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Challenge Ended
Challenge of the Week CCXXVIII
This week, post a poem of that isn't necessarily your favorite, but it's a favorite of those who read you. Winner is decided by likes and us. As usual, 25 bucks is paid to the winner. Go.
Ended June 22, 2023 • 67 Entries • Created by Prose
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Challenge
Challenge of the Week CCXXVIII
This week, post a poem of that isn't necessarily your favorite, but it's a favorite of those who read you. Winner is decided by likes and us. As usual, 25 bucks is paid to the winner. Go.
Cover image for post Well, by Mariah
Profile avatar image for Mariah
Mariah
53 reads

Well

She so deeply loves

The deeply damaged

You know the ones

Others don't bother to manage

Stray cats and clearance plants

Things that need a second chance

Despite the neglect, rejection, and hell

She believes her love can make them well

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Challenge
Challenge of the Week CCXXVIII
This week, post a poem of that isn't necessarily your favorite, but it's a favorite of those who read you. Winner is decided by likes and us. As usual, 25 bucks is paid to the winner. Go.
Profile avatar image for Beccawaits
Beccawaits
60 reads

Writing Myself Alive

In this ink,

through these words,

A tenuous hope

is entwined.

Our words reach out

to find refuge

from our loneliness.

To find a way to stop sabotaging

ourselves

And start saving

ourselves instead.

Shock Life back into us,

Connect us,

Remind us,

that we are electric.

15
6
1
Challenge
Challenge of the Week CCXXVIII
This week, post a poem of that isn't necessarily your favorite, but it's a favorite of those who read you. Winner is decided by likes and us. As usual, 25 bucks is paid to the winner. Go.
Cover image for post salmon of the stream., by minou
Profile avatar image for minou
minou
181 reads

salmon of the stream.

<>< <>< <><

sweet slow summers,

shy skittish kisses by the swing set,

picking and skipping rocks by the shifting stream.

the soft petals of callow youth fall silently on oblivious grasses.

time has no patience.

how your bloody clock hands are choking me!

now your summers are begging,

and your kisses are begging,

and the stream is crying and burly.

and i beg of u sweet summer water,

let me swim upstream with the spry scarlet salmon,

through the salty blue pacific,

slip by the frothy currents,

and sleep eternally in silky grey sands of innocence.

15
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6
Challenge
Challenge of the Week CCXXVIII
This week, post a poem of that isn't necessarily your favorite, but it's a favorite of those who read you. Winner is decided by likes and us. As usual, 25 bucks is paid to the winner. Go.
Profile avatar image for rlove327
rlove327
166 reads

Forty-Two

Natural woodgrain, smoothly shaped into

the form of the thing it will be.

“It’s a good line,” he says of the boat,

running his hand along the raw gunwale before

eyeing it once more from the stern.

The sawdusted floor dwarfs his house, and that’s

room one. He’s reorganizing his tools, and we

walk among their groups to the door and gravel path.

He almost died on his fortieth birthday.

He was not, luckily, in this cabin, where pain would have

rendered the phone bric-a-brac among the books.

His mother had said he needed a doctor, and

his father had helped him off the floor.

“Forty-two is time for a partner,” he says, a

second tumbler of fine scotch in his head.

Another friend has another someone

to meet, he says, strumming a few chords.

But what would he do in Wilmington, he laughs.

He has an open-air bath tub, a reloading table,

a coop with three chickens, DVDs from the library,

a whiteboard wall with three dozen recommendations

of books and poets and conversations and films.

Tomorrow someone will pay him a few grand for

new molding, and three more word-of-mouth jobs await.

For now, he sleeps in his loft next to books from seminary,

dreaming perhaps of a boat that will wend toward

in-season geese, maybe soon.

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Challenge
Challenge of the Week CCXXVIII
This week, post a poem of that isn't necessarily your favorite, but it's a favorite of those who read you. Winner is decided by likes and us. As usual, 25 bucks is paid to the winner. Go.
Cover image for post The sage, the kid, and the pebble., by Mnezz
Profile avatar image for Mnezz
Mnezz
35 reads

The sage, the kid, and the pebble.

I am not a poet!

Okay, the voice stated.

Then it waited...

...Patiently...

For the kid

To listen

To the sound

Of the gentle breeze.

I am not a poet

Alright, said the sage

Who sat with no rage

Quietly

Beside the kid

Waiting to

Hear what more

She had to say.

I am not a...

Aha, I heard you

Like for the first two times

If you are not a poet

Then...what are you, kid?

At this the kid

Stared, gazed,

Into the sage's

Supernova like eyes

All three (oOo)

(the third eye was open, too).

The kid picked up a pebble

And tossed it

That pebble bounced

Across the water

Like a tiny, smooth ball

Until they finally heard a

*plop*

The pebble went

Deep into the belly

Of the pond.

The sage chuckled.

Smiled at the kid,

And then said,

You are not a poet,

But a good pebble tosser!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDk4P5pzC_E

All Rights Reserved.

Written on Juneteenth.

