2023 Poem-A-Week Challenge (Poems Only Thread)

[Ashesh9]

Devastating it is to me
To visit the Library....
And find I have read/finished the entire stable
Each and every Killer Mitch Rapp fable:
Poor author Vince Flynn is unable
To feed
My insatiable greed
Of reading Thrillers: a gripping need.......
In lonely silence I sit.......
Since I cannot sew or knit
Time hangs heavy
But hey presto...maybe
The latest Bestseller
Is jus'round the Corner!!!!

 

[butters]

poem #33

blood on a wedding dress

they kept the dress
in a locked trunk
in the attic
gathering dust for decades
forgotten when they passed
away—one following the other
as is often the case—
and years slid by
till one bright day
new residents held a yard sale
and having no use
for the cracked old trunk
set it out
on the lawn
marked $5

 

[butters]

poem #34

not a poem about laundry

women know
there are stains
that never come out
in the wash

they may fade
grow almost invisible
but still
our fingers trace them

 

[Angeline]

It Begins In Lines

I.
It begins in lines
that wiggle, roll and wind
up and down from other lines,
cross or just end broke,
flat out going nowhere
but back.

Such a dizzy welter of lines
all colors too, black
green and plenty of blue.

Is it a hot mess, this mass
indistinguishable
from a child's scribble?
Is it indefinable unless
you pull back for a wider view
and reconsider, see a map?

II.
Isn't every map a treasure map,
a book of roads, rivers, tracks
ultimately our stories,
people who live near tracks,
on either side, those who stay
and those who leave insisting
they'll never come back?

These lines have power
of so many kinds--
to bring someone home
or take them away.

Maybe it's you
who is leaving. Maybe not
today but eventually
everyone gets in the weeds,
so believe me you're gonna
need a map.


Week 33, Poem 1, Total 39

 

[Wonderer67]

Mid-August

I feel the pull of longer nights now
The tug of SAD
My 5am mornings are no longer sunny and bright
They come in slowly, a dull blue daybreak

I check my pumpkin field before work
The vines are dying back
Green and orange orbs litter the field
A few yellow sunflower volunteers in the mix
Standing at attention

The last fiery day lily
Had her day a few days ago - August 13th
The black eyed Susan are drying and dying
Cone flower faded and bleached to a pale pink
Heliopsis crackling into tan paper

Roadsides, where ditch lilies once erupted
Are filled with new occupants of August
Pale blue chicory
Thorny Canadian thistle
The fine needlework of Queen Anne’s lace…

I looked for the Perseid meteor shower
Saturday night
It was at it’s peak
I got up at 330am
And thru the clouds I only saw two shooting stars
It was not great – ended up with a stiff neck to thank for it
It reminded me of the Billy Bragg song, “A New England”*
I swatted at mosquitoes buzzing in my ear
Biting my legs…
Forcing me inside earlier than I wanted

As the summer pulls to a close
I will miss the hazy, humid mornings
Jumping in the pool to cool off after my workout
Or my wife giving me a special shower
In the morning before work

I will miss those long, summer evenings out on the back patio
Waiting for the
Drunken loops of bats
The rising blue/green winks of lightning bugs
The big dipper slowly appearing and coming into focus
The rise of the soft, ivory moon
And the last orange licks of sunset

———————-

*“I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them – but they were only satellites
-Billy Bragg, A New England

33/52

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[Wonderer67]

I just wrote this, thinking, my last poem was overly negative.

Mid-August Yet Again

Don’t get me wrong
I am not melancholy about
The tilt of the earth
The shorter days
The impending winter solstice
The days only shorter
From here on in

No. It brings new beauties
Pale yellow woodland sunflower
Invasive AF, but I still don’t rip them out
The late black eyed susan take off
The garden is full and bloated with produce
The chives stand as straight as possible

Late August brings
The 4H fair
The races at Stafford and Thompson
Sweater weather
Saturday night bonfires
Montauk daisies
Reminds me of back to school
Coaching my maniacal girls soccer team
Lining the fields on cool Saturday mornings

No, I am not depressed
But I love the early and mid summer
I even love the winter
It’s a Friday night
I am drunk and high
And in love with everything

34/52

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[Tzara]

Late Summer

In our yard, the dahlias are blooming.
They've grown so tall they seem almost to elbow me
off stride, as I walk along the back garden path

toward the pond, where I often can find frogs,
snuggled down in the mud that rings the pool.
I have brought a hose, to dribble

water all about the edge, as it has been dry,
and I almost might want even the mosquitos
to live through this heat, if only they would agree not to bite.

