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

[LovelyLadyLicker]

Dawn has Come
Weary Eyes
And like the sun
She's bright but so, so tired

The Lords
'Rather, Babes
See twinkling stars
Precious souls they shall take

Her Breath
Her Body
Used and bloated
Doesn't deserve help; she's too demure, too gaudy

New Horizons
Barren and Broken
They've decided
Women's plight of endless unrest is foretoken.

 

[42BelowsBack]

Death is an Alien mind.

(I have seen) the white blink
of my eyes rolled up.

Felt the air leaving holes
in My existence.

Heard the voice of distant strangers
My body leaving me to bleed out.

Then I heard a stranger
whispering, goodbye me.


No 6 of 52.

 

[_Land]

Life Lessons in Beth’s Kitchen


The first time I saw the words
stamped into her roasting pan
“Always support the bottom”
I laughed.

Beth didn’t.

She just turned,
pork butt in hand,
and raised an eyebrow
like I should already know better.

I didn’t.
But I do now.

Because in that kitchen
I learned a few things:

Don’t grab from the sides.
Don’t lift with weak wrists.
Slide in, steady,
hold from underneath.

Support the bottom.

That pan taught me how to carry dinner.
Beth taught me how to carry her.

Her bottom
sharp in jeans,
soft in the morning,
solid in every sense.

It wasn’t a punchline.
It was the anchor.
The place where tension settles,
where balance begins.

Over years and burners,
I got better.
At bracing.
At holding.
At knowing when she needed two hands
and not one joke.

Beth didn’t ask for much—
just that when the heat turned up,
I’d be there,
hands ready,
grip sure.

Not just for pork.
Not just for show.

But for her.

So yeah
I support the bottom.
Hers.
Always.
Like it’s the most important thing
I’ll ever carry.

Because in Beth’s kitchen,
it was.

And still is.

57/52

 

[42BelowsBack]

Unknown Man


diaspora on a street corner


Circa (is Jazz)


My steel strings
EeeeUuuwooo-ah-ah
EeeeUuuwooo-ah-ah

On my Street Corner!
Swollen feet,
boot licks
laceless!

Chika-chicka -Kafka

My stage is
a Box car
Rolling, Cadillac,
Castle.

my geetah EeeeUuuwooo-ah-ah
EeeeUuuwooo-chika-chikahh -Kafka!

A disused train my thought cocoon
hungover the cotton in my mouth
is a disused rail-yard
in my throat this gravel,
-a stream bed singing

EeeeUuuwooo-ah-ah
My fate was never in ahh your rail-car
EeeeUuuwooo-ah-ah

My song slip in a sip of whiskyy
life long my head a miasma,
you put your Judgin
in my tin cup

EeeeUuuwooo-ah-ah

Hunger is ma money thief
mah belly romantist
maa boney hip, flask, in my body
hunger is a mean faced hand
in my body skinny sun burned clock

Chika-chika-Kafka, my steel strings
EeeeUuuwooo-ah-ah

Somewhere on a Street cornah!
Kafka, you were merely standing there.
Momentarily.
Historically.
Forever.

While I was EeeeUuuwooo-there ah-ah
singing illegitimately with you
chicka-chicka Kafka
EeeeUuuwooo-ah-ah

Knee high to the dust of your shoe
calling your name, making
my steel string go
EeeeUuuwooo-ah-ah
Chika-chika -Kafka



No 7 of 52.

 

[Tzara]

Gratitude

I sent Joan roses,
delicate orange-pink blooms
like her skin's light blush,
then turned my thoughts to Susan
and her low moans beneath me

Week 27 : Poem 2 : Total 33

 

[Angeline]

Love Song

Lilac petals fell,
fragrant drifts on late Spring air
fallen to my skin,
silk upon my creamy flesh,
while you shook the branch and smiled.


