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

[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

 

[Wonderer67]

The Gulf of America

The steady churn of the tide
Ends upon ends
The cycle of life and
Everything under the sun

Relentless
Neverending
All this’s been here
Since before there was a Mexico
Or ‘Murica

And her relentless pounding will be here
Long after we are gone

I lost count, but I think this is 9/52

 

[Wonderer67]

At the Gulf of America

The sand pipers
Scurry in packs
Into the water with the surf
Bravely darting in
“Once more unto the beach, dear friends!” My wife jokes

Snacking upon whatever it is
That they snack upon
Retreating again as the next wave bears down

Coy gulls waiting in the wings
Ready for a crumb to drop
Or to swipe my blueberry muffin again

In the distance some fishermen bringing in redfish
Or black drum

I watch it all
Taking it all in
Full vacation mode
The full-on cycle of life and
Everything

I am finally calm
Whole
No more Iraq dreams in my head
On the shores of the Gulf of America

10/52

 

[Tzara]

The Interpretation of Dreams

after Bashō, as translated by Lucien Stryk

In the night I often wake
from ugly dreams where a butterfly
lies, wings torn and shredded. It's

a metaphor, I assume, of my late
marriage, a partnership we've
finally ended after too many miles

spent traveling to
countries we never wanted to go
visit, either separately or together.

Week 15 : Poem 1 : Total 18

 

[Angeline]

In a Station
(after Ezra Pound)

I can't count the many times I've seen the
Ghosts, always a fleeting apparition
Moving through a busy scene, any of
My loved ones, all lost, just out of reach these

Shadows barely catch my eye, their faces
Smiling, sometimes curiously blank in
The moments that pass I'm sure I've seen a
Lover, friend, once my dad was in the crowd:

They float past as soft as foggy petals
I think please stay near me but they drift on
Populating imagination a
Dream world where memory lives and my wet

Cheeks don't indicate mood, not bleak nor black
Just the tree of life baby, take a bough.



Week 15, Poem 1, Total 14

 

[Rapier55]

I must go down to the sea again
To the wonderful sea and the sky

I left my pants and socks there
I wonder if they’re dry

 

[LustyScribe]

Meaningless

She smiled.
But then nothing came of it.
It did not mean hope,
Nor love nor lust.
It carried nothing;
A rainless cloud,
Taunting me.
A well dug deeper, darker yet dry.

Week 15, poem 1, total 14ish

 

[Tzara]

Spring

after Bashō, as translated by Lucien Stryk

Rain. My spirits ebb
with the slow receding tide,
drooping like the shore's willows.

I sip some tea. Dip
spoon in the flowerpot to
stir rainwater into mud.
​

Week 15 : Poem 2 : Total 19

 

[Angeline]

Idiosyncratic Poetry For Old People

When I hear 77 Sunset Strip I snap my fingers. Twice.


Week 16, Poem 1, Total 15

 

[Remec]

Rhythm Section

My joints ache, but I can almost always snap my fingers to the beat.

Week 16 Poem 1 Total 4

 

[Tzara]

The Poet, in a Moment of Self-Doubt,
Questions His Rhapsodic Talents,
Only to Be Reassured of His Genius

I sometimes wonder, rather idly,
If I be poet or poor fake,
Ignoring answers stating snidely,
Your poems make my belly ache.
For readers err in their opinion
When poesy's not their dominion
Nor I mere vassal to their taste
(Of sycophancy, not so chaste).
But yet I strive for lyric preening,
My feather'd phrases plumped and pruned
As bird of paradise festooned
With imagery dyed deep with meaning.
I think as poet, I'm quite good—
One solid-sounding block of wood.

Week 16 : Poem 1 : Total 20

 

[D_K_Moon]

1. Words

My words,

Are my life,

Silent testimony,

An admission of guilt.

2. Writing

I write,

Not to be read,

But to prove,

That I was here.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Emotionally unavailable


That’s what you said
In our chat
In your kitchen
In your house
Anal-retentive decoration
A place for everything
And everything in its place
You brought it up
I didn’t ask you
I thought to
And didn’t
You thought, too
Apparently
And then announced
“I’m emotionally unavailable”
A new concept to me
then
Yet a long time condition
Now named
For years
I thought you meant yourself
But no.
You were right about me . . . .

 

[sister jenny]

when the planes fall from the sky
you will know how much I love you
when the earth is but dust and ash
you will understand how much I care
when the flood has drowned us all
you will know I regret it all
and I will lie about it every time you ask

I lie to you every day
I lie even when I tell the truth
I put it all so far away I can't even find it myself anymore
when the birds fall dead from the sky
I will already be long gone
you won't miss me
you might not even notice
because I push you so far you will leave before I do

I hope you find love again
I hope they are worthy

I hope you never read this

 

[Tzara]

From the Heian Period

Soft kisses, whispers,
my hand inside your nightgown,
your faint little cries.
How urgently we both make
promises we will not keep.

Week 17 : Poem 1 : Total 21