Alphabet Poetry

Today, alphabet poetry is something fun that children might try in their elementary classrooms, but like many forms, it has existed for centuries--as long as we have been using our alphabets, we have been writing alphabet or abecedarian poetry.  Like acrostic poetry, the trick is in the first letter, but instead of revealing a hidden meaning, it uses each letter of the alphabet to reveal more where the writer has been taken than what the reader can decipher. Look for it here:

"Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation" by Natalie Diaz

Prismatic Soul by S.M.(M).L.

Ask yourself why you love a color:
Bright blue of sea just off the beach
     where waves don't crash.
Coral red of painted toenails in 
     golden sandals.
Dandelion yellow of a wingback chair
     that belonged to no one you remember.
Emerald black-green of happy little trees
     sprung from oils.
Forgotten silver-brown of empty barns
    and school houses.
Gorgeous mahogany of what were once
    baby blues rimmed with dark lashes.
Handsome tan of hard-worked hands
    speckled with freckles.
Icy gray of cumulous clouds filled to the brim
just waiting to explode in a
kaleidoscope of rainbows 
leaving drenched 
muddy clots of soil
now the perfume 
only decomposition can ensure
pleasing amidst its
quilted squares:  green and gold.

Reddish sun
sets behind rolling hills while
teal darkens in an 
umber that blends a 
verisimilitude 
with tree's bark. The
xenagogy leading 
you home, the
zenith of imagination
     where you ask yourself
     why you love a color and find
     your prismatic soul.