somethingdarker

Accent.

Adjective:
That skims the lips of many adjectives - Maxwell Bodenheim "Portraits. II: Waitress"

You are an unspeakable adjective - Alfred Kreymborg "Poetry"

Adverb:
Adverbs from the leaf-talk of the elves - Stephen Vincent Benet "Talk"

Aleph:
A number-group philosopher and mystic of the aleph-number school - Harry Martinson "Aniara 47" transl. by Stephen Klass and Leif Sjöberg

Alphabet.

Ampersand:
Ampersands of storage compounds - Brenda Hillman "To Mycorrhizae Under Our Mother's Garden"

Form & light, extra space in the ampersand - Brenda Hillman "Unendangered Moths of the Mid-Twentieth Century"

Annotate:
Spiders in ceremony annotating the windows - Zaina Alsous "On having begun"

Tombs of silence in an annotated landscape - Veronica Zondek "cold fire 13" transl. by Katherine Silver

Claw marks annotate awakening - Ann K. Schwader "Cave Bear Dreams"

Antecedent:
The motive antecedent to the act - Thomas M. Disch "The Clouds"

Had no antecedents for doubt - Fanny Wheeler Hart "Harry: Part 1"

an antecedent of many things - Tajudeen Muadh "In a Goverment Class, I Discuss My Home"

Apostrophe:
Turning away inside the apostrophe - Aditi Machado "Experiment with Aspic"

Article:
Deserving of the definite article - Sean Hill "Hello"

Definite article of the body - Christopher Kondrich "Definite Article"

Articles of their own impermanence - Thomas Lynch "Lessons from Berkeley"

Articulate/Inarticulate.

Asterisk:
Asterisk of the sun, hyphen of the moon - Faylita Hicks "Coded Binaries"

Braille:
braille on silken canvas - Tahnia Barrie "I Am Scabs, One and Legion"

I learned to read the braille of mighty screams - Harry Martinson "Aniara 49: The Blind Woman" transl. by Stephen Klass and Leif Sjöberg

By-Word:
The graveyard for ambitions, the by-word for hell - Frank J. Cotter "Dedicated to Alaska"

Calligraphy.

Chapter:
Giving back a scattered chapter - Hart Crane "At Melville's Tomb"

A scattered chapter, livid hieroglyph - Hart Crane "At Melville's Tomb"

The next chapter in my book of transformations - Stanley Kunitz "The Layers"

A final chapter no one reads - Frank O'Hara "Meditations in an Emergency"

Remember how light dawned in chapters - Kiki Petrosino "Happiness"

Character.

Cipher/Cypher.

Clause:
Hide between clauses and commas - Brandy Nālani McDougall "On Finding My Father's First Essay"

A conditional clause hanging from something to do with spring - Noah Warren "Cut Lilies"

Cliche:
a well of intentions and cliche - Ruth Ellen Kocher "She Manifests Her Own Ineffable"

An example of cliché so profuse it touched my heart - David St. John "The Park"

Code.

Comma:
Hide between clauses and commas - Brandy Nālani McDougall "On Finding My Father's First Essay"

Expose a spine of cursed commas - Nicholas Wong "On Insertion"

Comment:
Riding the waves without comment - Duane Ackerson "Various Horses"

The stars in secret influence comment - William Shakespeare "Sonnet XV"

Commentaries on borrowing practices - Eunsong Kim "Disclaimers for Debt"

Conjugation:
The roiling sea of vowels, conjugations, tenses - Usha Akella "Breaking bread with phonemes"

Fit for the conjugation of joy - Meena Alexander "Darling Coffee"

Conjugating the squandered night - Shara McCallum "A Grammar for War"

The conjugation of the paramecium - Muriel Rukeyser "The Conjugation of the Paramecium"

Conjunction:
Whose courses and conjunctions govern us - Dana Gioia "Psalm of the Heights"

The sweet conjunctions that astonish us - Conrad Hilberry "Zero"

The Conjunction of the Mind - Andrew Marvell "The Definition of Love"

From landscape to unsuppressed conjunction - Charles Wright "Homage to What's-His-Name"

Connote:
Used to connote a blank space - Mary Jo Bang "Speech Is Designed to Persuade"

Context.

Contradiction.

Countersign:
To solve the doubt, watchword and countersign - John G. Nicolay, Private Secretary to President Lincoln "On Guard" [The Continental Monthly v.II no.VI, Dec. 1862]

She passes with her perfect countersign - Leonora Speyer "April on the Battlefields"

Creole:
a pidgin picking its way into a creole - Malcolm Friend "Caliban Theory"

Cuneiform:
A maze of cuneiform streets - Sandy Florian "Our Big City"

The cuneiforms and cursives of a blind scribe - Wyatt Prunty "Mole"

Curse.

Cursive.

Decipher.

Denote:
Ashes denote that fire was - Emily Dickinson "Book 3: Life XXX: Fire"

Describe.

Dialect.

Dialectic:
Dark's velvet dialectic - Adrienne Rich "Rusted Legacy"

Dialogue:
Threadbare as a dialogue assumed - Edwin Torres "E.G. as I.E."

Fit his tongue to dialogues of business, love, or strife - William Wordsworth "Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood"

Dictionary.

Digit/Digital.

DM:
the lagoon's DM holds nothing but thirst - CP Nwankwo "Error 404: Expiation Not Found" [20 Oct. 2025]

Ellipsis:
The verbed streetlights make ellipsis - Adrian Matejka "16 Bars Poetica"

Eloquence.

Epithet:
An angry epithet baring its teeth - Mouna Ammar "1 Zmagria Place"

Epitome:
The very world epitomized in turmoil and delight - Georgia Douglas Johnson "Little Son" [Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets, ed. by Countee Cullen, 1927]

Etymology:
The etymology of necessity - Rae Gouirand "Quince Suite"

Look up the etymology of melancholia - Amie Whittemore "Lunar Eclipse"

Etymon:
Who will reconstruct the etymon of hunger - Giorgiomaria Cornelio "La consegna delle braci [The Distribution of Embers]" transl. by Moira Egan

Euphemism:
Never meant to live in euphemism - Randall Mann "Realtor"

Falsehood.

Figurative:
Figurative dreams that now haunt us - Paisley Rekdal "Philip Larkin's Koan"

The rock no longer figurative - Sara Abou Rashed "Gaza I"

Fluent.

Glossary:
Their glossary of knocks - Traci Brimhall "Aubade on a Ghost Hunt"

While these trees held a glossary of stars - Dorianne Laux "Redwoods"

Glyph.

Grammar.

Handwriting:
Who know my left-handed handwriting - Danni Quintos "Quintos"

Hashtag:
Hashtags of interiority - Becca Klaver "Manifesto of the Lyric Selfie"

Hieroglyph.

Hyperbole:
Metaphoric explosion and grotesque hyperbole - Bruce Boston "Surreal People"

Hyphen:
Asterisk of the sun, hyphen of the moon - Faylita Hicks "Coded Binaries"

Iambic:
My rib cage expanding and contracting in iambics - Daisy Aldan "Everywhere in Constancy, He Is Intoning, Look! Look!"

Its iambic pulse of light - Jamaal May "Better Devices"

Iconography:
That radiates iconographic images - Bruce Boston & Robert Frazier "A Compass for the Mutant Rain Forest"

Of administrative iconography - Michael Leong "from Transmitting the Vertical Immensity of Coniferous Light"

Ideogram:
Between ideograms depicting darkness - Christopher Kondrich "Layer of Ash"

Idiom:
Strain'd with many strange idioms - Bulwer Lytton publishing as Owen Meredith "Lucile: Part I Canto II"

To ask for a crystalline idiom - Prageeta Sharma "The Imperishable and Perishable Family"

Illegible/Legible:
I am trying to become illegible - Igor Gulin "Kontur" transl. by Your Language My Ear

Blurs to illegible serenity - Robert Pinsky "The Great Nauset Buddha"

On Memory's page inscribed in letters large and legible - Sylvester "The Dream" [Southern Literary Messenger v.II no.1 Dec. 1835-6]

a kind of life not yet legible to us - Brian Teare "Convince me you have a seed there"

Index.

Inscribe.

Insult.

Interpret.

Inuendo/Innuendo:
Innuendoes of your inverse dawn - Mina Loy "Moreover, the Moon--"

Pink inuendoes hooded in gray - Lola Ridge "Manhattan Lights"

Invective:
Invectives of the wind - Harold Acton "Ventilation"

Irony.

Jargon.

Jest/Jester.

Jibe:
Now all vanishes in plots and gibes - Stephen Vincent Benet "The Last Banquet"

To cast his jibes and scoffs - Cardinal John Henry Newman "The Dream of Gerontius"

How they jibe at loss - William Carlos Williams "Hic Jacet"

Koan:
Speak to the same want of nature's koan - Michael Meyerhofer "Theodote"

Label:
Our yellowed labels all spell doom - Boris Dralyuk "Emigre Library"

Moral machinery is not labelled - Marianne Moore "Reinforcements"

A false prophet robed in attitude and labels - Emanuel Xavier "Legendary"

Language.

Letter.

Lexicon:
A lexicon of crimes they do in my name - Tania Chen "A Toast from Santisima Muerte"

The lexicon of wilds goes on - RK Fauth "Playing with Bees"

In order to enter a new lexicon - Mary Hickman "Helen"

Liar.

Lie/Lying.

Linguistics:
A linguist more learned than Father Wisdom - Alfred Kreymborg "Old Manuscript"

Lowercase:
Allowing lowercase sand to spill from me - Christopher Kondrich "Ruin Valley"

Mantra:
My lips' chapped mantra of mud - Vandana Khanna "Parvati Tires of Waiting"

Bone marrow and unsung mantras - Fiona Lu "Turing Test"

To pour his mantras on our heads - Surdas "Sur's Ocean 175: The Bee Messenger" transl. by John Stratton Hawley

Hear the mantra of the mouse-god sounding - Catherynne M. Valente "Mouse Koan"

Maxim:
All those thousand good maxims we coin - Bulwer Lytton publishing as Owen Meredith "Lucile: Part I Canto I"

A maxim among the wise established - Euripedes "Helen" transl. by Michael Wodhull

Message.

Metaphor.

Mimeograph:
Entirely crayon and the lavender mimeographs leave on the hands - Brian Teare "Emerson Susquehanna [i. When we have lost our God of tradition]"

Monogram:
Mercury monogrammed with fever - Cynthia Zarin "Orbit"

Monologue:
Dreams down its cadenced monologues - Stephane Mallarme "L'Apres-Midi d'un Faune" (translated by Aldous Huxley)

Hello in a moebius monologue - Sandra McPherson "Driving in Circles with the Blind"

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

Tapping out my Morse-code alphabet - Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris "woodpecker"

Motif:
A mirror with a feather motif - Mary Jo Bang "Given to Believe"

The sounding motif of my heart, the impetus and goal - Georgia Douglas Johnson "Proving" [Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets, ed. by Countee Cullen, 1927]

Motto:
Nailed it as a motto above my door - Arthur Davison Ficke "Ten Grotesques: II. The Prudent Lover"

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

Newsprint:
Swaddled in old newsprint and hope - Toby MacNutt "When You Read this Debris"

Nomenclature:
Our flesh a nomenclature of memories - Jacie Ragan "The Secret Lives of Fingerprints"

A cotton-cloud nomenclature for crusade - Leslie Contreras Schwartz "A Body's Universe of Big Bangs"

Our names nomenclatures of invisibility - Mahtem Shiferraw "Nomenclatures of Invisibility"

Noun:
A verb named for its noun - Dan Chiasson "Bloom (II)"

What happens between the noun and the verb - Rodney Jones "The Language of Love"

Every verb desires to be a noun - Kate Light "There Comes the Strangest Moment"

Smug nouns of dominion - Gregory Orr "Eden and After: To Notice"

Number/Outnumber.

