2025 has been totally relaxing for me
I have been retired for a year which fills me with glee
It was time too, as I am now seventy-three
2025 was incredible of me, for my days were all free
I did not have to drive anywhere, so I stayed home to play
I once had to drive on the interstate two hours a day
Writing poetry and painting whisked my imagination away
My time was my own, for that I yell a “hooray!”
2025 has been a year to play with my huge pony dogs
I take them outside where they lay down like two logs
We have woods and meadow, we even have two bogs
But no one was moving, in the early morn fogs
I did not have to do this, that, or the other
I had time to visit my sister, mother and brother.
2025 was a year where I slowed down in every way
Every minute was exciting, every day a great day
They accuse me of cutting of my cock
Just to wear a frock
And hang about in bogs
When all I want
Is the peace to piss
Or to piss in peace
Just another of their
Disgusting spiels
Designed to turn me extreme
But hate is there language
Not mine I just rhyme
Im happy it’s gone
My meaty schlong
It just hung there all flaccid
It was always so wrong
But it never once said
Get this straight in your head
That off I should go
On the chance
A women to catch
In the stench of the lavs
I mean
Who’s idea was that
What warped mind
Full of hate could create
Such absurdist disgrace
Or maybe they reveal
A piece of them selves
All twisted and dark
So self loathing and reviled
Then push it out on the world
Rather than live with their shame
So as billionaires burn the world to the ground
And presidents and princes
Abuse kids with no charges
Of course they want you focused on me
Cos I’m the real threat
Cos I cut of my cock
in all of the magical bogs in Mystical Valley
there resides a Wizard Frog whose name is McNally
McNally keeps his ideas to himself, and acts silly sometimes
But the rest of us know he can out-magic-all of the nines
The nines refers to the coven of witches up on the hill
Their magic can turn you into a lamp or moonshine still
McNally’s gifts are held secret by those of us who want to live
But he is more powerful than the rest, said my cousin Miv.
Could not help it as they yelp it..
What happens.. to all those vlogs & blogs
Twits gambits titbits.. s**t squits just flogs
Winces... pretend princes kisses.. not frogs
No jogs linen togs greedy seedy needy hogs
Tramping and stamping in glamping clogs
Annoying and as cloying as Yanks egg nogs
Just one of mean Dubai AI lie machine cogs
Gloating just floating logs in boating bogs
Raves as Knaves or Slaves sent to the dogs
Toying & deploying tanks on the gollywogs
Agog synagogues trogs slogs..Persian sprogs..
The west wind walks the Burren stone,
where silence roots in lime,
and whispers through the hawthorn bones
of older, buried time.
A lone crow cuts the salted air
above the Cliffs of Moher,
its cry a thread the ancients wear
when mortal songs grow lower.
The heather bends in purple grief
on bogs that hold their dead,
each step a hush, each breath a leaf
of names the soil has said.
At dusk the Sídhe stir the ground,
their silver laughter near,
not seen, but felt in hollow sound
that chills the inward ear.
A selkie weeps along the shore,
half-heart in skin, half-sea,
her longing stitched to ocean’s roar
no land can set her free.
Old stories hum in Gaelic tone
through stones that will not yield,
for Ireland’s pulse is not her own—
it beats in myth and field.
3rd Place
Green to the Gills
Contest Judged: 4/4/2026 7:35:00 PM
Sponsored by: Daniel Henry Rodgers
Casual witch was covered with newts, polliwogs and frogs
She was determined to find a barnyard and incorporate some hogs
Thinking she was buggers, I turned and walked toward the bogs
Be careful! She yelled after me, those alligators pretend they are logs.
This gave me pause, and I slowed down my steps somewhat.
I walked past a garbage dumpster, a forest, and a gray hut.
Wondering if casual witch knew anything more than me.
Ouch! An alligator bit off my leg at the knee.
Death walks slowly down the street
with the hood pulled way down low
ain't no sound no not even his feet
his hourglass ready to go
are you ready hey are you ready for this
are you sitting on the edge of your seat
out of the doorway the soul-scythe rips
the end prepare to meet yeah
'bomp' 'bomp' 'bomp'
another goes to the dogs
'bomp' 'bomp' 'bomp'
another falls off his log
and another one gone and another one gone
another one down the bogs
hey I'm gonna get you too
another one pops his clogs
With apologies to Freddie Mercury (1946 – 1991) & Queen
Rattling through the bogs, my love in limbo
Battling against the odds, arms akimbo
Too late to tear down the walls that they've built
Ate a cat-o-nine tails and swallowed their guilt
They demanded, then broke, my humanity
Hot branded, and stoked, my insanity
Purely for sport, the game, and the kill
With orders to READY, AIM, and FIRE at will
Now hobbled in pain, where the crossroads meet
On a cobblestone lane, with unshod feet
I've groped, so long on this road, I'll just say
I've hoped, I've dreamed, now I'll just fade away
Take a plane, ungrateful one, to a distant land...
