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

[Hotcoffee123]

Sometimes the holes

Sometimes the holes left by loss are deeper

than the ones filled with love.

It’s hard to know.

Will you ever be whole. Sometimes the holes left by

loss are deeper than those filled in with love.

Never forget, the holes filled with loss were once filled with love.

Loving again is a whole thing.

Let that sink in ,

We have the capacity to fill new holes.


Still in the works

 

[SpermFactory]

Blues Poem Challenge


Chicago Charlie

Ties, lies, I been shoe shining for days,
Ties, lies, I been shoe shining for days,

Doing by, keeping my face down chasing
change seeing my reflection in shiny shoes,

I ain’t got no Cadillacs or Bell-air Chevys,
Just a shoe shining box on Maxwell street

They say shoe shine boys ain’t got no blues
while I say good morning to your shoes

Soon you be leaving me saying,
ain’t you heard boy you ain’t got no story

just a shoe shine boy, hustling dime
once upon a time on Maxwell street.

Wellll my guitar is playing lazy lights low
singing alone in my room it ain’t rained

for days, ties lies one night I be in the club,
I been shoe shining for days…


[8]

 

[12oclocktales]

(Also posted in the Blues Challenge thread)


Sung by Papa Slops


Big Ass Blues

Don’t want no skinny ass woman hanging round my bed
No skinny ass woman hanging round my bed
Gotta have a handful back there, a big fat loaf-a bread

Gotta knead that dough, get it nice and fine
Knead that dough, get it nice and fine
Make it rise in the pan, fat and soft, then I grind

Yeah, I’ll grind that ass
Grind it, grind it, grind it hard
Till it’s nothin but a mess

Wanna slap that be-hind, make the whole room shake
Slap it hard, watch the whole room shake
Smash my face right in it like it was a wedding cake

Come on, baby, get your fat ass on my face
Come on, get that fat ass on my face
Smother me with it, fuck yeah, that ain’t no disgrace

(#11)

 

[Waeponwifestre]

Crippled Willie’s Lament / The Bottom Blues

Twelves years a woman, needle every week
I lived highs unmatched and lived lows so bleak
Twelves years a woman, needle every week
I wouldn’t change it for the world, but damn
Years past, Lord, have left my flesh mighty meek

Hotel rooms feeling like a failed exam
People hope I can still ram, wham and slam
Strangers’ beds all seem like a failed exam
Folks all got fantasies to live up to
Let em down cause getting up’s now a sham

Twelve years a girl, worth it to be true
But now my toppings got no follow through
Twelve years now I’m singing the Bottom Blues
Lord you left my piece of flesh mighty meek
Now some days I miss my dick that could screw

Week 6 Poem 2 Total 13

 

[amitheotherone]

Roundabout

I’m crazy yes indeed see me
I said I love you it will never be.
All along just dipp’en mind scrapes
Tic tok always skipping in a mindscape.
Door opened you let me in like kin
Overlook my style sex and that I sin.
I’m that tape the radio ate so eject
A pencil spun me back not rejected.
At speed we blink what did we miss
Poles shift we start to lean and list.
Restless walking down are own path
Stumble back here again we just laugh.

Five to one

 

[Wonderer67]

The orange light of
February evenings
Against a white wall

https://imgur.com/a/zXqIiPg

6/52

 

[Tzara]

Rondeau: The Affair

This isn't love, I'm sad to say.
It's just great sex. A kind of play
We can indulge in, sink and swoon,
Delight each other and commune
In this, our private cabaret.

And though I love for you to splay
Your legs for me in this ballet
I long for every afternoon,
It isn't love—

Yet I can't tear myself away
From our clandestine disarray.
To reason, I've become immune
And cannot make myself repugn
Illicit sex. My needs outweigh
What isn't love.

Week 6 : Poem 2 : Total 12

 

[Angeline]

Rainy Afternoon, 2006

On Schoodic Point the coast of Maine
is rocky: boulders are a pain
and slippery but oh the view
of leaping foam, the sea a stew,
a boiling rage and the moraine

is worth the climb, worth the leg strain.
There's Europe, and you point again
toward the horizon far and blue
on Schoodic Point.

It's like a dream. I must explain~
the two of us there, the terrain,
the time, the downpour all bring you
back to me as if we remain
on Schoodic Point.



