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

[MrMrsMrsMr]

Freedom lead down a garden path.


Was a time when dawn came in a denim dream
stitched in trains rough rock mountain rolled cuffs
in declaration of core seams. American freedoms.

Time was Freedom walked lock stepped with morals
then men’s heels dug her up taught her all about her
billie little league laughter. Put her lingerie on a menu.

The rich had her. Fate took her to a mid life crisis party
in a garden spliced Midi dress accessorized in barbs
quilted in beaded satin sheaves of freedom’s denial.

23/52

 

[MrMrsMrsMr]

In a place where no batteries
or dickheads are needed.

At night, my mouth wide, eyes blackened
coals. Her dragon boat, gold laden in runes
rides the valley below my navel. Pebbled
flesh. Pleasure, licks back, the oar lock, my
sinews snap in waves the keel furrows a
groove in her hand.

24/52

 

[Ash999]

A Spanking Dialog
Ms. Justine de Desirée:---
my ass with a crop
my pussy with your hand
my tits with a paddle
please not my face
Marquis de Sade:---
My Darling Sweet Desire...
Lucky is thy Dom cum Sire
Who Whips, Canes and Paddles
Thy marbled dèrriére
Strictly, Sternly, Cruelly!!?
Without Favour or Fear....
My Spankalicious Dear!!!

 

[42BelowsBack]

Eric Baus on my mind
like water on the brain
his poems, made me. insane

His words, two roads
the one I took, inside
me-I look to see dark

-ness disconnected in
words I put my-hands
inside his-head

I never knew my hands
outstretched could hug
the sky

No 16 arrives

 

[Ash999]

Invisible Barrier
==============
It is there :a cool distance
Between Father 'n son....
Why it is there: by design or perchance
Is unknown to Mankind : o Ami Mon!!!
We R told....
Centuries ago...
A Greek king was bold:
Enough to kill his Dad
Bed his Mom
And blind himself, ' Coz he was Bad
It created a Family chasm...
Which leads to the other Barrier..
Between Hubby'n Wifey....
Years of paying bills & talking grocery
Leads to sheer monotony...
When Maids, Nannies, Waitresses
Look attractive, sexy.......voluptuous
Wives/Hubbies look/ feel boring
Option is clenched ️ teeth ..antagonous!
Or yawningly monochromous......
Why God/Goddess created mischief
Is beyond one's Faith & sheer, angry disbelief....

 

[Tzara]

On Viewing the Photograph
of a Formalist Poet

The gray hair, the tattoo
on her bared shoulder
of the phases of the moon.

I thought at first she was nude
because her green dress
blended with the bamboo leaves

and the out-of-focus grass
in the background. Her skin pale
as her lips, as her age,

and perhaps I merely wished
to also see her uncovered breasts
for although I too am older,

my body still remembers
how one can use touch to discuss
the animal nature of prosody.

Week 30 : Poem 1 : Total 38

 

[Wonderer67]

I Smiled Out Loud

The perfect July morning
The humidity broke
And it was still wet and thick
But cooler out
Bright sun shinin

I passed patch after patch of
The last days of the ditch lilies
Each little orange receptacle
Having their one and only day

It was the last gasp
Of ditch lilies as they complete their annual cycle
And return

Now roadside chicory is
Coming on strong
It’s pale blue flowers, warming my heart
In late July

Freshly mown hay
That smell!

As the road strobes shadow to sunlight

My Little Red Book by Love came on the radio
And I smiled out loud

21/52

 

[_Land]

Skull Fucked

Thighs write commandments
on cheekbones.

Her need the only gravity
holding my universe in place.

Speaking a language
even my french kiss fluency lacks

the altar of my skull
her confessional,
tongues of flame
her liquid,
desire.

She sinks into orbit,
a body gone supernova,
and I am caught
in the pull of collapse.

I vanish,
becoming background,
a canvas to her chaos,
stretched to absorb
her violence.

She grips the crown of my head
and pulls
the sun her heat demands.

Thighs lock.
Hips glide.
Jaw aching beneath her
as she fucks forward,
relentless.

She’s soaked through my beard,
dripping constellations,
coating every breath
with the taste of creation.

Her hips mark time,
planets aligning
then tearing apart.

Every grind a rotation.
Every stutter,
a galaxy flung off course,
her cunt rewriting physics
on my mouth.

Her universe
undoing itself
on my tongue.


75/52

 

[_Land]

What If?

What if the plane drops?
What if the brakes fail?
What if I choke
on my own damn inhale?

What if I say too much?
What if I don't say enough?
What if they leave anyway?
What if I stay and it’s tough?

