Bespoke Idyll
March 15, 2026

thy hand be stayed, o useless bag of flesh, o horror torn of eld
we do not cry thee stay thy hand, we harsh deny thy stationing
we stand upon thy new-dug grave, to bury what we’ve felled

your carriage flayed, your garnish-fist has long enough withheld
by starvelings and creelings, manipulation binding rationing
thy hand be stayed, o useless bag of flesh, o horror torn of eld

scabrous be frayed, thy grasp delaying mesh, of signal lost in weld
who’d blind entire arbitrations, who’d hide in blandished fashioning
we stand upon thy new-dug grave, to bury what we’ve felled

know history, writ violent and large, stings low and quick to geld
who’d proud their name in ashen wing, retire soft to fash’n sing
thy hand be stayed, o useless bag of flesh, o horror torn of eld

no amnesty, no quaint upstaged retreat, shall grant surcease thy velde
where languishing share-cropped a-dust, do durt a-wash o’er everything
we stand upon thy new-dug grave, to bury what we’ve felled

then justified, who so our crops betrayed, who ‘pon a pittance seld
we’ve come unto thy rangled rust, frowst empire scoured fawning
thy hand be stayed, o useless bag of flesh, o horror torn of eld
we stand upon thy new-dug grave, to bury what we’ve felled

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#poem #ChallengePoem #poetry #writing

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Challenge: Villanelle (Poem Style) (Why would you do that to me), Ides Of March

And, complain as I might, that was a hell of a lot of fun. Not often I feel compelled to swing my grandparents' language like an axe.

This Is A Tank
March 8, 2026

we’re trying to tell off adventurers again
going into the dungeon, those negative doofs –
you need a tank, you need a tank, you need –
no, we need you to listen

our tank is just a little guy
they’re built five one and agitated
your colossi with their shattered legs of bone
know nothing of their finest stance
nor their untroubled visage

then laughter, because of course
discount the lass, discount dodge tanks generally
get all up and personal, maybe she should
tank this, until Ellodia, pissed
signs form seven

which is where we jump-scare our tank
unleashing our strongest essential violence
backstabs, hammer to head, lightning
while our innocent little guy
not dodging in the slightest
holds out a raw chicken
glum look on their face

damnit, guys
I thought you were going fire
you know I’m weak to salmonella

* * *

#poem #poetry #writing #LitRPG #ChallengePoem

Short Life
March 8, 2026

my therapist-in-a-box tells me
life is a laundry list, wash something
my laundry, in neat stacks, clean
lines shelves where other folks
perhaps less organized
would have a dresser

I didn’t ask for a therapist-in-a-box
it arrived in the mail from an acquaintance
henceforth referred to as that idiot
with a note that said –
it helped me so much –

my

this name is too long
let’s go with short-life
for, y’know, reasons

interrupts my meditation
to inform me that meditation
is a healthy and functional activity
life is a laundry list
let’s check that off

it has interrupted me
seventeen times since I plugged it in
no power switch, no off
decal smile and happy tones
self-inserting

life is a laundry list
let’s check something off

unplugged, I can hear it
voiceless, banging away in the dryer
and I have to admit
the therapy is working

* * *

#ChallengePoem #poem #poetry #writing #AnitAI

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Challenge: AI "Therapy"

The quotes were in the challenge request.

