Fall 2025 Poetry Challenge

I thought it would be interesting to try to write a poem every day for three weeks, to see if I could improve as a writer and also to have something relaxing to do. I wrote most of these very late at night, in 10 minutes or less. I missed some days and therefore had to write two the next day.

Plant the seeds with fervor
From the palms of your hands to earth
Some seasons bring upon the blight,
a crackling and sinister withering that leaves the harvest crooked
The sky may strike with malice And some days are just simply not right
We must tend to the garden nonetheless
  

Some days, it brings gold
A dragon of emerald
We horde everything
  

Off a path, beaten not in the years of the present,
but in the conquests of yore,
lies a clocktower.
The clocktower is adorned as an unsettling blade,
with no crumbling stones.

A face of oppression, that
even in the cusps of night,
emits the light of a single torch.

It ticks,
in accordance with the cycles of the cosmos.
And when it snows
The one thing worse than its stare
is the absence of its chime
  

Epiphanies of the worst kind
are really around one for a while
When one least expects it, but
not because of a hidden nature
Like lamps on in the middle of the afternoon
They often come not too soon,
but when we do not want them too
  

We must keep running
whether it’s as a pea plant
crawling in the direction of water
or the tides lapping at the beach
trying to make their way to shore
  

Like seeing snow as a child
and never seeing it again.
Like a note read every day,
from way back when,
before it was lost.

The fact that for every olive tree that sprouts,
for every treaty forged in a hall of mirrors,
and for every overcome drought,
some feelings will never be amended.
  

Our leaves do not change
Not to red, yellow, orange
Instead, they crumble
  

The light from a fire
is a sight to admire
To be bottled up, siphoned, and sold
as lanterns

Just as a field of wildflowers
descends into
a bed of briars
  

Frog of strange matter
Return to the dark abyss
primordial lake
  

Frog of strange matter
Return to the dark abyss
primordial lake
  

Two years ago,
a man wept, as he mourned
the absence of corn.

That winter,
little food graced the table. Indeed,
a period to be considered quite forlorn.

Today, the man is surrounded
by acres of 
barley, carrots, potatoes, squash, and corn.

And yet a mistake,
the season’s squash withers!
The man forgot to tend the soil
He rests
on the verge of turmoil once more.

And yet, as the light of Spring comes around,
the tulips and hyacinths bloom
as they have for decades.
As they unfold,
the Earth hums.
  

At the grocery store,
I ran into someone.

On a patch of grass in a park
of blue gardens,
we met under the fading sun.
And then on the edge of the beach,
where our footsteps echoed
over the water

And at a carnival
where aromas and food roar,
we met once more.

I wonder when our paths will cross for real.
  

The shelves shift around
A library where time creeps
Knowledge is perpetual
  

Three years ago,
it was a concoction of grain, potato
ginger, and lime
that cost me,
what I once thought a lifetime.

Longer ago,
it was missing a plane.

Today,
it was a text that I had not predicted would injure.

If I focus on that night in the rain,
that lost ticket to the show,
or that blunder in the springtime,
I will miss the metro.
  

Like chords off the strings of a violin,
the bittersweet hints draw nearer

The glasses of 75, left behind on mantles
String lights and lanterns no longer catch people through transit
Gardens of cypress and lavender breathe sighs of relief

The street lights
catch someone who enjoys talking.
  

The gaps between stars
are dark and desolate
Yet house nurseries
  

Would you leave the house five minutes earlier?
Or perhaps have ordered coffee from a different shop
You could have approached that problem in a different way

Would you remove the blade?
You cannot redo.
  

The ice cube does not warm up the bottom of a drink
A gazelle among lions will not become apex
The smoke from the rooftops ascends into the universe
A squirrel cannot learn to fly
You cannot breathe without lungs

But sometimes,
the heart must make decisions.
  

Blessed is the
whale that
teaches others how to swim
but lets itself suffocate.

The metronome
that dictates tempo
of the hymn
but loses track of its own time.

The person
who forgot how to live long ago.
  

I know a place
This is it

This is it
This is the house where
it all went wrong
where I realized someone didn’t belong
where I lost track of
where I was meant to be

This is it
This is the cliffside where
it all went wrong
where we spent too much time
contemplating the things
that didn’t define us
where the grasses rolled like the tide

This is it
This is the restaurant where
it all went wrong
where we fought over
the things that we thought mattered
where you left me
in the middle of summer

This is it
This is the house where
it all went wrong
where I returned in search of answers
where the wind made the string lights clink
  

There are
many things and people in this world

There are hundreds of thousands
passing through these near-cyberpunk lights and
billboards

And less lining
the penthouses
among the champagne and the stars

There are millions of trees in this sea of green
A refuge in and under the canopies,
an ancient pillar that flows with the
changing of the seasons

And less in a forest
comprised of sycamores, figs, and acacia

There are hundreds of billions
of cosmic furnaces
that once gave life
to everything and everyone we know.

And less within our own grasps
Less that we can see in their glory

There are one hundred trillion
connections in our brains
responsible for much of our thoughts
and emotions
and dreams

There are a septillion atoms
in this cup of tea
on a table we once shared

There are thirty people in this room
And eight billion more than I will ever get to know on this planet
There are over
a hundred billion stories
that I may never know

The number that matters the most to me
is the amount of times
your name appears in my
journals and thoughts

And the amount of times you
call my name
or I say yours