Week 27, Poem 3, Total 26

 

[Wonderer67]

Twilight in July
Magic
Soft nights
Walking w Miss Conduct

The moon
Somewhere between yellow
And cream
Nestled
Between two white pines

Lightning bugs
Rising up in waves
Blinking
Looking for mates

I held my own closer

18/52

https://imgur.com/a/OCL5Y25

 

[Wonderer67]

Gary’s Alive Day

I was nervous as fuck for it
Demons lurking at the idea
Dusty Iraqi cities and streets
Kicked in the back of my head

Wild street dogs, maws open wide
Licking their chops for a piece of my psyche
At the edges of my memory

…Western Bagdad…
…Taji…
…Tal Afar…

Route Cardinals and Route Huskies…
Routes Alaska and Iowa…
Roads that were distant, yet right there in the windshield

Like a person you half recognize
And not sure if you should wave or say “hi”

My war was mostly in my rearview
Yet traces of it remained in my bloodstream

Twenty fuckin years!

And some of the color of our time there
Had been blanched and tempered

Two trips to the sandbox was enough for me
Gary went on to a third deployment
In the ‘Stan this time
Where he was nearly killed

And then the day arrived..

I was oddly calm
It wasn’t about me
Or my feelings

I saw Gary
At his Alive Day celebration
A surprise that his wife had set up
I hugged him and I started crying
Honestly, I was just happy to see that he was alive
I told him I was just glad he was on the planet

He called me a pussy
Classic Gary…

I had probably overthought it
It seemed like not a day had passed
Maybe time hadn’t done a damn thing
He was exactly the same
Had I really changed?
Or maybe neither of us
And/or both of us had changed

It didn’t matter
We laughed
Joked
Told stories for the millionth time

Richards throwing track at the intersection
Of cardinals and Irish - the worst possible place
MacBrode accidentally flying his RC airplane into Baghdad international airspace, closing it
The Christmas morning attack with Johnson in his whitey tighties and flip flops shooting everywhere

We reconnected
Telling funny stories

It felt like breathing again

19/52

After few days later I texted Gary
“it was honestly an honor to be there celebrating your alive day.”

He said, more seriously this time:
“Thank you brother. Just so you know, I really appreciate your friendship.”

 

[_Land]

Grandpa's Alzheimer's

The light left slow,
peeling itself from the corners of his thoughts
like paint curling in summer heat.

His name drifted off one syllable at a time.
Cartoni melted in his mouth
like sugar left in the rain.
Italy became a noise without shape.
Silver mines turned to shadows.

He looked through people
as if we were fog.
He folded napkins
and thought they were train schedules.
Time bent around him.
Clocks no longer mattered.

But one word clung.

Grandpa.

Spoken not from memory
but from love's deepest pocket.
A title given by a child
who climbed into his lap
and rewrote his name in crayon.

He said it like it meant everything.
Said it when soup went cold in his hands.
Said it when the nurse called him James
and he didn’t answer.
But when I said,
"Hi Grandpa,"
his eyes cleared,
just for a moment,
like smoke pulling back from flame.

He reached for my face
as if it were sunrise.
Not because he knew the story
but because the feeling remained.
He was not a man lost.
He was a man holding one truth
tighter than his own reflection.

He wore Grandpa
like the last coat that fit.
Soft at the shoulders,
familiar at the seams.
It was the word that built a home
inside a collapsing house.

Even as the roof caved,
he stood under that name,
dry
warm
found.


58/52

 

[SpermFactory]

Why he never married.

He saw love standing between the rain drops.

(17)



Inspired by @42BelowsBack In search of Voice discussion on titles

 

[MrMrsMrsMr]

XX,XX,Syrupy,Warm,Breathing,Heavy,Wet,Red,Lip,Swirls,Tongues,Circle,Love,


18/52

 

[Tzara]

On Misreading the Inscription
in My Copy of a Professor's Book

After the graduation ceremony,
we sat on folding chairs
talking about poetry and writing,

about how much I enjoyed
his classes, how he appreciated
my work as his student.

As we talked, he wrote in blue ink
on the front free endpaper
in his cramped, angular script

and I thanked him when he finished.
We shook hands and I went home.
Later, I opened and read

after some preliminary comments,
Here's to finding our way
girl by girl. Startled,

I wondered how he knew about my crush
on Ann, who wrote memoir,
or how I longed to curl Frida

(sad stories about werewolves)
under my protective but probing
arms. Then I looked again

and the critical phrase resolved
into the wholly guiltless Here's to finding
our way line by line.

Chastened, I put the book
back in its proper place, shelved
neatly between Passion and Prosody.

