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

[Bn2f]

NEEDING A MOMENT


The November leaves on the maples and birch
In the woods behind my house take no notice
Of the hours I stand staring from my window
Coffee cup in hand waiting.
Waiting for a breeze to move them.
I am envious of their beautiful
Red and gold deaths.

“Give breath! Write it all down,” you begged,
“Let your emotions dance in the release
Of ink to paper.”

Savior. Love. My lost friend.
I need you now for inspiration as the words
I once wrote that you supported like no one other
Have betrayed me
And the fluid ink flow has dried.

“No cries!” you said and promised,
“I’ll make the autumn wind tap your window
To remind you again that I am right here
With you in spirit when you stumble bemoaning
Gone bones and my flesh.”

The November trees of maple and birch
In the woods behind my house take no notice
Of the hours I stand staring from my window
Coffee cup in hand waiting.
Waiting for a breeze to move them.
I am in need of your moments.

 

[_Land]

Mayonnaise, Not Miracle Whip
°


Let’s get one thing straight:
if you say “salad dressing” and mean that jar,
we can’t break bread together.
Miracle Whip is chaos in a condiment,
a tangy betrayal,
the bastard child of sugar and regret.

°

Mayonnaise is quiet competence.
It doesn’t shout; it emulsifies.
It binds potato, holds the tuna,
keeps the coleslaw faithful.
It’s the mortar of every church potluck sandwich,
a stoic custodian of creaminess.

°

Miracle Whip, meanwhile,
tastes like someone tried to invent joy in a lab
and forgot to consult a single grandmother.
It’s what optimism tastes like
when it’s been left in the sun.
Slick. Sweet. Slightly suspicious.

°

Mayonnaise knows restraint
egg, oil, acid, salt.
Four humble truths in a world of confusion.
Miracle Whip?
Seven sins in one spoon.
High-fructose hubris. Artificial salvation.
The devil in a squeezable jar.

°

Miracle Whip pretends to be fun at parties,
shows up late,
and leaves your potato salad
tasting like betrayal and poor judgment.
Mayonnaise brings napkins and loyalty,
the reliable friend who’ll stay
to help scrape the casserole dish clean.

°

You can keep your “zing.”
I’ll take subtlety,
the kind that doesn’t require a trademark.
When the sandwich apocalypse comes
and the bread runs dry,
only one spread will be worth trading for.

°

So, call it preference if you must.
But when civilization crumbles
and we’re rebuilding sandwiches by candlelight,
you’ll wish you’d stocked the good stuff.
Real mayo. The white flag of reason.
Because some miracles
just shouldn’t whip.

 

[Tzara]

Hallowe'en

The thin slice of a crescent moon,
The howl of shifting winds,
The flickering of candlelight
Through toothy pumpkins' grins.

Small children, costumed, walk the streets.
Those older roam with friends.

Some sate the goblins' ire with sweets,
While others suffer papered trees
Or have their windows soaped with glee.
All Hallow's Eve is here again.

Week 42 : Poem 1 : Total 56

 

[Angeline]

Bite Me Blues

Bite me Drac baby, bite me slow and sweet.
Drink me in baby, let me share my heat.
Your skin is marble, you feel cold as ice.
Sink those fangs in deep. Doesn't that feel nice?

I've tossed all the garlic, don't have a cross,
So drink me up Vladie, show me who's boss.
Can't see your reflection but you ain't lost:
I can see those bright teeth. You must have flossed.

Drink my blood honey, but don't take it all.
I'm getting so weak now, don't want to fall.
Let me sip on you: I won't leave a mark.
We can hunt together while the night's dark.




Week 42, Poem 1, Total 49

 

[kreemi_pi]

I think it is style that you seek
In this challenge, A Poem a Week
Alas, I just lim'rick,
A genre so limp dick
With rhymes that are all up Shit Creek

 

[Tzara]

I think it is style that you seek
In this challenge, A Poem a Week
Alas, I just lim'rick,
A genre so limp dick
With rhymes that are all up Shit Creek

Comment

Good limericks often are funny;
Are even so when they are punny.
We like how you write—
Your verses delight.
So keep up the limericks, honey.

