poem written for this week's poetry challenge (8/17/2026): Write a poem without using the letter 'e.'
A small wind lifts
the day’s soft curtain,
and childhood drifts through
like a familiar song.
Old paths glow
with that slow, warm light
that knows my footprints
by heart.
I walk forward,
carrying all my origins
like bright shards
in a turning glass~
a kind of living
kaleidoscope.
In avoidance of pain & turmoil
I free myself from stubborn resistance
if Zeno of Citium were my guide
I’d fly, I’d glide, I’d know,
the natural order of the universe
instead I tumble where perception
lacks & tiers collide, I ride its waves
through chambers of vibrance,
scaled up or down, heaping hues,
strapping shapes & piercing patterns
of visual vignettes, graffiti graphics
toward tangency, I roam
rows of layered loops sorted
clarity rings forward, there is
a center piece lotus flower,
its wafting pollen stands still
as its petals protect me from falling
Electrolytes spark spasmodically
oscillate, bursting braincells
designs designate higher plains
I thirst for more euphoric phantasmagoria
& chase this balm through twisted tangles
& wiry webs of rebirth, a new existence calms
where soul separate from flesh explore
near death’s domain, a non-existence
free from outside influence
from stubborn resistance
fatigue & fallacy is painless
& in this immortal matrix,
I am faceless
each day
is my living wake
I wish you cared
& they weren't fake
my eyes are dry
tears made of dust
never mind
no one's fussed
all the f"cks
& suppressed damns
are my quiet poetry slams
rotate the fear
rearrange
the dread
ego & id
are well fed
days unlived
nights unslept
scarcity of love is kept
no howls of pain
but they twist & turn
retina & eyelids burn
tunnel vision
bottlenecks
sort through
my personal effects
recalibration
set in stone
through it all
I felt alone
reaching out
with brightly coloured gem
fear itself
I couldn't stem
hold the image
lock in view
lose balance
as all askew
life made up
of pretty rubble
but I'll commit
to be no trouble
Lost in a blizzard's cold snowdrifts,
please know, I appreciate your gifts -
a plethora of desolation,
loneliness and isolation,
a pincushion of every harm,
empty hands and empty arms,
a surplus and a plenitude
of everlasting solitude,
a kaleidoscope of emotional pain
torrents of rainbowless rain,
a carousel of cosmic confusion,
a cornucopia of disillusion.
I'll raise a glass, and just say, "Cheers!"
and return a reservoir of tears.
Repeated explanations shutter,
lights crawls through,
storing, and new glass encompasses over years.
Reds first flood into pink,
which bleeds into the silky handiwork of the toy maker,
a testament of effort and a drag in the dirt where wrists ache.
Chapters sculpt where lessons are learnt.
Green sidelines uniform greys where improvement and deterioration mean the same thing.
White pools where words were suspended and boiled to molten.
Blue hope swirls actively amongst it all, the promise of a fly’s infatuation to embrace the inside of a shell.
Colour explodes and light fractures through once saturated,
No matter an attempt at dignity, it bleeds through in a ray of illness all the same, shaking fingers glow a pink hue.
“I told you I was sick” echoed in the mind and it reverberates in the glass,
reds shine through upon reflection from blue, green and orange.
The image it makes stark against the atmosphere’s ivory.
The patterns stain all that the eyes drink with the pressing distant promise of return.
Pink flamingo,
Wading in the shadows,
A splash of coral in the sun,
Shining in the water,
Blushing brightly.
drops of color
from the painter's palette
blue, orange, yellow, brown, gray, red
in infinite blackness
the planets turn
iris diffuse
colour irrelevant
silver slivers radialize
as dark emotions pass
light cadences
kaleidoscope
eyes remain core's mirrors
refracts every rainbow facet
ascending prisms delight
iris is bridge
___________________
Third Placement: Standard
Sponsor: Sotto Poet
June 26
As I slowly
Turned kaleidoscope's
Wheel, thinking a repeat as last
A scene shocked; horror seen
Years from my past
In my garden
Rays of the rising sun
Spin bright hues on dews on flowers
as sunbeams on glasses~
Nature`s wonder.
With the sunrise
Colours dance in my soul
As I gaze at hues on flowers
Like light on a clear prism~
Nature`s sweet gift.
whirl of colors
plastic scope fills the eye-
a mini cosmic galaxy
comes alive on the lens-
faux endless space
the colors whirl
the space scope hunts the sky-
a massive cosmic galaxy
comes alive on the screen-
real endless space
Contest: Waka-Sonnet Fragment Poetry Contest
Sponsored: Sotto Poet
Date: May 21, 2026
The lens at play
A tube filled with bright players
Dancing throughout reflected prisms
Each step symmetrical
Colorful waltz
Motif mélange
turns in patterned time wheel.
Rhapsody spectrum designs dreams,
spinning in mental grip.
Cloned snapshots fuse.
this funny tube
breaks real life apart
multiplies and rearranges
makes psychedelia
set to reverse
Fractal patterns
fascinate her young world
changing each time the wheel is spun~
if only such magic
would let her in.
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