea, 1527"

The selkie who slips her wet pelt - Caitriona O'Reilly "II. The Mermaid (from The Sea Cabinet)"

Seraph/Seraphim.

Sermon.

Shaman:
Sanctuary for renegades and shamans - Gregory Pardlo "Antebellum"

Our shamans were women and our gods multiple - Emily Jungmin Yoon "Say Grace"

Sin.

Siren.

Soothsayer:
Soothsayer of the eldest gods - Ralph Waldo Emerson "May-Day"

a soothsayer with sandpaper hands - upfromsumdirt (Ron Davis) "The Maternal Otherhood Of Mythematists Will Now Come To Order"

Sorcery/Sorcerer.

Soul.

Spectre/Spectral.

Spell.

Sphinx.

Spirit.

Spook:
Of a spook on a spree - Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey "Vagabondia"

When spooks and goblins climb the stair - Edwin C. Ranck "Halloween"

Sprite.

Supernatural:
A starling with supernatural restraint - Jenny Johnson "Aria"

Superstition:
Unscourged by Superstition's rod - Thomas Campbell "Hallowed Ground"

Cruel wolves of superstition - W. Wilfred Campbell "Phaethon"

With superstitions silvered in - Sumita Chakraborty "The B-Sides of the Golden Records, Track Five: 'Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder'"

Bowed mandibles chittering superstitious drivel - Sara Omer "Djinndroid"

Surplice:
Of sect, surplice, or synod - "Father Prout's Inaugurative Ode: To the Author of "Vanity Fair""

Sylph:
Shadows stretched into sylphs - Roshani Chokshi "To the High School Sweetheart, in Snatches"

Synod:
Of sect, surplice, or synod - "Father Prout's Inaugurative Ode: To the Author of "Vanity Fair""

And hold a Synod in thy heart - Marquis of Montrose "I'll Never Love Thee More" (Per Wikipedia, the 1st-4th Marquesses of Montrose were all named James Graham. Later, the title attached to the Duke of Montrose as a subsidiary title, but I'm assuming that, if the poet had a ducal title, the editor would have used that instead. I decided not to dig further and just to put this under 'Montrose.')

Tabernacle.

Talisman.

Thaumaturgy:
These thaumaturgies schemed in pain - Mike Allen "Mondrian's War"

Theology:
Rewriting his theology of eternity - Kwame Dawes "At Anchor: The Real Situation"

Totem:
A mouse hands back a wolf-totem - Mary Jo Bang "The Cracked Jar Called Can it Be Taught"

Transubstantiation:
Transubstantiation of the Luminous Ghost - D.H. Lawrence "The Attack"

Troll:
Sharp-pointed skeletons of ancient geometric trolls - Jenny Blackford "Power Men"

Witch and troll and second sight - John Greenleaf Whittier "Abram Morrison"

Underworld.

Unearthly.

Unholy.

Unicorn.

Vampire.

Voodoo:
Almost enough for a voodoo doll - Alexandra Seidel "Seven Truths and the In-Between"

Warlock:
The warlocks of winter are dead - Kiki Petrosino "Witch Wife"

Aged monuments left behind by warlocks - Bogi Takács "A Self-Contained Riot of Lights"

Werewolf:
In a werewolf's cry to the moon and the blood - Phil Wright "Howling with Ginsberg"

Will-o-the-wisp
With a flavour of Will-o-the-wisp - Lewis Carroll "The Hunting of the Snark"

blue will-o-wisps cross my skin - Catherine O'Ciarmacain "Steelwife"

Where mocks that will-o'-wisp - Robert W. Service "Quatrains"

Wishing Well
At the bottom of a wishing well - Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner "Seawall soliloquy number two: she built a seawall"

Witch.

Witchcraft.

Wizard.

Worship.

Wraith.

Yōkai:
The television yōkai glares white - Betsy Aoki "A crowd of yakubyō gami (pestilence yōkai)"

Zodiac.

