Short Thirds Poems

Symmetrical chords:
Same roots, thirds, augmented fifths...
(Really inversions)...

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Hollywood clowns 
spend two thirds of their lives
trying to make people laugh
but when laughter cools and make-up cracks
they get off on making people cry...

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Whilst Donald Trump was eating his words
Mitch McConnell was training his nerds
To petition God
To give Trump the nod
To split Heaven and Earth into thirds...

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Cut out of black paper
Japanese
Thrown before a sky

Of night milk
Janitress of a
Lower house

One toothed,
Point hatted,
Flying in front of a 

Victorian curtain
Two thirds storm,
One third dark....

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If you were a guitar I would play you
My fingers would waltz on your strings
And the notes that came out would without any doubt
Soar to heaven on their own set of wings
The chords would be major and happy
No minors or dissonant thirds
And together we'd fly to the ends the sky
All the way serenading the birds...

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Don’t you see how much it hurts?
Suppressing a part of me?
So you can be comfortable?

It isn’t like changing shirts,
easy, peasey, one, two, three,
fit into a neat label.

Shall I cut my heart in thirds?
Feed the offensive to birds,
and sooth the rest words?

Can’t you see how much it hurts?
Murdering a part of me?
So you can stay comfortable?...

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My fingers ache from trying to jot down my feelings into words.
The time it has taken me to type
could have been spent cutting my heart into thirds
opposed to waiting for the feelings of my heart to ripe.

The cracks running down my veins are bursting in the air.
The fact of the matter
is that you do not care.
Thanks for waiting for my fingers to compose this to let my feelings shatter....

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birds’ chirps awaken
breaking the dawn’s blest silence
sunshine sits on end
praising God’s rich morning grace
new day’s surprises amaze

Nov. 8, 2022     11.17am



Howmanysyllable.com
5-7-5-7-7

21 words
31 syllables
143 characters



A NEW HIKU FOOTLE TANKA
Contest Judged:  11/8/2022 12:32:00 PM
Sponsored by: Brian Strand 
Place: HM (4 first 6 thirds and 19HMs)...

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She sang me to sleep
with a voice like flint—
sparks tucked under lullabies.

Spoons clattered in the sink
like cymbals in a warning.

She kissed my grazed knee
then asked
why I always fall.

Love was measured
in thirds:
a gaze, a sigh, a withheld "well done".

At dawn,
she watered dead plants
just in case.

I mistook
her absence for freedom.
Now I trace
her shadow across my choices....

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Crawling creeping beetles nibble
scatter dither wind and wither
whether chew my mind and sweetly eat
or wittle holes in words I blather blithered incomplete
three thirds are hurled and rained and voided 
annoyed I stew swear screamed "Destroy it!"
flung high a roar voraciously clear
heard words tremble dismember retreat with fear

Empty echos reach for letters
devours silence 
belches beaks and feathes...

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if adams and eves be
hovels for souls
- and -

their bodies of some 
thirty trillion cells
- then -

they average genes about
thirty five percent human
- meaning -

the adams and eves be as
two thirds earth eden garden
- soil -

mirroring all other life forms
seen in the earth eden mirror
- so that -

in caring for their own health
they be guard'ning the survival
- of earths -



stans sand...

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What did you do to be white
Why does that make you always right

Born into privileged by race
The humanity you disgrace

Two thirds a human being by law
Jim Crow skirting its flaw

Civil Rights codified by statue
Voting rights gerrymander by venue

Prison filled with poor black men
No bail plea bargaining innocent condemn

A cigarette a bag of skedaddles
A Black Lives matter a riddle

Choked to death at the hands of the law
An evil heart the white mans flaw...

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The lights were red 
Keep clear
Encroach
Long beard and hair 
Uncut, yellow stained
When was last happiness for that man
Broken wall, 2 thirds still good
Rests on the floor 
Leaf it blows
Cares not of thought
Start again at hello
I'm late, so sorry about that
Don't worry
Exclamation mark
Eyelashes perfectly spaced
Mind it ran but did not race
Doors they open 
I arrive 
Accepted at this point in time
Redeemed before I say a word
Unknown to me
If I'm absurd...

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good-bye 
summer

see you
next year

your turn
autumn

bring your
cool breeze

gleaming
light frost

do your
magic

changing 
leaves from

green to
golden

red and
purple

see them
cascade

leaving 
bare limbs~~

mums and
pumpkins

brighten
porches

kids in
costumes

trick or
treating

special
Thursday

when we 
gather

speak of
blessings

feast on
turkey

autumn 
now is

two-thirds
over

soon we
will be 

singing 
carols...

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SEA

Water, very deep to immense depths, no sunlight pierces 
down here – blackness.
Coming to the surface, sunshine sparkles magically, 
a myriad of dancing points of light.

Sea monster curling in the rip tide, powerful muscles 
gracefully propelling him seawards – for food.
Salt water covers so much, two thirds of the globe, all this wetness.

Drown if you breathe it, don’t you dare unless you’re a fool. 
To be a fish, man enjoys the sea, diving, sailing 
or simply watching....

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