ADIEU PLANE SNAKE - Wordle Poems
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.
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:
- The game selects a five-letter word for the world to guess. These words are typically common nouns. Everyone who plays on that day guesses the same word.
- Players input a guess by typing in their own five-letter word.
- After submitting a guess, players receive visual cues based on the accuracy of their guess:
- If a letter is highlighted in green (or orange in high-contrast mode), this indicates that the letter is in the correct position within the target word.
- If a letter turns yellow (or blue in high-contrast mode), it signifies that the letter exists within the word but is in the wrong position.
- A gray tile indicates that the letter is not present in the target word at all.
- Players only have six attempts before the game ends. If you lose, you can't play any more that day.
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?
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. Thank you, and you’re welcome.
* 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…