we learn from our own experiences
most of us believe what we have lived
you may see what no one else sees
our feelings are not the same
we each live our own truth
knowing what we know
variety
perspective
unique
truth
sad
jealous
attitude
you lose your mind
negativity
you make the wrong comment
you have become extra mean
say things you should have never said
you are obsessed, you want what they have
the green-eyed monster destroys your friendship
age
senior
life choices
no schedule now
daily decisions
every second my own
enjoying retirement
every minute is a choice now
can be lazy or industrious
I play at night and sleep during the day
farm
daybreak
rooster crow
feeding puppies
collecting the eggs
scattering chicken feed
planting our favorite bluebells
greeted by Kansas sunflowers
crops raised by faith, children taught respect
soybeans, corn, wheat, pigs and cows under God
Tears
Drip pain
A long time
Then suddenly
They stop in a daze
Then bring about cleansing
In time your strength is renewed
It happens when you are willing
To feel the truth of what is inside
Courage to release, not deny or hide
Heidi Sands
9/30/26
(C)opyright
hope
freedom
liberty
trustworthiness
willing openness
vulnerability
nurturing the greater good
cooperating with others
flexibility is a helpmate
positivity opens many avenues
confess to me , O cupid prince , lost cause ~
bowing before eve's bare butterflies,
as tonight i confront your kiss,
heartbeat of harvested heat,
pulsing moon magnifique ~
where we wake within
the wrinkled wish of
burgundy
blushed bliss ~
drenched
with
drizzling
damask dreams
of sea-swept hours;
let the lace of want
weep wilderness in the
rise of lonely nadir where,
I beseech the sun to undress
the stars and twirl with satanic sighs…
if I am your refrain, let my name burn
dear, aphrodisiac tears of sunset ~
see how I break, 'neath neon nimbus,
hold me close in sultry sirens ,
tempt me… tame these twilight tints
tantalise me… once more
until the honest
halcyon of life
weeps wayward
with the
hush
of
unhealed
hoax , amidst
hurt homesickness…
tortured by the taste
of your touch, locked in love ~
I ache with parched lips of pink…
the soul of barbie stardust ~
as this petal, a l o n e , mourns those musks
drenched in
au revoir rain of last rose dusks…
bud
blossom
bumblebee
pollination
monarch butterflies
Queen Anne’s lace and bluebells
dragonflies and damselflies
a gorgeous flower garden
zinnias baby’s breath and tulips
marigolds, crepe myrtle and tea roses
Shawls,
of dream,
clouds droll wink,
serene skim oe’r,
dark grey urban plinths,
that pierce glazed amber sky,
sonic bell toll’s eardrum plops,
impetus to stir first flush throng,
plumes of steam from gurgling pool billow,
a fickle fountain sprinkles high-pitch wail
Not
a word
is sincere,
an agenda
hidden in shadows.
Collateralized smiles
full of symbiotic words,
I want someone to just want me.
Thinking back on the whole of today,
every person who talked to me had strings.
The Archer Robin Hood
The
archer
Robin Hood
from Nottingham
Shire aligns himself
perpendicularly
to the target whilst notching
the drawn arrow from the quiver,
and draws the longbow’s bowstring to the
anchor point, aims, and then lets loose the shaft.
That flies through the air, hitting the bull’s-eye
to the cheers and jeers of foresters
in the English countryside, where
they have challenged him to an
archery contest, but
folly beguiles them,
rendering him
the outlaw,
Robin
Hood.
***
Robin Hood's Last Shot
Ill-
fated
Robin Hood,
upon death’s bed,
shoots his last arrow
through an open window,
which, when it touches the ground,
will mark the spot to dig his grave
and where he will rest in peace under
a greenwood tree planted beside the site.
Ride
shotgun,
by inches
a bit closer.
Been waiting for it,
this day trip to the beach.
Waves lapping at my ankles
sooth me with their repetition.
The Sun allows me to forget stress,
recharge my batteries, and keep going.
Wild, fierce inferno claims the ancient scrub,
Gossamer smoke hides the canopy,
Burning heat sweeps across the earth,
Blackened vault cracks in the blaze,
Red, hissing sparks ignite,
Blistered ironbark,
Forest of grey,
Scorched timber,
Silence,
Ash.
Rain.
