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

[Wonderer67]

That Day

It was that day
That one very first day of warmth
When someone or
Something finally kicked old man winter
In the balls

The sun beating down on everyone’s head
Makin’ vitamin D
Warming our bodies and soul

I felt it in my cells
My mitochondria working on overtime

There was an energy
A bounce in everyone’s step

Windows open on cars and classic rock
Emanating from cars

People walking everywhere thru Frenchtown
Walking their dogs
Kids, Parents, Grandparents

Generations walking together
Happy to be outside

I was alive
And in love with everything

7/52

 

[Wonderer67]

Rosedale Road

Google maps took me on some roads I hadn’t been on
In fucking ages

A breakfast meeting
Offa Rosedale Road

Great March morning sun
Casting shadows in the woodland trees
A strobe affect

Cold, not quite spring yet
Somewhere someone has not quite broken the back of winter

Was this the Rosedale they talked about in Crossroads?
(I think that one’s in Mississippi)

I aint made no deal w the devil

At least not quite yet

8/52

 

[Wonderer67]

Somehow, On The Back Roads

…Of Hopewell township
Near my cousins old house
Hadn’t been on these roads in 40 years
Near Rosedale and Mt Rose

We came down here as kids
Searching out vinyl at the Princeton Record Exchange
Cow punks
Young skinheads rabble-rousing
In upper-crust ville

But goddamn, I wanted to live in one of them nice houses
I do not know what this means or says about myself
Forty years on

Back then I wanted something nice
Modern
Or maybe old
And nice

I just wanted nice

I knew I didn’t want what I had
I know what I was
And on what rung I belonged

Which was old and dirty and ugly
Dysfunctional
Very Califon

Maniacal parents

I wanted a steady hand
Stability
Control

So I made myself me

9/52

 

[Bn2f]

KEEP ME FROM HAVING TO TELL LIES


Deafening…
The quiet here in our bed alone.
Ever slight movements of my hair rubbing against the pillow
Reverberate through my head…
The crackling sounds of thunder foretelling the coming of another storm.

I could fake pretend sleep.
Though that ruse was attempted and failed just last week.
Who was that person anyway? The one to try and lie?
Laughs the Hollywood makeup artist in me
Adept at applying enough foundation over the bruise of an eye.

All the dishes are clean.
The carpet is vacuumed.
I need to be getting up to greet you with open arms at the door.
And maybe tonight the handle end of a wooden broomstick
Would cease its tapping by a sleepless neighbor occupying the space directly below.

 

[Tzara]

Prunus cerasifera

a flowering plum
brightens my neighbor's front lawn
despite the black clouds above

and remind myself
I resemble the weather
but rain nourishes the tree
​

Week 12 : Poem 1 : Total 13

 

[MrMrsMrsMr]

Nothing to see here 101:

The Kennedy centre God King removes his redactive underpants.


Week 12 : Poem 1 : Total 13

 

[Angeline]

Cynical But Honest Fibonacci

Some
day
we'll look
back and ask
Holy Hell what happened here?
We've propelled ourselves back to the Dark Ages,
which resulted from our own apathy and stupidity
masquerading as some great renaissance.
Not bloody likely!
We're fucked
but
good.



Week 12, Poem 1 , Total 11

 

[Tzara]

Zen Garden

freshly raked gravel
pools around these seven stones
an oak leaf floats on one crest

​

my old knees aching​

from sitting here quietly​

waiting for the coming rain​

​

Week 12 : Poem 2 : Total 14

 

[Angeline]

Pineola

Some write in metaphors,
I'm a crow and the sky my highway
a ribbon winding through clouds
and I'm diving for shiny things

when really I'm a person maybe
on a quest but always with a story
because life, even when it's a bird
or how a tree shadows the end

of the street where your lover
doesn't show and true the moon
can't weep, heaven knows, but maybe
it's shrouded and the rain cries

for you is still stories and we are
a collection of tales from forceps
to stone and some are embellished,
soaring through fantasy soft, gauzy

while others are vomited up, straight
Come home right away, he said
and I couldn't do a thing but sit stony
and rock unspeaking until bed

and oblivion which is a true story
tragic and old but real enough
to live in me a monolith an albatross
but mine alone to carry forever.