What if the mole is cancer?
What if the call is bad news?
What if the door is unlocked
and I get what I choose?

What if the truth ruins it?
What if the lie feels kind?
What if I never get out
of this house in my mind?

What if they see right through me?
What if they never do?
What if I’m one long sentence
no one reads through?

What if I peaked already?
What if the fall is steep?
What if my dreams are funeral-bound
and my joy’s asleep?

What if the world is ending?
What if it’s just begun?
What if I ruin everything
and still think I’ve won?

What if love runs out?
What if hate takes root?
What if silence is safer
than digging for truth?

What if I’m too late?
What if I’m too soon?
What if I die
before I bloom?

What if I disappoint you?
What if I don’t forgive?
What if the worst has happened
and I still have to live?

What if I never make it?
What if I already did?
What if I’ve just been hiding
behind some version of a kid?

What if the mirror lies?
What if the clock does too?
What if I miss my life
while bracing for what’s due?

…

What if I let go
of what if,
and held on
to what is?

76/52

 

[Angeline]

American Sentence

When the need for attention exceeds the grasp expect a needy ass.




Week 30, Poem 2, Total 31

 

[Ash999]

What If?

What if the plane drops?
What if the brakes fail?
What if I choke
on my own damn inhale?

Did Cap. Sabharwal really switch off fuel continuance?
Did Not Boeing really write" Share Price is more important than Quality Assurance?"
Did the Whistleblowers not point out to faulty Boeing maintenance?
Did the Software malfunction switch off fuel uninterruptance?
Did Not Boeing after merger with Douglas nosedive in engineering performance?
Did we really mourn AI 171 Devastationance???!

 

[Ash999]

American Sentence

When the need for attention exceeds the grasp expect a needy ass.




Week 30, Poem 2, Total 31

The needy ass wud create a greedy lass, who wud get attention from a de Sadean Maestro: a lust -y pass!!!

 

[Hotcoffee123]

Cover me
I miss your arms
I am shattered

 

[Wonderer67]

Tangential

I hit a little songbird on the way to work this morning
Poor little guy
Or gal
Flew right into my truck windshield
And insult injury, it bounced and hit the car behind me

At least it was quick

I felt bad about it and texted Bradley
I was near his house
Stage four cancer, yet somehow in remission
A tough sonofabitch
But like me, soft inside
A true character – I served with him for six years
Deployed with him twice
But he’s gone radio silent on me for the last few months

In February, we had a pancake breakfast at Mom‘s in Ringoes
Laughing like 11-year-olds
Spinning funny stories

Then I passed the dead raccoon on Edwardsville Road

And this morning, I swatted a Japanese beetle
Smashed it with my flip-flop
Outta my sunflowers, motherfucker

Fucking japs… My old man would’ve said
He hated them
But I guess he had a reason
Paradoxically, he loved Godzilla movies
And sushi

Full circle to bugs and birds and racoons

There goes my promise never to kill again
Broken twice
Witnessed once
In just one morning…

Can I be in love and hate
At the same time?

America?
Humanity in general?

Passing a fallow field, pregnant with milk weed

It was a tangential kind of morning

22/52

 

[Wonderer67]

Route Thirty Three

Driving through Central Jersey
The real Central Jersey that I remember as a kid
Farmland and farmstands
Jersey corn and tomatoes
Heat waves on asphalt and farmfields
Driving cross the waistline of Jersey

It ain’t new anymore

But jersey has a new crop now:
Housing developments and distribution centers

Fuck them

Cremee Freeze ice cream is still here
Jersey Freez too
I remember going there as a kid
Begging my parents to pull over
On road trips to Avon by the Sea
To see gramma

The Jersey heat and humidity driving those memories home

To the sea
On route thirty three

Still a few farm fields left
An old timer mowing hay
On an ancient tractor

Still farm stands out the wazoo
Which makes me smile

The sun beats down
Coming out of Freehold now, towards the shore

Tracing the route that Bruce once took
A real rock ‘n’ roll troubadour
I know what it feels like to be young and misunderstood
Looking for greasy lake
And in hate with the world

I got a little bit of young and misunderstood in me still
Always angry
But now I’m old and doing the misunderstanding

Offa my goddam highway!

But like Jonathan Richmond, I’m in love with the old world

The adult bookstore is now a barbecue smokehouse
I remember always looking out the side of my eyes when we passed it
Careflul not to let my parents
Or sisters see me looking
Wondering what was inside
Probably far worse than I would’ve ever expected
Knowing now what I didn’t know then
I just wanted to see tits and fucking
Even tho I didn’t know what that was…

The hubcap place is still there
I didn’t even know that was a thing anymore

Collingwood flea market…
Where I used to get matchbox cars
Wall stadium

Times have and have not changed
And so have and neither have I

The heat and humidity pushing 90
Wishin my speedometer were too

A memory spree
On route thirty three

23/52

 

[_Land]

I AM NEVER

In the beginning,
there was drift
a field of stillness
before breath began its bargain.