Zombie:
A zombie sleepwalking through time - Tony Hoagland "Proof of Life"

Only tie me in this zombie form - Brianne Kerr "Legacy"

The zombies are already near - Tim Seibles "Zombie Blues Villanelle"


Navigation Links:
Go to author indices.
Go to word indices.
Go to category indices.

Box.

Circle.

Cone:
Each cubed hollow the math of absence and distance - Kimberly Blaeser "Cadastre, Apostle Islands"

The mystic cone, with hieroglyphics crusted - Robert Blair "The Grave"

Dazzled moths blind in a searchlight's cone - Ruth Lechlitner "A Winter's Tale"

Standing in a constant cone of light - Richard Siken "Seaside Improvisation"

Crescent.

Cross.

Cube:
Ice cubes projecting memory - Christopher Kondrich "Division of Labor"

Curl.

Cylinder:
Fix the thing upon a spinning cylinder - Sandy Florian "Phonograph"

Vortex streets of cylindrical sound - Jennifer Elise Foerster "Hokkolen i"

Inscribed on the infinite wax cylinder of the world - Hal Y. Zhang "Majorana, Back Again"

Diamond.

Disc/Disk.

Dodecahedron:
Against the sky behind the dodecahedron - Daisy Aldan "The Sky Is Moving Farther Back, Opaque"

Ellipse.

Funnel.

Globe.

Helix:
The helix of departure unfurling - Julia Bouwsma "Interview with the Dead"

Make a helix of my hands - Kristina Martino "All I Can Have are Field Recordings of the Field"

Motion in a Helix's curve - Jesús Papoleto Meléndez "In a Grain of Sand"

The backroad switchbacks of his double helix - Shelley Puhak "Portrait of the Artist with Three Moons"

Hemisphere.

Hexagon:
Hexagons find their way toward curved forms - Daisy Aldan "The Sky Is Moving Farther Back, Opaque"

How he hides in the hexagons of bees - Susan Stewart "Let me tell you about my marvelous god"

Hoop.

Oblate:
Of oblate blooms & blessed liquids - Tatiana Figueroa Ramirez "Perfumes"

Oblong:
the square virtues and the oblong sins - E. E. Cummings "Amores (XI)"

Orb.

Oval/Ovate.

Parabola:
Parabola and experience - CM Burroughs "Body as a Juncture of Almost"

Back on a strange parabola - D.H. Lawrence "Man and Bat"

The moon a parabola to our party - Janice Lobo Sapigao "Silhouette"

Between planets and parabolas - Sonya Taaffe "The Gambler"

Parallelogram:
Measure by parallelogram construction - "Song of the Screw"

Pentacle:
Pentacles to guard the ground - E.H.W. Meyerstein "The Incantation"

Dragging pentacles in the dust - Wendy Rathbone "Grief"

Pentagon:
Herein lies the hard pentagonal truth - Bruce Boston "The Canticles of Rage"

Your star bulging into a pentagon - Denise Duhamel "Delta Flight 656"

Pyramid.

Rectangle.

Semicircle:
A rhythmically surging semicircle - Michael Leong "from Transmitting the Vertical Immensity of Coniferous Light"

Shape.

Sphere.

Spiral.

Square.

Triangle.

Tube:
twists and rises into the tube of light - Charles Coleman Finlay "Accidental Series"

His tubes of soft quicksilver - Alfred Noyes "Jean Guettard III: The Shadow of Pascal"

Scuttle into sand-tubes and hide amongst the spinifex - Hester J. Rook "The Sparrows in Her Hair"


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Autumn.

Fall (all versions).

Midsummer.

Months, days of the week, and holidays by name.

Solstice.

Spring.

Springtime.

Summer.

Winter.


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Some overlap with Supernatural/Religious [category]. Some words may be there instead of here. Arbitrarily.