Week 42 : Poem 2 : Total 57

 

[Ash999]

2 years
And 6 days
Later...
20 living Hostages
Have returned to the
Land of their Forefather......
It was great Joy :
In Hostages' Square ️
Too many emotions ...
Than one can hardly bear....
Witkoff, Rubio, Kushner too
Were all there...
We Thank You
Donald Trump!!!
Hoping, Peace
Doth Triumph!!!

 

[42BelowsBack]

A drunken sailor waffles
in with a rebellious Wind.

Cracked salt lips, I sailor downs
a beer. You know Wind everything
runs stronger when you’re about.

In your silence I hear you say -fuck off.

Three beers later, jus saying, you realize
when you howls you’re fucking mental.

Fourth beer. Cheers. Running in a breeze
I know you’re happy.

A Dozen Beers later. You knows you’re spiteful.
In sleet and really sly in slanted rain. A real fucking
hangover in a hurricane.

A drunken sailing hour latter. Perhaps, in your
dafense. When it rains you s really forced
to drink too much rain. Can’t aim, so, you just piss
rain over everywhere.

Man down. Sailor out of Beer. Drinking vodka. Wind,
you know you’re a bitch right? A male cunt, someone’s lover,
my unreliable can’t make your mind up best friend. Ya know.
Sometimes, homey, on land, some nights you even
dig the garden? You know that right?

It’s either that or some nights you’re on fucking drugs.

NQ 34

 

[Ash999]

And across the Line of Control
2000 detenus too returned:
To West Bank.....& Yes....to Gaza too....
Families R reunited...:
Euphoria to Palestinian & Jew!!!
Peace wud require Both Hands
To Clap for Allah,Yahweh .. Thee ....:
Peace wud require Both Lands
To Lovingly Agree..

 

[42BelowsBack]

On a suburban street
the footfalls within a
menagerie of ghouls
a posse of Vampires
candles and candies
in a cornucopia of life
bright eyed hopes and
undreamed dreams all
wait, warlocks, witches
Wednesday Adams all
outside the front door the
of the spooky last house.
The pumkin bell cackles
MwahaahaaMwhaahaa

NQ 35

 

[SmilingLez]

"No ing word’s / adjectives / adverbs"

Sky shifts
light fades
soundless streets
hearts pulse
time moves

 

[42BelowsBack]

There are the trees stooped
Willow weep all their days
where swung the swing we
played the (x)hildren all we
who went a ways away on
a moonless night the sleep
-less path our early grave
like the moon we rise again
and play and play until we
dressed as ghouls plagued
the neighborhood houses
with gleeful howls of Trick
or Treat. Mwahahaamwha


PART TWO You know it’s
a horror of a poem
when there’s a
sequel.

NQ 36

 

[42BelowsBack]

No ing word’s / adjectives. / adverbs.

Lord Of The Rings.

The woman stood there a
volcano in the middle of
the kitchen, their humanity
denuded by his ring.

NQ 37

 

[Ash999]

Why do U cry. while embracing me?
why does your eyes' retina reflect the Stars
in the Galaxy?
i feel the shape of the river Padma in you...
before Birth, after Birth....still the River shapes you!!?
i have been born before when you were Padmaboti...
u were always tearful like Asrumoti!!
silently you used to define and worship Jatishwar!
in sheer silence you express the Meaning of Life...
in your teardrops i find my birth and death
why do you cry when U embrace me???
why fo your eyes' retina reflect the Stars of the Milky Way?!!