Potential Titles: Numbers [category].

Paragraph:
The great paragraphs of dust - Major Jackson "On Disappearing"

Reading far past the last paragraph into the back blank page - Dean Young "Colophon"

Paraphrase:
The early dark is a paraphrase of Mars - Chen Chen "Night Falls Like a Button"

How ego blossoms in paraphrase - J.P. Grasser "time bending / tongue / entwine / the betwixt"

An exquisite corpse paraphrased - Adrian Matejka "16 Bars Poetica"

Parenthesis.

Parse.

Password:
The password of the leaves upon the cottonwood - Alexander Posey "To Wahilla Enhotulle"

Period.

Phoneme:
A phoneme that will stubbornly assert itself - Usha Akella "Breaking bread with phonemes"

Phrase.

Pidgin:
a pidgin picking its way into a creole - Malcolm Friend "Caliban Theory"

Platitude:
Exchanging vows and other platitudes - Natalie Clifford Barney "Habit"

Teetering into platitudes - Diane Seuss "Poetry"

Pledge.

Plural:
History woven from the plural - Christopher Kondrich "Peace Epic"

The plural pavilion of sardines - Pablo Neruda "Migration" transl. by Jack Schmitt

Let the plural be a return of us - Lena Khalaf Tuffaha "On the Thirtieth Friday We Consider Plurals"

Post-Script:
The post-script at the end of her letter - Waitman Barbe "The Fly Leaf"

Print.

Prose:
Hard prose by daylight - James Russell Lowell "Agassiz"

Proverb.

Pun:
Deep thoughts begot by a jingle upon a pun - Aldous Huxley "Soles Occidere et Redire Possunt"

Punctuate.

Question Mark:
Curled in an inverse question mark of concentration - Mike Allen "The Journey to Kailash"

Lifted away all the question marks - Victoria Chang "The Trees Witness Everything"

Question mark of candles - Gabrielle Civil "19th Birthday in Paris"

Quote:
Quote each stuttered word - Sarah Titus "The Angels Sip Manhattans Wearing the Faces of Our Dead"

Stenographic smiles and stock quotations - Hart Crane "For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen"

A privilege to misquote Blake - Lance Larsen "In Toledo, the Sequestered Brides of Christ"

Read

Rhyme.

Riddle.

Runes.

Salutation:
Salutation from a guilty mouth - Elizabeth Barrett Browning "A Drama of Exile"

Scrawl.

Scribble.

Scribe.

Script.

Sentence.

Sigil:
leaving sigils in lipstick on the bathroom mirrors - Amanda Gafford "Tigerlily"

The unending impulse to form a sigil in the sand - Angel Leal "The Witch Recalls Her Craft"

Torn sigils tangled in bones on the lawn - L.D. Lewis "Young Death Is in Love"

Impose rare sigils on your gem-like souls - Rachel Annand Taylor "The Hours of Fiammetta: The Epilogue of the Dreaming Women"

Sigma:
The sigmas and taus of constellations - Robert Frost "I Will Sing You One-O"

Sign.

Signal.

Signature.

Simile:
Nothing like our similes - Basho transl. by David Young

I can write similes of serenity & poetic sermons - Regie Cabico "Morning After the Election"

Slang:
my dark surrealism written in slang - upfromsumdirt (Ron Davis) "Bleeding The Calf"

the evisceration of slang on altars made unkind - upfromsumdirt (Ron Davis) "To Stand Down (And To Stand By)"

Slogan:
Slogans and bands and banners - Helen Hoyt "Cheap"

Speak/Spoke.

Speech.

Statement.

Stenography:
Petty stenographers of the crooked rulers - Ammiel Alcalay "My Apologies"

Stenographic smiles and stock quotations - Hart Crane "For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen"

Stop Sign:
sliding through the stop signs - Charles Coleman Finlay "Accidental Series"

Subject.

Subtext:
In the subtext called our lives - Eunsong Kim "On Endings & Longing"

Summary:
Summarize the past by theft and allusion - Lawrence Ferlinghetti "Americus, Book I [excerpt]"

Superscript:
Superscription of bent foam and wave - Hart Crane "Voyages II"

Syllable.

Syllogism:
no more syllogisms that permission endless suffering - Sam Sax "Ode to Those Who Block Tunnels and Bridges"

Symbol.

Synonym.

Syntax.

Tag.

Tau:
The sigmas and taus of constellations - Robert Frost "I Will Sing You One-O"

Term.

Terminology:
Sealed by terminology's lacquer - Diane Ackerman "Letter to Dr. B--"

Text.

Thesaurus:
The peacock feather in the open thesaurus - Mukut Borpujari "Stoic"

The color of an ancient thesaurus - Catherine Bowman "Pears"

Take refuge in the deep Thesaurus - Oliver Herford "The Fairy Godmother-in-Law IV: The Ball"

Title.

Translate.

Translation.

Type.

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

Verb.

Vernacular:
In the vernacular of lavender and heather - Richard Blanco "Listening at Reading Farm, an Elegy"

They wear masks and vernacular - Gabriel Ramirez "Learn Your Song"

Vocabulary.

Vowel.

Watchword:
Will be a watchword and a battle hymn - Frank Davis Ashburn "Sonnet [Poor Lucy never laughed much after that]"

The deep watchword of the rushing storm - S. Virginia French "The 'Still Small Voice'"

To solve the doubt, watchword and countersign - John G. Nicolay, Private Secretary to President Lincoln "On Guard" [The Continental Monthly v.II no.VI, Dec. 1862]

The watchword there is Rest - Miriam Clark Potter "Twilight Town"

Word.

Write.

X [letter]:
The accident of understanding what it means to be X - Oliver de la Paz "Solve for X"

Didn't believe an x could equal a y - Thomas Lux "Nullius in Verba (Take Nobody's Word for It)"

Travel from X to Y a downward slope - Sara Nicholson "What Ails Me"

XYZs:
In the xyzs of nights and days - Deborah Landau "Ecstasies"

Y [letter]:
Didn't believe an x could equal a y - Thomas Lux "Nullius in Verba (Take Nobody's Word for It)"

Z [letter]:
When we get to Z our interest in the Alphabet is dead - Hilaire Belloc "A Moral Alphabet: Z"

Travel from X to Y a downward slope - Sara Nicholson "What Ails Me"


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

Admiral:
Where the Admiral gazes down - Yang Lian "Venice Elegy 2 Rot Poem" transl. by Brian Holton

Archer:
And Ra, the fiery archer, battles everywhere - Kostes Palamas "Fatherlands" transl. by Aristides E. Phoutrides

While applying lipstick with an archer's precision - Vincent Toro "¿Que Que La Femme?"

Armada.

Army.

Assassin/Assassination.

Battalion.

Brigade:
That nighttime brigade of ghosts now laid to rest - Anthony Butts "All Saints' Day"

Unblest by the brigades of spring - John Drinkwater "Of Greatham"

Our proud brigades of undulating steel - Hanford Lennox Gordon "The Captain's Story"

He's an overpass light brigade soldier - Margaret Noodin "Sometimes" transl. by the author

Captain.

Cavalry:
Under the feet of the ocean cavalry - Robinson Jeffers "To the House"

Which bravely wait the charge of Winter's cavalry - Henry David Thoreau "The Fall of the Leaf"

Cohort.

Conscript.

Crew.

Deserter:
Deserter from the great autumn army - Linda Pastan "Repetitions: After Van Gogh: 1. Yellow"

Dragoon:
The heavy dragoons of the mind - James Russell Lowell "At the Commencement Dinner, 1866, in Acknowledging a Toast to the Smith Professor"

Enemy.

Fleet.

Foe.

General.

Guerrilla:
His children once beggars rise into guerrillas - W.J. Lofton "The Lord is American"

Infantry:
Ugly short infantry of the mind - Ernest Hemingway "Mitraigliatrice"

The craven infantry of roaches - Jamaal May "Things That Break"

Insurgent.

Legion.

Lookout:
Lookout soldiers who watch the sea - Patricia Lockwood "The Hypno-Domme Speaks, and Speaks and Speaks"

Marshal.

Mercenary:
Outposts filled with Saturn's mercenaries - Dorsey Craft "The Pirate Anne Bonny and I Play Video Games"

Whose hopes are shaped by mercenaries - Marianne Moore "The Paper Nautilus"

Militia:
Dark militia of the southern shore - James Elroy Flecker "Brumana"

Black market gun-runners of militias and drug dealers - Gary Copeland Lilley "War"

Musketeer:
Three musketeers of faithful following - Iris Tree "[Give me, O God, the power of laughter still]"

Navy:
Where the gallant navy rides the deep - James Beattie "The Triumph of Melancholy"

Reckoning up their navies - Emily Lawless "Wide Is the Shannon"

Navy blue around a fake significance - John Moncure Wettarau "On Looking at a Mediocre Painting"

And launch their paper navies where huge Triton writhes - Oscar Wilde "Le Jardin des Tuileries"

Officer:
Swarms of Officers to harass our people - Tracy K. Smith "Declaration"

Patrol.

Phalanx:
In phalanx firm the fiend of frost assail - Erasmus Darwin "The Botanic Garden part 1: The Economy of Vegetation canto I"

A phalanx of swift song made - Louis Golding "Bird, Bird, Bird"

Crowded close in serried phalanx - Lermontof "Dispute" transl. by John Pollen [probably Mikhail Lermontov]

So could Corruption's phalanx rest composed - Philo "The Tribute"

Platoon:
The ghosts of my platoon - Lou Barrett "Two Poets and a Physician: 1918"

Platoons of figures ranked in studied row - Erastus W. Ellsworth "Excerpts from an Epistle to a Friend" [Graham's Magazine v.XLI no.3, Sept. 1852]

Rear Guard:
The rear guard of my own brutal defeat - Vijay Seshadri "Road Trip"

Regiment.

Scout.

Sentinel.

Sentry.

Sergeant:
The stubborn sergeant men call Pride - Stephen Vincent Benet "The Etcher"

Daybreak is a drill sergeant - Misha Collins "The Sound and the Ferry"

Sniper.

Soldier.

Spy.

Squad:
Her sunrise scattering squads of shadows - Carl Dennis "Help from the Audience"

Squadron.

Standard-Bearer:
The standard-bearers of the future - Emma Lazarus "By the Waters of Babylon"

Terrorist:
Tools of a terrorist undertaking - June Jordan "The Bombing of Baghdad"

Troop.

Vanguard:
Made inquiry of the king's vanguard - Euripedes "Rhesus" transl. by Michael Wodhull

Comes through the blood of the vanguards who dreamed - Rudyard Kipling "Untimely"

The swan's black vanguard told it - Dorothea Mackellar "Swallows"

The fading moon and the vanguard of the sun - N. Scott Momaday "The First Day"

Sent their misty vanguard creeping - Henry van Dyke "The Fall of the Leaves"

Veteran:
Superior is the veteran, if with courage inspired - Euripedes "Andromache" transl. by Michael Wodhull

They the veteran's voice obey - Euripedes "Helen" transl. by Michael Wodhull

Veteran of sheer drops and near misses - Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris "thrift"

War-Lord:
The sins of all war-lords burn his heart - Vachel Lindsay "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight"

Warrior.


