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

[amitheotherone]

Bad salesmen

Endless calculations can’t solve it
These empty holes nothing fits
Scratching knocking at any door
Messages spamming even more
Everyday cornered would find me
With a hat that fit too blind to see
Words dripped out cuts like blood
Left to sink in the wake of the flood.

 

[12oclocktales]

The fog rolls in off the lake
quicker than a teenager can
get it up for the second time
so that motorists on the highway
emerging from the long overpass
just past Carverville are blinded.
Soon cars are pinballing into
each other, a huge pileup
two dozen vehicles in ten minutes
wreckage everywhere, bodies, too.
Now this is weird
or maybe it isn’t
but one guy being carted away
arm half hanging off
both legs busted
face bloody, chest caved in
makes a play for the nurse
in the ambulance.
Can you believe this guy
or maybe he’s just a guy
like any guy figuring
what the hell
despite the odds against him
he’ll give it one more shot
just to see what happens.

(#41)

 

[SmilingLez]

white-hot flooding
too much
too much
breath catches wrong
stops
starts
body not staying still
just not
hands shaking
can’t settle
everything tight
then gone
then tight again
noise—
don’t know if it’s me
falling through it
still in it
then it breaks
not clean
never clean
just gone through in pieces
after is slow
too slow
breathing returns late
like it forgot me for a second
silence comes back in steps

 

[amitheotherone]

Shaking tree

A battle erupts in the sky
As the gods play tug a war
I too fight another life battle
Squaring off heart and mind
To make my way back to her
That place I am supposed to be
A destiny like rain to the earth
Will she be waiting that day
When I crawl my way back.

 

[Hotcoffee123]

Sunshine
You are my
My only
You just fill in my blanks…

 

[SmilingLez]

I decided to try my hand at writing a Paradelle.

bullies laugh near lockers.
bullies laugh near lockers.
karma waits beside silence.
karma waits beside silence.
karma waits near lockers.
bullies laugh beside silence.

mean girls film meltdowns.
mean girls film meltdowns.
tomorrow screenshots flood IG.
tomorrow screenshots flood IG.
tomorrow mean girls flood IG.
screenshots film meltdowns.

cruel boys shove outsiders.
cruel boys shove outsiders.
next week employers watch footage.
next week employers watch footage.
next week outsiders watch footage.
cruel boys shove employers.

tomorrow bullies laugh near lockers karma.
mean girls film meltdowns screenshots flood IG.
cruel boys shove outsiders next week.
employers watch footage as silence waits.

 

[Wonderer67]

She sat down on a bench and ordered me to bend down over her nylon clad legs

The first swat of her hand didn’t seem too bad
“I can handle this.” I thought.

She rained blow after blow
Of her sweet hand on my bare bottom

It started to hurt
Then burn

We had a safe word
But I was determined not to use it

It was a terrible, sweet pain
That she delivered to my bare ass
Soon it was numb

When she stopped
My derriere was on fire
Numb and throbbing all at the same time

Later on, I asked her if it was the hardest spanking she ever delivered

Not the hardest… but it was up there
She said

I felt proud that I could take some of her very best

Later on she took a picture of my red ass
Which turned black and blue over the course of a week

It was a beautiful and amazing pain
Exquisite really

She was a real Hungarian beauty
Cold and detached

I was wild about her accent
Her looks
And everything else
About her

18/52

 

[42BelowsBack]

p43

Midnight Jazz

Smoke sweet dress
The silhouette leaps
The ebony is black,
limbs, swing, tap,
fingers stepping out long—
her jazz is skip, hip, bebop
switch,
The beat is brim
and the hat creepin

 

[amitheotherone]

Snow day

The cottonwoods laugh in May
Looks like snow is what they say.
I too laugh as I think of trees and you
As we tried to explain the shade of blue.
Our words tangled every day like wires
Sharing life's things both alone and tired.
Would the next year be anything the same
Sharing a single polaroid of that days game.
My mistakes filled with silence excavate me
Sad I lost that number like I promised see.

 

[SmilingLez]

I lean in. Take your breath.
You tilt your head. Stay still.
The room goes still with breath.
I lean in. Take your breath.
Your eyes undo me yet.
The air bends to your will.
I lean in. Take your breath.
You tilt your head. Stay still.

 

[Angeline]

Pathetically Uninspired Triolet

I really have nothing to say
I'm just not inspired at all
And here it is poetry day
I really have nothing to say
Don't read this: in fact go away
So I can sit, sulk and feel small
I really have nothing to say
I'm just not inspired at all.



Week: 21 Poem: 1 Total: 39

 

[Hornymwtxn]

You left me no choice
All done but the crying

You robbed me of my voice
I felt like I was dying

Had to leave you in the dust
Where you belong

Doing what I must
So I wrote this song

The effect you had on me
Messed with my mind

But now I am free
Myself I did find

I hope in the distant future
We can communicate again

Wiser and more mature
Be each other's friend

 

[12oclocktales]

Kay’s World in Limericks, Part 5

(Continued from May 7)

To her room did Melissa bring Kay,
Naughty touches exchanged all the way;
Clothes were soon shed,
And on the big bed
In their arms did they blissfully lay.

They wildly French kissed for a bit,
Then Melissa was sucking Kay’s tit;
This was delightful,
Not at all frightful,
When Kay felt a tongue on her clit.

Her mind made a twitch suddenly,
This seemed an impossibility;
Her brain did she rack
And deemed it a fact
That two places at once you can’t be.

