Accidental Poetry: "Accidentally yours . . . ?"

Hopefully, one of the most reliable indicators of poetic impulse or instinct in a writer is the capacity to demonstrate not only a facility with words, but also a fascination with words--a "head full of logos," as I once composed in a verse celebrating the creative impulse of language (that Greek word "logos" is so much richer than our boring English "word!") .

Writers with this "head full of logos" show a propensity to erupt in spontaneous wordplay, even as they trudge through drafts of otherwise functional and/or transactional writing tasks-- a memo, an email message, a note to co-workers, even a shopping list. This spontaeous wordplay often produces what I term accidental poetry: usually brief poetic expressions resulting from the writer's recursive experimentation with revision and word possibilities.

For me, the process works this way: As I labor at a writing task, I occasional get caught up in fanciful experiments with word sounds, phrasal rhythms, word combinations that produce alliteration or assonance, some clever way of turning a phrase, or even a combination of these strategies. This distraction begins as a sub-conscious and unintentional loss of focus as some interesting possibility leads me off task, but as I wake to find myself wandering off in that direction, instead of redirecting myself to the task at hand, I succumb to the impulse and "play!" Here's an example of an "accidental" verse that spilled out of my keyboard yesterday as I posted a blog comment:

And what's our cheer
this year
down here
along the Coast?
Death to hurricanes!


Of course, it's not great poetry. But nor is it serious poetry-- It's just "accidental poetry," a casual invention that's sometimes cute and almost always fun, something to tuck away in a journal or a corner of the portfolio for future reference and further elaboration--or maybe never. But one way or the other, here I am with this "head full of logos!"

Any other "accidental" poets out there? I'd like to compare notes.