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

[42BelowsBack]

A Rondeau roundup.

Are we safe yet, stay far away from home,
your earth a garden fed with blood and bone.
Ask not what your country can do for you,
freedom, the community to pursue.
A madman’s place is an iron biome.

This new world doctrine as ancient as Rome.
Underground wells repayment of their loan.
Swiftly now, the smoking gun to undo.
Are we safe yet, stay far away from home.

Medusa’s mouth shut off from frothing foam.
On television, the cartels no longer roam.
A horse! A new oil Kingdom to ride through.
Victorious beats the chest with virtue.
Oil sucked black out of a derrick’s dome
Are we safe yet, stay far away from home.


p3

 

[Mrtenant]

Garage

Tire tracks and road marks
Are they not the same?
Scents of old exhaust
Cobwebs in the corner
Can the door be any louder?

Tools hung meticulously
More found in designer boxes
Bits of screws and parts
Collected over the years
How can there be so many?

Volleyballs and basketballs
Nets, shoes, rackets, skates
Garden tools and umbrellas
Standing at attention
When, not if, they are borrowed

Old lawnmower, old edgers
Not the fun kind, unfortunately
But for grasses and sidewalks
Demanding attention again and again
Didn't we hire someone instead?

Paints, plaster, pots, pans
Camping gear and a telescope!
Car jacks, ladders, buckets
Better hang onto those
Won't we use them one day?

Just like the scraps of wood
Waiting patiently for years
How glad they are to be chosen
For that one special project
What was it again?

Cars in and cars out
How the light welcomes them home
Sweep it down, hose it down
It is their home
From travels both near and far

Disregarded as unimportant
Yet every day it has to work
Change the lights, oil the chains
Check the runners, clean the windows
Respectfully, my garage

Week 1

 

[Tzara]

osaka morning

her handprint lingers
in the disarrayed covers
of my unmade bed

shall i be forgiven if
i need to trace its outline?
​

Week 2 : Poem 1 : Total 3

 

[SmilingLez]

The room breathes brown.
Perfume. Dust. Brandy.
Leather books sweat age.
Mahogany absorbs sound.

News is dissected.
Wars. Markets. Power.
Voices circle like insects.

Then her.
Tweed coat.
Chestnut hair.
Skin warmed by lamplight.

She sits forward.
Elbows on history.
Smile withheld.

Her eyes find mine.
Not curious. Deciding.
The room keeps talking.

 

[42BelowsBack]

Johnny Come Lately. But why would he do that?

I imagine a youthful Billy Collins, a leg over his chair,
with a drink in one hand. He is reading a poem I wrote.
His features all disambiguated lines. Tousled hair. A
deceptively yellow pallor cast by a single reading lamp.

He sits still.

Reading: Like my father. His clothing changing through the years,
(including the loss of his hair). He is aging, wondering laconically,
what is the exact point of all my imaginings? Him of course. Them.
Imaginatively reading one of my poems.

And I still with all of my hair?




p4

 

[aiyia]

i had a bad day
then i had some kinky sex
haiku rescued me

 

[SapioSexual9]

Mardi Gras

A perverted man
in bliss blurted ignorance
self feathered headless

#2

 

[Waeponwifestre]

War Game

Game starts. Now the board fills with the war game.
White wealds soon a stained red by the black brawl.
Pawns plead for a short life as they all fall.
Kings cower in cold castles and live long.
Queens command the clash. Cruelly they kill droves.
“Sneak softly” a pawn ponders the back way.
Knights fly so to crush heads with their hard hooves.
“God saves!” is the priests’ lie as they cull souls.
Rooks wracked by the siege long are then torn down.
Strife ends, for a Pawn-Queen now her sword draws.
Kings bleed by the pawn’s hand in the grey dawn.
Checkmate! And the game ends to then start soon again.

Week 2 Poem 1 Total 5

 

[calmlikeabomb]

Week 2, poem 4

Knives in my teeth
Staples in my brain
Warmth in my heart
Suffocating pain

Tears in your eyes
Absence in your womb
Warmth in your heart
Muffled Tomb

Your fears are mine,
My anger is yours,
Hopelessly together,
We've closed all doors.

 

[SapioSexual9]

Ars poetica
How I / me / writes a poem.

Fish nets lie piled up. Now.
I know you / me are mildly wondering
what the fuck the heck the why are
their fishnets lying piled up?

Are… they… sexy… fishnets? Fishy fishnets. I finger paint you an image of the sky.
-Swipe. -Swipe. There are trees in it. I can tell myself You are looking up.
Maybe,
even,
wondering how there are trees in a painting of the sky?
In my poem you / I ask you No I don’t.