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

Acid Rain:
Elegant as marble in acid rain - Zaina Alsous "Reading Darwish in Vermont"

Acid rain from a sky the color of cinders - Brian Hugenbruch "Worlds I Didn't Hear"

Seeding our clouds with acid rain - Edgar Kunz "Squatters"

Effaced from marble by acid rain - Mark Wunderlich "My Local Dead"

Aeolian:
Touched aeolian dulcimers - Sidney Royse Lysaght "The Forest"

Atmosphere.

Blizzard.

Bluster.

Boreal/Boreas.

Breeze.

Chinook:
Until February's first chinook - Chris Dombrowski "Stubborn Poem"

Cirrus:
I study atlases and cirrus paths in search of traces - Tiffany Higgins "Dance, Dance, While the Hive Collapses" [Poetry Jan. 2016]

The convex sky bottling cirrus highs - Wyatt Prunty "Last Century"

Climate/Clime.

Cloud.

Cloudless.

Cumulous:
Piercing the flesh of cumulous dragons - Zilka Joseph "Three Notes to Blue Jays"

Domes of coral cumulus - Sidney Royse Lysaght "Our Homeland"

The steep cumuli of moody weather - Wyatt Prunty "Last Century"

Cumulonimbus:
Raindrops woven into cumulonimbus - David Hornibrook "Gone"

Cyclone.

Deluge.

Dew.

Downpour.

Drizzle.

Drought.

Dust Devil:
A sudden dust devil spirals in - Timothy Donnelly "The Night Ship"

A dust devil gathering wind - Tyree Daye "The Death of Jimmy as the Dog He Always Was"

East Wind.

Flurry:
A flurry of coronaries in the overnight forecast - Mike Allen "Mrs. Rigsby's Fatecast"

All her heart is a woven part of the flurry and drift - Bliss Carman "Why"

A flurry of notes from Mozart - R.T. Smith "Hardware Sparrows"

Fog.

Forecast:
A flurry of coronaries in the overnight forecast - Mike Allen "Mrs. Rigsby's Fatecast"

Wind to forecast their arrival - T.J. Anderson III "Ancestors Are Calling"

Can forecast when the time will be too late - Harry Martinson "Aniara 96" transl. by Stephen Klass and Leif Sjöberg

Forty-Below:
Forty-below was a good day - Robin Coste Lewis "Using Black to Paint Light: Walking Through a Matisse Exhibit Thinking about the Arctic and Matthew Henson"

Frost.

Gale.

Gust.

Hail.

Hailcloud:
Lashes of white light binding another hailcloud - Adrienne Rich "Peace"

Hailstorm:
Underneath a hailstorm of light - Charles Rafferty "After Hearing There Are Only 7,000 Stars Visible to the Naked Eye"

Haze/Hazy.

Headwind:
A steady cold channel of headwind - Anne Carson "Wife of Brain"

Heat Wave:
The apples that blossom during a February heat wave - Sarah Freligh "In this Poem, We Will Not Glorify Sunrise"

Hoarfrost:
The hoar-frost crumbles in the sun - D.H. Lawrence "Anxiety"

Hoarfrost sliding its palms across fields - Judy Patterson Wenzel "School Nights at the Farm"

Humid.

Hurricane.

Jet-Stream:
Jet-streams of oxygen spun like pinwheels - Ian Goh "Firework"

Levin:
The chariot wheels of burning levin - S. Virginia French "The 'Still Small Voice'" ['Levin' is an archaic term for 'lightning']

Sharp levin leaping in the north - Clark Ashton Smith "Saturn"

The levin's blighting fire comes - Miss L. Virginia Smith "The Reconciliation"

The javelin of the far-ravening levin - Francis Brett Young "Thamar (To Thamar Karsavina)"

Lightning.

Low-Pressure System:
A low-pressure system in the abdomen - Amaud Jamaul Johnson "LA Police Chief Daryl Gates Dead at 83"

Meteorology:
Looked to meteorologists for explanations - Stephen Dunn "Moon Song"

Mist.

Monsoon.

Muggy:
Muggy marshes & thick forests of the mind - Adrian Matejka "Central Avenue Beach"

Night-Wind.

North Wind.

Overcast.

Petrichor:
leaves petrichor as aftertaste - Nnadi Samuel "Someday, I Identify as a Prairie"

Rain.

Rainbow.

Rainfall.

Rainwater:
Fishing in a pool of rainwater - R. Zamora Linmark "On Silence"

Rime:
Ran chill beneath a crust of rime - Rosa Vertner Jeffrey "Daisy Dare"

Let me forget the rime, the rune, the rose - George Sylvester Viereck "Respite"

Sandstorm:
A sandstorm whispering in the joints - Samuel A. Adeyemi "Limbs"

Fleeing sandstorms, terror, and splendor - Enheduana "The Exaltation of Inana" transl. by Sophus Helle

The shoreline baked in golden sandstorms - Edwin Torres "The Intermission Clown"

The countryside startles into sandstorm - Wang An-Shih "Autumn Wind" transl. by David Hinton

Sheet-Lightning:
Hail blazing in sheet-lightning - H.D. "Simaetha"

With your sheet-lightning apprehension - Adrienne Rich "Noctilucent Clouds"

Shower.

Sirocco:
O'er long tracts the mournful siroc sighs - N.H. Carter "[No verdure smiles; no crystal fountains play]" [The Knickerbocker v.22, no.1, July 1843]

Beyond siroccos harvesting the solstice thunders - Hart Crane "Voyages VI"

These the Siroc could not melt - Ralph Waldo Emerson (uncredited) "The Test" [The Atlantic Monthly v.07 no.39, Jan. 1861]

Sleet.

Smog:
A smog that becomes a wraith - Carmen Gimenez "Post-Identity"

All that stayed stuffed in my lungs like smog - Adrienne Rich "Peeling Onions"

Snow.

Snowfall:
Snowfall from the nebula compounding winter seasons into eons - Harry Martinson "Aniara 60" transl. by Stephen Klass and Leif Sjöberg

Stepping light as snowfall - Emily van Kley "Ways to Hunt Deer"

Snowflake.

Snowstorm.

South Wind.

Squall:
End credits after the squall - Jaswinder Bolina "Municipal Vistas"

If trouble came in shape of squall - Palmer Cox "The Brownies' Yacht-Race"

Among wild squalls of banded clouds - Georgia Heard "Room of Science"

The stronger for the squall - Charles Bertram Johnson "Serenity"

Storm.

Storm-Cell:
Hunt a storm-cell's shifting edge - Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris "swifts"

Stormcloud.

Temperate.

Temperature.

Tempest.

Thunder.

Thunderclap.

Thunderhead:
And erected temples like thunderheads - Mark Jarman "If I Were Paul"

Thunderheads like doomed zeppelins - Carl Phillips "Character Being a Different Thing from Beauty, Describe the Difference"

Or touch the thunderheads that swell our creek - Zachariah Claypole White "The Angel Questions His Faith" [Strange Horizons 7 July 2025]

Thunderstorm.

Tornado.

Torrid:
Where torrid suns the mountains burn - Lennox Amott "Ah, Hast Thou Gone?"

Pour crimson streams of torrid light - Rosa Vertner Jeffrey "Daisy Dare"

A swirling pillar made of torrid gases - Harry Martinson "Aniara 40: The Space-Hand's Tale" transl. by Stephen Klass and Leif Sjöberg

Tropic/Tropical.

Typhoon:
That plunged at typhoon strength among the mountains - Harry Martinson "Aniara 40: The Space-Hand's Tale" transl. by Stephen Klass and Leif Sjöberg

A typhoon of incandescent particles - Harry Martinson "Aniara 69" transl. by Stephen Klass and Leif Sjöberg

Hooked to a typhoon's tail - Caitriona O'Reilly "The Airship Era"

Weather.

West Wind.

Whirlwind.

Whiteout:
The whiteout of a spring blizzard - J. Mae Barizo "Indeterminacy"

Whatever unannounced whiteout blizzard hits our blood - Janet Kauffman "Their Books Would Write Us"

A spark crystal in a whiteout - dg nanouk okpik "For-The-Spirits-Who-Have-Rounded-The-Bend IIVAQSAAT"

Wind.

Windless.

Windsock:
I let divine will fill me like a windsock - Erin Marie Lynch "Poshmark"

A silk windsock of snow blowing - Linda Pastan "Blizzard"

Wind Storm:
Forests of wind storms newly risen - tiana nobile "Moon Yeong Shin"


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

For weather related water words, see: Potential Titles: Weather [category].

Water.


Aquarium:
Through the windows of an ancient aquarium - Martin Espada "Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100"

to explain climate change to an aquarium turtle - Angélica Freitas "microwave" [Poetry Jan. 2016] transl. by Tiffany Higgins

Green aquarium of phantom fish - Aldous Huxley "The Reef"

Aqueduct:
Constructed an aqueduct of dreams - Arthur Sze "First Snow"

Bank.

Bay.

Beach.

Breaker.

Cape.

Coast.

Coastline.

Cofferdam:
The ghostly cofferdam of my own mind - Ada Limon "Fifteen Balls of Feathers"

Coral.

Cove:
From the marl of the earth in a sacred cove - Edward Hirsch "A Greek Island"

Shrines in coves of gilded gloom - Herman Melville "Clarel" [excerpt - The Medallion]

Current.

Dam.

Damp.

Dank.

Dehydrate:
The dehydrations of mere permanence - Wyatt Prunty "Two Views"

Deluge.

Dock.

Douse:
A doused flame blacks the water - David Hornibrook "Insomnia"

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

douse this blackness in viscous castor oil - Neha Maqsood "Things I Do to Remember Home"

A hundred thousand other files doused in kerosene - Catherynne M. Valente "Aquaman and the Duality of Self/Other, America, 1985"

Dyke:
Beyond the dykes I heard wind flaking sapphire - Hart Crane "Repose of Rivers"

Bursts the dykes of oppression - Emma Lazarus "By the Waters of Babylon"

Like a deluge on the dykes - Thomas Babington Macaulay "The Battle of Naseby"

Eddy.

Erode/Erosion.

Evaporate.

Flood.

Foam.

Ford.

Freshwater:
Rainbowed by the force of fresh water - Jennifer Elise Foerster "American History"

crocodile at the edge of a freshwater marsh - Raina J. León "making life on a palette"

Froth.

Glacial.

Glacier.

Gyre:
Swirling gyres of unpredictability - Ellen Hinsey "Epistle"

gyre with dead fire alarm tears - Aristilde Kirby "Daria Ukiyo-e"

And mount the crystal air in spiral gyre - Wm. Albert Sutliffe "Fragment of a Poem" [Graham's Magazine v.XLI no.6, Dec. 1852]

Harbor/Harbour.

Humid.

Hydroelectric:
hydroelectric plants to fry your eggs in the microwave - Angélica Freitas "microwave" [Poetry Jan. 2016] transl. by Tiffany Higgins

Ice.