Week 28 : Poem 1 : Total 34

 

[goddessofglee]

**The Truth**

Quiet forces move—
between creation and loss,
reshaping all things.

№16 of 52

 

[DeMont]

Welcome to 2025, Poets, and Happy New Year. This year your challenge is to write a poem each week of the year. Let me cover the details in a brief Q&A!

Can I write a sonnet? A villanelle? Free verse? An erotic prose poem? Etc, etc, etc.
Write anything in any style that *you* define as poetry. The only rules you must follow are the same as for every thread on this forum and the Poet's Hangout, the official forum guidelines.

What if I want to write 52 haiku or American Sentences or (heaven help you) sestinas?
Write what works for you. One of the benefits of this sort of challenge is that you end up with 52 (or more, but more on that in a bit) poems, enough for a poetry chapbook. So if, for example, you'd been considering writing a chapbook of sonnets, this challenge could provide a way to do that. And if you don't have a plan and just want to write some poetry each week well that's fine, too.

What if I miss a week or two? What if I'll be busy in March and can't write poems then? Do I have to drop out?
Just do your best. If you miss a week or more no one is going to judge you. In fact no one but you will be keeping count of when and how often you write. Obviously the more poetry you write, the better for you. But you're in charge of that and we all recognize that life gets in the way of our best laid plans at times.

Is it ok to write more than one poem per week?
Of course! Write as many poems as you want.

I have comments, questions, observations. I'd like to say I like a specific poem or make a suggestion. Can I do that in this thread?
This will be a poems only thread. Please put your comments, etc in the discussion thread here. If you forget and drop a comment in this thread it'll be moved to the discussion thread.

I have a good idea for a challenge. Can I still post it this year?
Absolutely! Everyone is always welcome to post prompts on this forum or post on any of the ongoing challenge threads. Even time-sensitive threads (like last year's challenges, for example) are open to anyone who wants to write in them. If you're inspired, write!

Suspicion

Where are you my love
When asleep and inside your head
Are you still here with me
Or lying in another's bed?

Does my touch still excite
Do my kisses still entice
Or does the need I still feel
Leave you as cold as ice?

When we go out dancing
Bodies swaying in our heat
Or are your eyes closed
Imagining grinding to his beat?

Or is there something more?
Something I am missing?
Is it a delicious young woman
That you'd rather be kissing?

The agony of not knowing
Is tearing at my very soul
I wish you'd tell me my darling
Is our love still whole?

 

[SpermFactory]

Why he never married.
(V2)

He saw love walking between the pool tables,
she was drowning down town in a blues bar,

Love hit him in the pocket taking him for a slow
ride on his long cigarette, her lips took him out.


(18)

 

[Angeline]

Schoodic Memory

I see you in dreams
as if you had never left
Maine's bare, rocky coast--
that cabin near the dockside
where we loved by the sea wind.


Week 28, Poem 1, Total 27

 

[MrMrsMrsMr]

Sweet Star of Bråvalla
In the Night’s Sky.

Why have you embossed
Himinn’s starry shield?

Your fiery trail high above
streaming hair -a comet’s
tail in Himinn’s host, tell
me lost daughter,

Why have you gone to
the mighty among the
stars that pierce the
blackened sky?

Why do Oden’s once
made hale again sons
toast you in his hall of
hosts?

Why did the Valkyries
swoop down to prise
your hand away from
your shield and spear?

Now shield-maiden your
flesh and bones are marrow
for the meadow flowers on
the mythical field of Bråvalla.



19/52

 

[Kat90xx]

The once was an old lass called Joan
Who was a brittle old horny crone
She’d lay on her back
Displaying her crack
As it hurt her hips to bone prone

 

[Angeline]

Tea and Sympathy

I love Elle. She's my sister
from a different mom and Lord
we save each other daily.

Our generation apart is nothing
when we talk music, men, food.
Laughter bubbles and flows

in the digital space we've built
founded in poetry and safe
from this world that spins

incomprehensibly around us.
So when I tell her I've fallen
down a wackadoo rabbit hole

where a woman recommends
washing chicken in a dishwasher
Elle chokes on her laugh and says

Why she's crazy as a soup sandwich!

Thank heaven for the World Wide Web
that gifts me both dishwasher chicken
and a sister who always understands.




