# October 2022 Poetry Challenge



## rcallaci (Oct 1, 2022)

October 2022 Poetry Challenge

The prompt chosen by *jenthepen* this month is “No Warning” it’s when a nuclear strike hits New York with No Warning or when your ex-girlfriend knocks on your door with a baby in her arms and tells you it’s yours. No Warning fella, or when a hit man shoots you dead. You had no warning on that one. Well, I guess you get the drift, this is a challenging and fun prompt.





This month I hope to have more poets and non-poets brave this challenge. I will now review and give my take on all the poems in the winner’s circle and hope others will review them in the Bristo while the voting is taking place. So far after the vote change the poems have excelled in excellence. I am also unbanning my ban against me winning the laureate. I realize I like badges. Believe me I’m no threat, fourteen submissions since I took over, no cigar.


Poets get your brains a thinking and write your magic. All poets who enter the challenge must vote in the voting thread. Don’t be shy or obtuse.

This is a “regular” month; therefore, *entrants must post their own entries this month.*

Discussion regarding any entry, or any challenge related issues, may take place in either Bistro during any phase of the challenge. Kindly be mindful that secure entries are only discussed in the Secure Bistro to preserve the first rights of entrants.

Please remember that in submitting an entry you are obligated to cast at *least three votes in* *the poll* once it is opened. Failure to do so may result in your entry being disqualified.

You are free to interpret the prompt in any way you wish, though of course, site rules apply. If you are unsure of the challenge rules, please read the 'stickies' at the top of the board. Please note that _all entries_ are eligible to receive critique in the voting thread. The inclusion of explanatory text or links of any kind within an entrant's challenge entry is prohibited and will be immediately removed upon discovery. As always, only one entry per member is permitted. Entrants must post their own entries in this thread, or if you desire to protect first rights, please post your entry in the secure thread   https://www.writingforums.com/threads/october-2022-poetry-challenge.200213/ and then post a link to it here in the public thread. Failure to do so runs the risk of your entry being disqualified, so if you require assistance with the task, please PM me and I will gladly help you if I can. I'm early again, this way I can make adjustments-.

If your entry contains strong language or mature content, please include a disclaimer in your title.

Kindly make sure your entry is properly formatted and error free before you submit. You have a ten-minute grace period to edit your piece, but anything edited after that will likely see your entry excluded from the challenge.

Do not post comments in this thread. Any discussion related to the challenge can take place in the Bards’ Bistro for entries on the public board, and the Secure Bards’ Bistro for entries on the secure board.

Everyone may now use the "Like" function whenever they so choose.

*This challenge will close on the 15th of October at 7pm EST.*


----------



## S J Ward (Oct 3, 2022)

Hurricane Barbara

Forties Cromarty
west gale eight
to severe gale nine
backing south
hurricane force twelve
imminent.
Brian, your tea’s getting cold.
Not now, Barbara.

If the Ukraine bomb
our annexed lands
we have no choice
but to retaliate
using low yield
nuclear deterrents.
I’m off to bed now, Brian.
Goodnight, dear.

Again peace talks
have broken down
and airstrikes target
the West Bank and Gaza.
Now, sirens wail
across Jerusalem.
Where’s your dirty laundry?
On the floor, dear.

The remnants of
the hurricane
will make landfall
early tomorrow.
Try to avoid all
unnecessary travel.
Is there anything you want from the shops?
No, dear.

It’s estimated that
the damage caused
in the wake of Barbara
will affect parts
of the nation
for years to come.

Barbara? Barbara, dear?


----------



## TL Murphy (Oct 3, 2022)

*After the Heart Attack After the Car Accident After the Runaway Train*

all the days I carried
nonesuch in my pocket —
spare change, old keys to forgotten doors
a grocery list for tomatoes and cheese —
while you scribbled no warnings

and settled in sand
bone dragged down
under lost weight
the last wandering pen stroke
flailing in a dark crack
a spider spun her web in

I never knew
how much the sand
you slept in weighed my
pocket down

until I tore a hole in it
watched the trail spill out behind me 
casting shadows
turning pirouettes
on your bullet-proof sky.


----------



## ChudBektop (Oct 4, 2022)

*Vast Apartment*

I heed you, dismal, Vast Apartment.

You shun me, I detest you.

Turn on the lights, I see your appendage.