Inlet:
Moving toward the inlets of the fingers - January Gill O'Neil "How to Make a Crab Cake"

Inundate:
bitterly inundates the sunset's shatter - Huy Tưởng aka Đức Hiệp Nguyễn "Afternoon still-life" transl. by Phương Anh

That cast their inundations o'er the darkening air - Ronald Ross "Hesperus" [Georgian Poetry 1911-1912]

Thickened with inundating dark - Francis Thompson "Victorian Ode for Jubilee Day, 1897"

Irrigate:
irrigated by steady streams of cars - Charles Coleman Finlay "Accidental Series"

Jetty:
Abandoned old jetties just under the water - Patrick Philips "Elegy with Oil in the Bilge"

Jettied on the peacock tide - Charles G.D. Roberts "The Unknown City"

Sped on the Great Meridian for jetty pearls - Sir Ronald Ross "Ariel and the Hippopotamus: Dedicated to the Rural Magnates"

Bruised from battered jetty and sea-wall - Leonora Speyer "This City Wind"

Levee:
demands we graffiti on the levee wall - C.T. Salazar "River"

Low-Tide:
At low tide to surface smooth as driftwood - Jenny Browne "Late Fermata"

Early mist breaking on low tide - John Moncure Wettarau "Morning, Maine Honolulu"

Ghostwriting the low-tide mark - Cynthia Zarin "Orbit"

Maelstrom.

Main.

Mariner:
The mariner curses the warning bird - Barry Cornwall "The Stormy Petrel" [Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, issue 17, July 7, 1832]

The outrages of mariners exceed devouring flame - Euripedes "Hecuba" transl. by Michael Wodhull

All mariners on this sea of life - Albert Pike "Fragment" [Graham's Magazine v.XX no.4, Apr. 1842]

Meltwater:
Meltwater frozen for millennia - R.B. Lemberg "Firebird, Stormbird"

Moist.

Petrichor:
leaves petrichor as aftertaste - Nnadi Samuel "Someday, I Identify as a Prairie"

Pier:
In slanting piers of light - Arthur Colton "Faustine"

racing childhood to the pier's edge - David Maduli "alameda point"

Dream-dark piers of speech - Robert Pinsky "The Dig"

Beneath the shadows of these piers - Edmund Clarence Stedman "The Freshet: A Connecticut Idyl"

Port.

Portage:
Sweating on the portage trail - William Hodgson Ellis "Maskinogewagaming"

Quay:
Untempted by the fashionable quays - W.H. Auden "In Memory of W.B. Yeats"

Creep up the tidal river to the quay - C.A. Dawson "Sketches" [Chambers' Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, 5th series, 12 June 1886]

In tangles of old alleys near the quays - H.P. Lovecraft "Fungi from Yuggoth" [The Fantasy Fan, v.2, no.2, Oct. 1934]

Reef.

Reservoir:
Returned to the reservoir of the mind - Michael McGriff "Inversion"

Through vast chthonic reservoirs - Stephen Oliver "Zionism"

A small reservoir of furious music - Tracy K. Smith "Duende"

Ripple.

Riverbank.

Sediment.

Shore.

Shower.

Silt.

Sluice:
A new sluice of water and food and want - Jeremiah Moriarty "New Regime" [11 Aug. 2025]

Sodden:
Among the sodden seethe of leaves - Stanley Kunitz "The Testing-Tree"

The ghost that's in his bones dreams in the sodden clay - W.J. Turner "Death"

Spindrift.

Spume:
Who was born of sea spume - Barbara Jane Reyes "Again, She Tells the First Story"

Submarine [not the vehicle]:
Trembles to the bursting throes of submarine volcanoes - Hanford Lennox Gordon "The Captain's Story"

Submerge

Surf.

Tide

Undercurrent.

Undertow.

Underwater.

Waterline:
As hope sunk below the waterline - Fran Wilde "The Ghost Tide Chantey: Iron"

Wave

Wet.

Wharf.

Whirlpool.

Whitecap:
All breaking whitecap and red, beating heart - M. Bartley Seigel "I'm Told It's Foolish to Befriend a Water Lynx"


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

Potential Titles: Machine/Device Parts [category].



Airplane.

Airship:
The sky is waiting for an airship - Monica de la Torre "Poem in Spanish"

Watch the smooth airships of Zen - Tony Hoagland "Upward"

Ambulance:
Led out weeping among the ambulances - Patricia Goedicke "The Reading Club"

Holding only the echoes of ambulance screams - Amber Tamblyn "To a New Dawning"

Argosy:
Argosies of childhood, laden down with joys - George Cooper "Sailing the Boats" [Happy Days for Boys and Girls, 1877]

Where shifting winds were driving his argosies - Edwin Arlington Robinson "Late Summer"

Some outward voyaging argosy - Oscar Wilde "Her Voice"

Argosies of earth their treasures bear - Huldah Lucile Winsted "North Dakota--Past and Present"

Ark.

Armada.

Automobile:
Driving a cardboard automobile - Lawrence Ferlinghetti "A Far Rockaway of the Heart, 2"

Backhoe:
Of backhoes awakening each morning - Colleen J. McElroy "The Lost Breath of Trees"

Balloon.

Barge.

Barque/Bark (boat).

Battle-Cruiser:
Ghosts of sleeping battle-cruisers - Max Eastman "Coming to Port"

Battleship:
Rimmed round by steel-built battleships - Joaquin Miller "To the Boers"

Rolling battleships at anchor ride - Geoffrey Dearmer "The Dardenelles, from 'W' Beach"

Bicycle/Bike.

Boat.

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

Boxcar:
A box car some train has forgotten - Langston Hughes "Railroad Avenue"

boxcars shaking full of gleaming two-doors - Katrina Vandenberg "Oarlock, Oar (Y, W, V, U, F)"

Bulldozer:
Past bulldozers and trucks pouring tarmac - Peter Balakian "Little Richard"

Excavators & bulldozers that wait, like vultures, to ruin me - Jacqueline Jiang "If My Body Is Dying, Tell Me You Love Me"

Jagged front line, bulldozed memory - Sara Abou Rashed "Gaza I"

Bus.

Cab: See Taxi/Taxicab.

Caboose:
Like cabooses ready to decouple - January Gill O'Neil "Night at the Roller Palace"

Glide next to a forgotten caboose - Joseph Rios "For Henry's Bar"

Canoe.

Car.

Caravan.

Caravel:
I would understand the caravel of my childhood - William Archila "Three Minutes with Mingus"

Columbus's doom-burdened caravels - J.C. Squire "Sonnet [There was an Indian]"

Carousel.

Carriage:
an archive pulsing with the carriage of empires - DaMaris B. Hill "Come. Pray. Know"

Hunt bloated rubies in carriages on the moor - Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa "The Wicked Lady"

Kites and owls screech at the carriage yoke - Ts'ao Chih "Presented to Piao, the Prince of Pai-ma" transl. by Burton Watson

No carriage goes that does not follow the rut - Wang Seng-Ta "To Match the Prince of Lang-yeh's Poem in the Old Style" transl. by Burton Watson

Cart.

Chariot.

Coach:
Just departed in the sun's bright coach - George MacDonald "Within and Without"

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

Corsair:
Every lover is a corsair seeking glory - Cyrus Cassells & Brian Turner "Corsair"

Dirigible:
Gilded aerialists in their giant dirigibles - Caitriona O'Reilly "The Airship Era"

Dreadnought:
Sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main - Vachel Lindsay "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight"

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"

Eighteen Wheeler:
The first one to an eighteen-wheeler accident - John Gallaher "In a Landscape: III"

Exit ramps lined with eighteen wheelers - Richard Jones "Rest"

Excavator:
Excavators & bulldozers that wait, like vultures, to ruin me - Jacqueline Jiang "If My Body Is Dying, Tell Me You Love Me"

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

Led her through ferry boats and Ferris wheels - Michael Dumanis "Sehnsucht"

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

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

Ferry.

Fire Truck:
In winter bearded with fire truck ice - Mark Jarman "Tale of Two Cities"

Flatbed [Truck]:
A fast-driving diesel flatbed of felled trees - Nickole Brown "Black bird, red wing"

Fleet.

Flotilla:
With its flotilla of votive candles in the window - Roger Mitchell "Going Back"

Forklift:
Gorgeous scars won from wrestling with a forklift - Vincent Toro "¿Que Que La Femme?"

Freight Car:
The clearing yard loaded with empty freight cars - Edward Hirsch "That's the Job"

Freight Train:
Of freight trains lacking finesse - G. O. Clark "Sound Check"

business is built from freight trains and warships - Sam Sax "Ode to Those Who Block Tunnels and Bridges"

And stars a freight train passing - James Marcus Schuyler "Poem [This beauty that I see]"

Into the crease the freight train hits - Jake Adam York "Letter Already Broadcast into Space"

Frigate:
Deep in the bilges of frigates - David Tomas Martinez "The Mechanics of Men"

High carrion frigates - Derek Walcott "The Whelk Gatherers"

Galleon.

Galley.

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

Gondola:
The boat-yard of the last gondola maker - Campbell McGrath "Joseph Brodsky in Venice (1981)"

My soul is a sleeping gondola - Iris Tree "[I should like to say to the world]"

Hackney Cab:
Beauty a hackney cab of commerce - Mike Tyler "Palazzo Tartaruga"

Hearse:
Jewelled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse - T.S. Eliot "Ash-Wednesday IV"

Trailed a white hearse - Sadakichi Hartmann "My Rubaiyat LXII"

Hearses carrying the corpse of profit - Brenda Hillman "Lines for the 19th Amendment Centennial"

From our hearse of changing dust - Joshua Henry Jones "The Universe"

Helicopter:
When the helicopters shred the sky - Angela Liu "Dow Jones Dream"

The covert jackaling of helicopters and jets - Brandy Nālani McDougall "This Island on Which I Love You"

Our third eyes watch for black helicopters - M. Bartley Seigel "Out Here, We're All of Us Cracked"

Hybrid.

Ice Cream Truck:
The ice cream truck's jingle warped and blaring - L.D. Lewis "Young Death Is in Love"

Jet.

Locomotive:
What fills a tunnel after a locomotive passes - Stephen Dunn "The Unsaid"

Locomotives and other forgettings - Sandy Florian "House"

With its alphabetical locomotives - Sandy Florian "Our Big City"

Locomotive running off the rails - Cynthia Zarin "Anxiety"

Mercedes:
Black Mercedes with the Ayn Rand vanity plate - Kevin Prufer "Bread and Cake"

Merry-Go-Round:
A small child trapped on a merry-go-round - Tim Earley "Vacation Bible School"

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"

Navy:
Where the gallant navy rides the deep - James Beattie "The Triumph of Melancholy"

Reckoning up their navies - Emily Lawless "Wide Is the Shannon"

Navy blue around a fake significance - John Moncure Wettarau "On Looking at a Mediocre Painting"

Omnibus:
Nine hundred omnibuses rumble up and down - Felix Leigh "London Town"

Pinnace:
Love's pinnace overfraught - John Donne "Air and Angels"

The pinnace needs a swifter sail - Margaret Widdemer "A New Spinning Song"

Plague Ship:
Bring this plague ship to port - Lisa M. Bradley "Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas Lost at Sea, 1527"

Pushcart:
A pushcart heaped beyond possibility - John Ciardi "Abundance"

Raft.

Rail/Railroad.

Rickshaw:
In the rickshaw mixing up cultures - Mike Tyler "Palazzo Tartaruga"

Riverboat:
Waiting for a riverboat loaded with music - T.R. Hummer "Who Remembers Davenport"

Rocket.

