Posts for June 30, 2025 (page 12)

Registration photo of PBSartist for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

the world asks to be seen again

the world can sometimes take my breath away
I’d forgotten this
all these years on   things seems to be balanced on provision and enough
yet today

walking the dog
a rote route  we both memorized long ago
instead of listening with buds popping
I saw

the yellow finches tipping head over heels for a drink
the neighbor around the corner and down a bit
smile and say hello
the passing car not so much get along
as draw near and see

these things take work
years of

this wisdom
surprise


Registration photo of Laverne Zabielski for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Family Fallout

I walk around their house as though traces of memories will creep out & overwhelm me. I walk tenderly. The dry grass from the drought is crushed by each step. A white plastic wastebasket lays on its side near the back door. The walk is covered in grassy weed debris. The hammock is rusted & torn. No one will sit in it mom had said, speaking for her past self, the self that would never truly relax.

 

What’s the formula

for disposing of the past

when no rituals

 

It’s what gets left behind that tears a family apart. Yes,  you can’t take it with you is one reason to not cling to material goods. The other is who is going to go through it when you’re gone? Perhaps it’s best if someone else is the filter, sells them at auction or takes them to Goodwill. To unravel the life of parents could take a lifetime, every item touched a memory re-lived, analyzed, deconstructed.

 

A stray tinfoil

lays crumpled covered with sprouts

from an old rose bush

 

I hear the roar of wind in the trees. It’s the kind of morning my mom would’ve hung clothes on the line to dry. Furniture is scattered on the front porch, wind chimes collide, books remain on shelves, souvenir bells wait on the mirrored shelf next to their 50th anniversary silver plate. Siblings have been broken apart. Family  photos with smiles from 50 years have been replaced by quibbling &  quarreling & questions of what goes to whom & why.  In the case of money, it’s easy. The  case for mementos, knickknacks & photographs, is more difficult.

 

the mantra let go

all the more important yet

unattainable.


Registration photo of Chelsie Kreitzman for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Kit

She asked God for a baby – not a human
child, just some tender new
root of a thing to love. In the garden 

she scooped up the helpless
furred creature found curled
among spring-green shoots, 

never bothered to consider
whether it already had a mother.
What should we make of it now

that the blessing she named
and claimed has died in a box 
under fluorescent lights?

How foolish to believe
simply getting what we want
always means an answered prayer.


Registration photo of Linda Bryant for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

No Laces

 
his tiny shoe
white with a bit of grime
red & white accent stripes
no lace
dove white eyelets 
rubber rims discolored

can’t keep all memories

keep a few toys
    gigantic teddy bear
    goofy Mortimer Snerd
    Grumpy, the cranky dwarf
  
what can I do
with this wee sneaker
not worn for 42 years?
it’s only one shoe afterall
 
I remember him wearing it
in his baby swing 
not yet walking, jabbering
 
no verbal contact since 2009
no laces to tie up 
l’m searching for it’s match

                      ***
Every year I get closer to the LexPoMo community. This year absolutely took the cake! Thanks to everyone for participating. I have read some great work. I have met new poets this year but I know I’ve missed a lot. I’m looking forward to meeting more poets next year.

It was my intention to write a Cento for you today featuring lines from some of my favorite LexPoMo poets but I was overwhelmed by the task. I will finish it in the next couple of days. If you want to to see it email me at lindab@bryanteditorial.com


Registration photo of Mike Wilson for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

The Beach Belongs to Us

The ocean is gentle today.
The sky is a gray mattress.
Humidity hangs in the air
like an old TV show.  

The rest of fam damn
is off playing laser tag.
It’s just you and me, my love,
embraced in our peace.  

Thanks everyone for a wonderful month of poetry


Registration photo of Coleman Davis for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Bucket List

1. Plant Trees

     #2. Clean attic
         #3. See number 1
 
 
We did not find one shed snakeskin.
No one got bit by any spiders.
Cleaning out the attic has been on our list 
of chores for a year now.
It would be best to do in the bugless cold. 
 
