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

[_Land]

Highlights in Red

Red and orange leaves fall gently
like traces of your hair framing my face.
The air holds its breath around us,
each strand a thread of fire brushing my lips.

Your warmth lingers in the hush,
sunlight pooled against my neck,
the faint spice of your skin
stirring where the wind once rested.

The world tilts amber and alive,
each leaf a heartbeat breaking loose,
falling slow as your laughter did
when I reached to tuck it behind your ear.

Now the branches empty quietly.
The light moves on without you.
Still, I wait beneath its glow,
hoping one leaf will find your face.

 

[_Land]

Grief Is an Entertaining Friend

Grief is such an entertaining friend,
it rarely lets you feel lonely.
It knows all your old stories,
pours another drink,
asks how you’ve been,
then answers for you.

It laughs at the wrong moments,
points to the empty chair,
the quiet shelf,
the way your voice still bends
around a name you won’t say.

It dresses in your memories,
wears their scent,
sits close until you forget
who opened the door.

When the night grows thin,
it hums that tired tune.
You hum along,
because silence feels
too much like goodbye.

 

[Aquelle]

A poem a week
Now it's time, get your rhyme
A poem a week
It's your rhyme it's your dime

Drop me a line
All your words winged like birds
Drop me a line
All your words make 'em heard

A poem for you
It's a gift, spirits lift
A poem for you
Scent of words take a sniff

A poem a week
Or a rockin rhyme a day
A poem a week
Hope my riffin' was okay

 

[Xenofidelity78]

I feel like every time I lay down
a piece of me stays asleep
like I wake up and feel fine
but there's something that didn't keep

there's a sliver of my mind
that's lost in an endless dream
and I'm always so tired
looking for the best of me

because the best is what's taken
at least that's what we're meant to believe
it can't possibly be mistaken
for what we never should have bereaved

we don't know what we've lost
but maybe our loss is our gain
because we're already lost in the echo
and can't resist our refrain

we're trained to hold on to things
to fear mystery and covet what we know
but maybe what our dreams are telling us
is that it's time to let it go

 

[_Land]

The Telescope

By Bear Sage

°

You steadied me with the same hand she rested on your knee.

That weight, quiet, certain.

When you turned my knob, the stars would paint the sky with your love.

°

Her laugh brushed my barrel.

You both leaned in,

and the night cracked open,

a seam of breath and heat.

°

I remember the scrape of your ring,

echoing like her breath on your jawline,

the way your hand held me

just a little bit tighter.

°

The porch holds you still, in silence.

Her chair gone silver with weather.

I keep my aim on Orion,

out of habit, out of hope.

°

If she were still here,

you might still touch me like she touched you,

slow, deliberate,

as if clarity could bring her back,

and bring you back to me.

 

[Aquelle]

Poetry
Nothing to it?
Screw it.
I can't do it.

 

[SmilingLez]

Tantrum

Fists clenched.
Knuckles white.
Playground silent.

She screams -
Empty air.
Dust kicks.
Stones scatter.
No one turns.

Rage bubbles,
molten and sharp.
Rejection.

Her shadow stretches.
Alone.
Brittle.
Cracked.

No tears.
Just silence.
Her breath echoes.

 

[Aquelle]

I SAVED HER

I saved her
From that horrid man
His brutish touch, his bruising lust
I saved her

She swam next to me
In fragrant seas, on nectar waves
Liquid pleasure bathed her skin
As she moaned my name

Two pearls pressed together tight
Luscious love to lubricate
Fusion heat melts ocean floor
Tectonic grinding soon erupts

Erupts and rises from the depths
Islands rise above the waves
Isles of ecstasy so great
Archipelago of love

Lovely Lesbos, lifting, looming
Salty sweet sultry Sappho sings
My lips on hers and hers on mine
Drink your fill, my love

I saved her
With my touch, my love, my heart
But only for one night
Come morning she'll go back to him

 

[42BelowsBack]

In a Land Gone Shopping.