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

Rowboat:
A toy dog left on a rowboat adrift - Mary Jo Bang "Today You're the Still Photographer"

Schooner:
In a ghost schooner's nocturnal calm - Yusef Komunyakaa "The Day I Saw Barack Obama Reading Derek Walcott's Collected Poems"

Ship.

Shuttle.

Skiff:
Will follow Theseus, towed like a battered skiff - Euripedes "Hercules Distracted" transl. by Michael Wodhull

a skiff of snow in the new week - Pattie McCarthy "outgoing tide--"

In a skiff on a sunrisen lake we are watchers - Marie Ponsot "Springing"

An exile in a self-made skiff - Diane Seuss "Nature, Which Cannot Be Driven To"

Sled:
Dolls, and tops, and sleds, and balls - Sydney Dayre "A Letter to Mother Nature" [Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad (ed. by Daphne Dale), 1894]

A sled rushes down a slope in his dreams - Tomaž Šalamun "Young Cops"

Sleigh:
A red sleigh skimming a frozen lake - David Wojahn "Catawba Cotton Mill, 1908"

Snowplow:
Snowplow pushes time across the prairie - Mary Jo Bang "Four Boxes of Everything"

Snowplows etch lines in the whiteness - Sue Budin "After the Blizzard"

Space Shuttle:
Particles of space shuttles, of a moon shattered - Jennifer Elise Foerster "Richer than Anyone in Heaven"

Spaceship.

Squadron.

Starship:
A list of starships decelerating toward us - Kendall Evans "Now We Must Speak in the Shadows of Silence"

Another wave of time-traveling starships - David C. Kopaska-Merkel "Not the Home World"

Submarine:
His laughter was submarine and profound - T.S. Eliot "Mr. Apollinax"

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

Subway.

Taxi/Taxicab.

Tesla:
Where the Teslas spun their burnished wheels - David Wojahn "Inauguration Day, 2025"

Tractor:
Beyond the knives of a tractor - Taneum Bambrick "Driving to Cadiz"

A tractor skirting a green triangle - Mary Jo Bang "Children Were Erasing Their Faces"

slung from tractor factories - Canisia Lubrin "The World After Rain"

A rusty tractor sits fallow in the field - Georgiana Valoyce-Sanchez "The Eye of the Flute"

Train.

Tram:
Leave the tram-car's jarring jangle - William Hodgson Ellis "Maskinogewagaming"

Trawler:
Fishnets trawling stars - Jennifer Elise Foerster "Hvmken 7

Skirted the rocks and wrecked trawlers - Patrick Philips "Elegy with Oil in the Bilge"

Trolley:
The rattling clangor of the trolley - Anne Knish "Opus 150"

Truck.

Two-Door:
boxcars shaking full of gleaming two-doors - Katrina Vandenberg "Oarlock, Oar (Y, W, V, U, F)"

Van.

Vehicle:
All the vehicles for imbibing - Brandon D. Johnson "Standing by a Shelf"

My body is just a vehicle to move me - Elizabeth Schmuhl "Premonitions: #39"

A cumbersome dream vehicle - Elizabeth Spires "The Snowy Day"

Vessel.

Wagon:
The wagons go along the little crooked streets - Miriam Clark Potter "The Highest Hill in Happy Town"

Wain.

Warship:
His throne's the war-ship's lofty deck - Allan Cunningham "The British Sailor's Song" [Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction v.10 no.288, supplementary number, 1828]

business is built from freight trains and warships - Sam Sax "Ode to Those Who Block Tunnels and Bridges"

The sun's great warship - A.E. Stallings "On Visiting a Borrowed Country House in Arcadia"

Wheelbarrow.

Yacht:
What yacht or spaceship have you hijacked? - Elaine Equi "No Other" [Poetry May 2019]

Zeppelin:
Through the red thunders of a Zeppelin raid - Stella Benson "The Newer Zion"

Thunderheads like doomed zeppelins - Carl Phillips "Character Being a Different Thing from Beauty, Describe the Difference"


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

Tree.

Plants/Trees - Parts [category].


Acacia.

Alder.

Almond.

Ash (both trees and fire residue).

Aspen.

Balsa:
My fingertips were all balsa - Amanda Mitzel "Arach"

Balsam.

Baobab:
Even the baobab trees will split open at my command - Mahtem Shiferraw "We, Made of Bone"

Each time a baobab drops a beetle - Adam Wiedewitsch "If Night You Were a City"

Beech.

Birch.

Black Walnut:
Blackbird shouting in the black walnut tree - Kirun Kapur "Rajat Jayanti"

Boortree:
The boortree and the lightsome ash across the portal grow - William Allingham "Abbey Asaroe"
[another name for an elder tree]

Boxwood:
Carved his body from a bough of box-tree - "Anthology of Jugoslav Poetry LXIV: Brotherless Sisters" transl. by Sir John Bowring

Lounges in an abstract of boxwood and holly - Sonya Taaffe "Idle Thoughts While Watching a Faun"

Camphor:
Rigid myrrh-bud, camphor-flower - H.D. "Sea Iris"

Carob Tree:
The language of sunbirds trilling in the carob trees - Lena Khalaf Tuffaha "Dialogic"

Cedar.

Chalk Maple:
Rub chalk maple over the head of a screech - Yalie Saweda Kamara "Listening to Nina Simone Sing 'Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues'"

Cherry.

Chestnut.

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

Cottonwood.

Crabapple:
Crabapples and blackberries to share with the birds - Theodora Goss "The Gold-Spinner"

The last of the maroon crabapple ovates - Ada Limon "It's the Season I Often Mistake"

Cypress.

Dogwood.

Ebon/Ebony.

Elder:
Where the grey elder-thickets hang - Walter de la Mare "They Told Me"

Elm.

Eucalyptus.

Evergreen.

Fir.

Fuchsia.

Ginko:
Little ginko fans confettied on the sidewalk - Aimee Nezhukumatathil "Forsythe Avenue Haibun"

The trumpet vine that grows up the ginko's trunk - Carl Phillips "Fall Colors"

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

Greenwood:
Out in the greenwood to romp and play - L.A.B.C. "Our May-Day at the South" [Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad (ed. by Daphne Dale), 1894]

Fifty years under the greenwood tree - Andrew Lang "The Brigand's Grave"

Hawthorn.

Hazel.

Hemlock.

Hickory.

Honey Locust:
Covet the seeds of the honey locust - D.A. Powell "corydon & alexis, redux"

Ironbark Eucalyptus:
The ironbark eucalyptus dwells in ignorance and beauty - Mark Jarman "Dispatches from Devereux Slough"

Ironwood:
Before the first big freeze cracks ironwood - M. Bartley Seigel "Into the Thicket"

Japanese Maple:
Burgundy air under the Japanese maples - Brian Tierney "Catering"

Joshua Tree:
Roosting in the dark branches of the Joshua tree - Philip Levine "The Whole Soul"

Juniper.

Larch.

Laurel.

Lemon.

Linden.

Locust Tree:
The breath therein of a locust-tree - Emanuel Morgan "Opus 45"

Magnolia.

Mahogany:
In unfettered mahogany abandon - Bruce Boston & Robert Frazier "A Compass for the Mutant Rain Forest"

Darkens with alabaster and mahogany - Ellen Hinsey "Epistle"

Watch true brews slide down that mahogany bar - Bob Holman "Scotty and the Rib Tips"

Mangrove.

Maple.

Mesquite.

Mimosa:
White lights in the mimosa trees - Erin Belieu "She Returns to the Water"

The mimosa casts its delicate shadows - "The Breath of Spring" transl. not credited [The Jade Flute, c.1960, Project Gutenberg]

Monkey Puzzle:
the fossilized needles of a monkey puzzle - Dylan Brennan "A First Glimpse of Ireland" [excerpt]

Mulberry.

Oak.

Oleander.

Olive trees.

Palm (tree).

Parasol Tree:
A table in the shade of a parasol tree - Dara Barrois/Dixon "Incident on the Road to the Capital"

Pine.

Piñon:
Straight up the piñon-studded shale - Carol Moldaw "What We Wanted"

Ponderosa:
Ridgeline ponderosas wind-pardoned - Chris Dombrowski "Fluvial"

Seeking openings in the ponderosa pines - Carol Moldaw "What We Wanted"

Poplar.

Quince.

Raintree:
To rest in the shade of the metal raintrees - Vijay Seshadri "The Long Meadow"

Redbud:
Beech tree and redbud fine-laced in vines - Anne Spencer "Life-Long, Poor Browning..." [Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets, ed. by Countee Cullen, 1927]

Even the redbuds and goldenrod you cultivate - Keith Taylor "Prayers from the Polish Church, Detroit, 1963"

Redbuds dispersing their ruby secrets - Amie Whittemore "Ghosting Aubade"

Redwood:
Listen for a green word from the redwoods - Duane Ackerson "Operation Macbeth"

The penumbra of a redwood across frozen ground - Kailee Pedersen "Four Sea Interludes"

Pornographic magazines ported into the redwoods - Dean Young "Lucifer"

Rowan:
Berried branches of the rowan - Joseph Campbell writing as Seosamh MacCathmhaoil "Lament of Padraic Mor Mac Cruimin Over His Sons"

Chewing bitter rowanberries - Krystyna Dąbrowska "Confession" transl. by Karen Kovacik

At the foot of the rowan-tree - "Do You Remember that Night?" transl. by Eleanor Hull [Written down by O'Curry for Dr. George Petrie.]

To pluck a branch of rowan red with fruit - "The Táin: Book III" (transl. by Mary A. Hutton)

Sapling.

Shagbark:
Twisted vines on a shagbark tree - Conrad Hilberry "Angles"

Shrub-Pine:
Treasure spilled near the shrub-pines - H.D. "Sea Poppies"

Spruce.

Sugar Maple:
Pleasure in the veins of a sugar maple - Arthur Sze "The Shapes of Leaves"

Sumac.

Sycamore.

Tamarack:
Through golden tamaracks in autumn - Rosalie Sanara Petrouske "True North"

Tea-Tree:
A trumpet in the tea-tree - Furnley Maurice "Neely Lorst"

Walnut.

Willow.

Yew.


Navigation Links:
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For other units of measure see Potential Titles: Measurement - Units Of [category].


Age.

Calendar.

Century.

Day.

Decade.

Eon/Aeon.

Epoch:
Exposed to the critique of a whole epoch - W.H. Auden "In Memory of Sigmund Freud"

Era:
Early in the era of the pause button - Dan Chiasson "Tackle Football"

Every era of hibernation - Mai Der Vang "Out of Research Into Reveries"

Shaped an Era's golden height - George Martin "Shelley"

Fortnight:
Claiming the right to live another fortnight - Alice Dunbar-Nelson "Snow in October" [Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets, ed. by Countee Cullen, 1927]

In a fortnight would set East and West in a flame - "A Peep into the Whig Penny Post-Bag" [Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, no.CCCLXIV, v.LIX, Feb. 1846]

Half Hour:
One half hour of the long twenty-four - Bulwer Lytton publishing as Owen Meredith "Lucile: Part I Canto I"

Hour.

Instant.

Interlude:
Murmuring the sea's song for an interlude - Caris Brooke "[Girdled with gold my little lady's bower]"

Allowed the wind its interludes - Chris Dombrowski "They Knew Each Leaf Contained the Rain and Sun"

Interlude of nearly translucent slices - Erica Funkhouser "My Father's Lunch"

Whistling interludes of death - E.J. Pratt "The Conclusion of 'Rachel'"

Kalpas:
A palace lake is ash among the kalpas - Lu Yu "Light Rain" transl. by David Hinton

Millennium/Millennia.