Vast apartment, you are with me, here and now,
Help me cook for Joseph’s arrival.

Short dark hair, pointed nose,
I miss him.

Boil the pasta, heat up the sauce.

The marble of your counter is chilly,
I retreat to the stove for comfort.

Vast apartment, your smell is reminiscent,
A redolence of pain. 

I’ll be at the balcony, see you there.

Open the door,
Release the tour de force of the city. 

I hear the rowdy cars and winds,
And the sound of my phone.

The rings penetrate the frigid air,
My fingers clamber into my pocket to pick it up. 

Vast apartment, what is it now? 

I answer the phone.
My Joseph is gone.

Vast Apartment. I shall wallow in despair with you now.
As we loathe and grieve with all our might. 

The lights shut off, 
And the only thing I can see is your darkness.


----------



## rcallaci (Oct 6, 2022)

The Veil

In the veil between realms
magic and science collide

equations incantations
illuminations and creations
with various intonations
and prickly proclamations
explode and implode
against the barriers boundaries
looking for ways to escape
their self-made prison.

with no warning of what’s to become
they are released amongst the worlds
where Order and Chaos are in balance
to disrupt the unending stasis of stability
so that innovation can once again run rampant…


----------



## LoveofWriting (Oct 6, 2022)

Clearly



			https://www.writingforums.com/threads/october-2022-poetry-challenge.200213/#post-2420463


----------



## River Rose (Oct 8, 2022)

Garbage

Cardboard box on this hard cement garage floor
One sock on, on lost on the dash out of the house to escape the madness that has over taken him
Screaming, yelling, cursing
Kicking, hitting
Dragged across the kitchen hard wood floor by long blonde locks now a tangled mess of knots
Smashed phone
So cold
Wishing for another sock
Nowhere to go
Execpt this box
Four walls
Warping in
Children crying
I will get to you.
I will protect you.
Their here. 
Finally here. They heard and saw.
 Neighbors calling police
bruises
Pictures
Not here.
Not my house.
Never again.
Will you hurt me.

*October is Domestic Violence awareness month. 
Without Warning this can happen to anyone at anytime. 
If u hear or see something that does not feel right,,,call the authorities. 
You may save a life.


----------



## NajaNoir (Oct 9, 2022)

Blind Spot


Crouched inside a haze of smoke
Time warps sound
Forsaken, the soldier waits, his spirit broke

Trees speak quietly, their native tongue unknown 
Shadows bear down
Must remain silent or his cover is blown

His eyes focus forward, no warning overhead
Death drops to the ground
Essence depleting, he falls to the riverbed


----------



## Mart Ness (Oct 10, 2022)

I was sleeping
the crickets chirp
gave me no warning

the dying fire embers crackled
but gave no warning

the wind blew brazenly thru
the pines
but gave no warning

then the wolves howled


----------



## YggNate (Oct 10, 2022)

*Rood Awakening*

With no prior
Warning, we're
squeezed into life.
Bloody and raw.

As cross as can
be, a new pair
of eyes  closed-tight
And blink in light

Nobody asks
to be born, when
That call comes in
we all answer

Tagged, supported
holding a thread
We wriggle round
godlike, precious

Soul given bed
wither instead?

And call off the 
future, no more
of this messing
amniotic

cancel the art
chemistry: stop
cool down the heats
so psychotic


----------



## Ibb (Oct 11, 2022)

*Gut Feeling*

I’m down for the hustle
Smacking lips for the cheese
My ass cheeks are tingly
You see my fingers? Watch—

He doesn’t sense a thing
Or at the least—He won’t
That’s the thing about it;
wiggling like lightning​zigzagging like a skunk​I’m a goddamned_ shark_, boy—

_what the flying fuck_​_are you on about?_​
—Moving like a current
Or like a tundra… Hey, what’s—

_a tundra? something else_​
But the point is I’m swift
Been ready my whole life
Some people never know
The feeling of purpose

_don’t be a damned buffoon _​
So I poke his shoulder
Turn the bastard around
Whip out my little blade
  and begin to ask him:

_How much ya got? 
                 Ya fat bastard?
Give me the cheese
                 Your credit cards
Cash dinero
                 Jewelry, too_

Or so I’d like to think
But then what do you know
The fat bastard believes
In his right to bear arms

So there the hell I go
Onto my own ass cheeks
Thinking of my mama
Crying at my gravesite
Not even a warning
The no good bastard cheat