Seeds burst,
Water pools,
Fresh leaves stretch out,
Wattle starts to bloom,
Susurrous bush awakes,
Fragrant petrichor ascends,
Harbinger of a vibrant spring,
Paperbarks becoming bathed in gold,
Effervescent rains wash the eucalypt.
Effervescent rains wash the eucalypt,
Paperbarks becoming bathed in gold,
Harbinger of a vibrant spring,
Fragrant petrichor ascends,
Susurrous bush awakes,
Wattle starts to bloom,
Water pools deep,
Fresh leaves stretch,
Warm sun,
Glow.
Introduction
The pleasure of reading an Etheree begins with pressure: a thought must enter through a very small verbal opening, then discover enough room to deepen, turn, or unfold. The widening lines give each poem a visible and audible sense of arrival. Yet that arrival can feel inevitable, hesitant, comic, ominous, meditative, or explosive, depending on what the poet chooses to release as the poem expands.
Read side by side, Etherees reveal how differently writers handle that movement. One poet may begin with a charged noun and gradually disclose its emotional history; another may build a miniature scene, enlarge a single image, develop an argument, or delay the true subject until late in the poem. Some voices sound intimate because the opening is almost whispered. Others use the early compression for wit, suspense, or sharp dramatic emphasis. The later breadth can provide explanation, intensify imagery, complicate an apparent certainty, or overturn what the opening seemed to promise.
Browsing the community poems also makes visible the difference between counting and shaping. Formal accuracy alone cannot determine where a sentence should break, which word deserves isolation, or how the final line should carry the accumulated weight. Read beyond the first example and compare how poets manage syntax, silence, sound, and closure within the same expanding frame. Each poem offers not merely another subject, but another answer to the form's central creative question: what becomes possible when language is allowed to grow one measured step at a time?
Reading Guide
An Etheree rewards two kinds of attention at once. The eye sees a gradual widening, while the inner ear follows a sentence, voice, or image negotiating increasingly spacious lines. As you read the community poems, resist treating the shape as a counting display. Instead, ask what the poet makes that shape mean. The strongest comparisons often come from noticing where expansion feels emotionally natural, where syntax pushes against the line boundaries, and whether the ending fulfills or revises the promise made by the poem's smallest utterance.
- Examine the opening word. Its isolation gives it unusual authority, vulnerability, or ambiguity. Notice whether it acts as a title-like key, a sound, a command, or a deliberate misdirection. When comparing poems, ask: how much of the later poem was already latent in that first word?
- Follow the poem's rate of disclosure. Increasing space does not require immediate explanation. A poet may reveal context gradually or withhold a crucial fact until the broader lines can hold it. Ask whether each poem expands curiosity, emotional understanding, narrative information, or all three.
- Listen across the line breaks. A sentence may coincide with each step, or it may flow through several lines. The first method can create poise or ceremony; the second can generate momentum and productive tension. Ask where your voice naturally pauses and whether the printed breaks support or resist that impulse.
- Watch what fills the widening space. Later lines can accommodate richer description, qualification, memory, or contradiction. Mere verbal padding weakens the effect. Compare whether poets use added room to deepen the poem or simply to complete the pattern.
- Notice sound without expecting rhyme. Repeated consonants, internal echoes, vowel patterns, and rhythmic phrases can quietly bind lines of changing length. Ask which poems remain memorable to the ear after their visual staircase is no longer visible.
- Study the final line's burden. Because the poem has been moving toward greater verbal capacity, closure carries strong expectations. It may culminate, widen beyond the speaker, return to the opening, or leave a resonant uncertainty. Ask whether the ending feels earned by the preceding growth rather than merely larger.
After reading several examples, return to two that approach expansion differently. Reading them aloud will reveal whether their shapes merely look similar or whether each poet has created a distinct pace, pressure, and emotional architecture.
Writing Tips
Begin an Etheree with an impulse that can genuinely develop. The form is especially hospitable to material that changes scale: a sensation becoming a memory, an object opening into a relationship, a certainty acquiring complications, or a quiet observation reaching an unexpected consequence. In workshop, the central question is not simply whether every line fits. It is whether the poem makes increasing verbal room feel necessary to the experience being expressed.