Don't forget to walk the straightest path.
Freedom bogs down quickly in shifting sand.
You may have to cover your body from head to toe.
You may get a lash for dancing with your Beu.
You may get caned for walking alone.
You may be married off to a stranger.
Your worth is measured in skinny cattle and goats.
Walk the straightest of paths, ungrateful one.
Keep your faith close to the vest.
Or you may spend years in prison or even lose your head.
If they find out you're gay, it may be your last earthly day.
When you come back to your host country, ungrateful one.
Will your vision still be opaque and hateful?
Have you gathered any lessons, or are you too stubborn?
Will you still burn- loot- rape - obstruct.
Will you still spit on your freedoms, paid for in blood?
Will your privileged and entitled attitude shift?
Like the shifting sand you just experienced.
Next time, take a one-way plane, ungrateful one
I don't think you'll ever change.
Hodgepodge of high-brow, hoity-toity happy hogs
Happened upon a wagonload of St Bernard dogs
In a hocus-pocus way they turned them into logs
You do not fool with a witch’s razorbacks in these bogs.
I thank the sun ...
The soil, the summer rain,
I thank the apple tree
The fields of golden grain
I thank the corn crops
And the pumpkin patch,
I thank the warm barn
Where new poults hatch
I thank Tom turkey ...
From down on the farm,
And the good old farmer
Who caused him no harm
I thank the potato fields
And the pecan trees,
I thank the earth ...
For bogs of cranberries
I thank this land ...
The sky and the air,
For giving all of us
These things to share.
I Form - Imagism 9-18-24 6-20 lines
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Golden Kiss
Summer bows out and leaves a golden kiss
Maize dozes in mellow aster afternoons
Orange glows on future jack-o-lanterns
Multicolor bumpy gourds ride snaking vines
Yellow corn silks dance like razzle dazzles
Apples drink in the fading crimson sun
Sunflowers sigh -autumn storms breach the sky
Geese with twilight on their wings see new stars
Ruby gems of cranberries swim in bogs
Purple grapes soak in the warmth for harvest
Twirling leaves leave frosty lace skeletons
Fuzzy bees bid adieu to yellow days
Tawny acorns shiver in the cold nights
Fall wears an amber blush of jubilee.
I’ve heard it said that poetry is dead
But I don’t believe that’s true.
It runs in our veins like water to rain
Somewhere inside me and you.
It’s up in the air, in circles and squares
And oceans, rivers and tides,
In cats and dogs, bayous and bogs,
In taverns and tall rocket rides.
For life is an ocean of poetry in motion
Though we can’t always hear its rhyme,
As it twists and turns, beckons and yearns
Throughout our lives and minds.
Poetry lives in the love we give
One another from day to day,
Intrinsic in nature like Ursa Major
And all the music we hear and play.
While tilling a garden
Or gazing at stars,
Poetry is in motion
Wherever we are.
In photography, paintings
And all manner of the arts,
That move our minds
And stir our hearts.
And while some may deny
The plain simple truth…
This life is a poem
That needs no proof.
© Terrell Martin
09/08/2024
Beneath the fury of sun
Wades a wobbly nun
Stomping on thorns
Watch the teary ferns
Scars on her skin
Carrying wounds engraved
Curse devious grin
And snakes she once craved
She sucked and spitted
Bouts of venom in her blood
Tainted by flood
Of emotions she once knitted
Profuse tears of fern
They observe
Drip on her burn
Numbing pain so perverse
Weeped the clouds
In meloncholic ambience
Silence crept loud
Spotting redemption in defiance
Step out the vines
Adorning her bruises
Wind's penchant to divine's
Yearning, she refuses
Blanket of ferns
Ease her shivers
While the moon upturns
Bogs were her new weavers
Time passed by
Has been watching the sky
Fern decays
Her soul repays
Reverse Engineering a Surreal Eden.
To grow a mountain, - - - - - right!
In, an old jam jar, yeh right!
Of clean soil, Soil! Isn’t that soiled?
Such a seed could be, soiled and would be exclusive;
Perhaps part time growing in window box?
May save the roof? No rain mind, just a tarry dim sun,
Breezed by a filthy wind ; alone!
in its eroded scraggy day, while
expanding, a different slice of the colour green.
Pushed skywards, it all looks the same!
What about Apples and Snakes?
and our engineered countryside,
of plastic and glass, filling allotments,
with mirrors for the gods! And soured bogs.
Eyes only open at jar breaking time
Its stop tap, but no tap to stop, too late,
And – the mountain? We shall keep it
Under the bed, so it can’t be seen.
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.