It's the 2025 Poem-A-Week Challenge! (This is a *poems only* thread.)

[SpermFactory]

The moobs are swinging

The start of one thousand five
hundred poems, I empty lint
from my pockets. I say to myself

you’re standing…
….at the base of a mountain,
surrounded by intimidating man
tits…

To get over the mountain…
you’re going to have to seriously review
…which tit you’re going to slap at first?

Slapping a tit, I feel the perfection
in the movement…this tit, a he tit,
deserved it.


[42]

 

[Tzara]

Koi Pond

In the dark water
under the cedars, bright fish
circle aimlessly.
Is my world as small as theirs,
as bounded by ignorance?

Week 51 : Poem 2 : Total 81

 

[SmilingLez]

Dating Apps

Swiping left and right,
Fleeting faces, empty lust,
Hearts missing in action.
Chasing only skin and hype,
Depth crushed under shallow hits,
Souls reduced to likes.
Bodies glow, but vibe is gone,
It's all just a game -
Still alone in a crowded room.

 

[Wonderer67]

das capital

THERE IS QUALITY IN QUANTITY
OR SOMETHIN LIKE THAT

I BELIEVE SOME COMMIE SAID THAT SHIT
ONCE
OR TWICE

MARX OR LENNON?
CHICO OF COURSE

ILL GET TO 52
EVEN IF I GOTTA WRITE A
POEM A DAY
TO MEET MY QUOTA,
COMRADE

42/52

PS. I ain’t really a commie, but I had a dream about this poem. In the dream I mentions of Marx (Chico of course)

 

[Tzara]

night

the house is quiet
but for the spatter of rain
against the windows

so lonely without the sound
of her soft breathing, asleep
​

Week 51 : Poem 3 : Total 82

 

[Tzara]

christmas party

why do I always stand by myself

in a corner, out of the light?
​

Week 51 : Poem 4 : Total 83

 

[Angeline]

Christmas Parties Past

Rhett drank boxed wine from a secretary's shoe. I can't recall which one.

Big party at the Chancellor's mansion. I get a carved tree that breaks.

The Chancellor tells me jokes in Yiddish. I smile and sidle away.


Week 51, Poem 2, Total 66

 

[Quarky]

The morning's burnt. Okay, I admit
to growling when the toaster gleamed
right in my damned eye. Can I please
get my stupid kitchen back?

Fucking Siri conspires with Alexa. Between
them, they play house, changing all my
settings. My passwords. My doorbell
has joined the strike, and isn't speaking
to the ring cam on account of
it's a scab.

Even the toaster oven, one-week
new, is in on it. Burnt toast
hangs from a noose of smoke.
I choke out

"Truce Alexa! Siri, I surrender."
For tea and edible toast
I'll submit. Even admit,
I've become my smart
kitchen's bitch.



(Getting a head start on 2026 if that is allowed).

.

 

[Tzara]

weekend

I found her hairbrush
in a bedside cabinet.
She must have forgotten it

when she left last week.
Outside it is still raining
and I should turn on some lights.

Week 51 : Poem 5 : Total 84

 

[Tzara]

during the storm

i'm reading a book
in a room lit by candles
because the power is out

i should go to sleep
but her poems are soothing
and my bed cold and empty

Week 51 : Poem 6 : Total 85

 

[Tzara]

ono no komachi

imagine her hair,
so straight, so dark, and so long—
when she combed out the tangles

did she remember
the writhing movements of love,
her disarrayed kimono?

Week 51 : Poem 7 : Total 86

 

[Tzara]

dodoitsu

she was too chaste to be touched
so i took a photograph
of her lacy négligée—
empty, but still hot

Week 51 : Poem 8 : Total 87

 

[Tzara]

In Which the Poet Comments
on His Resistance to Serious Themes
in the Body of His Work

Yes, a limerick's easy to write.
Though, thematically, often quite trite.
But when written for fun,
If they're not overdone
I don't give a damn if they're slight.

Week 51 : Poem 9 : Total 88

 

[Tzara]

Double Dactyl

Higgledy piggeldy
L.J.J. Wittgenstein,
genius philosopher
reached great acclaim.

Wrote the Tractatus and
later rejected it.
Metalinguistically
turned speech to games.