Slow mo bumblebee crash test dummy hits
the windshield at 130 mph. Honey flowing
yellow impact nectar, movement, wipers do
slow/ low/ Tai Chi on the pollinator’s natural
American pre industrial carcass.

Lean hard the consummate loner on its surface
the windshield appears to have a quiet steady
look. But behind that clarity we see the driver’s
eyes don’t smile. We see in his eyes he is full of
private fear. His car’s MOPAR HEMI-spheical—

Power is blown in from a land where people
don’t even speak American with each other.
He has become one with his surroundings
weaving in and out of traffic on a highway
fat with jigsaw puzzle automobiles.

In his rider jeans over boots on his way to
spend his fist full of American dollars in a
entirely Japanese owned 7-Eleven, This
chain is around his neck but he is American
he won’t take his foot of the accelerator.



NQ41

 

[Tzara]

Quotidian

It's supposed to begin with a shared glance
across a crowded room, or perhaps a kiss
idly stolen—part tease, part joke—under

a flowering cherry while walking a friend's dog.
You share a fresh squeezed lemonade
from a cart near the reservoir fountain,

find you both love the novels of George Eliot,
though Silas Marner not so much. From there
it's more superhighway than country road,

both of you looking for the exit marked Bedroom
because you don't want to wait too long
to find that she or he or they are the right one

and you both need roommates anyway, housing
being so dear. And even though it's not perfect,
well, it seems pretty good anyway,

and there's much to be said for dependable access,
Tinder being so iffy and your luck not so hot.
So you settle back to watch Slow Horses or Stranger Things

in the evenings after supper and time ticks forward
in its relentless way where wind and rain wear down even stone,
which God and even you know in no way you're not.

Week 45 : Poem 1 : Total 64

 

[SmilingLez]

Synthetic words twist and sedate.
Eyes glaze; warmth bleeds out.
Children brainwashed by algorithms,
Love silenced by cold code.
Truth obliterated.
Hands pull back, faces vanish.
Nature gasps,
Trust shatters, emotions extinct.
Humanity? Just echoes,
A grotesque mockery -
A laugh track in an empty room.

 

[Xenofidelity78]

I love to write
indeed to scheme
to imagine places
and even things
that don't exist
except in my mind
ephemeral like wind
they all fade in time
so I pen them down
and turn blood to ink
to let people know
what sometimes I think
because I am not lost
and nor am I mad
no, it's something different
something, more, than that

 

[Angeline]

This Petty Pace

Del was leonine, a lazy lion
of a man with an unruly white mane
and a slow smile that belied sharp wit,
propensity to swat away small talk
and politesse.

We called him Coach,
gave him a T-shirt
that said Head of Scoring
because by God he was.

Academia is a cesspit:
put 100 professors together
at a conference: 86 of them
are fucking someone else's spouse
while 10 are passed out drunk.

The other 4? Let's assume
they're working or asleep
in solitary beds because
I'm an optimist.

I was faithful to you then
before I understood the futility
of trying. Foolish me.

I should have taken Del
or Jason for the memories
that might warm me
in these silvery years.




Week 45, Poem 1, Total 53

 

[Tzara]

The Track

It's not exactly shopping that I do
Along Aurora sometime after dark,
But then again it is—the right tattoo
Or heels, an attitude, a skirt that sparks
Concupiscence. The way her breasts are laid
Inside her low-cut blouse like fruit to whet
That appetite that never seems to fade.
One looks for Art, a modelled pose, maquette
That can be shaped, coerced to gratify
The animal desire that lies beneath
Our socialized facade. To dignify
Those frantic needs the gods to us bequeath.
And yet, there's tenderness. A whiskey shared.
A cigarette. A kiss, as if we cared.