Week 33: Poem 2: Total 47

 

[Ashesh9]

Will the mosquitos agree:
Not to Bite??????!
If one were a sexy girly mosquito:
They almost might!!!!!
But the fact that:
I'm a male
Will Not their
Teeth quail:
No matter how much
I swat@'em and fight!!!!!?

 

[Ambient4190]

on a cool clear evening
ever stare at the night sky
a shooting star
glowing streak
zips by
stars remain steadfast
they have seen it
all before
they twinkle beware
of the enchantment
the blazing rocks
ethereal beauty
burns
then fades
death is all that
remains

 

[OtherMan]

I do not see a single flaw
you see as many stars -
they blink out in our dawn in awe
and leave not any scars.

8/19/23

#44

 

[butters]

poem #35

where do we start...

to make amends to the world,
to voices in the wind
denied by closed windows,
to ghosts old and new
that fret and pick at loose threads,
to all the colours we never chose
to use, to crumbs forgotten
—discarded, un-swept
that fell between the cracks
to disappear but never really left,
to things we should have thought
or said but never did or
touches we ought to have spent?

and now i look at the curve of your back
and how light lines your shoulder
but doesn't reach your spine
so much shadow
in a deafening silence
spanning the gap between us
and wonder
where do we start?

 

[butters]

poem #36

when you're looking for the poet

pine won't do—
softwoods used
for stud or dowel—
nor, too, the redwood
slender, tall & meant
for being crowned
a star amongst bit-part players
a queen on the podium of beauty

refine the search: look instead
for the pitted & the gnarled
the scarred & broken
shadows left by burns
& carved initials
eroded bark exposing inner-skin
to elemental tempers
the attrition of insect & fungi
twisted bumps of galvanized staples
—past attempts to mend fences—
deep sunk, occluded nails
still seeping stains of rust
the empty sockets
holes that once held wild things...

it might not look like much
leafless in a pile of other stumps
or standing, still, in silent testament
but slice it through
define the living edge
reveal all its hidden wonders
warped rings of growth
knots, splits, burrows & burls
and know they signify
the colours of a life marked by living

this is your poet

 

[butters]

poem #37

and the pharaoh is exempt

It is known
Anubis stands ready
in the Hall of Two Truths
to weigh your human heart
against a feather

your soul, your ka
against the inner lightness
of truth and justice
balance, order, harmony,
honour and morality
in order to determine
your path in the afterlife

and that each successive pharaoh swears
their own decree of Maat:
from their own mouths as
their own hearts conceive it.
*
Hands up those surprised that when
the soon or later day arrives
a gilded pharaoh plays his hand
and names himself exempt?

 

[OtherMan]

I do not need agree with you
or see the world the same -
I simply feed the burning new…
and I do love that flame.

8/23/23

#45

 

[butters]

poem #38

without our interference

they grew from seed
gathered from last season's crop

two to a pod
carefully nursed along

when beds were ready
planted deep, watered, tended

and when they grew tall enough
they embraced their wire cage supports

but then the heat
the broken mowers

and they grew
and grew

watered by torrential rains
baked by our daily star

and in their abundance, tangled & lush
they toppled their supports as weeds ran wild

turned from green to burnished red
broiling on the vine, & dined upon by small things

and still they grow
and still they fruit

drop to seed the rows with future vines
brave volunteers that thrive

without our interference

 

[goddessofglee]

№41

The muse hath gathered all my thoughts
And set them down in fair array.
But where they be I cannot say.
For lost was the key, along the way.

I search the attic, but it is in vain,
My basement tapes, in all the rooms;
The marginalia, looseleafs ta'en,
The rough-hewn blocks of verse and rhymes.

I am vexed in contemplation,
Of my accumulated stuff.
There's plenty with me,
To make it out of the rough!

But I've lost track of,
where they might be.
They be not in the attic shades,
nor in my basement tapes,
I don't know where they might be,
not 20,000 leagues under the sea!