Week 51 : Poem 10 : Total 89

 

[Wonderer67]

Navigating

Newark is not pretty
Even from the air
Nor are her suburbs
And developments
Shopping malls
Full of stuff I don’t want
Or need

A propeller plane
I pretend it’s a b25 bomber
Or the c130 I flew back from Frankfurt
To dix/maguire back in the day
(My wife loves that story)

Cars get smaller and smaller
Mini matchboxes now
Finding landmarks
Whippany, Parippany
Lake Hopatcong
An unnamed stone quarry
Brown trees not looking
Too fall-like
The mountains of Sussex county
Casting shadows in the 7:44
Ay ‘em landscape
The unmistakable
Delaware water gap
Rt 80 winding her way thru—
A snake winding its way into the Poconos

High power lines
Like fishing line gleaming in the sun
It looks flat down there
But I can read the contour lines
As we cross outta pennsy
And into New York

Terrain flattening out now
Wind turbines
In the fields
Instead of hilltops
24000 feet
Over prolly Rochester
Lake Ontario stretching
Its arms out
To carry us into Toronto

43/52

Originally written in early November

 

[Tzara]

on the island

the beaten down grass
reveals the animal's path
along the cliffside

shall we walk here hand-in-hand
as if the season were spring?
​

Week 52 : Poem 1 : Total 90

 

[Angeline]

Overactive Imagination

We tried to climb toward
the Devil's Tea Table rock
deep in Hunterdon County

but night was falling
so we hiked by the river
and missed the party above.

Yesterday we laughed
at how I thought you a bear,
screamed when I bumped into you.



Week 52, Poem 1, Total 67

 

[MidnightLothario]

I just wrote this for my beloved wife Kelley, who passed suddenly on 11/29/25 at age 48, I love her more than words could ever say. I published it here, as well.

I belong in snow sparkled forests as darkness winds it's shroud.
I belong lying still in turned earth, under skies of leaden cloud
I belong in blackest night where no beams ever glint.
I belong in her embrace, my heart's love forever spent.

 

[Kat90xx]

There once was an old gal from West Lever
Who sure was one hell of a pleaser
But on all her poor lads’ trunks
She’d leave great lumps and chunks
As she had gnashers like a champion beaver!

 

[amitheotherone]

Contemptuous Smile

The crow laughs at me you see
Knowing I too will feel the cold
To the bones and empty soul
While being chased by wind
And my empty shadows sin.
Bows his head another laugh
Not so mockingly still stares
Jumps free of the twisted tree
To an effortless flight to me
Motionless accept for my stare
Locked on his cold empty glare
Silent just the air and his wings
Passing me like my life clock
Effortlessly to his next lair
Was this real maybe just a dream
A far off laugh soon comforts me.

 

[Wonderer67]

Tilt of The Earth

Everything leans - literally -
On the Twenty three and a half degree
Tilt of the earth
As we walk into the woods
Sunday, no hunting today
But I wear my orange hat anyway
Ya never know

The sun in our eyes
Barely scraping the horizon
Even tho it's only 3:30
Casting heavy dark shadows

Examining wind damage from Friday nite
One large dead ash down
Plotting out which trees to cut up next
For our firewood farm
Planning what’s next for our land in 2026

Looking south over the field
The crew-cutted corn
Stands blonde at first
Now orange with low sunlight

We walk the trails
I've painstakingly
Cut and hacked and slashed
But maintained

And on the way back
Along Coopalong Creek Tributary #4
We clear a jam from the culvert
And feel the warmth ceding

To the longest night of the year

44/52

https://imgur.com/a/2hRbcZI

https://imgur.com/a/eux3fy1

 

[Tzara]

Night of the Radishes
—December 23

In Oaxaca, radish carving
Is quite the thing to see today,
But do not eat them, even starving—
They'll wilt and spoil the best buffet.
These sculpted veggies are intriguing
Though carving them can be fatiguing
For those whose fingers are not strong
Enough to wield a knife for long.
But those who can carve mariachi
Bands or dancers, flowers, knights,
A ballerina clad in tights.
I'm hungry. Light up the hibachi
And celebrate this unique Art.
Just grab a blade, get ready, start.

Week 52 : Poem 2 : Total 91

 

[Quarky]

Last time I saw my brother
he warned that if I came over
I should know he's contagious

because the tiny worms
living in his left arm
but not the right arm

are resistant to conventional
medicine. He has mixed
his own batch of hard smelling

chemicals to pat over scabs.
He swears he hasn't been
doing meth. Just a little

weed and coke
now and then.
Last week I sent him

a cheese and sausage
sampler platter we both
pretend he'll eat.

Smoked, sealed, salted,
always ready, Swiss cheese
and salami will keep.

 

[Wonderer67]

Festivus ‘25

Pinwheel cookies
Good and fucked
Cussin and swearin
And airing of grievances
Aplenty

Rally round the
Festivus pole

Aluminum…
High strength to weght
Ratio

45/52

 

[Wonderer67]

Rhododendron in Winter (Thermonasty)

Natures thermoter
Bushy, perky
And upright
When it’s above freezing

But below that
Magical thirty-two
Degrees…

Their leaves
Droop
Like naughty, bad dogs
Ashamed
Of being below
Freezing

Telling me
Baby, it’s cold out outside

46/52

https://imgur.com/a/PjANN4f