Millisecond:
To count milliseconds by watching a brook run - dg nanouk okpik "For-The-Spirits-Who-Have-Rounded-The-Bend IIVAQSAAT"

Minute.

Moment.

Month.

Nanosecond:
A nanosecond flowers into eternity - Lorraine Schein "The Garden of Time"

Period.

Season.

Second.

Week.

Year.


Navigation Links:
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Acrobatic:
The acrobat's taffy of satin - David Tomas Martinez "Calaveras Section 2"

The acrobat I dreamt of becoming - Emma E. Murray "Drowning Machine"

Strange acrobats to catch them - Iris Tree "Nerves"

Angler/Angling:
Angling with a baited hook - Nicholas Breton "The Happy Countryman"

Followed the angler's winding path - Henry van Dyke "The Red Flower"

Athlete:
Life's fragile athlete - Charles Baudelaire "The Soul of Wine" transl. not credited

With the happy grace of athletes - Michael Lauchlan "Trumbull Ave., 1981"

Among those athletes fronting storms - George Meredith "To Colonel Charles (Dying General C.B.B.)"

Balance Beam:
The balance-beam of Fate was bent - Ralph Waldo Emerson "Uriel"

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

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

Bicycle/Bike.

Bleachers:
Brachiosauruses by the bleachers - Haley Bossé "When the Time Comes to Split the Gym"

Bowling:
Bowling by chance in adjacent lanes - Idra Novey "Value City"

The dune bowling down meteors - Cynthia Zarin "Orbit"

Bridle.

Cartwheel:
And teaches the urchins to cartwheel - Edryd Bowmer "Skink Song" [Strange Horizons 14 April 2025]

Champion.

Climb.

Compete.

Contest.

Dance.

Dive/Dove.

Exercise.

Exert/Exertion.

Figure-Skating See: Skate.

Finish Line:
Arguing about the finish line of the space race - Libby Graham "Space Worm Poem" [Strange Horizons Fund Drive 2025]

Fishing.

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

Football players firing glory-cannons downfield - Catherynne M. Valente "Mouse Koan"

Gallop.

Gridiron:
Achilles of the moleskins and the gridiron - Frank Horne "Letters Found Near a Suicide" [Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets, ed. by Countee Cullen, 1927]

Gymnastics:
a gymnast on a thin thread of the horizon - Valzhyna Mort "Belarusian I"

the gymnast of our future was leaping - Valzhyna Mort "Belarusian I"

Halfcourt:
A heave from the halfcourt moving like a meteor - Tomás Q. Morín "Bird"

Halter:
I am Destiny's halter! Unloose me not! - Stephen Vincent Benet "The Last Vision of Helen"

Then memory breaks its halter and stampedes - James W. Whilt "Springtime"

Handspring:
And some one flipped a handspring in my heart - Wallace Irwin "The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor"

Harness.

Hike:
To hike on the narrow paths - J.M. Allen "The Narrow Paths"

Left him hiking along the barren shores of physics - Robert Frazier "A Feel for the Heavens"

Hike and hustle and invent curse words - Vincent Toro "¿Que Que La Femme?"

Hitch-hike on the tailpipe of a car - Duane Ackerson "Little Ghosts"

Hop:
Oriole hopping from branch to branch - Terry Blackhawk "Maumee, Maumee"

Hops and rages whilst the rabble stare - Reginald Heber "The Whippiad: A Satirical Poem" [Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, no.CCCXXXIII, v.LIV, July 1843]

Imps keeping time with skip and hop - William Bell Scott "The Witch's Ballad"

Invited into our hopping choir - John Yau "Charles Baudelaire and I Meet in the Oval Garden"

Hunt.

Joust:
The jousting favor of one who is in thrall to no one - Sharon Olds "Boxer Aria"

Juggle.

Jump.

Marathon.

Piton:
Pitons on my gloves and my boots - Robert Randolph Medcalf, Jr. "Ice Magic"

Race.

Reins.

Relay Race:
Useless for gift wrapping and relay races - Dean Young "I Said Yes but I Meant No" [Poetry Oct. 2003]

Ride/Rode.

Riding-Crop:
Raised his riding-crop in golden greeting - Li Po "The Encounter" transl. not credited [The Jade Flute, c.1960, Project Gutenberg]

Roller Derby:
What's next in the social roller derby? - Paul Cameron Brown "Dash Into Realism: Escape Pad from the Sixties"

Run/Ran.

Saddle.

Score.

Skate.

Skip.

Snorkel:
A snorkel breathing another dimension - C. A. Conrad "Frank"

Soccer:
Surrounds the soccer field of what if - Dean Young "I Am But a Traveller in this Land & Know Little of Its Ways"

Somersault.

Sport.

Sprint:
Sprints into his shadow - Cameron Awkward-Rich "The Little Girl Dreams of Dying"

In a frozen sprint of light - Andres Cerpa "Parkinson's Disease: Autumn"

One of time's swiftest sprinters - Lutpulla Mutellip "Answer to the Years" transl. by Aziz Isa Elkun

Steeple Chase:
A steeple chase marked by clocks - Dom "Seaside Sunrise: Happiness when it Comes"

Stirrup:
To press the stirrup in fearlessness and glee - William Cory "Amaturus"

Till the Princes of Earth bow low to kiss his stirrup - "The Gold-Finder" [Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, no.CCCCXXXIX, v.LXXI, May 1852]

This stirrup-cup of stars - Louis Untermeyer "The Wine of Night"

Strike Zone:
Watching the strike zone get smaller and smaller - Oliver de la Paz "When Benny Agbayani Became a Met"

Swim/Swam/Swum.

Swing.

Tap-Dance:
Tap-dancing up a crystal stair - Hailey Leithauser "The Old Woman Gets Drunk with the Moon"

Tennis:
The pocked metronome of tennis balls - Debra Allbery "Sidereal"

Tetherball:
Playing tetherball alone - Chris Dombrowski "May"

Throw.

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"

Trek:
In the trek of the blind snow - Lola Ridge "Back Yards"

Trophy

Trot.

Tumble.

Twirl.

Umpire:
The umpires noting all with care to tell - Palmer Cox "The Brownies at Base-ball" [St. Nicholas v.XIII no.12, Oct. 1886]

Bedlam elected himself umpire - Sandy Florian "But This Is Ambiguous"

No umpire she betwixt the chimes and knell - Herman Melville "Clarel" [excerpt - Epilogue]

Walk.

Walking Stick:
A weed stalk is the devil's walking stick - Gary Copeland Lilley "Unmarked Grave"

A walking stick of silk - Maggie Nelson "For Lily on Her 25th Birthday"

Whirl.

Wrestle.


Navigation Links:
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Acrid.

Aroma.

Audible.

Blind.

Chill.

Coarse.

Cold.

Cool.

Deaf/Deafen.

Decibel.

Ear.

Eyes.

Fetid:
Under the vapour of the fetid air - T.S. Eliot "Ash-Wednesday III"

A city of fetid promise - Sally Wen Mao "Anna May Wong Stars as Cyborg #86"

The fetid breath of the saloon - Dennison Woodcock "The Ruined Home"

Frigid.

Hear.

Hot.

Lukewarm:
Found slaughters here ironically lukewarm - Harry Martinson "Aniara 92" transl. by Stephen Klass and Leif Sjöberg

Nerve.

Nose:
Many foes, behind, before, beneath your nose - John Gay "Fable LX: The Degenerate Bees" [edited, updated, & adapted by John Benson Rose]

To leave dog's noses no evidence - KaNikki Jakarta "A Wading"

Powder their noses with pollen - Maurya Simon "Angels"

Numb.

Odor.

Olfactory:
Green vapors trigger an olfactory déjà vu - Tory Dent "The Moon and the Yew Tree"

Optic:
Breaks the false optics tinged with fortune's glare - Mark Akenside "An Epistle to Curio. [1]"

Deluded long by Fancy's dazzling optics - Mark Akenside "The Pleasures of Imagination Book. A Poem, in Three Books. III"

Pain.

Pleasure.

Pressure.

Pungent:
Pungent in the still images sacrificed to history - Kimberly Blaeser "Unlawful Assembly"

The onion's pungent terror - Ashley M. Jones "Harriette Winslow and Aunt Rachel Clean Collard Greens on Prime Time Television"

Pungent with the breath of pines - Archibald Lampman "At the Ferry"

With the pungence of sealed spice-jars - Amy Lowell "A Lady"

Reek,

Scent.

Sensation.

Sight.

Skin.

Smell.

Sonar:
With readings and sonar echoes of our own - Henry Farnan "How to Make Contact with a Lost Star System"

Where the old songs still echo like sonar - Catherynne M. Valente "Aquaman and the Duality of Self/Other, America, 1985"

Stench.

Stink:
Grow from cinder and stinking ash - Margo Berdeshevsky "Somewhere Everywhere"

Stinking of axel grease and gasoline - Daniel Johnson "In the Absence of Sparrows"

Tactile:
Tactile memory real as salt, as soap, as ashes - Joanne Merriam "Mirror Points"

Tactile hallucinations brought on by oxygen deficiency - Samantha Pious "Redbud"

Taste.

Temperature.

Tepid:
having flung d'artagnan clear to luna's tepid stone - Andy Miller "All Those Bleached Bones"

Texture.

Tingle.

Titillate:
Stopped our titillating trophy hunts - Nancy Mercado "2020 A Year to Forget"

Tongue

Touch.

Vision.

Warm.


Navigation Links:
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This includes professions and other people adjacent words that don't fit better elsewhere.

Accomplice.

Aficionado:
An aficionado of the wilted, the shopworn, and the free - Ted Kooser "In the Alley

Agent.

Adulterer:
And sought th' adulterer's Phrygian bed - Euripedes "Rhesus" transl. by Michael Wodhull

Allegiance.

Ally.

Ambassador:
Sends assassins not ambassadors - Lisa M. Bradley "Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas Lost at Sea, 1527"

Delicate ambassador of intricate slain numbers - Hart Crane "For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen"

Th' ambassadors of Hector and the Senate - Euripedes "Rhesus" transl. by Michael Wodhull

Ambassadors exchanging costly gifts - Dana Gioia "Three Drunk Poets"

An ambassador of the sun - Grace Nichols "Ode to a Daffodil"

Assistant.

Associate.

Autocrat:
Upon the Book of Time the Autocrat has writ - Wallace Irwin "The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám Jr."

Band.

Bandit.

Barbarian.

Barkeeper:
'Til the Barkeep's out of ice - W.E. Christian "Pay Day"

Beldame:
Fuelled [sic] by a beldame's winter fire - Paul Cameron Brown "Sabbat"

Bigot:
Where bigot zeal should find no place - Mrs. L.H. Sigourney "Huguenot Fort"

Who scorned the bigot's yoke - Charles Sprague "An Ode Pronounced Before the Inhabitants of Boston, September the Seventeenth, 1830, at the Centennial Celebration of the Settlement of the City"

Girt with Bigotry's besotted crew - "Truth and Beauty" [Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, no.CCCLXVII, v.LIX, May 1846]

Whether voyeur, bigot, or sibling in change - Izzy Wasserstein "Come Back Wrong" [Strange Horizons 5 May 2025]

Bully.

Bureaucracy.

