ADIEU PLANE SNAKE - Wordle Poems

ADIEU PLANE SNAKE - Cover - Draft 01a.jpg

Title page

ADIEU
PLANE
SNAKE

FIVER 
WORDS 
POEMS

BNJMN 
DNIEL 
LWLSS

Copyright

Copyright © 2025 by Benjamin Daniel Lawless

This work is published under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. To view a copy of this dedication, visit https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.

This book is an independent creative work inspired by the Wordle game. It is not affiliated with, endorsed, sponsored, or licensed by The New York Times Company, the owner and publisher of Wordle. All references to Wordle are for descriptive and creative purposes only and do not imply any association with The New York Times Company.

Cover art includes:

Dedication

For my mom, who taught me
to point at the magic
in the mundane.

Introduction

Wordle has been an obsession and a fun way to compete with my family and friends, even when we were apart. At around 8 am on January 27, 2024, something strange happened.

IMG_4939.png

I shook my head. "ADIEU PLANE SNAKE" felt bigger than the sum of its words. It was Samuel L. Jackson shouting about opening a window in Snakes on a Plane. It was brazen. It was funny. How could this be?

A screenshot must be taken.

Many mornings, after I blearily enter these strange five letter words, meaning appears. This usually happens before coffee.

Screenshot. Save. Eventually, a collection formed.


POWER
STARE
CURSE

GROAN
WHILE
FUMES
DEBUT

CRASH
SMASH
STASH

FOUND
LIARS
BEACH

DOING
RAMPS
SMART
SCRAM

IRATE
INANE
IMAGE

Wordle limits you to five letters, yes, but it also has another interesting feature that is divorced from most poetry forms: if you get a letter right, it stays in that spot for future words. This is completely at odds with crafting verse, yes? And yet, there's something profound here.

How Wordle works:


LIONS
PARTY
CREEK
CHEER

HOUSE
COOLY
LOCAL

ABHOR
CLOSE
CLONE

AMIDS
AUDIO
ABIDE

PHASE
ALONG
ARMOR
ARROW

ORGAN
WRONG
BINGO
DINGO

Perhaps we are just the vehicles by which we process all of life: the universe splatting spaghetti against our attention.

Our minds are hungry to process patterns, and thus these completely unintelligible sequences build their own meaning.


SINCE
TOUCH
TORCH

ARSED
LASER

HOURS
RELAX
REPEL
REVEL
REBEL

PHASE
ALONG
ARMOR
ARROW

GHOUL
GUIDE
GUMMY

FLINT
POSED
SMOCK
CHAOS

I find that art can be defined as pointing at something that is noticed.

As important as creation is, art owes much to the curation, the presentation, and the reception of the work.


FLUTE
TREES
EVENT

QUOTE
SMILE
BROKE
OZONE

GHOUL
SPILL
PEARL
EXPEL

LOOKY
LEADS
LITHE

LEAST
FAIRY
ARROW
GROAN
ORGAN

PEARL
ELFIN
FILET

FRIED
GHOUL
SNOUT
SPOUT

UNDER
NIGHT
POINT
SAINT
FAINT

Another strange feature of this practice is the lack of punctuation.

In design courses, I learned about the principle of gestalt. It has to do with the way your brain recognizes and completes a pattern.

My mind has filled in the punctuation in these, but perhaps your mind has placed the punctuation elsewhere. Gestalt gestating in the guesses.


EARLY in the 
SOLAR
REALM

YOUNG
HEART
SKATE

SALTY
STORE
STOOD

FRIED
ROAST
ROACH

POUTY
TRIED
LATCH
STALL

BEACH
TRIES
OWLET
OFTEN

TRASH
LACKS

LEARY of 
OUTER
ROUTE

There are so many delicious five letter words. There's nothing better than LUNCH. Or MEALS. Even BAGEL.

To get good at Wordle, you may want to start with words with the most unique vowels, like ADIEU or AMIGO.

To get good at uncovering these poems, you may choose to start with words you don't regularly use. Perhaps an object or a subject that you can follow with a five-letter verb?


CLOWN
CROWN

TRUST
CARPE
READY

BREAD
CREAM
TREAT
FREAK

YACHT
CLAIM
SCALE

LEARN
BRAKE
BRACE

FRIED
POUTY
PLANT
STAMP

CRASH
BRINK
BRING
BRINY

A note to time travelers: you are more than welcome to use my poems to cheat at Wordle's past.

Contact me, prove you are a visitor to our time, and I will provide you with the dates for each of these poems. Success is yours for the taking.