Week 13? Poem 1, Total 12

 

[LustyScribe]

Depression Expression
Time tirelessly ticks,
Dreams birthed,
Grow tall too quick,
Fall to earth;
Another wasted hope.

The rising sun,
To you, fair morn;
To the despairing one
Another day forlorn.
It's just that depression,
I'll try again to explain,
Leaves the impression
That the dark gnawing pain,
Will never, ever fade
No matter the verses,
No matter the songs played
The whole universe is
Determined to fail me
To piss on my dreams
To assault and assail me
That's how each day seems.

So if your cheery grin
And bright "Good morning!"
Don't seem to soak in
I give fair, gentle warning:
My day's still inky black.
And will be til I carry
This monkey on my back,
Onto Charon's dismal ferry.

Week 13(?!), poem 1, total...11?
*In Greek mythology, Charon ferries the dead to the underworld.

 

[LustyScribe]

Pain, Living, Loving
Damn!
The best kitchen knife,
The one I've honed this last bit
Bit my finger tip.
Gliding over the polish stone
Glass on oily glass
It slid, swerved,
Sliced, stung.

A crimson drop
Came quickly up;
I clamped down.
As I I cleaned and clothed it
In a band-aid
I thought myself a fool;
This will hurt for days!

Then I thought of love lost,
Goodbyes unsaid,
Thanks ungiven,
Hugs not squeezed
Tight enough,
Long enough...
Of short walks
In marble gardens
Words whispered
Too little, too late...

The pain pulsed
Just a bit less
As it reminded me:
In pain is Life;
In Life, Opportunity.
Do more, love more,
Say more, pray more,
Play more, give away more.
While you can,
While you hurt,
Even as you draw
Labored breath.
Live until you die,
Love until you leave.

Week 13, poem 2, total 12 (I think)

 

[MrMrsMrsMr]

There is no soap in war to clean our hands.

Out of the slippery smooth bath a golden duck
exuding blue bubbles tail dives into a youthful
splash of happy childhood giggles fffast forward

in a flash, a piece of burning sky collides with the
ceiling forcing it into that bathtub tumbling toys
exploding duck bubbles melt overseas where

once there was a wall of bravery now a hole exists
in the chest of heads who care a less about the lost
innocent lives in the tiny photos burning evidence in

the shadows those power hungry brokers with their
flaming eyes dream of their children one day playing
among the disappearing kiddie bones and rubble.


Week 13 : Poem 1 : Total 14

 

[Tzara]

Liberal Arts Quad, University of Washington

cherry blossoms burst
to life from the gnarled old trunks
as we stroll on the brick path

our hands twined branches
now grown knotted together
though fingers lumpy with age
​

Week 13 : Poem 1 : Total 15

 

[Bn2f]

THE CENTIPEDE MIND


Evenings, as I ready myself for bed, are the best time for me.
I scribble my wants and intentions in a wagged notebook I store in my nightstand.
My filled is head to the brim with high octane optimism fir the coming day.
Then restful sleep comes.
As the rises sun, something though has changed inside me.
My morning bed covers way heavy on me.
The eager rays touch my skin as does paper burns through fire.
I can’t move.
I’m afear.
The day, no matter how beautiful or rainy, the weather, floats my grasp away.

A man comes in and shutters the blinds and checks on me.
He is made from a granite rock of kindness, this man is.

“It’s still a beautiful Spring day,” he says.

His statement oddly hits my ear as a question rather than fact.

“What time is it?” I ask.

The man walks from the window and I make space for him to sit beside me.
He looks through my notebook, patiently reading my entries.
Page after page of a written listing of 'to dos' repeating themselves.
Misspellings abound.
Phrases are mixed up and out of order.
Inexcusable errors to have been written by a once teacher of English.

The man pats my legs and says, “Rest.”