No flowers for a thug
No dirges for my kind
Just this shitty gutter
and raindrops in my mouth​
So, hell, one final thought:
I suppose, in the end
I should have bent my ear
and listened to my gut​


----------



## tonsonenotany (Oct 12, 2022)

Damascus, Georgia


----------



## BadHouses (Oct 12, 2022)

*Muh History*

The past is a better country
They do things similarly

Caesar, Alexander, Scipio
We'll lounge in commisatio
Toss our wine-lees
Tally our deeds

At the baths I spy Augustus
In the forum I tangle with Aeschylus 
I'd show them how they weren't quite wrong, 
While we've forgotten the practise of the strong

Londinium's damned
Western art's a sham
But to us who lust, 
We suck the dust

We mensches of antiquity, 
Purveyors of memetic prophecy, 
Know recency squandered its victuals
Now it's just Twitter, sans rituals

Juno Moneta, bless every scrimmage
Cast the die in my visage
Præparet bellum
Inflate the harem
My three day stall, 
Yokes my latest thrall

So come, O merciful Fate
Exchange me with one mythic date
Pluck me from this throng
And put me where I belong


----------



## Isham (Oct 13, 2022)

*Jeronimo*

Houdini said to MacArthur
is there still honey for tea?
we’ll go round again, Widow Twankey
there’s got to be more, don’cha see…

no worries, mate, I gotcha covered.
Doris, she said:  “Que sera,”
and dulce et decorum est
under the tree in the yard.

we’ll meet again, sang my Vera,
you get no bread with only one ball
did you hear Berkeley’s tree in the forest?
and Goebbels he had none at all.

they got you up the backside,
no way you don’t loose.
yeah? watch me get ‘em in the goolies - 
one always gets to choose.

so we’ll go round again Widow Twankey,
let the apples go fly with the pigs;
down on the floor floats the hankey
we’ll end it with jigetty-jigs


----------



## Darkkin (Oct 14, 2022)

East of Monday

It was too early
a cucumber Sunday
when we talked
a cardinal listening in

And it was time...

I called too early
a watercolour Monday
and we had no need

for words...

because your Pelican Flight
they had come...those damn
White Pelicans duty bound

But you were ready, so ready
to soar free with them
to find the light breaking east

Now that day is a Thursday
dense magnolia weather
and your peony has bloomed
perfect sunrise pink facing east

And still I watch--
for the White Pelicans
as they pass West to East


----------



## jenthepen (Oct 15, 2022)

*A Warning*

Don’t never resent dull boredom,
he said, and slowly shook his head.
Backtracking ain't so easy, he said,
when life comes at yer like a train,
furious and unexpected,
spitting pain and unseen horror.

Tomorrer’s dawn can come with grief
none ever warn or give a hint of.
Hell’s footprints trample all your dreams
and then it seems like, if you could,
you would soon turn back, he said,
and choose monotony instead.


----------



## James Hercules Sutton (Oct 15, 2022)

Götterdämerung

It’s twilight time.  Mind knows what’s yet to come:
All will be Dark, a darkness that will last. . . .
There’ll be no one to mourn, when light is done,
when “all that is” transforms to what is past. . . .
There’ll be no dreams, no memories to parse,
no prophecies to conjure or rehearse,
no comfort from a phrase that makes less harsh
evils that Mind endured, when dark was worse. . . .
Let All revert to what We never were. . . .
Yet We find comfort in Our Final Fall:
To lapse oblivious & never stir,
to be expunged without a trumpet call,
    reminds the emptiness of endless Night
    that endless dark can lead to sudden light.


----------



## rcallaci (Oct 15, 2022)

*The challenge is now closed the voting thread will be up in a few hours... *


----------



## River Rose (Oct 18, 2022)

rcallaci said:


> *The challenge is now closed the voting thread will be up in a few hours... *


I do not see where to vote.


----------



## BadHouses (Oct 18, 2022)

River Rose said:


> I do not see where to vote.


New thread here. 









						October 2022 Voting Thread
					


October 2022 Voting Thread  Please read this before voting Voting is a 2 step process- first: push the button-three votes(crucial) then the comment section showing your picks.     One hell of a great turnout. It seems like the new voting rules have given this challenge a needed boost. We have a...





					www.writingforums.com


----------