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Challenge
Challenge of the Week CCXXVIII
This week, post a poem of that isn't necessarily your favorite, but it's a favorite of those who read you. Winner is decided by likes and us. As usual, 25 bucks is paid to the winner. Go.
Profile avatar image for LioraG
LioraG
26 reads

Earth

Dear Earth,

How much are you worth?

A rabbit is shot,

but stew is put in a pot.

A lion is maimed,

but that lion is tamed.

Your heart is fading,

and people keep trading.

Metal for machines,

New submarines.

An explosion to rattle an army.

You suffer me.

You suffer us.

When is this enough?

When will the cogs turn?

How many forests need to burn?

We are a bruise

causing all the blues.

We are leaving you behind.

Going off to find

another place to harm

to make another farm.

But you still fight back,

making an attack

that will keep the good

and i have understood.

We need to stop.

We need to make a new crop.

We need to change

and We need to behave.

You have nurtured our hive

and because of that, We are alive.

But now let us give,

and hopefully, you will forgive.

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Challenge
Challenge of the Week CCXXVIII
This week, post a poem of that isn't necessarily your favorite, but it's a favorite of those who read you. Winner is decided by likes and us. As usual, 25 bucks is paid to the winner. Go.
Profile avatar image for HandsOfFire
HandsOfFire
33 reads

between

wrapped in night silk

jewel eyes glinting

from beneath heavy brows

prowling the shadows in

between pages, lingering

between lines to someone

else's lovesick dialogue

soaking in the letters

and standing among

dog-eared stories, stalking

the world for more

more

letting myself take it,

digging my fingers into

the words like they're flesh,

like i can rip them from the paper

consume them

just become them

if only i could flatten myself

into a heart-shaped sheet

and tuck myself safely amidst

the flowery writing

, but,

i can't be confined to the parchment

which might be why i

was washed away into

the midnight sky

originally posted 2/25/21

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Challenge
Challenge of the Week CCXXVIII
This week, post a poem of that isn't necessarily your favorite, but it's a favorite of those who read you. Winner is decided by likes and us. As usual, 25 bucks is paid to the winner. Go.
Profile avatar image for thePearl
thePearl
67 reads

Empty Lakes

I can't seem to escape these mistakes.

Like a man who fishes in empty lakes,

Every moment I'm haunted; morning, noon, and night.

My dreams bring with them no delight.

The darkness seeps in, like winter on roses,

And with every pondering, my open door closes.

I feel trapped in a box, with no hole to breathe.

Washing blood from my hands, but holding the sheath.

They creep in my mind, and tap on my skull.

They won't let me fall to a daydreamy lull.

I try to get out but they pull me back in.

They burst in my eyes all over again.

It seems I'll never escape these mistakes,

Like a man who fishes in empty lakes.

10
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Challenge
Challenge of the Week CCXXVIII
This week, post a poem of that isn't necessarily your favorite, but it's a favorite of those who read you. Winner is decided by likes and us. As usual, 25 bucks is paid to the winner. Go.
Profile avatar image for LGaff1974
LGaff1974
20 reads

i was wet

though dry as a bone

the water was clear

but it stung

my eyes as if it were toxic--

maybe they were

maybe we all were..

i could swim

but what was the point?

i was a flounder

in a bathtub of gin

8
3
3
Challenge
Challenge of the Week CCXXVIII
This week, post a poem of that isn't necessarily your favorite, but it's a favorite of those who read you. Winner is decided by likes and us. As usual, 25 bucks is paid to the winner. Go.
Profile avatar image for Becs76
Becs76
26 reads

Shadow Dance

Shadows sweep the boulevards; Winding their way around lampposts,

Climbing along trellises, slinking up shop walls.

A single shadow, attached to human feet must get lonely.

Feeling cold, hard stones, metal and concrete along its edges only.

Darkness is simply the only time shadows can get together and play. Oh, the dances they dance, such a glorious array.

We humans truly miss out on the nighttime display,

Of laughter and gaiety in the streets once past day.

A shadow does not merely disappear

When the sun refuses to shine for a time.

Does something not exist just because we cannot see it?

Does it fail to exist all due to lack of [sun]shine?

But this, dear reader, is the timing of true mystique.

These are the things we shall miss if we stop too long to blink.

Soulmates find each other in this darkness at daylight’s end.

Meeting up in full moonlight, as the shadow dances descend.

The timbre of stars is like nothing a human ear could ever recount,

For it only alights when shadows abound.

How else to explain the ignition of touch,

That occurs when two “strangers” meet after the dusk?

Oh, dappy mortal, who thinks this mere fate.

Did you not realize your shadow had already found your mate?

When humanity steps back, permitting the ethereal its part. Well, this is when true romance is aware in the heart.

So upon next moon’s cycle, when dusk begins its measured fade,

Take a tiptoe out into moonlight’s cascade.

Beware ne’re to disturb, this ethereal dance,

But instead, simply view its gossamer beauty as pure happenstance.

For where mortal and spectral gaze upon one another,

The spell hence is broken, the magic disentangled.

Thus rendering the chance at true love eternally strangled.

But for those mere observers who catch a fleeting glimpse of the phantasmic,

urely will know love’s quintessential magic.

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