Week 7, Poem 1, Total 15

 

[Waeponwifestre]

Cento for the End of Time*
TIME SHALL BE NO LONGER
THIS IS THE SECOND DEATH
THERE WAS SILENCE IN HEAVEN
AND THE WHOLE MOON BECAME AS BLOOD
WOE TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH
THEY GNAWED THEIR TONGUES FOR PAIN
THAT YOU MAY EAT THE FLESH OF KINGS
THE FIRST AND THE LAST
THE BEGINNING AND THE END
​

*Lines taken from the Douay-Rheims translation of the Apocalypse of John (Book of Revelation in other translations). Inspired by listening to Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time.

Week 7 Poem 1 Total 14

 

[calmlikeabomb]

Week 7, poem 13

Hatefuck

I'm cheating on you with you,
Bored of madonna, the whore will do.
You cheat on me with me,
Good boy gone, only the bastard you see.

Together we lie, we cheat, we steal,
Moments precious in hatefucks revealed.
Slapping your ass and tits,
My sweet wife, I love you to bits.

I don't want to see you again,
I need to hurt you, make you cry in pain.
You can't stand my sight,
With trembling smile, you order a love bite.

Together we kiss, we bite, we suck,
We love each other in our filthy hatefuck.
Slapping your ass and tits,
My sweet wife, I love you to bits.

I can't wait to pull your hair,
On hands and knees, tits down, ass bare.
You want to ride me, fucking whore,
Wild hair lit by moon, I want more and more.

Cheap prostitute bouncing on my stick,
Boring people, hatefucks make us tick.
Slapping your ass and tits,
My sweet wife, I love you to bits.

 

[calmlikeabomb]

Week 7, Poem 14

No More Tears (or, Good Riddance)



She rides like a jockey,
Amazing at giving head,
Left me panting and drained,
Made a mess of my bed.

I was drowning in her,
Hoping we would be wed,
And on our wedding night,
She be cuffed and legs spread.

Luckily I escaped just in time,
Intact dignity and sanity, I fled,
Showed me her true colours,
I'll curse her from my deathbed.

Can't believe I was violated,
No more tears I will shed,
"Dumbledore beats Gandalf. Duh!"
The Satan spawn had said.

 

[amitheotherone]

Force engrained

Petrified thoughts freeze me
alone again at the iconic sea.
Waves relentless succession
mental break in compression.
Bent formed again repeated
damascus I’m left undefeated.

812

 

[42BelowsBack]

p23

Love is thinking and not thinking

Is love a screen play we make someday
with someone over multiple drafts and rewrites?

Is romance love’s ever sifted landscape
through months or years or only in the early days?

Is love never made or ever done being
done in life’s theater where love is always sold

and bought by: The highest bidder. Is
love a movie that never ends but continues in

the end as two lovers condensed walk
away with elements merged in scenes: a home

or cut away -to a parking lot one day
trying to understand love, and how memory isn’t

love’s destination. I say the thought
of love is love’s forever destination. And now I’m

thinking love is very clever, and I am
not that very clever.



p21


Renewal

If I were an old old man
breathing in this landscape’s
opulence

I would see
off to the west of me
the rolling rain’s walls

falling in undertones
with the closing of
a doorway and I would

embrace the Fall in the
fire bright whiskey look of
Aspens and Cottonwoods

and hug the river’s bends
blues whites and bolder
grays while I fly

by with my arm hanging
out my U-Haul window
I would be a young again

golden eagle leaving
the purity of Rocky
mountain air.

 

[Tzara]

Triolet on Surface Attraction

Her body's slim and lithe and taut,
And to it I would love to cling.
In other words, she's really hot.
That body! Slim and lithe and taut—
So wonderfully, divinely wrought
I'm on my knees and worshiping
Her body, slim and lithe and taut.
My God, to her I'd love to cling.

Week 7 : Poem 1 : Total 13

 

[Hotcoffee123]

The truth or dare room is on fire
DM’s filled with laughter, love, and desire

Who is loving who, we will never know?
Unless of course, they are dared to show

No names, of course that would be crude
Your secret is safe no matter your mood


There could be orgies, flashing, or a poem
always something to make you moan

Everyone’s favorite question, is “ how did you last cum?”
You could give us the truth, don’t make up a lie,


Finagle it a little, I dare you to try
The point of this poem, well, there is none

But I still beg the question, how did you last cum?

 

[Waeponwifestre]

A Triolet for the Valentineless

And once again it’s Cupid’s Day
And once again he’s missed his mark
My heart like weather cold and grey
And once again it’s Cupid’s Day
So in my empty bed I’ll lay
Alone, untouched in winter’s dark
And once again it’s Cupid’s Day
And once again he’s missed his mark

Week 7 Poem 2 Total 15

 

[12oclocktales]

Feb 12: Lincoln’s Birthday Clerihew:

Abraham Lincoln
Loved the theater and about plays had a strong opinion.
That business at Ford’s with actor Booth being such a dick,
He shot old Abe not because he was president but a theater critic.