“Rest?!” I insist. I have tasks to write in my notebook! Christmas is upon us! Doesn’t he know?

He looks at me and smiles and in a moment of clarity I see it!
I SEE IT ALL swirling beneath my husband's tightly clenched lips!
A pain trying to stay hidden.
The extinguished light of hope.
Disease testing the vows of marriage.
Sympathy’s stranglehold on Love.

I feel nothing.
He is the one who suffers this.

“Rest,” he says again, “You have one hundred legs all wanting to go in different directions.”

 

[Tzara]

Onstage at Club Crow
Cashmere, Washington, 2 AM

she holds the Telecaster like a lover
but one she wants to wring its neck

as if depression's the fault of the strings
or the sustain or the goddam lyrics she can't

quite wrench out of the instrument
every night on stage in front of a crowd

she's always afraid would rather be screaming
for anyone from Mick Jagger to Phoebe Bridgers

instead of a lonely kid from Ohio
who's worn off her fingertips playing old blues songs

too loud too often too late at night
because it's the only thing she ever wanted to do

no matter how painful it always seems to be
walking on broken glass her entire fucking life

Week 13 : Poem 2 : Total 16

 

[Tzara]

fir island

a lone daffodil
rises above the grass field

without family
it bends its head in sadness
to the brisk wind from off shore
​

Week 14 : Poem 1 : Total 17

 

[sister jenny]

nicotine stained fingers

nightmares and monsters

cocaine mist on the mirror

a broken straw

a wet cunt

lipstick

cracked lips

running make-up

an escape

a failure

love on someone else’s terms

pain as a way to not think

drugs to not remember

blowing doctors in the restroom

not eating

not thinking

not feeling

an open window to chill my skin

sun touching my eyes

blind

trying not to breathe as a way to live

getting lost among words and paint

avoiding everyone

being the source of the hurt

swallowing cum

gagging

licking the mirror

the sting on my lips

i love you he said

drying the tears with my dreams

crying away the fear

i love you he said

memories like old friends

an unmade bed

the last in a long corridor

nervous, twitching

she is so easy they said

an open cunt for everyone

lines of men

like the lines on the mirror

the bleeding mouth

the lies

the black eye



i love you he said

but she wasn’t even there anymore

lost in a mist of broken dreams

chemicals and cocks

 

[MrMrsMrsMr]

Liberation Day

Wtf I’m a prepper now stocking up champaign and Graviera Naxou.

Wk 14 poem 1 total 15

 

[D_K_Moon]

Miner

I mine the disappointments,
Of my past lives,
Looking for hope,
And meaning,
I gaze up at the moon,
Seeing reflections of what could have,
Or should have been,
The distant thunder echoes,
A drumbeat of my heart,
As my pen scratches across the page.

 

[Bn2f]

HYPOCRISY OF ARISTOCRACY​

Blue blood drains the source of its reign
From the ones it aims to subjugate and oppress
Leeching off the spoils of labored pain
Crowned with negligent ignorance
Off of our life’s strife
They feast
While we stress
Greed feeds the needs of
These self titled robber Barons,
Kings and Duchesses

Our commoners blood watered the seeds
My great grandpap, Dad, to my two sons
And me
Tamed, through toil, this earthen soil
Still
No deed I leave of land
To benefit any of my grands, yet,
The only evidence of inheritance
Passed down by genes
From their breed of royalty
Is six fingers on each hand

My friends and neighbors
Trod like skeletons
Our children are so starved
They nod to you,
And food from garbage,
With same sad reverence
And, yet still, you live in need

No person of station should walk with pride
Flaunting their opulence and riches
Among the poor of its nation
Believing God granted them more relevance
Up with the people
Down with the monarchs
I will never apologize for stealing bread
From the mouths of the decadent

 

[Angeline]

Waltz For Debbie

A waltz feels timeless, natural
as if wildflowers swayed
in that delicate rhythm
were dancing in pure joy
to be alive on a sunny day.