Perhaps they're hidden in a chest,
Or buried deep within, at rest;
Or maybe they have flown away,
upon the wings of a raven's crest.

I know not where they may be found,
But I'll search until they come around,
The hidden treasure of my mind,
And then I'll share with all mankind.

 

[Tzara]

Architectural Rendering

They used to be hand-drawn or, better,
pale and gauzy watercolor washes—
a plaza filled with purposeful figures
before a dark granite monolith,
a park with young women pushing
strollers along leafy pristine paths,
a long, low house of redwood beams
over Corten planters and walls of glass.

A firm might even have a staff member
with a special talent with pigment and brush
to turn out paintings more beautiful
than any design could possibly be, actualized.
These idealizations helped the client see
what the designer saw, what he hoped
to raise on that scabby vacant lot, that
plot of land overgrown by alder and ferns.

Now, renderings are generated by software,
printed pixel by pixel by ink jets and lasers,
like street signs or newspapers, uniform
in their crisp, dull sameness. They are easy
to manipulate—swap out the garage, swap
in a pool—but the softness, the haze of life
lies locked in the architect's visual cortex,
laid to rest as if in a cardboard coffin.

This is what is often meant by "progress."

Week 34: Poem 1: Total 48

 

[Wonderer67]

Before the 4H Fair

The calm before the storm
No crying babies yet
Nor the rumble of rickety kid rollercoasters
The tractor pulls a few days out still

The day couldn’t have been any perfecter
73º and sunny
The grounds look so neat
Grass trimmed tightly
Haybale benches placed strategically
Near porta-a-johns and attractions
People moving with purpose
Rides being dangerously assembled
The gideon bible guy and the Italian ice lady
Getting their tents and food stands together
Farm kids moving cows
And goats and sheep into the livestock pavilion
(I still think it’s adorable that the kids sleep there overnight, tending to their animals)
Old and young timers
Bringing their antique tractors to the tractor building

Then there’s Rebecca and I:
Proud parents of plants
Entering our flowers, veggies and farm crops
High on the anticipation of winning
We’ve had the tallest sorghum in the county
For six consecutive years
Blue ribbons in our eyes
Anticipation
The feeling that anything is possible
We lug our pumpkins and gourds
Our largest beet and sunflower samples
A box full of our flower displays and other veggies
Painstakingly and gently crafted bouquets
Carefully washed, scrubbed and clipped veggies

We’re in the same tent as the honey and bee keepers
And the baking contest
I’d like to be a judge for that!
Right next to the farm crops
Timothy grass, Scutch grass and alfalfa samples hits my nostrils
I breathe in deep
The smell of fresh cut hay and grass
Sweetness
A nose orgasm

I am transported back to
Childhood

35/52

 

[Angeline]

On The Silver Meteor

A long train whooshes
through the night,
with a long, long load
and a throaty sigh--

It's a full house: passengers
and freight, silver cars
of sleepers and diners,
the convivial club,
a glass-topped dome,
all swaying corridors and hubs,
public and private cars roll by,

humanity packed in boxes
hooked together at reckless
clacking spaces in-between
where night wind blows
and wheels scream.

Who knows when a train rolls deep
down the line late at night?
Maybe an owl, a lone wolf
by a crossroads,
a sideways moon,
smirking through the trees.


Week 34, Poem 1, Total 40

 

[Ambient4190]

regret for spiderwebs swatted
this week

penitent for ignored calls from mother
this week

rueful for naughty stories read
this week

guilty of objectionable language every time
forced to restart laptop for a %@#! software update
this week

venial sins 'cept one unmentionable
nuthin' deserving of a whuppin' says I
this week

 

[Ashesh9]

To slain Wagner Boss:
Ashes to Ashes
Dust to Dust......
If Ukraine doesn't get U
Putin must!!!!!!?

