Lexington Poetry Month Writing Challenge (#LexPoMo)

Maddie Coleman

Category

Poem

6/30/25

The Thought of You

I mourn you everytime I lay down to go to sleep

The heat that you’d transfer through your shirtless skin

The softness of the hairs that live on your arm

The way your collarbone would show just a little too much

The way you’d laugh with nothing but your smile

The way your fingers felt wrapped around my waist

Like time didn’t have a hold on me

And the world stopped spinning just so we could sleep

You’re tattooed on my heart

You’re in every song that I listen to

There’s a character like you in every book

An actor in every movie

Every memory that floats into my brain

Your scent lingers in every place I visit

I teach others the exact way you taught me

The ghost of you is in everything I do

I don’t know how to escape you,

How to escape the thought of you

Amanda Jatta

Category

Poem

6/30/25

untitled

He says he likes fishing

and painting the ocean,

and I wonder if

truly ordinary people

exist,

or are those just the ones

you haven’t looked at

close enough

to see.

hbelam

Category

Poem

6/30/25

what do i remember? the tone in your voice
when you said my false name, the laughter
amongst you and your friends, the inside jokes,
the getting off, the pretending that’s not why I was there,
the facade of not being demeaned, the gaze of being watched,
the exhaustion of holding everything together, the silence
of your disappearances, the characters on display,
the wish to be amongst the sea peoples in glorious adventure,
the boyishness of your insecurities splayed out against the screen,
the way in which your confidence masked it all, the passion
for life and the things you enjoyed, the confusion of just not seeing
the whole picture, they reaction when i said your true name without knowing,
the truths we told each other amongst all the lies, the search for beauty
in the depths of our disillusionment, they way hoping to talk to you
kept me here another day, the meaning of your friendship,
the unrelenting question of what was real, and the frustration that felt so good.

to the fairest,
i’m sorry and your welcome,
thank you and forgive me,
you did not ask for this,
but no one could play this part but you.

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Allen Blair

Category

Poem

6/30/25

best advice I’ve Ever been given

do not
or belittle your words
try to turn them
away from Webster’s purpose
shape them solely
for someone else
serifed soldiers, ready
for the battle
raging now
in our hearts
across country,
across worlds

Keez

Category

Poem

6/30/25

Juneale

I am full.
I feel loved.
I didn’t have to deal with cicadas.
Thank you, June, for compassion and mercy.

K. Nicole Wilson

Category

Poem

6/30/25

You

might prefer me not
to cuss so much, but there’s no
such thing as clean Cole.

Jessica Swafford

Category

Poem

6/30/25

untitled

at war the white page my enemy

Z.Z. Van Tappen

Category

Poem

6/30/25

The Qua Bird (Black Crowned Night Heron)

(Dr. Hue returns at the end of July.
Helen is occupied with Julio.
Brian, a man at I met at Felicitous
Coffeehouse, is an avid birder.
We spend Mondays at Lettuce Lake,
a wildlife refuge on the Hillsboro River.
He is more than my field guide)

filtered light
tangled up
in swampy marsh

palmetto undergrowth
cypress with knees pressed tight
this cloth of wild

where osprey prey,
one young man, one old
hold their breath

hold hands
watch and listen
for the Qua Bird

his gutteral call
suddenly silenced
as his vicious

beak in fast slash
spears a fish
he swallows whole

a holy act
of true communion