- Choose a subject with an inner progression. Static description can work, but only if perception keeps changing. Before drafting, write a plain sentence about where the poem begins and another about where it might arrive. The distance between those statements should offer enough discovery to sustain the widening movement.
- Treat the opening as a seed, not a label. A first word such as an abstract emotion can become predictable if the rest merely explains it. Consider an image, verb, address, or ambiguous noun that gains meaning retrospectively. The opening should invite expansion rather than summarize it in advance.
- Draft for movement before counting. Write the emotional or narrative arc in loose lines first, then shape it. Composing one counted line at a time can produce mechanical syntax and filler. Once the poem has a living sequence, compression and expansion become acts of revision rather than arithmetic.
- Use short lines as dramatic instruments. Early brevity can create hesitation, shock, tenderness, secrecy, or comic timing. Avoid packing those lines with abbreviations, awkward inversions, or vague fragments merely to make them fit. A simple, exact word usually carries more force than a strained miniature sentence.
- Make added space earn its place. As the lines broaden, introduce sharper sensory detail, a new relationship, a shift in time, or a complication of tone. Do not assume that longer lines should become explanatory. Expansion can intensify mystery just as effectively as it supplies context.
- Vary syntax within the visible pattern. If every line completes a separate statement, the poem may sound like a list. Let some phrases cross line boundaries, while allowing a strategically placed stop to land with emphasis. This interplay keeps the predetermined shape from dictating a monotonous voice.
- Build sound from within. Read for alliteration, consonance, assonance, stress, and repeated key sounds. Because line lengths continually change, subtle sonic links can provide continuity. Remove accidental tongue-twisters and any word selected solely because its syllable count is convenient.
- Plan beyond the obvious climax. A beginner may save a moral, revelation, or grand abstraction for the broadest line. Test quieter alternatives: a concrete image, an unanswered question, a return to the first word's hidden meaning, or a sentence that opens beyond the poem. Magnitude of line need not mean loudness of statement.
During revision, mark the indispensable words and circle anything present only to satisfy the pattern. Recount after every change, but also read the poem aloud without looking at its shape. Listen for unnatural stresses, rushed transitions, padded phrases, and places where the voice loses conviction. Then show the draft visually again and ask whether the widening lines correspond to a widening of perception. The finished poem should survive both tests: it should hold its form on the page and sound like purposeful speech in the ear.
Interesting Facts
- The smallest line may carry the widest ambiguity. An isolated word can initially support several meanings. As the poem develops, those possibilities may narrow, multiply, or be overturned. This makes the opening more than a starting point; it can become a delayed interpretive device.
- Expansion does not always produce emotional uplift. Widening lines can suggest confidence and discovery, but they can also enact accumulating dread, grief, obligation, or confusion. The same visible movement therefore supports sharply different emotional trajectories.
- Freedom from a fixed beat creates a hidden difficulty. A poet still has to make changing line lengths sound intentional. Natural phrasing, internal echoes, and carefully managed stresses become important because the ear cannot rely on a recurring metrical frame.
- Sentence structure can cooperate with or resist the shape. When syntax repeatedly resolves at line endings, the poem may feel measured and ceremonial. When clauses spill forward, the reader experiences momentum that pushes through the visible steps. Skilled poets may alternate both effects.
- A descending or mirrored treatment changes the implied story. Contraction can feel like distillation, disappearance, exhaustion, or return, while a rise followed by contraction can resemble a breath, wave, journey, or argument. Such adaptations are most persuasive when the altered motion serves the subject.
- The ending is remembered for proportion as well as content. Readers have watched the poem acquire space, so the final statement arrives with accumulated visual expectation. A restrained image may be more affecting than a declaration if it releases that pressure without over-explaining it. Compare several community poems to see how many kinds of closure the expanding design can sustain.
Popular Themes
Subject matter and shape are inseparable in an Etheree because the poem's widening movement inevitably suggests development. A theme works especially well when it can be disclosed, intensified, reconsidered, or enlarged rather than merely named. The possibilities below are literary affinities, not statistical rankings of the poems in this collection.
- Love and intimacy. A single name, touch, absence, or remembered detail can open gradually into a relationship. The early closeness suits private feeling, while later lines allow affection to acquire history, conflict, or consequence.
- Grief and recovery. Loss may begin as an almost unsayable utterance and gather language as the speaker confronts it. Alternatively, widening can represent grief's increasing reach, showing how one absence enters many parts of a life.