 

[butters]

poem #39

no smoke, no fire

maybe it's an excess of allergens
but my head swims
wobbles on its regular axis
at too sharp a turn
filled with red dust
of a familial planet
or is that australian heartland
with its stark heat
because my eyes
itch
and burn
but don't water?

no matter, since
thinking drops away
in the presence of wind ripples
and saltwater crocodiles
are many many miles away

 

[butters]

poem #40

the golden days of childhood memories

how we cling
like koalas in the eucalyptus
to days of bliss
days gilded by our ignorance
and limited perceptions

at 3 years old
i loved that worn-furred 'bear'
with its stumpy arms and legs
shining glassy stare
and plastic claws and nose
the cold round coin
of its 'genuine product of australia' tag

a child doesn't need forgiveness
for not understanding
the death of a living creature
the lopping of its forelimbs
its flaying, curing and value
as a commercial product for tourists
to render it a toy or talking piece
for visitors

i recall some sorrow
bafflement
as the skin shed more fur
and seams eventually wore
enough to start to spill the flattened straw
and its nose detached
as did one paw
but no doubt i moved on
with few delays
to other, small distractions

but now i'm grown, i know
and even though i'm horrified
a marsupial was murdered just for this—
a gift handed down from some obscure
and well-intended donor—
the joy of stroking its soft pelt
its form and colours and a
little child's invested interest
has me emotionally clinging
to those times of happy innocence

 

[Mrtenant]

Summer Rain

When the rain started falling
There was brutal heat in the air
August cicadas endlessly calling
All day every day without a care

When it was pouring rain outside
The wind had blown in from the north
Pierced the heat dome, pushed it aside
We all looked up as hope came forth

When the rains finally finally came
There was relief from the hell we'd made
We could forget for a moment our shame
Of the reckless care of our world unmade

When the rain fell for those few seconds
Such a brief fall, such joy, such love
Then it was gone, like a dream I reckon
Not even a call of the mourning dove

 

[Wonderer67]

A Nighttime March
Or Iraq and Back

The clock strikes 2:14am
It’s that time
The time of night that us soldiers
Crawl out of bed and stand in formation
Some of us are older
Graying beards, losing hair
Others younger, still in their 20’s
Fit… in their physical prime

Someone yells out, “In ca-DENce!”
Left foot first
I stay in step
Marching in the dead of night
With the rest of my platoon
My fingers curled, thumbs out
It’s zero dark thirty
Thirteen o’clock
2:19am now
We march a relentless march
Awake but also asleep
Vigilant: tired and wired
“Head on a swivel, boys”
I’m at the ready
Our regimental motto: semper paratus, Always Ready
For what, I ‘m not sure

These are nights when I wake at night
Killing dead time by walking my circuit:
Living room to dining room to kitchen to hallway and back to the living room in a darkened home
Rinse and repeat
The monotony, the familiarity is comforting in a way
Ready to report for a briefing at 0230
I look backwards in time
Western Baghdad
Ready to cross Route Cardinals
Tankers
Supporting teams that were making sweeps
Interdicting stockpiles of RPGs
Small arms
IED making equipment
Or teams under fire
In that corner of the world
We would lumber up in our tanks…Providing fire support

The shit show that was Route Huskies
A few clicks northwest of the airport
Smoke rising from somewhere in the city
They’d hit us again
Or maybe we hit them again
Who knows…
But we’d find out soon enough if given the order to move out
So close and far away from “the world”
Ready to do whatever they told us to do

On some of these awake-nights,
I see the a yellow haze
It fucking covered everything during sandstorms
The smell of Baghdad will never exit my nostrils
Exhaust, dust, excrement, food, industry, a burning something…
Fuck knows what else what was part of that smell
You got used to it, but it was always there
If I smelled it right now, I’d be instantly transported back
Thru time and space

It would take me back to
The concrete apartment buildings
Slammed together by some giant’s hands
A light, sandy brown in my memory
Cinderblock and ramshackle stalls in the marketplace
Corrugated rooftops and stalls and sheds
A maze of alleyways
The look in people’s eyes
The traffic
The hatred
The daytime bustle
The marketplace
The Bilady dairy complex
The crowded intersections
No sense of right-of-way
We were occupiers

We were off mission
Everyone fucking knew it
There was garbage everywhere
Perfect hiding places for IEDs
Insidious motherfuckers
Pucker five or six I’d say
I felt bad for the cav scouts
Deep in the shit
Dismounted or just in their humvees
I was a tanker
I was lucky to have really thick skin surrounding me
But this felt different
This was not a relentless drive up Highway 8
This was not NTC or a thunder run
This was not the North German plain
This was a revolution and insurgency
Fomenting, fermenting and forming all around us
Amorphous, but it still had a shape
Shiite clerics calling for and declaring jihad
Seemingly daily
You could feel it building right next to us
In the marketplace
In our guts
In our heads
In the populace