Week 28, Poem 2, Total 28

 

[Tzara]

Marx for Cats

Fluffy, with her superior hauteur,
would seem a poor champion
of to each according to his needs,

though she is well aware
of the ongoing class struggle
for 9 Lives Meaty Paté With Real Chicken & Tuna

that Rocky the slobbery boxer
keeps nosing about, untutored slavish tool
of the capitalist oligarchs

that he unfortunately is. Luckily
he responds to force and the threat of it—
a hiss, some spit, the bat of a paw,

claws or no. After all, the only antidote
to mental suffering is physical pain,
and Fluff can steel herself

when necessary to advance the dialectic
of history. Thus her heroic yowl:
Let the ruling classes tremble

at a communist revolution.

Week 28 : Poem 2 : Total 35

 

[SpermFactory]

I was secretly made
no mistake a Winner.

Cool dark full
I sit in the pool
I’m at the back
on the bottom

Outside they kiss
things, warming
up the pool slide,
the climb is steep

but we know this
we’ve been training
for the unspooling of
the root up the rout

Erupting out, helmets
on, in the dash, this is
the maddening rush
we’ve been made for

there can be only one
me I’m at the back burst
-ting out I leap into the
crush splashing in wet

slippery collide, in their
desperation, the boys
are panicking! I am the
Man. Red alert condom!

But I see there is a tiny
hole pricked in the end.
His balls unwittingly hurl
me head first at it in body

wiggles I Yay in the orgy
of my oblivion beckons
me into Yay in release
I shimmy through the gap

into the —Fabergé woW
We commingle We make
sticky love We come two
to, together— ahhhh

in the deep end of my
gene-pool I am made
an XY winner mwhahah
splat, splat, mwahaha

(19)

 

[_Land]

Black Lung

They cracked the ribs of mountains
to feed the raging hunger of cities.
Fathers, knuckles flaked in soot,
brothers with coughs that shook
like dynamite trapped inside their chests.

Each breath a gamble
against a god made of shale and ash,
each shift a communion
with something darker.

Coal didn’t just mark their faces
it crawled into their alveoli,
cast shadows in their lungs
until even oxygen
tasted of tombstone.

The NIOSH charts
called it progressive massive fibrosis,
but in the holler it’s just
dying in slow motion
while rocking the baby with one hand
and hiding blood-soaked rags with the other.

No safety masks,
just a bandana steeped in spit and prayer.
No compensation,
just a pink slip
and a pine box
carried by men
with the same black shadow
nesting in their windpipes.

They built this country on lungs
black as the seams they split
men who buried themselves alive
to keep the lights on
in homes they’d never enter.

And still they coughed.
Still they rose.
Still they clawed through carbon tombs
to make rent,
to put bread on plates,
to leave something
besides silence
when they were gone.

Black lung is not a metaphor.

It is a legacy
still wheezing through the hollers,
still clawing at the throat
of every boy
watching his father
gasp
and never asking
why the wind tastes
like coal.

Still, those boys sign their name
to the company ledger.
Another harvest
for the corporate machine.

59/52

 

[sister jenny]

a pencil
number two
a blank page
cup of black tea
house to myself
finding the right word
the perfect phrase
walk to the kitchen
remember a thought
a touch
a feeling
grabbing the pencil
writing it down
that line leads to another
not as good
but will do for now
pour some more tea
looking out the window

happiness

 

[goddessofglee]

№1.

Coffee and Collision!

Winona's latte bloomed across his coat—
cream on charcoal, a comet burst in white.
"I’m so sorry!" laughter in her throat,
and not from joy, but something tight and light.
He blinked, then chuckled, drenched in caffeine grace,
his PowerPoint now steeped in frothy doom.
"I’m Wynn," he said, with coffee on his face.
"Winona. Guess we share a messy bloom."



№17 of 52

 

[goddessofglee]

№2

Wandering and Wonder

They walked where willows bowed and music strayed,
through Winmere Square, where wind and children played.
She spun beneath the sound of old guitars,
her laughter trailing off like shooting stars.
He bought her salted pretzels, warm and crisp.
She stole his phone and posed with lips half-pursed.
He watched her grin and thought: this could be bliss,
but didn't say as Bliss, when voiced, is cursed.


№18 of 52