Bystander:
Bystanders back from the river of light - Charles Wright "I've Been Sitting Here Thinking Back Over My Life..."

Cabal:
This hot cabal of treasury bench - "The Ghost of Chatham"

Cadre:
A cadre of shame brandishing knives - Ali Trotta "The Devil You Know"

Candidate:
A painful candidate for lasting fame - George Crabbe "The Library"

Catspaw:
A gamester's catspaw and a banker's slave - Sidney Lanier "Corn" [Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, v.15, no.86, Feb. 1875]

Chancellor:
The Chancellor of the Wheat and Corn - James M'Carroll "A Royal Race"

Chaperone:
Must fill the chaperon's lonely seat - Marguerite, Countess of Blessington "The Belle of a Season"

By the white swan chaperoned - D.M. Matheson "The Gardens"

The chaperone lingers at the adder's-tongue - Ellen Bryant Voigt "The Field Trip"

Chief.

Citizen.

Civilian:
Slowed down for civilian conversation - jessica Care moore "on memory (for Jeff Mills)"

Class.

Clerk:
Mindless clerks administering my life from afar - Paul Cameron Brown "Tussaud's"

Clique:
Idols of a petty clique - Lewis Carroll "Fame's Penny-Trumpet"

Club.

Coalition:
Buoyed by your own coalition with the air - Ada Limon "How to Give Up"

Cohort.

Collaborator:
That jaded collaborator, daylight - Maxwell Bodenheim "Realism"

Collective.

Committee:
And escape the wrath of the committees - John M. Ford "Troy: the Movie"

The committee for naming tornadoes - Matthew Zapruder "Schwinn"

Community:
Cross this ocean of liberation in community - Carol Ann Carl "I Remember"

Where community can constellate - Carol Ann Carl "I Remember"

Vignettes of the tomato latticed community gardens - Faye Susan "Lego Rhapsody" [Strange Horizon 26 May 2025]

Comrade.

Conclave:
In the midst of a dazzled conclave - C.S. Calverley "Flight"

I'll summon a great conclave of the comets - Vita Sackville-West "Imagination"

Confederate:
This confederate state formed of four cities - Euripedes "The Children of Hercules" transl. by Michael Wodhull

Wherever his confederates he descried hard pressed - Euripedes "Helen" transl. by Michael Wodhull

All striving with confederate aim - Francis Noel Clarke Mundy "Needwood Forest: Part, IV"

Conference.

Convict.

Convocation:
Convocations of indispensable sisterhoods - Purvi Shah "You believed only a girl born of dandelion can be ferocious--"

Cop:
Hidden from the cop car sleeking innocently past - Mark Jarman "The Black Riviera"

Council.

Courier:
The courier's feet delayed - Ralph Waldo Emerson "The Snow Storm"

His couriers come by squadrons - Ralph Waldo Emerson "Song of Nature"

Whose couriers knocked on every heart - Elinor Jenkins "The Last Evening"

Swift courier o'er the threatening tide - Lydia H. Sigourney "To a Land Bird at Sea" [Graham's Magazine v.XX no.1, Jan. 1842]

Courtesan:
Will deliver countries to the care of courtesans - Abu'l-Ala "The Diwan XC" (transl. by Henry Baerlein)

Covenant.

Crew.

Crowd.

Customer: See Custom.

Dastard:
Whose dastard tongue leaves public arguments unsung - Mark Akenside "Ode XVIII. To the Right Honourable Francis, Earl of Huntingdon, 1747"

May brand me with a dastard's name - Euripedes "The Children of Hercules" transl. by Michael Wodhull

Thirst for vengeance on the dastard fox - U.T. "The College.--A Sketch in Verse" [Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, no.CCCCIII, v.LXV, May 1849]

Demagogue:
Demagogue tongues that sow the dragon-teeth - Thomas Aird "The Old Soldier" [Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine no.CCCCXXXVI, v.LXXI, Feb. 1852]

Which on our fathers' bones the demagogue would build - Albert Pike "Apostrophe" [Graham's Magazine v.XX no.1, Jan. 1842]

Democracy.

Denizen:
Where an ancient wrath is denizen - Arthur Colton "The Herb of Grace"

One of the earth-starred denizens - Seamus Heaney "Freedman"

Despot:
The despots in their stolen state - Tommaso Campanella "XXXII. To the Swiss" transl. by John Addington Symonds

All the despot's bolts and powers - Dugald Moore "Rise, My Love"

With despot snares behind them - "Remember Traitors" [Beadle's Dime Union Song Book No.2 1861]

Where your despot feet have led - Iris Tree "Flame"

Diaspora:
A thirst trap hinged on diaspora - Tarik Dobbs "Artist Statement"

A hall filled with a hungry diaspora - Feliz Lucia Molina "Paról"

a full moon in diaspora - upfromsumdirt (Ron Davis) "Rocket No. 9 To Venus"

the universe in diasphoric wailing - upfromsumdirt (Ron Davis) "The Three Sulas"

Dictator: See Dictate.

Dolt:
Where every dolt has chronicled his folly - T.W.P. "Letter Second: To Thomas Carlyle, Esquire, London" [The Knickerbocker v.22, no.1, July 1843]

Elite:
to be taught by the elite how to make a democracy - Angélica Freitas "microwave" [Poetry Jan. 2016] transl. by Tiffany Higgins

Washington's elite that vowed to drown them - Nancy Mercado "I Come to See for Myself"

Embassy.

Emigrant:
Where a crowd of cosmic emigrants sat shivering - Harry Martinson "Aniara 99" transl. by Stephen Klass and Leif Sjöberg

Emissary:
The emissary eglantine break wave round - George Meredith "Hymn to Colour"

They walked long as emissaries - Carlos Manuel Rivera "Thanatos and Technophilia"

The emissaries of her will - John Hall Wheelock "The Secret One"

Emissaries drawn from near and far - Bree Wernicke "A Tour of the Blue Palace"

Enemy.

Envoy:
An envoy for the memory - Jenny Molberg "Fourth State of Matter"

Exile.

Expatriate:
Went telling of expatriate tears - T.M. Kettle "When Others See Us as We See Ourselves!"

The decadent ruin where expatriate gods live - Tim Pratt "Ammut in Her Later Years"

Itinerant eyes in expatriate hearts - Sonia Sanchez "A Love Song for Spelman"

Faction.

Family Relationships [category].

Fascist:
Generals and gods, fascists and oil wells - John Trudell "Voices Catching Up/Lompoc Song"

Fellow/Fellowship.

Feminist:
The complicity of the scholars and the feminists - Poupeh Missaghi "Symptoms that May Be Signs of Some Things"

Flower Girl:
The myth of flower girls selling futures - Carlie Hoffman "Memory of France"

Foe.

Folk.

Foreign.

Foreman:
Foreman's shack at the mining pool's edge - Jack Kin Lim "Kuala Lumpur Urban Legends"

So vulgar it would make a foreman blush - Vincent Toro "¿Que Que La Femme?"

Friend.

Fugitive.

Gang:
Shredding the sky in their hooligan gangs - Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris "swifts"

Above the rude gang that he governs - Abel C. Thomas writing as Iron Gray "The Gospel of Slavery: A Primer of Freedom"

Gentleman:
They don't fret to follow when the Gentlemen go by - Rudyard Kipling "A Smugglers' Song"

Graduate:
Past the toy town of the postgraduates - Richard Chwedyk "Rich and Pam Go to Fermilab and Later See a Dead Man"

Group.

Guard.

Guardian.

Guest.

Guild:
Just outside the hall of their ancient Guild - Henry S. Leigh "The Vision of the Alderman"

Harlot:
While Cunning nestles in the harlot-heart - Erasmus Darwin "The Botanic Garden part 1: The Economy of Vegetation canto I"

Herald.

Hierarchy.

Higher-Ups:
Suspect the higher-ups have hidden motives - Jen DeGregorio "No Isms Except Neologism"

Hobo:
Railroad tracks and hobo jungle - Mary Jo Bang "A Screen Door Slams"

Which keeps hobos poor and corporations rich - Wallace Irwin "The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor"

Host.

Hostage.

Household:
Nobody in the widow's household ever celebrated anniversaries - Stanley Kunitz "Passing Through"

Morning wakes its household noises - J.I.L. "The Old Home" [Chambers' Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, 4th series, no.746, 13 April 1878]

Lord of ten thousand households - Li Shang-yin "Poem for My Little Boy" transl. by Burton Watson

Of the shadow on the household - Robert Louis Stevenson "Christmas at Sea"

Immigrant:
Has failed every immigrant - Fatimah Asghar "A Starless Sky Is A Joy Too"

All of immigrants to this soil - Emanuel Xavier "Americano"

Journeyman:
Death's celestial journeymen unveil - Geoffrey Dearmer "Dedication: to Christopher Killed, Suvla Bay, October 6th, 1915"

Judge/Judgment.

Juror/Jury:
The jury picked to hear your plea - Mike Allen "Lis Pendens"

Jurors surveying a crime scene - Colleen J. McElroy "The Lost Breath of Trees"

We'll try the rogue, by Judge and Jury - "The Trial and Execution of the Sparrow for Killing Cock Robin"

Landlady/Landlord.

Libertine:
A cross between a Jester and a Libertine - Oliver Herford "The Smoker's Year Book: March"

Longshoreman:
Danced the floors of cold longshoremen's halls - David St. John "Guitar"

Maid/Maiden.

Malcontent:
Rough-hewn hours of practice and malcontent - Anthony Butts "Song of Earth and Sky"

Malcontents and mutineers - Charles Cotton "Contentation"

The alphabet for interrupters, malcontents - Carolina Ebeid "Wearing a Mask, Speaking into the Camera"

Master.

Matron:
Assisted by the noblest matrons of Troy - Euripedes "Hecuba" transl. by Michael Wodhull

Mayor:
The sullen mayor who reigns in hell - Friedrich Schiller "The Hypochondriacal Pluto"

Member:
A member of the fiasco survivor's club - Mary Jo Bang "A Sonata for Four Hands, II"

Reunited members of the unacknowledged - Jim Daniels "The Religious Significance of the Super Ball"

All members are beholden to our pledge - Bree Wernicke "Welcome to the Horror Opposition Association" [Strange Horizons 13 Oct. 2025]

Mentor:
For Starvation's been my mentor and has taught her lesson well - Rudolph Valentino "Hunger"

Migrant/Migration.

Minion.

Minister.

Miser.

Mob.

Myrmidon:
Whose myrmidons ever are questing for souls - Emil Pataja "Marmok" [Futuria Fantasia, winter 1940]

The innumerable myrmidons of his empire - Herman George Scheffauer "The Masque of the Elements"

Native.

Neighbor/Neighborhood.

Newborn.

Nomad.

Notary:
A notary to write my will with prudence - Joseph Victor von Scheffel "The Rodenstein Ballads: The Three Villages" transl. by Charles Leland

Official:
Against whom there was no official complaint - W.H. Auden "The Unknown Citizen"

Protected by official oblivion - Claudia Castro Luna "Maria E. Dweller of Heaven"

Treat with Nature in official pacts - George Meredith "My Theme: Continuation"

Oligarch:
Aimed against the oligarchs - Giosue Carducci "On My Daughter's Marriage" transl. by Frank Sewall

The oligarchs trampling the green - Marilyn Hacker "Ghazal (Ya Lateef!)"