Or sometimes, in the stillness of the night
At Raider Base
Sometimes at Camp Victory North
I never thought of them as home
Looking up at the orange-colored Baghdad night sky
Nights when I couldn’t sleep
Or on LP/OP anyway
Or woken up by a mortar or rocket attack

I will never forget that early evening in April
It was still light out
And I could see the sun slanting across the upper floors of buildings
But below the roofs it was darker
A medium blue hue
Tougher to see
But I could see everything and everyone thru that thermal sight
I executed perfect z patterns
It almost felt like I was training

Outside of Routes Cardinals and Alaska, to me
Was always the boundary between “safe” and a no-go area
Those roads had real names, but they were given nicknames
Cross either one of those roads and it was
Pucker factor 5 or 6 just being there, IMO

Same when I wake up sometimes in the middle of the night
Tight gut… ass cheeks clenched
Fists balled tightly
Jaw clamped and one tooth aching
After this morning’s edition of shitty dreams
I try to put a number on it
Pucker 4 or Pucker 5? I ask myself
I begin my relentless nighttime march thru my house
Trying to unwind my mind
Stretching occasionally– focus on my breathing
Take a break from my nighttime march
Down on the floor in child’s pose
Stretching out that shitty back
Bowing to some god or the other
Cat/cow
Warrior one
Warrior two
(How fucking ironic)
Press ups
Cobra pose
Trying to clear my head
Focus
Pacing my breathing, deep breaths
My mantra:
In…I am right here.
Out… I am right now.
Fighting myself
Using every tool I know to calm down
Marching, walking to stay busy, and thoughts at bay
In circles around my house
Smoking some wedding cake to calm down
Or put me to sleep

Last year, my therapist tried to dissuade me from nighttime marching
It was a habit – a tough one to break it turned out
I thought it was healthy
Using awake energy
But she thought otherwise
“You have to create your own personal lullaby. You need to rest your mind.” She told me.
She got me to try just laying in bed
Preparing my body for sleep
Deep breathing
Left hand over heart
Right on my belly
Clearing my mind
I still march sometimes at night when I can’t sleep, but not nearly as much
Don’t tell my therapist

Early one March morning in 2022
My daughter was fighting for her life in the hospital
I was watching Russian tanks burn on Twitter
It was re-triggering
I really hadn’t had many ptsd episodes in years
But my mind was already fucking contaminated
With bad thoughts
And the spark of depleted uranium on steel
Or anti-tank guided missiles penetrating the top of T-72s, T-80s and T-90s
Flames shooting out of turret rings, open hatches and even gun tubes
Nothing left inside…
Ugly shit
Now I couldn’t stop recalling the curiosity of examining burnt out husks of tanks
Looking for entrance and exit holes
Morbid curiosity…
I couldn’t not look at them
And still now, I cannot unsee some of the things I saw
Guilt creeps in just writing this

One night around that same time
March or April of ‘22
I was marching in my house
In my circular route
In an awake-dream
I was barely conscious but walking…
The house was dark
My cat wanted some attention
I was annoyed with him and pushed him away
A year and a half later and I still feel bad about it
He’s such a loving cat
But I was tired and unable to sleep
Irritable af
Ptsd-ed out
My mind was going 96mph
I scrawled some lines on paper
In the pitch black of my living room
Which is now the last part of this poem

In my awake-dream, I saw myself from above
There I was
Not here but there
Not there
Or anywhere
Disassociation
I was looking down at myself, but in my dream
I was marching in formation with other soldiers…
A platoon: maybe 35 of us
Someone was calling out cadence
It was a black man’s voice
It had a rhythm and a beautiful lilt
It had soul, a poetry of it’s own…
Sergeant Williamson maybe?
Yo left…yo left, yo left, yo right…yo left.

I was marching
My fingers curled, thumb out in front
I tried keeping my shoulders level
I always struggled with that when marching
So had to really pay attention
Years ago, my old basic training Drill Sergeant used to always holler at me:
“Rogers! You bee-boppin’ again, son! Keep them GOT-damn shoulders level!”

The lines I scrawled down on a piece of paper in the darkness of that night was this:
“We are marching
In lock-step
A platoon of soldiers
Off to suicide”