A jazz waltz is right
for me, a dance that breaks
free of its measured pace.
Forget the ballroom, Vienna
and violins and whirl improv

any style that matches the tenor
and piano meandering wherever
they will, controlled freedom,
limbs in motion, dipping
outside reason, silly steps

crazy moves flowing faster
until we'd collapse in laughter
tangled and breathless
on the blue haven of our bed.


Week 14, Poem 1, Total 13

 

[goddessofglee]

"From nowhere!"

He stood at the edge of morning light,
a shadow tall, with calm in sight.
I asked him why the skies turn gray
when all I wanted was one bright day.

He looked ahead, not meeting eyes,
and spoke as if to passing skies:
“Grey holds the hues that white forgets,
and storms recall what sun neglects.”

I showed him dreams in shattered glass,
fragments from a distant past.
“Can broken pieces still be true?”
He turned and said, “They carry you.”

I asked, “Why do footprints fade
when paths were carefully once laid?”
He smiled and with a softened breath,
“Because you walk beyond their death.”

“Why must the roses always wilt?
Why beauty born must drown in guilt?”
He bent to lift a fallen leaf,
and said, “The bloom is brief to teach the grief.”

I whispered then, “Will he return?
The one I was, with eyes that burn?”
He paused—a silence rich and slow:
“He left to let the man you know.”

I feared the end, the unseen shore—
a place where clocks might tick no more.
But he just nodded, calm and deep:
“It’s not the end. It’s just more sleep.”

And as he turned to disappear,
I asked one thing, still held by fear:
“What name is yours, if truth be said?”
He smiled, and whispered,
“You’ve always known. I live ahead.”

№5

 

[goddessofglee]

"I'm late, but still on the move!"

I'm standing at six, to reach fifty-two.
With mud on my soles and fading view.
My fingers are stiff, the frets resist.
My tune blurs away in morning mist.

The strings do not sing, the wood feels cold.
My rhythm is weak, my tune feels old.
But still I move on, no song to boast—
A silent parade, a haunted ghost.

Yet deep in the hush, a whisper grows:
"Late, perhaps—yet still my music flows."


№6 of 52

 

[LustyScribe]

Inasmuchas

Fear and suspicion
Are just the audition
For division and hate;
How was this effective bait?

She doesn’t look like you
Or speak as you do
But her child bears hope
So how do you cope
With bumper sticker minds
That leave both behind,
Robbing our child's kid,
Of he who might have rid
Them of a deadly disease?
Do you think our Jesus pleased?

He without shade of sin
Was born with darker skin;
If born below the border,
Would you not afford her
Common dignity and peace
A place for Him, at least?

Or would you drive a baby brown
Our of your holy, sanctified town?
"He has no papers, no place here!"
And clothe in flags your senseless fear?
Forgetting your own people's pasts,
As other countries' poor outcasts,
Desperate just to work free and hard
Just to be dealt from a fair deck of cards.

An invasion army? Oh, please don't!
I'll tell the truth if others won't!
The English came and stole the land;
The Spanish and French all laid hand
On ones they called savage brutes;
Yes, current trends have ancient roots.
And now you'd lie and curse and vilify
With accusation common sense defies?

We haven't learned from Dachau's tales
It's no wonder that compassion fails
"Hey, they don't look just like me,"
Should be a call to reach out and see
The beauty and strength they may bring
To a land where freedom I've heard sings.

Won't you, friends, turn deaf to division
Join me now as I boldly envision
A land where lyrics aren’t empty, hollow?
Where we truly heed and bollow follow,
"Inasmuch as to the least of these...
Live and love; then I'll be pleased."

Week 14, poem 1, total 13(?)

 

[Wonderer67]

Vanishing Point, Tx

The sun directly overhead
It was officially spring
And I was driving
Thru a place I loved and hated

Past an occasional tree line
Upside a shallow creek
Leaves neon green
Against that blue Texas sky

Dusty driveways
Mailboxes
Telephone poles and windmills
Rows and rows of newly planted corn
And cotton

The road faded into the unceasing Vanishing point
Of that Texas horizon