Kay wasn’t quite sure what to do,
Though what had happened she did have a clue;
Raising her head,
She gazed down and said,
“Hello, my name’s Kay, who are you?”

“Kay, this is my good friend Felicia,
A most daring and kinky fun creature.”
F. quit eating out Kay
In order to say,
“Hi, Kay, I’m so glad to meet’cha.”

(#42)

(To be continued)

 

[SmilingLez]

Subspace

The ritual begins.
Time splits.
Here. Not-here.

The submissive mind
settles.
Turns inward.

The world softens.
Fades.
Only the Dominant's voice.
Only their presence.

Everything else -
gone.

In the zone now.
Locked.
Attention narrows
to a single point of light.

The voice.
The hands.
The command.

Deeper.
The body floats.
Euphoria blooms
like color spreading through water.
Out of body.
Untethered.

This is what they meant.
This.

And then -
the deepest fall.
Surrender complete.
Held entirely
in the dynamic.

No self.
Only the space between
two people.

Only this.

 

[Tzara]

Gorgon

At the end of our relationship
I could finally see
the snakes twined in her hair.

Perhaps it was those serpents
that had frozen my once-loving heart,
morphed it into useless stone;

perhaps that is why my skin stays cold
even as your beneficent hands
stroke my senseless arms, senseless cheek.

Week 21, Poem 2, Total 38

 

[SmilingLez]

This is my stab at a strict Terzanelle

Midnight Gooning

The screen’s blue glare won’t let me sleep,
a flicker in the dark like static.
I swipe, but nothing’s mine to keep.

The notifications never quit
each ping a ghost I can’t outrun.
The screen’s blue glare won’t let me sleep.

I mute the world, but still it creeps
through cracks in every silent dun.
I swipe, but nothing’s mine to keep.

The algorithm feeds my keeps,
a loop of doom I can’t outrun.
The screen’s blue glare won’t let me sleep.

I close my eyes, but still it seeps
into the dark like cigarette smoke.
I swipe, but nothing’s mine to keep.

My battery’s low, the night’s too deep
I’m stuck in this digital ocean.
The screen’s blue glare won’t let me sleep.

 

[Dave1010101]

My First Acrostic


Stanzas short.
Measured lengths lash the page.
Ink that understands.
Lines like breath; caught, released.
Intimately attached.
Nothing knotted without precision.
Graceful authority.
Longing, in every syllable.
Every poem lands.
Zen, personified.

 

[SapioSexual9]

42 my late night muse

My lingerie mouth hovers
aligned with you, my lips

hauntingly weightless,
interwoven-in-transience

my lace lite fickle butterfly
wings,

open, hoping to take your
flight.

(15)

 

[SpermFactory]

Muse.
Walking all over you.

Strange, how oft
have I stepped
on your soul,
exquisitely.

 

[12oclocktales]

Memorial Day

patch of grass
a few yards square
bright green and
neatly trimmed
as the infield grass
at Yankee Stadium
tiny flag on a bamboo dowel
cloth too stiff to wave
in the warm breeze
planted next to a
slab of white marble
at the head
name branch
dates and a conflict
never an epitaph
too private and singular
etched plain and earnest
so quiet
so peaceful
the one anomaly
unlike the last sounds
the screams
the explosions
everything collapsing
while blood seeped
through clenched fingers
this soldier would remember
serenity a long way off

(#43)

 

[Dave1010101]

A to Z Acrostic


Play

Abigail's
Breath
Catches
Danielle's
Ear,
Fading
Gently.
Hands
Imprisoned,
Juicy
Kisses
Lusciously
Marking
Nipples,
Openly
Purple.
Quite
Relentlessly
Soft
Touches
Uncovering
Vaginally
Weeping
X-rated
Yummy
Zest

 

[calmlikeabomb]

All I ever wanted
Was to fuck her without a condom
I never asked
To fuck other women
Just her caramel cunt
Hairy and wet with my cum

Does she hate me?
I know she loves me
And sucks my cock when I ask
But I can't kiss or ear her cunt
No matter how much I beg
She won't wear chudai payals on her leg

I love her, I don't want to hurt her
I know she hates being slapped
She wants my cum in a condom
Quickies with her in top
Taming me, a monster, a demon, an animal
I hate and love my wife's cruel mind

 

[SmilingLez]

The clock ticks backward.
I lick the sugar off my fingers.
Tastes like vomit.

The world tilts.
I catch it in my teeth.
It tastes like us - a mistake

A rancid fart created us.
I am the carcass called lucidity.
We're checked, stamped, wrong.


Note: Each line can be placed in any order you choose in any stanza you choose (Permutation poetry)

 

[amitheotherone]

Rivers cards

Give and take
How much is enough
To win or to lose.

 

[Tzara]

Supply-Side Economics, the Laffer Curve,
and the Bounty of the Common Man's Life

Another day, another dollar
(But going out, not coming in).
My lifestyle's drifting into squalor,
My income being much too thin.
I could do gig work, like for DoorDash
But I'd lose money, prices for gas
Being what they are—sky high.
Enough to make a grown man cry.
Yet I still eat, at least on Sunday,
And watch TV in Walmart stores.
I'm quite well off, the whole outdoors
Serves as my boudoir, bath, and soirée.
I prove, with facts empirical,
Our economic miracle.

Week 22, Poem 1, Total 39