A Dozen Mid Years
February 14, 2026

we used to lose people in the old swimming hole
nestled by briar and oak, little rill, little drop
until blue, black, bottomless you’d find a waiting
cool at the edge of that comfort just below body
salvation in summer, bathed in its own winter smoke
ice and snowpack at season-close, table rock
swagger-laired up above, a perfection grape-heavy
year round, cold-sweet going summer savory
we’d laugh it was to be taking a bite of someone
lean into leg-thick vining, tree-bound indistinguishable
chuckling half-serious about drinking and drowning
that you’d know it was coming, just know, that part
never being funny, nor intended so, just truth
cat-kicker what in all other ways fit, turning up
soft and rounded half-through pasture at the hang-up
little meander that ran into rock, stopped
undercut its bank, not invisible from path
but not drawing attention until, color off, that’s a hand
foot, face, been a couple years since the last
gilt stripped after the fact, guilt applied, maybe
purely by happenstance, but we’d start saying
yeah, it’s a hole that eats what it wants, sends it on
daughter a dozen fields over making boy-catchers
of pollen and silk with dry spiders in, husband
lighting up children, marks lost even below shorts
good-witch, loved by all until after, basement dug
every missing pet turns up, and most of a family
so we say we used to lose people in the swimming
our first love somewhere below body tepid, who
as we swim down, swim down into bottomless
swims into us, finding what’s to be made of finding
takes back a stretch of what’s hunting us sometimes
another body, regular as regular, but after, it’s still
little rill, little drop, ripples sucking themselves under
which we’d sometimes plop a petal in, say –
it’s been a mid year, some good, some bad
and we know we can’t thank you, but love
if you’re listening, we’ll keep coming for swimming

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#poem #poetry #writing #ChallengePoem #horror

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Challenge: Murder Hole

Unauthorized Contact
February 13, 2026

first noise complaint post I saw go up was on alt.angst in 1991
there’d been a few more in thread, but the goth Sinatra party
where the alt with the angst were having tea and velvet voice
turned way down, struck a chord, leading me walkies up-chain
thinking, that way of speaking, that sounds very like where I
in 1990, opened the door half-asleep to the entire police force

it’s important to the story that the town was small, but had
if I memory serves, two senators and a presidential candidate
rolling their best lives on the edges, rich before mcmansions
so the ratio of officers to townsfolk was a bit unreasonable
with the ratio of them to me and my high school friends
significantly more so, as they said there’s been a noise complaint

there was, in fact, a noise, a fifty-seven hertz not-power hum
but it’s gone quiet more than an hour ago, lights are out
winter-silence in powder snow-fall being all extra-so
but on being told they’d be coming in to check the scene
I declined, no warrant, no probable cause – they entered anyway
age before easy video, what’s a bunch of kids gonna do

no noise was discovered, no noise was present, four officers
unaware that a town with senators might have senator kids
ejected from force, no retirement, quietly hired down-state
retirement reinstated, so that was a bit of a scandal, but
here’s the post, and that’s the same damn sound, so I anon –
hey, if that’s this town, this sound, this problem, give a yell –

upshot, fake names, site recon, that’s a whole lot of vans
emitting a whole lot more heat and RF than you’d expect
say, from plumbers, drive on, hometown’s gone weird
but cheap o-scope’s pulled Heinz-o-hertz just fine, triangulation
a matter of a couple passes and some easy trig, as one does
maybe just lucky, big bridge missing some graffiti

concrete thicker than other spots, friend I’ve recruited muttering
how nothing would be that obvious, someone else already
must have done pass-throughs, found something, but vans
posted upriver, don’t seem to be near flooded parking lot
ice dams all built up before spring waters get serious rise
while we park uphill, shrug, work our way through shrubbery

find clean spots, skin-temp abutment on contact, vibration
all the way to bone, shifting pitch, fifty-seven to sixty-three
which, a couple years in chamber music, means hum along
maybe a bit of harmony, maybe a bit of tapping in time
knock, y’know, knock, a friendly sort of maybe hello
whatever you are, hello, thus the news stories that followed

* * *

#poem #poetry #writing #ChallengePoem #SF #SciFi

* * *

Challenge: Noise

* * *

Brought to you by a real life bridge where graffiti was *somehow* cleaned off one large, very difficult to reach section, to the confusion of my much younger self.

Liquidity
August 26, 2024

our love is worn as scalpels done in grist
claiming surgery, leaving inclusions
where better potion rivers we have fished
caching from our bark, ivy intrusions

rubbed wrong, debridement backs our civil test
cross-drawn, conceals where our wounds begin
‘til aftercare leaves incense to congest
unclean deliberation laves auxin

cellular we raid our withered petals
a-draft in cherry blossom fall come dusk
chrome pinked, sky pillars reflect where our walls
in stainless bends towards stainless ends, vow rusk

agreed, our shine revivifies our drop
exacting turgor pressure, never stop

* * *

#poem #poetry #writing #ChallengePoem

* * *

Thank you for feeding a vac the good ramen with this challenge, but by the gods and kittens, WHAT. Pretty sure some kind soul is throwing money purely to watch my brain melt from a distance.