 

[SpermFactory]

THE BITCH NOT TO FUCK


I think ur poetry sucks
There, I said it and I said it out loud
Please, do NOT take my criticism as constructive
UR incapable of writing something relatable that stands out from the crowd

What? U want more?
Well… UR writing is repetitive, trite, and many times numbingly dull
What U really need is a man’s man throwing U some cock
Giving U the learned experience 2 truly write what it feels like 2 cum

__________

Thank you, I appreciate hearing feedback from my readers
Especially the ones who disapprove and are honest critics
Tho, I am going to regrettably decline the offer from a man who likely has no clue
Where or what the female clit is

Rest your head peacefully and go now to sleep
I will reveal in writing soon how my name is made up
Read it, whisper it, scream it in the due time I reply in post
What Bn2f means is…

It must be Halloween
The Karen is about!

The sign reads

Screw loose bitch free
to a crack home, probably
a male. Beware has fleas,
will howl just say bye—

she’ll hit the roof! A real
stray at home dog. Fucks
with the light off. Has had
one too many litters.

She likes a beating. Thinks
domestic violence makes
real men. Will regurgitate
old poems to get to 52.

Karen likes to redress her
old mutton poems as lamb.
Spits not swallows. Needs
to floss her canines.

Now cut yah yowling Karen
afore I call the pound or
worse worm your ass. It
wasn’t me but damnnnn

what yah screaming bout? Was
nic Ring2Dick2 already taken?
You too good for other poets?
Lit’s best world famous poet?

Here we go, it must be
string week? Now bark
for me so I can laugh
while I ignore you.

Yah ass can’t help but yap.
This sign reads Karen please,
fuck off and scare some kids
with yah everyday face on.

Nobody needs to eat your
dog shit to know your poems
still read like yah old dog shit.
Now lick your nutts online

Karen pretending to be a
human, get the fuck back
outside. Or do something,
with your life, anything like,

learn to walk on your hind
legs or, shut up. Your silence
is golden. I bet yah wet now.
Oh roll over and play dead

my good doggy bitch.




(37)

 

[_Land]

Losing Pretend
by Bear Sage

°

The maples strip down first,
all swagger and flame,
a public undressing before frost.

°

The oaks take their time,
they’ve always been stubborn
about change.

°

The wind scavenges what’s left,
sorting color from rot,
truth from habit.

°

I watch the branches
thin into honesty,
and think,

maybe the fall
was never about dying,
only about losing
the right to pretend.

 

[SmilingLez]

Curly hair
brushing my lips;
tender,
intimate,
inviting.

 

[Tzara]

Foraging
The blood jet is poetry, There is no stopping it.
—Sylvia Plath, “Kindness”

The long, fine line of her neck,
so pale in the icy moonlight,
that little flitter of her carotid

shivering under taut and flawless skin
inflames me, makes my canines ache
wanting to sink their eager cusps

into the rich sanguinary warmth.
How unfortunate, how wasteful
that I must needs drain that perfect body

and each lonely night seek another?

Week 42 : Poem 3 : Total 58

 

[kreemi_pi]

TANKA TANKOFF
by Kreemi

Took my tank top off
At Hermosa beach it was
Didn't have a bra
Let the girls play in the sun
Made a lot of brand new friends

 

[SmilingLez]

**(1.2) Write a metaphor, simile free poem: that describes an inanimate object**



Razor Wire

Cold steel coils stretch endlessly
Across concrete walls and empty yards
Sharp barbs catch morning light
While shadows dance below

Each twist holds stories
Of boundaries drawn in blood
Of desperation climbing higher
Only to fall back down

Silent guardian of secrets
You slice through escape dreams
Your metallic embrace promises
Nothing enters, nothing leaves

Rust spots bloom like wounds
Where rain has marked the years
Yet still you wait, patient
Ready to tear flesh from bone

 

[_Land]

Still, Life

The jar on the sill still smells of peaches.
Glass clouded from years of August hands.
A gnat circles the lip, lost in memory.

The porch light flickers though no one’s coming.
Moths slap it like drunks testing faith.
The screen door keeps count.

In the yard, the pump handle leans south,
iron spine bent from one too many winters.
It still drips — a slow apology to the clay.

You never said you were leaving.
The holler knew before I did.
Even the creek’s gone quiet about it.

 

[MaximTerhune]

Moonlight on bare skin,
whispers drift through tangled breath
night learns every curve