Archive of Verbal Ticklers

 
Pick one.
 
Shards of a mirror.
Mucky muck.
Razzamatazz.
Innocuous blather.
A slog.
Goofy.
The bramble and the rose.
A blessing.
A curse.
Brilliant disguise.
The top.
Fur.
Cassoulet.
Feathered bed.
Pillow talk.
Bon vivant.
Hard.
Goo.
First step.
Acid.
Spikes.
Shag.
Sympathetic vibrations.
Sprung.
Hiatus.
Waves.
A familiar cadence.
Premonition.
Chalk and slate.
Rendezvous.
Hyper.
Earbuds.
Totem.
Psychic reading.
Flashing red.
Trajectoid.
Soliloquy.
Skin and bone.
Original cliché.
A lure.
Stance.
A look.
The stall.
Hickory wind.
Dock.
Whip.
Lashes.
Amplification.
Presto!
Spartan.
Snort.
Talon.
Dull roar.
Trick.
Membrane.
Sullen puppy.
Throb.
Your bliss. (Yes, yours!)
Skirmish.
Lush.
Go!
Bubbly.
Long black veil.
Parting tableau.
A mess.
Stench.
A void.
City lights.
Cool sparks.
Blood tide.
Placid.
Prior engagement.
Background/foreground.
The squalor of remorse.
Deportee.
Gravy.
Time warp.
Bolt.
Hypotenuse.
Coin of the realm.
Sludge.
Justification.
Ill-defined.
Chimeric.
Sentence.
Periodic table of the emotions.
Frosty.
Resilient boxers.
Mantle.
Cuckoo.
Nocturnal emissions.
Ink and steel.
Still as a cathedral.
Buried treasure.
Brownies.
Seething.
Sinister lighting.
Mud wrestling.
River ghost.
Shimmer.
Difficult.
Wrinkles.
The squeeze.
Choreography of the day.
Axis.
Agency.
As dreams recede.
Hodgepodge.
Fairy dust.
Full circle.
Seed.
An almost forgotten figure reappears.
Vernacular.
Poetic resistance.
Decay.
Click number to see tickler.
Open a drawer. How did you come by the oldest object
you find there?
Two characters sit at a table. One is very specific,
the other an archetype.
“I guess so.” (Explore reluctant commitment.)
An invitation is not a summons.
Nobody speaks. (Explore action and gesture.)
But I digress.
The last time I cried.
Men and tofu.
“What happened to you?”
Two characters describe one another. (What is revealed?)
“Aw, Mom.” (Explore wheedling.)
Something in the air tonight.
"What's your point?" (Explore beating around the bush.)
"Oh. Am I early?"
Two characters engage in a heated discussion using only nonsense syllables. (Explore the shape of spoken sounds and how they convey meaning.)
I look up from the computer screen, turn to my left,
and notice...
“Don’t I know you?”
Flavors.
A coin rolls across the
sidewalk and stops at...
A character who lived 100 years ago has a conversation with someone contemporary.
“This insane thing happened today!”
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! ... Bang!
I put a spell on you.
(Explore the language
of ritual.)
It's like a metaphor.
Muscle.
“I do not prance into a room.
I canter.”
“If you were alive today,
I would tell you...”
Harmony.
“I just need to borrow...”
Push and pull of the mirror.
A slow burn.
"How did you find out?"
"What's an LP?"
Adverbs ad nauseum.
Really ad nauseum.
View from a window.
The worth of an intangible.
A circuitous route.
A sentence lies in fragments.
Aggravated stupidity.
The night sky whispers.
With these hands...
Zero.
The circle and the square. (Explore the shape of language.)
Change of attitude.
Guess who?
A deafening silence.
Getting there.
Speaking like a gerundtologist.
On the seventh day.
New space.
Spent.
Pack of cards.
The rain washes me.
This is just a test.
The herald.
Anticipation.
A change in perspective.
Green.
The map and the tear.
Walkin' and talkin'.
The humming of
an appliance.
Incantation.
“Shit like this is always happening to me!”
Feed me.
Anything goes.
Finding a parking ticket,
I suddenly feel...
The toad takes a leap.
Solid as a noun.
Reciprocity.
Lust for life!
A distant sound becomes
ever more insistent.
Waiting for a bus...
Before my morning coffee (ugh!).
“And that’s great.
The world needs them.
Then there’s us.”
The bow and the arrow.
Pain in the asana.
Birth place.
A magnetic personality.
... their frantic tongues composing a fugue.
Birth of the blues.
Mixed message.
The sacred, the profane.
Emotional helmet.
Brothers.
"You’re right! You’re right! ... You’re al-l-l-l-l-ways right.”
Cold shoulder.
Nookie.
Ebony and ivory.
A lilting conversation.
Stained.
Truth in jest.
Inarticulate speech.
Nosy.
Plateau.
Green-eyed monster.
Darkness at noon.
Possession.
Body heat.
Fear of failure.
What are the chances?
Another century.
A siren call.
A classic through new eyes.
A mentor.
Wrinkles in time.
"Who ARE you people?"
Peck. Peck. Peck.
What lies beyond this particular space?
Miracle of the breath.
Gum.
“I hear echoes again.”
Chai.
A paper airplane glides by.
Stammer and flow.
Indigo.
Roadside.
Owl and the pussycat.
Swallow.
Third message on the answering machine.
Almost...
A pole.
The river and the rock.
Corpse pose.
"I love your indignation."
Your audacious beauty.
  