(#12)

 

[42BelowsBack]

p22

old Henry rode with my
Grandpa twice removed.
The grass is yellowed and dark
There are over exposed splotches
Of tall white pine ghosts yellowed
framed with age they remain
monochrome daguerreotypes,
a hitching post for memory, a
sod house raw white horse
sawn bones, their bodies saw
no roads only river sinews and
veins, they were the journey
across the plains a new horizon
in mud wet heat sweat, they were
the taste of hot coffee disappearing
horsemen in hand me down boots &
rugged winds their faces sculpted into
utilitarian sixteen-shot.44 caliber rimfire
breech-loading lever action around a
camp fire quick shooting kind of men.

 

[SapioSexual9]

hand held letters

I have sound
when I write I
can be sexless.

My words can be
of -floating water
captured.

My voice becomes
nude when I
write I love you.

And raw as I write
-fuck Valentines
I want forever-


12

 

[JahJah123]

He held me down
not in silence,
not in shadow,
but in certainty.

He held me down
like roots hold earth
when the wind forgets its manners.
Like gravity keeps the moon
from drifting too far from home.

He held hands at my wrists
not to conquer,
but to steady.
Not to quiet my fire,
but to meet it.

There is something holy
in the way he anchored me
the weight of him
a promise,
between my thighs
as he entered my covenant.

In a world that pulls and scatters,
He thrust deeper and deeper in
While they watched awaiting their turn
One by one they climbed on the Mary go round

Remind my racing heart
that he told me to be a good girl
Held down no place to go
Pinned as they drilled me with their powerful tool.

Claimed by my stepdad and friends
As mom went to work the night shift
If love is a battlefield,
then let this be a truce:
Their strength over mine,
As they overpower, alcohol on their breath
Hands intertwined.

This Valentine,
I am reminded of that night
Them riding me like a Harley
until the only thing surrendering
is my doubt.

 

[JahJah123]

.

 

[12oclocktales]

Valentine’s Day

Sitting next to you on the sofa,
my arm around your shoulder,
your bare feet tucked under you,
we talk in whispers like we
were a pair of cat burglars
pilfering the silverware, the
owners asleep upstairs.
The bouquet I brought home
for you is vase-stuffed in the
center of the dining room table,
its violet and orange blossoms,
your favorites, grandstanding
loudly in that quiet space not
even a sunbeam dare disturb.
I’m reminded when I sat there
years ago, scratching out long
letters to you a thousand miles
away, mailing one only to rush
home and begin writing another,
the time between insufferable.
It seems mad now to have felt
such anguish, to have been so
starved for your breath and touch,
when I hold you close like this;
when I know I can just turn
your face to mine and fall into
your eyes forever.

(#13)

 

[Tzara]

Tritina

There is no recipe for poetry,
only obsessions and odd, random tics
like using a manual typewriter

as if somehow using a typewriter
could make one's idiot writing poetry.
Try to convince me that isn't a tic.

Real poems get under your skin like a tick
sucking blood. It's as if your typewriter
had fangs for keys, needing poetry,

poetry—every damn typewritten tic.

Week 7 : Poem 2 : Total 14

 

[Angeline]

Seasonal Sijo

Forget the candy, red heart-shaped boxes.
Forget flowers, shiny gold bangles, froths of words, even poems.
Show, don't tell. Shiver me with kisses. Make me want more. More.


Week 7, Poem 2, Total 16

 

[calmlikeabomb]

Week 7, poem 15

Cuckqueen's Tragedy (or, the tired middle aged Husband)

No, I ain't straying my love,
You know I'll always be true,
You seem disappointed,
But the only one for me is you.

You wanna see a slut on her knees,
While you dress up and sip wine,
As she sucks me greedily, but,
I swear I'm tired o love of mine.

Our SINK life is a blessing,
But I work ten hours a day,
Not counting travel and weekends,
Let's just cuddle, whaddya say?

Besides, I'd rather read a book,
I know cuckqueening is your fantasy,
No I ain't into your slutty friend,
Kiss her all you want, fine by me.

And dance with strippers in Bangkok,
And tell them how I'll fuck them deep,
It's a long day's night sweetheart,
I just want to hold you and fall asleep.