Then came the hand.
Wrist wrapped in ochre dust,
knuckles scarred by pressure and color,
fingers trembling with invention.

The Painter moved.

Pressing cobalt into the black,
letting it spread like floodwater,
veins of burn pulsing across distance.

Striking gold across silence,
they laid it raw into spirals,
each arc spinning
toward purpose.

Planting rubies in the sky’s chest,
they watched them beat.

Building towers of smoke,
they clothed them in orbit.

Carving marbled stone into orbs,
filling their hollow bellies
with storm.

With broad strokes
across my nothing,
they continued to fill.

Tethering moons to motion,
letting them swing
like pendulums slicing through dark.

Braiding tides from crushed pearl,
they dragged them across the skin
of sleeping planets.

Stitching green into the ice caps,
letting it crack open like a vow
spoken once,
in echo-chambered
remembrance.

Threading color through collapse.
Giving wind to geometry.
Lighting fire
inside silence
without breaking it.

They poured thought
into mass.
Rhythm
into time.
Every singular ache
into beauty.

And I...

I absorbed.

No shift.
No stir.

I held.

Held every offering
as stone holds heat,
long after the flame has left.

I am Never.

The chamber without hunger.
The mirror without return.
The form before form.

What was built
lives within me,
still burning,
still blooming,
still unanswered.

I am the canvas
of creation.

77/52

 

[_Land]

The Blueprint in Her Bones
for my daughter

I used to think raising her
was about building
brick by brick,
lesson by lesson,
a scaffolding of shoulds and safety.

But she came here
already carrying sky,
already fluent
in thunder and bloom.

I watched her
dismantle my architecture
with a crayon,
redraw the floor plan
in glitter and questions.

She didnt need my permission
to become herself.
She just did
loudly,
softly,
in sideways glances
and doorframe dances.

My job was never
to shape her.
Only to witness
the shape she chose.

To hold the ladder
when she reached too high,
to carry the flashlight
when she explored the dark,
to stay rooted
as she became
storm and stillness,
roar and retreat.

Each year,
she grew past
the lines I drew
in my mind,
until there was nothing left
but wonder
and an open field
where blueprints used to be.

And I learned
that love
is not instruction.

It is shelter
for becoming.

78/52

 

[MrMrsMrsMr]

Appalachian mountain trails

In Blood root, Moma when I see you
the air springs through the moving
meadow of Daddy’s truck windows.

In a knot of trail color, my heart burns
to sing with you in life’s mountain range.

The carboretta in Daddy’s old eight
flutters in a wooded glade that dips off
the road’s elbow. Daddy stops.
The super heated engine ticks.
Then cools.

We alight into dawn’s first lite kiss

your endless new life greets us Moma,
you two, little brother in his white flower
hues with no shoes.

Daddy stands at your feet, his big coated back
turned into thoughts of his life’s dark doorways.

I feel the wild flowers bless my feet, urging me,
sing.! Reach out! Touch the Flame Azalea,

I think of you holding my hand Moma, listening
to my heart beat when I tell you I just can’t stay
here with you.

My voice in clime, smokey hewn, through the years, I sing-

Daddy's eyes were always scarlet red wild
flowers when we buried you -There lies
Granma an Pa, in their bed of Carolina Lillie.
Moma please hold my hand when I leave you
-cause I just can’t stay here in heaven.

25/52

 

[_Land]

Appalachian mountain trails

In Blood root, Moma when I see you
the air springs through the moving
meadow of Daddy’s truck windows.

In a knot of trail color, my heart burns
to sing with you in life’s mountain range.

The carboretta in Daddy’s old eight
flutters in a wooded glade that dips off
the road’s elbow. Daddy stops.
The super heated engine ticks.
Then cools.

We alight into dawn’s first lite kiss

your endless new life greets us Moma,
you two, little brother in his white flower
hues with no shoes.

Daddy stands at your feet, his big coated back
turned into thoughts of his life’s dark doorways.

I feel the wild flowers bless my feet, urging me,
sing.! Reach out! Touch the Flame Azalea,

I think of you holding my hand Moma, listening
to my heart beat when I tell you I just can’t stay
here with you.

My voice in clime, smokey hewn, through the years, I sing-

Daddy's eyes were always scarlet red wild
flowers when we buried you -There lies
Granma an Pa, in their bed of Carolina Lillie.
Moma please hold my hand when I leave you
-cause I just can’t stay here in heaven.

