It's the 2026 Poem-a-Week Challenge (This is a *poems only* thread.)

[Waeponwifestre]

Astrology

At night I used to watch the sky, worry
Long, and let days pass by, anxiety
Filled conversations with the stars of past
Events or future times would long consume
My every thought as desperately I sought
To see the pattern, to see the mirror
To see the path that I should walk while strife
Echoed across the past in centuries’
Long dance through the empty void, Uranus
Returns to August 1941
Surely it must mean something as Neptune
Makes her way across the ballroom, icy
Gown trailing behind her as she gifts me
Visions of April 1861
Malice, drug-induced gifts of sight I wish
I hadn’t seen, while Pluto, God of Death
And Hope laughs as he strolls towards the Storming
Of the Bastille and the hated Ancien
Régime’s fall, the hope that kept me looking
Upwards, watching the dance above, even
Taking note of comets uninvited
Crashing the wandering stars’ long party
Wondering if their entrance heralded
Things we used to think they meant long ago.

I cannot help but watch the skies,
Worry about what their thousand year
Waltz means for us down here, so I look on
Upwards still, I worry and fret about
The things below I should have focused on
And payed attention to, because the past
Doesn’t exist, neither does the future
And the reflection of the patterns danced
In dark cold heavens by gods mean little
Compared to the people here in the now
And the things I was so worried about
In the only time and place that exists

Week 5 Poem 2 Total 11

 

[Ash999]

Aus. Open
==========
Novak bt Sinner
But Who will be Winner???!

 

[SmilingLez]

Valentine's Day Triolet

I lean in and claim your heart
you hold mine close tonight
after all this time we spent apart
I lean in and claim your heart
lips meet lips a brand new start
our room goes quiet this night
I lean in and claim your heart
you hold mine close tonight



Triolets are challenging

 

[Wonderer67]

Thuds

Days after the snowstorm
The snow now plastered solid
Glazed over with ice
I carve a path
For garbage cans
And for the propane guy

But I have fun…
Flinging chunks of snow
Frozen boulders
High into the air
Listening to the
Pleasurable thuds of ice on ice

Fling and thud
It doesn’t get old

My sixth grader soul
Smiles n
Smiles n
Smiles

https://voca.ro/1bAdX0F14jfN
https://voca.ro/1f3dmIwKoA2l

4/52

 

[Hotcoffee123]

Tangled and Drifting

Bobbing and treading water,

fighting for a place to bury my shell.

Jouncing aimlessly, the ebbs and flows tease me close to home.

Drifting and never reaching the shore.

The ocean has plans for me.

Topsy-turvy, and tumultuous.

Completely ensnared!

Holdfast and soothing blades coil around me

defying the tides,

bringing me to shore.

You are a big tangled mess entwined with shells ,sand and sediment-

If I resist

I am certain to be lost at sea

again.

If I surrender, I will just be another object of collection,

But no longer

will I be

Bobbing and treading water.

 

[_Land]

THC (Tetrahydro-Cock-ulator)

**Prescription Information & Patient Advisory**

Active Ingredient
Tetrahydro-Cock-ulator (THC), a vasodilatory phallostimulant derived from *Cannabis erectilis*

Indications
For treatment of Flaccid Member Syndrome (FMS), Disappointing Dick Disorder (DDD), and General Erectile Ennui (GEE)


Mechanism of Action
THC works through the body's endocannabinoid boner system, binding to CB-1 (Cock-Boosting) and CB-2 (Chub-Bringing) receptors located primarily in penile tissue. Upon activation, triggers massive release of nitric oxide, causing smooth muscle relaxation and subsequent tumescence of catastrophic proportions.

Dosage
One (1) hit of premium-grade THC administered via inhalation
Onset: 4-20 minutes
Duration: Nice hours
Peak wood achieved at T+69 minutes

Clinical Trial Results
In double-blind studies, 100% of participants reported "getting high and horny," with 87% describing erections as "concerning the neighbors" and 34% requiring doorframe modification for safe ambulation.

Contraindications
- Do not operate heavy machinery or light partners
- Avoid combining with munchies (blood flow redistribution to digestive system may cause deflation)
- Not recommended for users with pre-existing conditions including: chronic bragging, unsolicited dick pic syndrome, or being a generally terrible person

Side Effects
**Common:** Giggles, paranoia about whether it's *too* hard, sudden philosophical insights about the universe, craving for Doritos, forgetting what you were doing (but your dick remembers)

**Rare:** Priapism lasting longer than four hours of scrolling Reddit, telescopic extension requiring FAA notification, spontaneous combustion of gym shorts

Warning
THC may cause users to believe they have unlocked tantric secrets. They have not. They are simply very stoned with an erection.