- Nature and seasonal change. A seed, raindrop, birdcall, or patch of light offers a compact beginning from which perception can broaden. The form can move from minute observation toward landscape, ecological connection, or inward reflection.
- Memory and personal history. Recollection often arrives first as a fragment. Successively roomier lines can restore sensory context, introduce another person, or reveal why the remembered moment matters to the present speaker.
- Fear, illness, and emotional pressure. Expansion can enact something becoming harder to contain. A small warning may grow into physical sensation, imagined danger, or recognition, allowing tension to accumulate without requiring a conventional plot.
- Spiritual questioning. The movement from a spare invocation or doubt toward more complex language can resemble contemplation. Strong poems preserve uncertainty, using added space to complicate belief rather than force a sermon-like conclusion.
- Humor and surprise. The narrow opening can establish a false assumption, while the broader lines steadily reveal an absurd situation or comic voice. Timing matters: a late turn works best when earlier words remain plausible after the joke becomes clear.
As you browse the community poems, compare writers who address similar subjects. Notice whether love expands through image or confession, whether grief grows louder or quieter, and whether nature remains physical or becomes symbolic. Shared themes become newly interesting when each poet gives the widening movement a different emotional purpose.
Editorial Insights
The central artistic tension of an Etheree lies between visible certainty and verbal discovery. The reader can anticipate that the poem will keep widening, but should not be able to predict exactly what the widening will mean. A technically recognizable draft may satisfy the count while offering only a sequence of increasingly long statements. A memorable poem turns that predetermined expansion into psychological, narrative, or imagistic necessity. Its subject seems to require more room because each stage alters the significance of what came before.
Strong examples also distinguish growth from accumulation. Adding adjectives, explanatory phrases, or restatements may fill a line without deepening the poem. Genuine development introduces consequence: an image changes scale, a voice reveals its stake, a scene acquires tension, or an apparent answer becomes a more difficult question. Editors and attentive readers notice when lineation participates in this movement. A break can suspend a revealing word, create a double meaning, or carry a sentence forward with urgency. In such cases, the form is not decorative scaffolding placed around finished content; it is the means by which the content becomes intelligible.
Several weaknesses arise from treating the pattern as the poem's chief achievement. Forced word order may advertise the counting process. Predictable progression can make each line feel like a rehearsal for an already obvious conclusion. Over-explanation is particularly damaging in the broader lines, where a poet may mistake available space for an obligation to summarize. The opposite problem also occurs: a promising opening remains underdeveloped because the later lines offer new words but no new pressure. Revision should therefore ask not only whether the language fits, but what changes at each stage and what would be lost if two neighboring lines exchanged their content.
Individuality remains visible through diction, pace, sentence design, tonal risk, and the relationship between the first and final gestures. One poet may make expansion feel like confession; another may turn it into an argument, camera movement, spell, joke, or slow recognition. Some endings gather the whole poem into focus, while others use the available breadth to leave the reader facing something larger than the speaker can resolve. Comparing multiple community poems sharpens judgment because it separates convention from choice. Once readers see several writers meeting the same spatial pressure, they can better recognize which poems merely occupy the shape and which transform that shape into an experience.
Read, Write & Share
Read several Etherees before settling on a favorite, and let their differences guide your attention. Compare how each poet handles the charged opening, the widening pace, the movement of sentences, and the final release of pressure. A thoughtful comment might identify a line break that changes the meaning, an image that gathers force, or an ending that invites a second reading.
Then try shaping an expanding thought of your own. Read the draft aloud, revise for both precision and movement, and publish it on PoetrySoup when the form feels inseparable from the poem's subject. Your interpretation can become part of the continuing conversation among readers and writers.
Collection Statistics
This collection currently contains 824 Etheree poems, providing ample opportunities to compare subjects, voices, pacing, imagery, and approaches to closure. Within a collection of this size, individual poets may follow the familiar conventions closely, adapt them to a particular expressive purpose, or challenge reader expectations while retaining the form's recognizable movement. Reading across multiple examples offers a fuller view than any single poem can provide.
Etheree Categories
Read wonderful etheree poetry on the following sub-topics:
history, love
and more.
Definition | What is Etheree in Poetry?
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.