126
 An everything bagel.
Tender fool.
A door closes...
The remote.
Waiting for word.
The view from there.
We try and try and try
to find a rhythm.
“That is so... you!”
Seen from below.
Projection.
Chinchilla.
Blood.
Hiding in your hoodie.
Flight.
Rupture.
Perfect! Perfect. ...
Except for...
Gaga.
Make it a double.
A warm gun.
Nectar.
An object as talisman.
Crumbles.
A gesture of complicity.
An empty wallet.
Might.
Intercourse.
Rubbing the Buddha's belly.
The cry of a baby echoes
down an empty hall.
Hobnobbing.
Swell.
A negotiation.
Mercury.
Revelations.
That song in my head.
A poor excuse.
The drop-off.
Static cling.
Loaded.
"I thought I was dying, but it was wishful thinking."
Lying in wait.
The rub.
Pablum.
Catalyst.
A vulgar little trollop.
"No disrespect, but are
you homeless too?"
Flip.
A suitcase, half empty.
Rubbers.
The float.
Reversal.
A recurring place in my dreams.
Bad teeth.
"I still think about that lost..."
Grit.
A controlling silence.
“Ma’am? Ma’am?”
How I felt when I woke up
this morning.
"Make me!"
“Who does your hair?”
The warm horizon.
Rolling the dice.
Bodhisattva.
The comet and the sky.
The hardest part.
Voluptuous dish.
On the sidelines.
A snag.
The pump.
Fertile ground.
“Imagine my dismay...”
Touch wood.
Maracas.
Across the kitchen table.
Stash.
Squalid splendor, or
splendid squalor?
Mass.
A silent prayer.
Invasion.
Nag. Nag. Nag. Nag. NAG!!!
Sycophant.
An arpeggio kind of day.
The stalker, the prey.
Inner light.
The waiter.
Magenta slacks in a green field.
Asparagus.
Security blanket.
Impromptu altar.
Jam.
Forlorn.
An emotional logic.
Taboo.
Buzz.
A spotlight comes on...
"No! I'm the prince!"
The reveal.
A temple.
Persona non grata.
Perfect pitch.
Hazmat.
Sangfroid.
“But I meant ‘tacky’ in the
best possible sense.”
Rollover.
“I thought you were
someone else.”
Threshold.
Flaccid. :-(
Proscenium.
"I live here!"
Embedded pattern.
Cake.
Cauldron.
A messy scrapbook.
A new schoolbag.
Thwarted.
Arms that embrace me.
Night blooming jasmine.
Opaque.
Mother’s milk.
Knot.
A song in my heart.
Comics.
Misty.
Shambles.
Sugar in the morning.
A prize collection of...
   

 

  

 

Inspiration can come from a variety of unexpected sources. When I was in the writer's group Rumpus, one of the writers, Michael Lütz, emailed us a writing prompt every day -- just a single word. One of those words "lagoon" fueled my thinking about a project I had been mulling over for a while.

 
I wanted to explore the way different people use a park in their own ways and experience the same space with very different associations. The word lagoon helped me visualize the space, and invest it with the lonely beauty suggested by the word. Then the location and the dialogue — monologues, actually — began to flow and evolved into "Bodhisattva by Lagoon" which was ultimately produced in Santa Rosa by Actors Theatre and has since been published in two books.

 

Here is an archive of topics that might serve as a starting off point to goose your imagination and with luck will catalyze a flow of ideas. Remember, prime value resides in working with a random prompt, not shopping for the right one.

 
If your browser doesn't display a tickler when you click on a number, go to this page.

www.standingpoem.com   ©2008 Cass Brayton