Storage
Keep in cool, dry place away from children, pets, and anyone who might ask "is that *medicinal*?" with annoying air quotes

Patient Testimonials
*"My doctor said I needed to reduce inflammation. Mission accomplished."* - Derek, 34

*"I came for the pain relief. I stayed for the pain relief."* - Anonymous

*"Instructions unclear. Now banned from Whole Foods."* - Marcus, 28

---

**Manufactured by Big Pharma Alternatives, LLC**
*A Subsidiary of Dudes Who Figured It Out*

**Not FDA Approved (FDA Too Jealous)**

---

*Disclaimer: If erection persists beyond tolerance of partner(s), consider this a personal victory but maybe open a window. Author accepts no responsibility for neighborhood complaints, broken bedframes, or sudden popularity. This poem is satire. Actual THC results may vary and probably won't include superhuman genitalia. Probably.*


9/52

 

[Wonderer67]

The Day After the Snowfall

Rileyville Road still snow covered
Sprinkles of snow and ice everywhere
Crystals
In the sun
Crossing Sourland mountain

The truck crunches over the smooshed down snow
The softest
Quietest rumble

A pleasant roar
Loud and quiet
At the same time

Already late forwork

A bamboo grove squished over
Blocking most of the road
I’ve never seen it before
Incoming traffic and invasive trees
Block the path

And finally
Onto the salt, white hardness

The promise
And full speed
Of County Road 518

5/52

Written 1/26, pieced together 2/1

 

[12oclocktales]

Our bodies pounding
into each other,
the heat rising,
skin sliding along surfaces
of uneven hills and valleys,
a sweat drop
slaloming down the
slopes of your soft
breasts one to the other,
only to be swished
away with the swiping
of my tongue.

(#9)

 

[SmilingLez]

Groundhog wakes, no glasses,
squints at his shadow, unsure,
“Is that me or what?”
He trips over his own paws.
“Like anyone’s listening anyway!”

 

[Angeline]

Imaginary Triolet

Think of cotton fluff and blue
Drifting from on high to green
Wavelets dancing foamy spew
Think of cotton fluff and blue
Black-winged seabirds calling shrew
Just imagine any scene
Think of cotton fluff and blue
Drifting from on high to green


Week 6, Poem 1, Total 14

(Thanks @SmilingLez for inspiration!)

 

[SmilingLez]

Seems like the more I write triolets, the more I understand the "rules".

Spring

Cold ground cracks wide
Mud seeps through the plain
Winter starts to glide
Cold ground cracks wide
Buds push up, no place to hide
Breaking through the rain
Cold ground cracks wide
Mud seeps through the plain

 

[Ash999]

Tariff King....
In Tariff King's land
India got 50% Rate bland!?
But when Modi signed EU FTA
50% was slashed to 18% in One Single Day!

 

[NivKay]

On contemplating a live camera feed


There is a woman in Wejherowo,
Who curses the day she acquired
The mongrel – she called it kundel.
It comes and goes as it pleases,
And some nights she must trudge down
Steep stairs onto Plac Jakuba Wejhera
And call out. Midnight in Wejherowo
is unkind.

Above the Delikatesy, which awakes at four
When the vans carrying supplies in their bowels
Rumble along the cobblestoned street, he watches
Like an owl, come rain, come sleet, his 4D Plasma,
Baywatch, or BlueTV Sports where women jump,
Triple, High, Poled. Sleep comes in snatches
In Wejherowo at Midnight.

There is no telling why I watch these people,
Like a Prestidigitator, watching my screen,
As they watch, at Midnight, lost souls groping
Upon the shore of Dante’s river. It is winter now,
And there is strange calm. Snow is a blanket
For the restless.

Week 3, Poem 8, Total 8

 

[amitheotherone]

Theia’s glow

I always find away
To slip and stray
Insecurity’s find me
Dark spot I can’t see
Fears chase me down
Circles run all around
Your light shines a tune
Like a moth back to you.

 

[42BelowsBack]

p18


Crazy tales

1930s in a back alley of East LA. Solomon
Kane a dark and somber man lives where
the sun don’t climb. In this trash can blood

-thirsty cat eat dog white bird world. “He,” his
neighbor says “Solomon knew his pirouette
of a woman was over him. Satdee night I heard

Solomon yelling, where is my felt Fedora
shotgun an loincloth? Next d’y. He was
howling a gale about all his luggage. He said,

there ain’t no need to leave the porch light
on. By Sundee even’n he was blind drunk
naked, out on the street looking for a wife.”



p19 Blues Thread challenge

42 Be low

Sour man Whisk’y n’ rain

Mamma don’t tell me I don’t work no how
What I gotta do for love
Mamma don’t tell me I don’t work some how
What I gotta do for love

More n’ years I been liv’n at midnight now
drink’n down, stay’n down under this no how sun.
Should never have done dollar married that woman
But she do for love

Should never done laced my boots up now
With that garden snake, a dollar an hour
Now my love I’ve been
renting n’ a blue house

Anyhow my paper owed to th’ reaper now
I gotta pay I gotta pay
Anyway my paper paid to the reaper now
But I do for— I did it for—
more love’n



p20

Rust in peace.

Brother,
I see your bike
on the fast side
of the river

and wonder why
you had so much
water and
nothing to drink

Now I hear your
Motorcycle near
and beyond me
up ahead knowing

There wasn’t any moss
in the rapids where
sieved through the
river you

became my hands cupped
holding you but you were
already flowing away to
the other side of the river.