25/52

I love this poem, it encouraged me to go finish this one . I call West Virginia home. The photo is from my mountain top property.


Appalachian Elegy

Fog still wraps the valleys
like the mother who won’t admit
she’s burying another child.

These hills
are the softest graveyard.
Moss wears the weight
like widow’s lace.

There is a bone
inside every blossom,
chalk-white,
clenched in the throat
of spring.

The rocks here remember everything:
the breath of the pickaxe,
the hush before the shaft caved in,
the echo after names
stopped echoing
in shaft and holler.

A collapsed copper still
sleeps in the holler,
coiled metal,
a forgotten tongue
that once sweet-talked fire.

Char furnaces crumble
into the soil
their black mouths
long cooled,
their hunger
fed to the trees.

The creek forgets
its own reflection.
No longer carrying
Appalachian motifs,
only the drag
of yesterday’s soot.

Tracks carve
through soft spine and shale,
laid not for travel
but for taking.
Iron meant to bleed the land,
an IV for rich men.

The mine mouth yawns
like an old wound,
stretched in eternal scream,
crying rape
in silence.

These hills don’t mourn loud.
They buckle.
They fade.
They cradle what rusted,
and still,
they cradle me.

79/52

 

[_Land]

Under the Appalachian Moon
by Bear Sage

Moonlight in iridescent smoke
my chimney and the fog
glow, the holler
speaks in spring,
peepers in love
throaty songs echo
my heart
aches
in black and white
memory of,
childhood
games, on the porch

boards creak
in rhythm, the rocking chair
keeping time with,
a knot of moths
circling the lantern, hum
wings tapping
soft as a breath
dust rises
settles again
into the sigh
of timber above,

the creek flowing fast,
murmuring
around stone and root
fish sipping mayflies
plucked from the surface,
banjo strings
that ripple
and hush
beneath
the willows’ strings rising

steam from the cornbread
ghosts
into the rafters
where loft still holds
my sister’s songs
Daddy’s foot
keeps slow time
on the plank floor
he hums too,
his breath
a hollow fiddle note
echoes of her headstone, next to

the rosebush
Momma planted
shivers at the fence line
petals loosen
in the hush
thorns whispering
against the wire
a soft red drop
falls
just asking
to be caught, while

crickets swell
into thread-thick song
their pulse
stitches the field
to the porch
every chirr
a needle
pulling silence
tight
across my chest, as

a whip-poor-will
calls once
then again
its cry
threading moonlight
through my life
I do not move,
the holler listens
Softly
and so do I


80/52

 

[_Land]

Queening

The sheets crease like fault lines.
She rises from the hips,
plants her knees across his chest,
claiming acreage
on a map drawn in breath.

Her thighs hush the room.
His mouth,
a willing petition,
opens beneath the shadow of her hunger.

The air thickens
with the language of skin
spoken in salt,
sealed in rhythm.

Her palms brace the headboard,
knuckles whitening
with each surge
toward throne.

He yields.
His role roots him.
He receives her
as earth swells
beneath pressure.

She descends
with gravity intact
every inch of him
carved in her claim.

Velvet ache.
Salted edge.
The flood sovergn,
with force
legacy spills
where breath waits.

She rises,
his face glistens
with the mark
of her dominion.

The imprint remains
in the wet,
in the waiting,
in the memory of pulse
pressed into bone.

He tastes devotion.
She asks for nothing.
Taking his crown
as hers

81/52

 

[Tzara]

Apis mellifera

Bees boil out of the hive
Like bubbles on a surface slick
With blood or honey—viscid, thick.
Disturbed, they swirl and swoop and thrive.

Week 30 : Poem 2 : Total 39

 

[Angeline]

Anonymous Bee Song

Go tell the bees that I am gone.
They're sleeping in a flower cup,
two bumblebees one hollyhock.

Go on, you can wake them up.
They've pollen blankets, nectar
drunk in fizzy sips swallowed

sweetly for the queen but sugar
water will not go amiss. Feed
them, whisper I am gone, wish

them pleasant blessed dawn.





Week 31, Poem 1, Total 32

 

[MrMrsMrsMr]

in sequins a line of bees follow the fallowed fields to the flowers
there is honey between their knees in scores nectar billowing bees
store honey in their bellies. Sweet honey pillowing in the rocks.

26/52

 

[42BelowsBack]

Love is a field in blooms
(Verse one)

Honey is desirable, viscous,
a bee is devoutly wished, in
a consummation of perfumes
the perfect closure.

No 17