 
However, a repair is in order.
Attic window, the light comes in   
around the edges, the wasps too.
 
 
This month, all of our boxes, totes, bags
random loose pictures, and old photos
come down the ladder. Laptops, printers. 
an old birdcage, all the posters, a shoe,
one shoe, smaller than a dollar bill.
 
 
 
This month again has been amazing. Over 300 poets
have written over 4000 poems.
Robert Frost says that a poem is when a thought 
finds an emotion and the emotion finds its words.
The words, the poems this month have been becoming 
and beguiling, beseeching and brilliant. “When the music’s 
over, and we finally walk away, we can walk together
  we can say,
Goodnight and Goodmorning.”
                                 Or we can sing…

https://youtu.be/qVFIf4LSGcU?si=igXwR7kcQ4X-kdUZ

 

Registration photo of J. Mo for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Thoughts While I Pack for Camp

This isn’t a poem – IT’S A WARNING 

To inform your 4 AM scrolling
It’s all a show, don’t you know 
Covering up fascist patrolling 
 
The message is out of the bottle 
The news tries now to flood
Hard to read, I concede, and
Stained with immigrant blood
 
They’re loading the cargo planes 
Have you heard of the Dirty War?
With dismay, I learned today that
Shackled bodies are washing ashore 
 
Back from the Florida amusement park
Where my daughter and I walked miles
Tell me please, how to make peace with 
Funding Alligator Alcatraz for her smiles
 
We are all still posting photos here
Of sunshine and beach and traveling
Polite exchanges, they rearrange us to 
Ignore Constitutional rights unraveling 
 
Tensions between citizens are growing
Viewpoints can only be traveled by car
A future so violent, I can’t stay silent 
And I’m judging you harshly if you are

Category
Poem

Existential

I grew up obsessed with princesses

Daring tales and romance

Love stories told through the ages

Maybe that’s why I’m a romantic

Or why I dream so loud

As I’ve grown they’ve been constricted

Slowly pressed smaller and smaller

Still there, just less

I’ve realized the myth in the magic

I’ll never be able to be someone’s everything

That’s not healthy

I’ll never have 100% assurance that I’m right

That’s not realistic

I’ll never experience a happily ever after

That’s not how it goes

The world is full of uncertainty and doubt

Humans need community

They wish for certainty, a wish the universe rarely grants

The beauty in this existence is that there is no constant

Change is the one thing we can rely on

There is no forever after

Beauty is in this

In the everyday

In joy we give

In hope we feed

In love we share

So, my darling

Choose to live


Registration photo of NETTIE FARRIS for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

WHY DOES TAYLOR SWIFT SUDDENLY APPEAR SO FREQUENTLY IN MY FACEBOOK FEED?

               Suddenly,
Taylor Swift
appears
in my Facebook feed            

                10x as often
as my friends.                       

                              She is not
my friend.            

                We are not even
distant acquaintances.              

                And how
can she appear
so (seemingly) physically
unchanged                  

                                           while holding a newborn

and standing next to her handsome
famous husband         

                                                            radiantly

smiling
as if she were promoting
a tooth whitening
formula?                                    

                             Most of us
still appear pregnant            
               long
after giving birth, bags       
         
            under our eyes
and oily hair.            

                    We haven’t bathed
in weeks          
and could use a shot        

                              of Angel’s Envy.            

             Frankly,
we haven’t slept
since month four of our pregnancy.

The first three months we
were puking,                  

                               and where
is our fucking handsome husband?


Registration photo of L. Coyne for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Challenge

Choosing to undertake a challenge means
Having completed the most important step.
Advancing forward is nice—
Leaving the past in the dust,
Lunging toward victory, but
Even if one cannot make that final step?
Never crosses the finish line?
Giving it a try, to start, is
Everything that matters.