Registration photo of Coleman Davis for the LexPoMo 2026 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Just an Observation

    

All of these poems dropping like snowflakes through coal-dust
each flake glyphed in it’s slow spiraling descent learning to soar.
Thirty poems in thirty days, so we respond, Y‘all know this is nuts.
 
And we write, saddle up! We write at dawn! it’s just that we must
time spaces and letters in places the letters are allowed to roar.
All of these poems dropping like snowflakes through coal-dust.
 
A gathering of poets in a one room schoolhouse, a mycillial fuss
a crayon drawing in a physics book gives an answer and a score,
thirty poems in thirty days, as we respond, Y’all know, this is nuts!
 
Many writings built quick and some cast in concrete just for fun
and oh joy! seeing one about the sea leaves me giggling ashore.
All of these poems dropping like snowflakes through coal-dust,
 
from the fires, phones, and fever-dreams come prayers of a just
asking and telling, whispers and yelling, sharing, caring or more
Thirty poems in thirty days, so we respond, Y’all know this is nuts.
 
A physics test left on a chair, colored in. Outside the known ruts
who knows, maybe poetry changes the world, touches the core
all of these poems dropping like snowflakes through coaldust.
Thirty poems in thirty days, so we respond, Y’all know this is nuts?
                                                                                                 
  
* shoutout to Sue Leathers. ” we write at dawn ” ….. 😀
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Registration photo of Goldie for the LexPoMo 2026 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

(commemorative) postage stamp

labyrinth plaid

wood-panelling
sesame seeds incensed
             to unspeakable 
                     sweetness
children
holding
hands
                     the pallor of
frost-flensed sycamores
holding court 
on slashes
         cryptic stench of gas, fresh
                               cigarette ashes, chasing
                               untraceable meaning and being
                               and innocence, emptied
creases 
clenched,
uncrumpled, still
some slain crane cramped, caught 
freed from the doddering whac-
a-mole gavel’s im-
pacted, cracked, 
protracted and 
gravelly slip-
stream,
strip
ping
 
the weight of this
bindle-knit, taped,
and umbilical gait, gouged
round around sallowing links and the
thinkpiece carpark car-
nival-barking pachinko parlors
gods-made-flesh are displacing the 
lot of our parks for—here’s
 
the hand-cramped stamp I’ll
send to the mayor about 
data centers, trying to
stitch all our pockets to-
gether to one gilt, hem-
orrhaging windsock:
 
labyrinth plaid
wood-panelling 
sesame seeds incensed 
             to unspeakable 
                     sweetness
children
holding
hands
and
 
everything
memory marries
to feeling
mortal again
to feeling merely
human.
Registration photo of Makia Adkins for the LexPoMo 2026 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Impulsive and Compulsive

Eating.

Shopping.

Lying.

Drinking.

Eye Rolling.

Talking.

Stalking.

Playing.

Sexing.

Texting.

Sexting.

Driving.

Starting.

Ending.

Manipulating.

Dating.

Dumping.

Humiliating.

Medicating.

Living.

Loving.

I am Impulsive and Compulsive….

What about you?

Registration photo of Manny Grimaldi for the LexPoMo 2026 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Reflections

In shame, I seek forgiveness, 
never to stop looking for it. Mother, 
dysfunction lulls the furnace—
Father, dysfunction, dampens

the furnace. Frozen, the lakes once 
beautiful, now not a hint of flowing water.
Father says
I am his failure,

and my failure,
to not have stood up 
as he taught me.

I cannot breathe. My lips drawn,
a dry ink pen writing 
deadsy shattered sonnets.

 

 

 

Registration photo of L. Coyne for the LexPoMo 2026 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Better Luck Next Time

The hummingbird came back today
For that fake wreath upon my door

I have to wonder in his mind
If vengeance on me he so swore

For lack of nectar day by day
In plastic blooms on wooden door

Pretty sure I could take him, though

Registration photo of Jeremy Stacy for the LexPoMo 2026 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Porcelain Movement 3

How to Hold What Trembles

Their beauty carried its own syntax—
but the grammar was always the same.

A volatility I could read
like a sentence about to break.
Black hair falling like a curtain they can’t lift,
brown eyes shining like fired glaze,
porcelain skin showing the faintest web
of fractures beneath.

I could hear the pressure in them,
the fine porcelain singing
before it cracked.

They leaned against me
with the dead weight of a shelf-worn thing,
porcelain faces lifted toward me
as if I were the one person
who could keep them from breaking,

and I kept setting them upright.

I know that wanting.
I know how a doll can tremble
even before you touch her.

I, remembering how to hold what trembles,
opened my hands.

And they let me,
because I knew what it meant
to be too full
and too empty
at the same time.

Registration photo of Mary Knight for the LexPoMo 2026 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

The Best I Could Do

Baby bird falls hard

onto number sixteen green,

leaving nest for good.

 

I fold you down soft

into the rough, leaving you

is the hardest thing.

Registration photo of Linda Freudenberger for the LexPoMo 2026 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

There are two callers ahead of you

My question awaits
A real person that seems to be
in short supply now.

Registration photo of Pam Campbell for the LexPoMo 2026 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

American Sentence CXII

Railway Cat, claws retracted, paw-taps Cowboy’s cheek, cat incantation.

Registration photo of Kiah for the LexPoMo 2026 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Good Grief

I felt grief today.
In the oddest of ways.
I unfollowed someone who passed away.

I was in a rush, trying to get my follow count down.
The prompt asked, “Are you sure?”
As the action couldn’t be undone.

I was speedily clicking, yes, yes, yes.
I was eager to lower the number below my following.
Because I wanted to be like the “cool kids.”

I got into a routine, not paying attention to who I was parting ways with.
I mean, the list he was on was “least interacted with.”
What did it matter?

But it did.

The moment mattered when I realized I unfollowed him.
I don’t know why that made me feel like I lost something.
The thought of never being able to follow him again invaded my mind,
because the profile was set to private.

I will never see that media again.

Interestingly, while he was living, we weren’t even close.
He dated my friend and had a child with someone else I knew.
He wasn’t family, but I did date his brother.

After reflecting on the consequences of my actions,
I immediately felt sadness.

I remembered I still had him as a friend on another social media platform.
That provided some solace.
But I will never see that media again.

I decided to be more careful,
because I have others who have ascended in my follow count.
I still have the deceased in my phone contacts.

As people I know pass, I create digital photo albums featuring them.
I visit their social media pages. 
I keep screenshots of our messages…

I rarely feel deep pain or loss at the news of their transition.
It’s only when I lose the memories and connection—

the grief sets in.