Does this mean anything? Can you / I feel your forehead pressed against me?
Are you feeling bored, frustrated? Lying on a bed? Is it a bed bed, or sheets of nails bed;
You are so, lying down on my thoughts in your mind / my imaginative mind! Get up!
Who? What, is it here, this is where I / we / you should end the poem. Yes.

Later. Frustrated bored horny. Is there movement? A sweet undulation.
Wet water movement we could be undulating an undulating water bed
or undulating in an ocean of undulating poems. Or my ars could be
undulating as you / I watch me / my ass walk off? I give up. Post the poem.


#3 Writing poems is fucked. I love fucking!

 

[Remec]

Blind Date Blues

She waits;
It had seemed like a good time
was being had by both of them,
They exchanged numbers;
Got in some minor making out,
Hands over blouse,
And she snuck a feel to see how hard
she'd made him.
But that was a week ago, and
no calls, no texts, so
She waits.

Week 2 Poem 1 Tot6al 2

 

[Angeline]

Woodstock

Ray didn't come back
but I remember him:
madras shirt, chinos, desert boots,
thick black-framed glasses,
gentle brown eyes quirky smile.
His girlfriend June had first lunch
with me. She was thin, pretty.
They'd met in Chess Club.

What do you remember?
Hair and crowds?
The New York State Thruway
is closed man!
No Rain chants?
Sly Stone going higher
in the purple night?
Jimi's blistering solo
amid the mud and detritus?

Me? I remember Ray.


Week 2, Poem 1, Total 3

 

[VerbalAbuse]

Poetry

I despise poetry
Poetry sucks
I'll never write poetry
This is not a poem.

 

[Tzara]

clarity

Emi lies sleeping.
Though it is nearly midnight,
I hear a nightingale sing

and I remember
Kiyomi in bed, kneeling—
her low, melodious cries.

Week 2 : Poem 2 : Total 4

 

[amitheotherone]

Vibrations

Beautiful rhythm the waves
Even in different times and space
Engaged twisted and intertwined
Touch new senses combined
Heartbeat chills dirty sweat
Touch explode mind rewinds
The waves submit and die
Stillness grips replaces the lie.

>2

 

[Angeline]

Asheville I

I'd rock on our porch
by the mosaic table
What more does one need
than coffee, a book, mountains
misted blue in the morning


Week 2, Poem 2, Total 4

 

[Waeponwifestre]

Morning Tea Haiku Cycle

Morning light still dim
Water in a kettle sings -
The taste of cheap tea

Watching the rain pour
Hot tea counterpoint to cold…
Steam wafts in the morn

I sit on chilled porch
The dim sun peeks through thick clouds
Quiet bliss - for now

Week 2 Poem 2 Total 6 (or maybe 8??)

 

[amitheotherone]

High lites and deadlines

Sage words shared with me
Dropped the mic and left
More like oregano I’m deaf see
Stolen or just hereditary theft

Put me in check I guess
My words combined abstract
No mate just give it a rest
Solitary bliss in the paradigm

See through the glass onion
Copy and paste to be real
Not Brando the mild one
Even the patch he had to steal

>3

 

[Angeline]

Asheville II

Morning sun filters
past anemone flowers
spilling from their pots.
You smile as you water them:
You planted them there for me.

These quiet pleasures:
books and hazelnut coffee,
flowers, Mac the cat,
the smudgy wave of Blue Ridge
are a waking dream for me.



Week 2, Poem 3, Total 5

 

[nudeblaqgirl]

There is nothing that I lack
I am perfect: nude and black

 

[woodsman44]

Late

As if time cares enough
To call me by name
But she does
Care
About Time
Not me

She calls me Late
Always Late
And I am
And maybe nothing more

1

 

[SapioSexual9]

x x we
both knew,

to turn the
lights off.

We didn’t know
what we were
undoing. Shyly

paralleled
on my bed.


#4 if Ya don’t know, ya don’t know.

 

[12oclocktales]

“Would you like dessert?”
you ask me at the restaurant.
“Yes,” I say, “your toes awash
in whipped cream and chocolate
syrup, as I lick each one,
sucking them clean again.”
You smile slyly and whisper,
“What about the cherry?”

(Poem #1)

 

[Quarky]

3.

Gulf stream kisses warm
arctic shoreline ardently;
icy Faroes steam.

 

[calmlikeabomb]

Week 2, poem 5

Shivering in my shower
So cold, so cold,
Others take showers,
So bold, so bold,

Winters felt romantic,
I thought I was brave,
When it's upon me,
To my duvet, I'm a slave,

Fingers made of ice,
Cock's lost all power,
Help please help,
Shivering in my shower.