The Nine Sun Tzu Hungers
February 13, 2022

in dispersive ground, takeaway will do
a curry is ideal, so long as there is plenty
family togetherness is important
potluck is likewise ideal
but should not be easily transported
until the meal is complete
socialization increases togetherness

cooking here is a hearth away from home
often friendly, invariably temporary

in facile ground, takeaway will still do
but trained for easy movement
cold pizza, rice balls, and dumplings

cooking here is a hearth one has attained
often unfriendly, and transience is heightened

in contentious ground, whether by takeaway
or by logistics train, meals best those things
slipped easily into pockets – pasties, wrapped rice
dry meat and hard cheese that lasts in cool
in heat, best reduced to cured things

cooking here is the illusion of hearth
a smokeless fire, a camp soup under guard
easily chugged for rolling motion

in open ground, trail food is cured meat
fruit and fat in mix, marching food
riding food, the food of tight-packed logistics
always in train, and sometimes the surprises
that takeaway has arrived all the same
wrapped in that contemporary combination of lies
meals, ready, to eat

cooking here is in snatches, hearthless
but still, toasting bread and fat is home-memory
warm and remembering, or foraged

on intersecting highways, takeaway may do again
and it begins to sound as though
takeaway will almost always do
but it’s only sometimes that delight of filling sandwich
or meat sliced in layers from the spit
in some comfortable roadside barracks or compong
prepared pits, both for cooking and for what’s left

cooking here is often comfort, but aware
that train is train is train, fast flowing
and hearth surrounded is rapidly removed

in serious ground, one’s hearths are stolen
quiet, often dark, stock a question of train
or of forage, and whatever food one makes
by invention or sacrifice, will have to do
and still one finds takeaway at times
but trusts it ill, and checks the wells

cooking here is a map of cascade
procured by train, or waylaid
one step from hunger

in difficult ground, often one finds the best of foods
provided one travels small, sweet, and quiet
delicious things in wilderness, small train for spice
those weird moments of takeaway when monastery’s beer
thinned twice and breaded, make clear one’s memories
goat and deer taken comfortably

cooking here is smokeless fire and time
resting and moving, resting and moving
an endurance dinner, and then another

hemmed ground, one’s dinner is trained
whatever can fit the gaps, manage the paths
seeking that one place where one might rest
controlled of position, and of a rock
make hearth and table both, for minutes or moments
before finding or breaking contact
just stuffing whatever in, and moving

cooking here is reaching into pack or pocket
miming the memory of warm things
where takeaway might arrive from above at any moment
an avalanche of stone, or adversary

in death ground, food is rolling waves
because failing to eat is failing to live
a matter of time, of endurance, of seeking breaks
the childhood games at quarry, medic yelling
hydrate, sealing what they can
moving on, and mouth full
plugging the hole

cooking here is the cauldron
food is everyone, a stew
in chaos formed

* * *

#poem #writing #poetry #warfare #ChallengePoem

There are *so* many problems with both imperialism and Sun Tzu's many English-speaking interpretations that adding one more seems a terrible plan. As a challenge poem, I'm willing to give it a shot, but *shrugs* nearly every story I know - and all of those I've experienced - in combat environments surrounding food are this mash of, "Thank pants, food, a spot of comfort," And watching the progression of bad things stack, knowing what comes next is going to be trouble.

There's always that underlying knowledge that what's supporting one's owns stomach is something someone else didn't get, whether by poverty, or because the food was outright stolen, or because everyone's hungry and consuming the dregs of land unplanted are making things much, much worse.

The request on this was, "Make it light hearted if possible," And while there are light-hearted moments in the context of warfare pretty regularly, the overall progression towards desperate (death) ground is unspeakably awful. One gets through it or doesn't, and the awful is set aside - often for the survivors to break on later.

And yet, here's delicious food as an ideal, a centering point, and sometimes that's a thing that works, even in the worst of the mix.