Week 45 : Poem 2 : Total 66

 

[Wonderer67]

My Own Personal Soundtrack

I was checking our
When the elevator doors opened
Feeling good about things after a game five

To the tune of Hot Thoughts by Spoon

No shit!
Things took an immediate turn
For the even better

An extra bounce to my step
Strutting across into the Toronto Sheraton Centre lobby
Feeling like I’m in a movie
A little more erect than normal
My posture hardens
Trying to catch a woman’s eye
Smiling and nodding
I am the man
No corporate zombie
Dressed to the 9.5’s
Feeling like 2 million bucks
(inflation, ya know)

Hot Thoughts
Helping me
Tackle one last day of
Work horse shit
Gettin back to Mrs Wonderer
And the good ol US of A

37/52

True story…

 

[Angeline]

Poor Relations

Daddy called her "Mary
the WASP from Missouri."

She suffered us, as we tumbled
from the car, sprawled
through her perfect Reproduction
Colonial house: grand piano,
plaid den, rumpus room
with a Tiki Bar and So. Much.
Stuff

because Uncle Arthur made good,
an aviation engineer who was sweet
like Grandpa and called me a hum
dinger, but Aunt Mary? Oy she was stiff,
thin and coiffed just so. Constipated
smile

because here we were again,
bringing the ethnic grandma
she called Mimi (Bubbe hated it),
and making us say Grace
(who?)

before receiving her spare meal:
a pale slice of bird, a teaspoon
of peas, a half potato
which I pushed around the plate
because i had a
secret:

I was full to bursting
with Chop Suey, eggroll, fortune
cookies. We always stopped
to eat on the way to Mary's
Thanksgiving.




Week 45, Poem 2, Total 54

 

[SmilingLez]

Post election prose


Two wrongs.
Ego multiplies.
Humanity dies.

Cycle grinds.
Lower.
Always lower.

Retribution burns.
Empathy dies.
Humanity vanishes.

Spite is a mirror.
Reflecting hatred.
Trapping yourself.

Each blow.
Deeper.
Ruthless.

Lowest point.
Mutual destruction.
Zero.

Rage wins.
Nothing survives.
Void.

 

[kreemi_pi]

LITTLE DEATH
by kreemi

Oh look, it's the luscious Kreem Pi
Her beauty elicits a sigh
Your heart will be captured
As you lie enraptured
'Le Petit Mort' you must die

 

[Aquelle]

No poems today
No creation left in me
A tanka, stillborn,
Only offspring I've for you
But still mine, i love it so

 

[Aquelle]

New York socialist
Muslim guy, he's mayor now
A breath of fresh air

 

[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!

@Angeline,
Hello, I haven't been keeping up with the "poem a week" because I am a recalcitrant... Bad, bad D.
However I have just completed one poem to my critical satisfaction (that's the longest part of writing poetry...!)

If I may;

The Essential

My hands caress your smooth skin,

Sliding up between your thighs,

You dispense with your dress,

Uttering those softly spoken lies.



I know you lie with others,

In my mind I do not care

As long as I can have my time,

And with them I can share.



You shake your long ebony hair,

You arch your firm and lean back,

Straddling my thighs, making me rise,

But knowing I will not attack.



My hands slip up across your breasts,

To toy with your nipples bare,

One turns down to caress your belly,

To explore between your thighs there.



Your hands rise to your head,

They lift and spread your hair,

I gently stroke your hot wet sex

I slowly push two fingers in there.



Your gasps are soft but audible,

Your flashing eyes seek out mine,

I know that now you are with me,

And my approach not out of line.



The rise and fall of your trim hips,

Remind me of the other times when,

I have had the pleasure of you,

And used your luscious body then.



The first ripples run through you,

The first shudders shake your frame,

Simply a matter of minute’s darling,

Until on my thrusting fingers you came.



I take your hips and turn you then,

Pulling your body back to me,

With legs spread wide, you astride,

Your face tilts down, eyes to see.



Lift my rigid cock, rub it along your slit,

Butt the head to your entrance,

Slip down on me, further down,

And we begin the sitting dance.



You wrap one arm behind my neck,

Your hot breath gusts in my ear,

Your hips start rising and falling,

Frantic, hard and without fear.



I have two fingers at your clit,

My dick is surging in and out,

Your cries from head tilted back,

I clutch your ass to help you out.



Suddenly leaned forward you grip,

Your claws are deep in my thighs,

Gone is all pretense in shrieks,

Your ass pounds lows and highs.