SAUTE
FLARE
GLAZE
PLACE

TREAD
LIGHT
BUILT
FLINT

SHEAR
RELIC
FRIED

TRIPE
TARDY
TURNS
TURBO

ADIOS
CHORE
BROTH

MONKS
SHUCK
STEAK
SPARK

ROUTE
TREAD
AFTER
EATER

In a couple of places, I have cheated for my own creative purposes. I haven't added any main words (maybe a couple of interstitial words, denoted by not being in caps), but I did remove a few. In very select places, I reordered words.

I consider this my privilege as this is my book. Nanner nanner. Write your own.


GREAT
BRAIL
CRAWL

HOUSE
LEARN
REALM

MOUTH
FLOWS
GROWL
PROWL

SHAPE
SLEEK
STEEL

HYPER
THINK
MOUTH
MATCH

CHIMP
SPEAR
PREYS

Sometimes the Wordle isn't enough. Maybe you'd like to use the words to make a "more legitimate" poem?

Audio from upstairs shakes the block
And me? A concerned neighbor
ready to pin blame.

Knock knock.

Sure, I expected a party,
but why is that man
wearing pants
made of pasta?


LAUGH
AFTER
CRAFT
DRAFT
&
FLOWER
AFTER
SAFER
WAFER

LEARN
FLASH
SLASH
CLASH

LIVEN
DEATH
SHADE

POWER
LEACH
CHAFE
CHASE

SHARE
CLOVE

BLIND
BLITZ
BLISS

This book was compiled from over 90 screenshots I've taken, for a poetry performance on June 29, 2025 at Studios in the Park in Paso Robles, California. This performance is intended to have accompaniment. I asked musicians I know to play music with my performance and they declined*, so I thought "What about the accompaniment that can be made during the creation process?"

What if my accompaniment was Wordle? Am I allowed to make something so irreverent, so completely potentially devoid of artistic merit? Well, it's my book, and you're reading it. Welcome to the party!

* My son, when asked to play ukulele or drums in front of a crowd to my poetry, he said "ABSOLUTELY NOT." And how can I blame him? Other musically-inclined friends had similar, if not as harsh or terse, responses.


LYING
TROUT
TUTOR

ARIEL
MUSIC
TOXIN

GLOAT
LIVEN
BELLY
JELLY

FREAK
BRICK
CROOK

GREAT
SEVEN
MELON
&
GREAT
SLIMY
BUDDY
&
GREAT
FOUND
FUNKY

REPOS
CHORE
FORCE

These poem-puzzles sprouted starting January 27, 2024 and the last one I've collected in this volume is from April 29, 2025.

In that time, the western world and our interior world has shifted significantly. May you find peace in an ever uncertain landscape.


PARTY
MINTY
DITTY

MOUND
FLUNG
FLUNK

MOUSE
BOAST
&
GHOUL
SHOUT

SADLY
GRAMP
THANK
KNAVE

SERUM
SLEEP
SPECK

If anybody says you are not enough, pay no mind. All advice is autobiographical, and so is criticism.

I'm here to tell you: you are enough. Your mirth, your whimsy, your sadness, your frustration... you are worth it, and you are loved.

Gotta remember: we all are here on a visitor's pass. Just like all these poems, I am a happy accident, a series of improbable occurrences set up one after another to bring me here and now. And so are you. Welcome to the party, my friend.


POWER
MINOR
MAJOR
MAYOR

HOIST
WAIST
WRIST

WHOLE
BLOOM

GHOUL
DRYER
&
GHOUL
MAKES
PASTE
WASTE

SHAME
GLUTE
BRUTE

HOMER
BUILD
STACK
TACKY

POLAR
BEATS
BAWDY

PROVE
KNOWN

I love making books. I love Wordle. This silly thing brings me joy. Thank you for being a part of it. If you would like to share in this journey, join my Discord, where you can share your own found and curated poems, whether they are made of Wordle or anything else.


I would like to thank Josh Wardle, the software engineer who created Wordle. I would also like to thank The New York Times Company, who acquired Wordle in January 2022 and still kept the game free while adding additional features and continuing the daily puzzles. Thanks to my wife, Nicole, for being a sounding board. Thanks to my mom, who loves my creativity when many others are baffled by it. Thanks to Chris Schultz, who invited me to read my poems accompanied by something — literally anything — at a poetry reading, and gave me the impetus to put this together. Thanks to my fellow poets and performers at that reading June 29th, 2025: Margaret Lange, Kathryn DeLancelotti, … FILL IN LATER…