Or made the Oligarchal Tyrants strong - Philo "The Tribute"

One hundred miles north the oligarchs clap - David Wojahn "Inauguration Day, 2025"

Outlaw.

Overlord:
We are overlords of change in the glad morning - Bliss Carman "The Pensioners"

Overlord of many kings - Clark Ashton Smith "Nero"

Overseer:
A true overseer of his heart - "The Wisdom of Solomon 1" [Project Gutenberg. The Wisdom of the Apocrypha. 1910. Ed. by L. Cranmer-Byng and S.A. Kapadia]

Parliament:
Mute parliament of each thing - Robert Pinsky "The Dig"

Come out of the ocean in their parliamentary regalia - Dean Young "Quiet Grass, Green Stone"

Partisan:
A partisan witness to the uneasy union of life and loss - Abbi Ball "The Big Bang Cycle"

Feeding the partisans from frugal larders - Adrienne Rich "Char"

So my native tongue is partisanship - Dujie Tahat "All-American Ghazal"

Passerby:
Encounter only Death, the Passer-by - William Theodore Peters "Death and Love"

We hand passers-by silk ribboned poems - Barbara Jane Reyes "Downtown Oakland Poem"

Patriot:
The stroke of Caesar's fate amid the crowd of patriots - Mark Akenside "The Pleasures of Imagination Book. A Poem, in Three Books. I"

How could we ever be patriots? - W.J. Lofton "The Lord is American"

To exiled patriots vote their greeting - "The Masquerade of Freedom" [Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine no.CCCXX, v.LXVIII, Oct. 1850]

Patron.

Pedestrian:
And aren't we all pedestrians of air? - Dean Young "Everyday Escapees" [Poetry April 2013]

People.

Person/Personal.

Physician:
Physician who cured not a few of ambition - James Elroy Flecker "War Song of the Saracens"

Sought physicians for histology - Katy Lederer "Mass Effect"

Then give place to the physician - "The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach or Ecclesiasticus 38" [Project Gutenberg. The Wisdom of the Apocrypha. 1910. Ed. by L. Cranmer-Byng and S.A. Kapadia]

Playmate.

Plot.

Poacher.

Police:
A gateway to emptiness policed by ghosts - Mike Allen "Kandinsky's Garden"

The policeman's voice an aftershock - Joshua Bennett "Still Life with Toy Gun"

Police arriving at the edge of the mind - Tiffany Higgins "Samba in the Sky" [Poetry Nov. 2013]

Gives birth to another police procedural - Peter Twal "This Sunday in Ordinary Time"

Posse:
A posse of ghosts chasing down life - Paul Bernstein "Night Mares: a Cinquain"

Postgraduate:
Past the toy town of the postgraduates - Richard Chwedyk "Rich and Pam Go to Fermilab and Later See a Dead Man"

President:
Absolute zero is stirring in the President's head - Duane Ackerson "Operation Macbeth"

Prime Minister:
Nations devised in the dreams of strange prime ministers - Emilio Villa "1941 Piece" transl. by Dominic Siracusa

Proletariat:
The bull of the proletariat - D.H. Lawrence "St Luke"

Prosecutor:
The prosecutor and defense of my own heart - Halee Kirkwood "Self-Portrait as the Changeling"

Protege:
Protege of trickster Hermes - Mike Allen "Picasso's Rapture"

Proxy:
Someone has voted their proxies - Duane Ackerson "Operation Macbeth"

Proxy fays, false fauns and rascal gods - Sidney Lanier "The Symphony" [Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, June 1875, v.XV]

proxy flowers bloom in fire & silence - CP Nwankwo "Error 404: Expiation Not Found" [20 Oct. 2025]

Cast adrift by proxy on a vast black sea - Ann K. Schwader "Void Music"

Public.

Pupil.

Quorum:
Made him her unruly quorum - Catherine Bowman "Provisional"

With six clever dogs for a quorum - Henry S. Leigh "'Oh Nights and Suppers,' Etc."

Rabble:
Nor the wild rabble to sedition wrought - Mark Akenside "Book II. Ode VII. To the Right Reverend Benjamin, Lord Bishop of Winchester. 1754"

Who shun the rabble and the roar - Delta "Lines Written in the Isle of Bute" [Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, no.CCCXXXVIII, v.LIV, Dec. 1843]

And to the rabble yield an implicit deference - Euripedes "Hecuba" transl. by Michael Wodhull

Hops and rages whilst the rabble stare - Reginald Heber "The Whippiad: A Satirical Poem" [Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, no.CCCXXXIII, v.LIV, July 1843]

Ragamuffin:
Hedgerow waifs and ragamuffin strays - Alfred Noyes "Linnaeus"

Rally:
Jays and juncos rallied to see - Bruce Ducker "Picnic"

Ranks.

Rascal:
From such faithless rascals keep you free - Christine de Pisan "Ballad [Most noble ladies, cherish your fair fame]" (transl. by Laurence Binyon and Eric Robert Dalrymple Maclagan)

Proxy fays, false fauns and rascal gods - Sidney Lanier "The Symphony" [Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, June 1875, v.XV]

Rebel/Rebellion/Rebellious.

Recluse:
Winding canyons, recluse cascades and strange rocks - Liu Tsung-yuan "Aimless Wandering" transl. by David Hinton

Each isle had fenced a saint recluse - "To Burn's Highland Mary" [Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, no.CCCCXIII, v.LXVII, March 1850]

Sharing what recluse birds feel at dusk - Wei Ying-wu "At Cloud-Wisdom Monastery, in the Ch'an Master's Courtyard" transl. by David Hinton

All recluse distances bidding dusk farewell - Wei Ying-wu "Fringes of Mist, a Bell" transl. by David Hinton

Refugee.

Regime:
Turns out tempered resilience outlasts regimes - Casey Aimer "Body Revolt"

Tortured by a regime that looks like you - Semaj Brown "Almost Majnun"

Every time the regimes change she will dance - Michael Dumanis "Sehnsucht"

Diligence takes a kilometer walk between regimes - Sophia Terazawa "September Roams a Vertical Passage" [excerpt]

Renegade:
A renegade fragment of the sun - Troy Jollimore "On the Origins of Things"

Sanctuary for renegades and shamans - Gregory Pardlo "Antebellum"

Resident:
A perpetual resident of cold endings - Camonghne Felix "Tonya Harding's Fur Coats"

Long-term resident predator of outer sheds - John Kinsella "Reptile in Roof Space"

Revolutionary.

Rogue.

Ruffian:
Ruffians dicing long beneath blurred candles - Stephen Vincent Benet "Two More Muses"

To send these ruffian imps to jail - C.P. Cranch "The Painter's Scare-crow" [St. Nicholas v.V no.11, Sept. 1878]

The bloody words of ruffian war - V. "The First Morning of 1860" (in The Cornhill Magazine v.1 no. 1)

Ruler.

Runaway:
Eyes me like a runaway - Amanda Johnston "Facing US"

Hidden passages, runaways, and orphaned days - Judy Jordan "Prologue"

Satrap:
Hid his face among the herd of satraps and of kings - Mark Akenside "The Pleasures of Imagination Book (1757) I"

Scapegoat:
Scapegoats of shore and hill - Helen Gray Cone "The Riddle of Wreck"

Sent scapegoat for your pride - Robert Graves "Return"

Scholar.

Scoundrel.

Scribe.

Secret Agent:
Let my ears go secret agent - Nickole Brown "Prayer to be Still and Know"

Senate:
The pomp of sacred senates - Mark Akenside "The Pleasures of Imagination, Book the Third"

Th' ambassadors of Hector and the Senate - Euripedes "Rhesus" transl. by Michael Wodhull

The applause of listening senates - Thomas Gray "Elegy, Written in a Country Churchyard"

Your Etna, your senate of dread - Donna Masini "Anxieties"

Seneschal:
The golden wall-flower stood like seneschal - Julia Goddard "The Deserted Garden" [Chambers' Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, 4th series, no.718, 29 Sept. 1877]

Servant.

Sheriff:
Shall be sheriff of my tender zoo - CAConrad "Sharking of the Birdcage"

Sluggard:
No sluggard e'er grew rich by divination - Euripedes "Helen" transl. by Michael Wodhull

Society.

Sophist:
How Milton scorn'd the sophist vain - Mark Akenside "Book II. Ode X. To Thomas Edwards, Esq.; on the Late Edition of Mr. Pope's Works. 1751"

The scholiast's learning, sophist's cant - Mark Akenside "Hymn to Science"

Spokesman:
A spokesman of the night - Wallace Stevens "Chocorua to Its Neighbor"

Statesman:
From thieving statesman down to petty knave - Sidney Lanier "Corn" [Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, v.15, no.86, Feb. 1875]

Student.

Subject.

Surgeon:
A surgeon of time attending to the inner workings - Danusha Laméris "The Watch"

Sycophants.

Team:
Quilt in the home team's colors - Hala Alyan "Turnpike // Ghost"

My team unyoked, my fallow unsown - "Eamonn an Chnuic, or 'Ned of the Hill'" transl. by P.H. Pearse

A load equal to what a hundred teams convey - Euripedes "The Cyclops" transl. by Michael Wodhull

With ox-teams great in the fall - Taras Shevchenko "Naimechka or The Servant" transl. by Alexander Jardine Hunter

Tetrarch:
Increased by kings and tetrarchs of the East - J.S.B. "Caesar" [Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, no.CCCLXXXII, v.LXII, Aug. 1847]

Throng

Title.

Tour/Tourist.

Treaty.

Tribunal:
This fair tribunal of ambitious youth - Bliss Carman "Phi Beta Kappa Poem"

Troupe:
In the middle of the troupe obscene - Charles Baudelaire "La Beatrice" transl. not credited

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

Truant.

Tutor:
From experience, best of tutors - Euripedes "Andromache" transl. by Michael Wodhull

The wild bird's untutored melodies - Emma Lazarus "Chopin"

With glamour-tutored tongue spread glory - James Allan Mackereth "Ioläus"

Tyrant.

Undertaker: See Undertake.

Urchin:
And teaches the urchins to cartwheel - Edryd Bowmer "Skink Song" [Strange Horizons 14 April 2025]

Luckless urchin not to see - Thomas Moore "Cupid Once Upon a Bed"

Strain like urchins at the guardian ropes - Adrienne Rich "Travail et Joie"

Vagabond.

Vagrant.

Victim.

Voluntary/Volunteer.

Votary:
What sort of god is Bacchus by his votaries deemed? - Euripedes "The Cyclops" transl. by Michael Wodhull

Send numbers adapted to her votary's pains - Euripedes "Helen" transl. by Michael Wodhull

That god the Bacchanalian votaries own - Euripedes "Helen" transl. by Michael Wodhull

To see my faithful votaries ever blest - Euripedes "Rhesus" transl. by Michael Wodhull

The city where my Phrygian votaries dwelt - Euripedes "The Trojan Captives" transl. by Michael Wodhull

The knaves own all her votaries for slaves - John Gay "Fable LXII: Pan and Fortune" [edited, updated, & adapted by John Benson Rose]

An earnest votary of Evening - G.H.H. "Night and Morning" (from The Knickerbocker, v. 23:3, March 1844)

Waitress:
the waitress takes moonbeams into her mouth - Lee Ballentine "Cryogenica"

Potential Titles: War/Combat/Military - People & Groups [category].

Ward/Warden/Warder.

Watchman.

Wayfarer.

Wayfellow:
My ancient way-fellows convene - Francis Sherman "A Prelude"

Witness.


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