I feel my taut belly tighten more,

My cock starts to throb and quiver,

Your shudders and spasms strike,

As I drench you with a river.



I take your head into my hands,

Turning you to face my stiff dripping tool,

I push your face down, take your mouth,

Hot and wet that cavern, in no measure cool.



Driving myself upward, fighting your tongue,

I strive for that last blissful release,

That will leave you coated in my cum,

For, at this moment, a warm, sweet peace.

Most respectfully, always,
D.

 

[42BelowsBack]

In a new world altered by loss
a reason for thanks giving.

What is happiness? In puberty, the world
is suddenly imaged unfamiliar.

What happens to us when we turn 18,
-to all our old friends?

Buzz Light year? Master Yoda? What happens
with the girl next door when the new tent appears;

when her smile sparks fire in my down hair? When
I have sudden trouble getting the ‘tent’ zip up.


YaY 42

 

[42BelowsBack]

Learning about the Waltz.
Teen Thanksgiving
facts of life.

1.
Family are unavoidable.
Questions are unavoidable.
Dishes are unavoidable.

2.
Travel plans include
everything that is
impossible.

3.
The Adults will talk, I will
realize teenage moral
catastrophes are unavoidable.

1.
I will theorize, if, 1 & 3
are correct, then, I should
try to waltz my aunty.

2.
One day, my older gay cousin will
bring her latest “we’re just friends.”
One day, we will light a candle and.

3.
She will tease me about when
I tried to waltz my aunt, only
by marriage, —her mom.


NQ 43

 

[DeMont]

LITTLE DEATH
by kreemi

Oh look, it's the luscious Kreem Pi
Her beauty elicits a sigh
Your heart will be captured
As you lie enraptured
'Le Petit Mort' you must die

@kreemi_pi,
If I my be so presumptuous...

Could I but lie as you wish, your grace drawing my sigh,
Would you punish me for the lie, as my lust meets your eye?

If the 'Petit Mort' I must suffer, let it be at your hand,
Would you not grant a dying wish, be it ever so grand?

To taste your lips but once, to feel your silken skin,
Could I ever dare hope, that you may let me in?

The heat I crave to feel, would you better have me kneel?
To worship at your altar, what would you allow me feel?

Tell me what in my dreams, should my thoughts take course?
Would "Le Petit Mort" be my only prize and from me your divorce?

Most respectfully and my thanks for the inspiration,
D.

 

[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!

@Angeline, et al,
My dear colleagues, if I may... two in as many days... forsakes!

A moment in time



In time we notice each other, we are drawn like moths to a flame,

We are driven into that dance of frenzy, we learn each other’s name.

The essence of what we are mingles, we discover a mutual interest,

We examine, explore and we let our discoveries grow to their best.



Dancing around commitment, we circle, we prowl, and we prey,

And then we discover the truth, in some enigmatic, indefinable way.

Our discourse turns to things deeper, timidity is cast away to one side,

Our bare hot thoughts and needs, no longer hidden, no more denied.



Neither rational thought nor caution, no longer our feelings decried,

Bodies meet in a wild hungry dance, a hunger both naked and inside.

The closeness of the room, through blind slatted windows lights stream,

Your back pressed hard against the wall, in sweat and gasps and steam.



You open yourself to me, your arms flung wide, we are wild, clawing,

Shudders, quivers drawing, from deep within the power we bring.

Hoarse and panted animal cries, a begging and desperate song,

Burying ourselves in each other, now driving our need for so long.



No tigers here burning bright, human animals in desperate kissing,

We writhe, grind and ride each other, bursting though no beat missing.

Until the waves that seek to swamp us, rush upon with such force,

Bodies shuddering, jerking, twisting, violent in orgasm of course.



Will we know this feeling again, are we destined to be one together?

Will we worship at each other’s altars, or will we part now forever?

Will time feed our love, will it allow our pleasure, or will love escape us ever?

Tell me will time, in its infinite wisdom, see our willful folly and sever us forever?

Deepest respects,
D.