Acolyte:
With throngs of worthy acolytes - CM Burroughs "God Letter"

Anchorite:
Brightens the gloom of the anchorite's cell - Charles E. Trail "They May Tell of a Clime. To -- --" [Graham's Magazine v.XXXIII no.4, Oct. 1848]

Apostate:
Like some apostate monk - Mary Aldis and Arthur Davison Ficke "Chloroform"

Apostate to my father's creed - Benjamin West Ball "Anastasius"

Apostle:
And each his own apostle - William Lisle Bowles "Banwell Hill: Part Second"

Our high Star and true Apostle - "By Memory Inspired" [A Book of Irish Verse ed. by W.B. Yeats]

Grim apostle of stress and strain - C. L. Graves "Ballade of Free Verse"

Augur/Augury.

Avatar:
Love's radiant avatar - Edward Dowden "Poesia"

What dark god's avatar awaits - Ann K. Schwader "A Voyage(r) Too Far"

Tossed to their height by endless avatars - Helen Hay Whitney "Etoiles d'Enfer"

And my shadowy avatars renounced - Francis Brett Young "Envoi"

A timeless avatar of never-ending dooms - Francis Brett Young "Thamar (To Thamar Karsavina)"

Bishop:
A game of rooks & bishops on an expanding board - Marge Simon "Sturgeon Crosses Over"

Congregate/Congregation.

Disciple.

Excommunicate:
The excommunicates of Rhyme - George Meredith "The Point of Taste"

Exorcist:
A troupe of exorcists - Catherine Chen "My Poem Asks to Be Read Right to Left"

Heresy/Heretic:
Heretics believe there is a forest - Mary Jo Bang "Pilgrimage"

Indigo of wizard Heresy - Coningsby Dawson "Florence on a Certain Night"

The heretic has come at last to heel - Seamus Heaney "Whatever You Say Say Nothing"

to work its internalized heresies - Kaie Kellough "if who"

Where autumn foams at the lips of heretics - Fiona Lu "Turing Test"

Taught them such gross heresy - Too-qua-stee [DeWitt Clinton Duncan] "The White Man's Burden"

That well-known foolish heresy - Marina Tsvetayeva "Poem of the End" transl. by Elaine Feinstein and Angela Livingstone

Hermit.

Infidel:
Infidels of our own high mysteries - Edward Dowden "By the Window"

Messiah:
Spoke our own gospels like mad messiahs - K. Iver "Gospel for Missy During Our Three-Day Birthday Season"

Minister.

Monk.

Nun:
A porcelain nun behind a wrought iron gate - Mary Jo Bang "Mistress Mary, Quite"

White silence like a nun - Elizabeth Bartlett "The Poet's Dream"

More revolutionary than a nun - Frank O'Hara "On Seeing Larry Rivers' Washington Crossing the Delaware at the Museum of Modern Art"

Pain has all the patience of a nun - Iris Tree "[My pain has all the patience of a nun]"

Paladin:
Paladins from Jordan's shore - Charles Badham "Lines Written at Warwick Castle"

That from Valhalla brings the Paladins - Humbert Wolfe "Balder's Song"

Parishioner:
Guarded by the granite names of dead parishioners - Mark Rudolph "Surreal Wedding"

Pastor:
In gardens pastored by snakes - Crystal Valentine "Blood Sex"

Pilgrim/Pilgrimage.

Postulant:
Postulants for the stars' previous wisdom - Gordon Bottomley "Babel: The Gate of the God"

Priest/Priestess.

Probationer:
A young probationer of light - Charles Lamb "Lines Written in My Own Album"

Prophecy/Prophet.

Saint.

Synod:
Of sect, surplice, or synod - "Father Prout's Inaugurative Ode: To the Author of "Vanity Fair""

And hold a Synod in thy heart - Marquis of Montrose "I'll Never Love Thee More" (Per Wikipedia, the 1st-4th Marquesses of Montrose were all named James Graham. Later, the title attached to the Duke of Montrose as a subsidiary title, but I'm assuming that, if the poet had a ducal title, the editor would have used that instead. I decided not to dig further and just to put this under 'Montrose.')


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