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

Guinness

 

On an island bright and green, my mind sets a lovely scene, where golden barley gently waves in the breeze.

As the sun looks down and smiles and a gentle rain beguiles while lilting birdsong drifts over from the trees.

 

A short span across the Channel, on a lushly green mantel, spires of hops reach toward the sky,

And in this alpine valley, angels dance and dally, and a heavenly flavor they apply.

 

Way up in the Wicklow mountains, there are sweet and pure fountains, that bubble from deep inside the earth,

And this elixir sweet and pure, no one can demur, in the brewer’s tun multiplies its worth. 

 

Sure the barley must be malted, and then when its growth is halted and it’s roasted to a lovely shade of brown,

It then forms a boiling wort, in which the hops play and cavort, then the magic starts when it’s quite cooled down.

 

In comes the swimming yeast, upon the sugars they will feast, and to think, the alcohol’s their waste!

While still not ready, rest assured, once this potion has matured, it has found its bouquet and its taste.

 

Now here I set, a sober fool, astride my favorite stool, at my favorite pub, leaning on the bar,

In quiet anticipation I await my libation, that has come to me here from across the sea so far.

 

When the time has come to pass, that it’s served up in a glass, a dusky beauty with a light and bubbly head of foam,

All the goodness in one glass mixed, as I stand and stare transfixed, as she settles upward from below.

 

Ah, I can not help but think it, it’s almost a shame to drink it, but of course I do, you know for that’s the thing,

Then I slap the bar top, “Oh brother! Can we please, here, have another!? For you know, the bird never flew on just one wing.”

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

International Exchange

 
I was lost in Janis Joplin’s raw mezzo-soprano
when Nadya moved from Moscow to Minneapolis. 
She grew up with the restrictions of Brezhnev
& curbed her creativity into the Periodic Table
of Chemical Elements – titanium, cobalt
& tungsten. She fell asleep to the turbulent
 
wheat & starlight of Van Gogh & starry-eyed
brushstrokes of Chagall – rooster feathers,
goat heads & lovers floating in the Russian sky. 
Nadya moved to the States & leased a subsidized
studio near Lake Harriet. Stuffed her pockets
 
with rocks swirled with acrylics & glitter-glue.
She gave them away compulsively. Treated
me to Beethoven’s Symphony #5
on the orchestra’s get-in-free day. I wore a black
velvet bolero & turquoise eardops. She dressed
in a secondhand white silk blouse & baby
 
blue fringed poncho. Saturated in marijuana
& Led Zeppelin, I finally surrender to the
spell of woodwind & deep cello. Grief
& jubilance shoot through my bones. When Nadya
discovered an American grocery with it’s whole cream,
lobster & double chocolate cake, she squalled with joy.

Category
Poem

Another morning

Once again as the day starts to begin,
my mind recognizes that you no longer live
and I wonder how many times I will
have to come to that realization every morning

Will the knowledge that you died, 
eventually make its way into my mind as a fact?
Will I eventually stop thinking about you every day 
and wonder what you would be doing if you were here?

My mama’s heart longs to nurture you again,
but I know that God’s care is so much better and
you are not only healed, but happy and wholly nurtured
by your heavenly father and now you have no needs.

Now, I must start my day, nurture those that are present
with me, while the gaping hole in my heart swells with pain
and I wonder how I can get through this, yet knowing that the
same God that you now reside with, holds me in his arms as I grieve.

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

State of the Garden (Dizain)

The hummingbirds have stayed away this year
the feeder fouled with crust, suspended ants,
hollyhocks a cleaner vein of nectar.
Beyond the raised garden bed, weeds extant
climbing things, saplings, leafy random plants
flourish, only the back fence to contain
their frenetic impulse to reach, attain
supremacy over this little patch.
It’s with great sadness and no little pain
I surrender — Mother has won this match. 

Category
Poem

The Process

Every time I get better, I get worse

Every time you’re gone, you come back

Dragging yourself out of the muck

A discarded nightmare come back to haunt me

Eager to wrap your hands around my throat

And hear the melody I scream, your name

Ripped out of my body, my dignity

A masochistic wheel spins in my brain

It replays only you

Like a hot iron to skin

I hear it crack and screech

Feeling the pain

Watching it shrivel

I’m so scared of so much

You coming back

You leaving again

You staying away

But more than anything

I’m scared you’ll never leave me

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

Zero Turn

 

The lawn
(steep and rock strewn
tries to kill me every time
the grass grows too tall to ignore)
mower
  

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

To be Read

read me like an old love letter

let the worn page rest like silk in your hands
 
close your eyes and recite each line from memory
let each whispered word become a cherished recollection
 
brush your fingers along the carefully crafted contents
and etch your response in invisible ink
 
in the lines above 
or below
or beside
the original message
 
press the page to your chest
let your lungs fill with breath
 
exhale when you think you’ve read enough
and read it again (and again)
 
like you did the last time,
when it was a tender memory of the first time in your hands
 
Registration photo of Carol for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

In the Unlikely Event

Whenever there is a natural disaster of any kind,
We talk about it, and it is all over the news.
But for the unnatural things, when I was a kid,
People often balked at exposing it, and had many different views.  

I’m referring to the unnatural disaster of molesting of a child.
I’m sorry it happens; it happened to me, but of one thing I’m now rather glad
That many people expose it today, rather than hide it and allow it to continue
And aren’t as likely to blame the victim instead of the one who’s deeds were bad.

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Registration photo of Darlene Rose DeMaria for the LexPoMo 2025 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

sounds of meditation

what does deep silence look like?
how does it feel?
does it move or is it still?
does it impart an intoxicating essence?

deep breath in, fill belly, solar plexus, and chest
deep breath out, spine waves in a deflating balloon motion
sounds grow loud inside

eyes close, body still, legs crossed, back straight, 
attention draws inward
listening ~ deepens on the finest level of feeling
as mantra is introduced

can light be heard in the third eye center?

water slushes sounds so loud
as descending colon flows in a harmonic rhythm

frontal brain
heart brain
belly brain
align

breath flow shallows ~ as the sigh of a capped cry is released
thoughts fleet to an unanswered prayer
as distractions flood the mind and
loud busy thoughts swim by

Where is the mantra?

come back to the sound, the breath, the rhythm

inhale
exhale

the thought of a TM checker’s question comes to mind
asking, ‘it’s easy right?’

the mind flits from thought to thought
eventually lands back on the breath

breathe in . . . breathe out

only sound allowed ~ mantra 
mantra’s soul purpose
to calm mind chatter 
to deepen silence

soul’s silk weaving dances even in the midst of
this inner incessant chatter 

and in the deepest stillness
on the finest level of feeling
despite the barrage of thoughts
and blatant cacophy of distractions 
a faint sweet sound still prevails

OM
sweet
OM

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

Prove You’re Human

Pandas are black and _____
“white”
I type in the virtual box
Suddenly,
I am
CAPTCHA-ed
by Algorithmic God

I am human
I have proof

I can check boxes
filled  with  buses

I can retype those
lava  lamp  letters

I don’t phish
I just wish… 

…   I could type how I felt the night
the woman who would be my wife
picked me up at a Cincinnati hotel

prayed at Plum Street Temple
then shared a chardonney
at a Hyde Park bar

sitting as conjoined twins
on a couch in  the  lounge
she   seamlessly  molding
her body   to mine in true
lava  lamp  letter  fashion

That can’t  fill  the  blank
Just answer the question

while thanking Algorithmic God
enthroned in the Cloud  on  high
that pandas are black and white