 

[Waeponwifestre]

42 Dreams + 36 Awakenings (in 30ish minutes give or take eight years)
A stream of consciousness prose poem kind of thing for @42BelowsBack

Standing on the Pacific coast on an early November evening. The tide is coming in and the waves are lapping against the leather of my boots. Smells like rotting crabs. Looks like a lot of rotting crabs too. Thought I’d meet Leviathan here but all I hear are gulls’ crying. Reading tarot on the street many miles ago, always wondered why so many tourists would ask for financial advice from someone on a sidewalk. Once I dreamed of freight trains now I ride the light rain. I am a poser. Dreams now met I guess I’m here now, feels a lot more dull on the other side. How many seasons has The Simpsons been on now and what percentage of them are actually watchable? I should know this, I’m just as old as they are.

Getting out early sounds like good poetry advice but people get worried and mad at me when I start talking like that too much.

Week 6 Poem 1 Total 12

 

[SmilingLez]

Tried my hand at a Zappai

We scribble our dreams,
coffee spills on white pages,
words dance like our thoughts.
In forums, we’re rock stars,
crafting worlds with caffeine highs.

 

[Tzara]

A Quick Metrical Writing Exercise,
Completed in Seventeen Minutes,
Including Proofreading and Title

Take twenty minutes for your writing
In verse or prose—don't matter, mate.
The end result will be exciting
And taste as sweet as chocolate cake.
It's just an exercise, remember.
First throw some words into a blender
And out plops brilliance, real or feigned,
However twisted, crimped, and strained.
The difficulty's execution—
To say something that is both clear
And memorable, that's without peer,
Quite philosophic, right Confucian.
But then, it's practice, after all.
Why this is all linguistic sprawl.

Week 6 : Poem 1 : Total 11

 

[amitheotherone]

Human consumable

Calmness in us has been sewn
As daylights longing has grown
Our lives forced into contortion
To fit into the worlds adorations
Sunken sad eyes as smiles fade
Drunken drugged zombies made
Labored into the corporate greed
Taxed till broke coffin finally free.

 

[SmilingLez]

Violence clashes in crowded streets,
Promises woven, yet incomplete,
Change is fleeting, hope repeats,
Violence clashes in crowded streets,
A dance of power, swift and fleet,
Yet dreams of justice still compete,
Violence clashes in crowded streets,
Promises woven, yet incomplete.

 

[SapioSexual9]

Blues challenge


Crying Sap Ferguson sings,


Quaking Floor Blues

My hound dog woke me up this morning
revving like a dirty old Greyhound bus

My hound dog woke me up this morning
revving like a dirty old Greyhound bus

Well my good ole Daddy he woke up
making him this big old fuss

He said wake up pretty Momma,
Daddy got a shotgun to blast

Soon the bed was freaking creaking all crazy
Yes suh an Daddy was saying rock me rock me
like a long south bound train

Soon the bed was freaking creaking all crazy
an I was a hollering Yes suh Ooooo Yes suh
while Daddy was hauling ass on me

Well we was a chugging
like a good ole freight train woohooo

Well we was a chugging
and the damn old bed brake

And Daddy said Momma I’m in trouble
I ain’t got no hand break

I said Daddy
the bed is broke and there is nothing,

nothing, but thunder and lightening
between my heart beats

But Daddy he wasn’t listening
He was getting high on my back hills

And he turned my whole house up,
side, down giving me those
quaking floor blues.


11

 

[amitheotherone]

Leveling glance

They vaguely say things in reply
leave you to wonder question why.
Circling for perspective or intention
dizzying left with only introspection.
Ratted out follow a rabbit to its den
look about alone no doubt inner zen.

If 6 was 9

 

[calmlikeabomb]

Week 6 poem 12

I love you for you, just you,
Never wondered if you were "good enough"
You found success and I was discarded
Oh well, life is tough.

 

[12oclocktales]

I wore a leather cardigan vest,
nothing underneath,
also a tiny jeans skirt,
nothing underneath
while bear-hugging your body
on the back of the Harley,
my bare nipples turning
diamond hard against
your leather jacket,
roaring down the blacktop
heading for the tucked-in
lake within the forest where
on a mat of pine needles
you would fuck me and
then again and again until
all my holes flowed ivory
lava, not setting the woods
aflame, just who rode behind
you holding on for dear life.

(#10)

 

[SmilingLez]

This free verse is dedicated to all the girls, adult women, elderly women, and boys, who go missing, kidnapped, used as sex slaves, and get exploited every day. They do not get the attention of law enforcement that the rich and famous get.


The rich and famous,
coddled in their mansions.
When they vanish,
the sirens wail,
police swarm like bees.
Press lines form -
a spectacle.

We are shadows,
forgotten and ignored.
When we scream,
no one listens.
Elected officials smile,
but only for the cameras,
while we are left to rot
our loved ones forgotten
our pain dismissed,
unworthy of their time.