# October 2021 Poetry Challenge



## rcallaci (Sep 30, 2021)

October 2021 Poetry Challenge




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October month is upon us , autumn air and Halloween  madness - Let's get our minds in a poetic state of mind and create words that will enchant us. Let's have fun.

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 one vote in the poll once it is opened. Failure to do so will result in your entry being disqualified.


The prompt for this month's challenge, as chosen by and phil Istine is *space (s)*


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 
October 2021 Poetry Challenge


October month is upon us , autumn air and Halloween madness - Let's get our minds in a poetic state of mind and create words that will enchant us. Let's have fun.

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 one vote in the poll once it is opened. Failure to do so will result in your entry being disqualified.


The prompt for this month's challenge, as chosen by and phil Istine is *space (s)*


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-2021-poetry-challenge-secure.195663/   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-still new at this.

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.*
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-still new at this.

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.*


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## James Hercules Sutton (Oct 2, 2021)

Light & Life

Eventually
is _no_ significance.
The Universe
expands to a standstill
or collapses to a point,

and whether we curse the darkness
or light a candle
does not amend the outcome:
We exist
to become more perfectly . . . alone.

Still, a 'man who squeezes
light from his own skin
reminds his neighbors
that a 'man may choose extinction
in the manner of a star.


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## Mr.Mingo (Oct 5, 2021)

Voluminous Silence in the Discomfort of Space


stillness slithers
between their opposing introspections

she grazed his hand with inflexible 
claws breaking concentrated focus
on isolated breaths in the icy room

both laments snapped in sharp gasps
as the talon shot back sharply hooking
night linens stripping him of his shell

bed lurched as they rolled apart facing 
respective walls and pretending sleep
in the vacuum of sound in dark space

crickets grated the inexorable gulf
agitating the already irritated 
irrationality of a couple decoupled

separately together but unquestionably 
lying alone


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## TuesdayEve (Oct 6, 2021)

(untitled)

distance
follows
time


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## rcallaci (Oct 8, 2021)

spatial nauseum

pooping and farting out stardust
a willow wisp of nothingness gives birth to
the milky way and its neighboring galaxies.

an ambiguous spec of space with infinite
proportions expands and contracts to
make room for matter and other gaseous
and gelatinous things. It leaves behind a trace
of anomalous space in hopes of meeting
a receptacle for its seething seed.

space needs all the space it can get. You
can’t see it, touch, hear, smell, or taste it
but it’s here, there, and everywhere. Without
space to move and roam about the universe would
be nothing more than a dot in the center of
bubbles and strings made of vaporous things.

a willow wisp of nothingness became and becomes
something other than what it was…. thank God for that!


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## James Hercules Sutton (Oct 8, 2021)

Have never before seen alimentary mixed with scatalogical.


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## rcallaci (Oct 8, 2021)

A slight rule change- I'll let short comments like this stand.  but it's best to be in* bards bristo.* I see no point in not allowing very light comments in the writing phase- This is a exercise of writing poetry from a prompt and hopefully  eliciting comments about the poetry. Since I've been doing this I've been the only one commenting on the poetry so I'll take these comments in any phase of the challenge.  But in this phase only light comments with short answers from the writer. The voting phase is where to more full commenting will take place.

My answer to james- I like to fool around with words and concepts and play around with odd flavors. *No more comments' in this thread put them in the* *bristo. *


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## apple (Oct 8, 2021)

Fleur de Sel


At first breath,  he is a vessel filled.
His back, already granite,
acquiesces to the sea from progeny's briny kiss.
He is echo borne of echoes

With sinew of his father's arms
he fishes time and hearth,
unquestions familial seed; those prophetic arrows
that point toward each tired morning.

Will truth disclose
longing dreams and sun hurt skin
forming like fleur de sel inside his mouth
that crack his teeth until finding soft- center
to deem his inbred path worthwhile?

Or on some fragile night,
when the sea herds waves in lines of white
like sheep for sacrifice,
he longs to shed,  cry his child,
and call out for his mother to rock him like a baby?


Tomorrow fathers will form their hooks, unwind their lines, and cast nets into the sea. 
Sons will dive into the waves and emerge with foamy chins.


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## jenthepen (Oct 10, 2021)

*Existence*

black water
empty space

a mirror with nothing to see

face peering
filling space

the witness of reality.


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## WhitakerRStanton (Oct 10, 2021)

*As I waited*

I haven't looked up
in quite a while
suppose
it's all still there
the sun comes
I go
and today the bus is late

looking around
no one seems bothered
also fewer 
than I remembered

those still breathing
don't bother 
looking up either
just down
even when looking
straight ahead

catching myself looking down
I swallow hard
and remind my brain
we detest contemplation
of self
of others
the bus 
then makes that vile sound
during the last lurch forward
before stopping
that
today at least
reminded me
of a last breath

I refuse to look up
taking those steps
and chuckle
not too loudly
as I thought 
of there being no sky
above

then the more troubling
of gazing skyward
seeing all the space
and what lies beyond
staring down at me.


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## Phil Istine (Oct 12, 2021)

*Tall Shorts*

When Einstein decided,
in a vacuum,
that e equals em cee squared,
a galactic speed cop issued a ticket
to a gathering of tachyons,
but they outran his camera and a judge kicked the case out of court.
Einstein suffocated.

Then, a physicist realised
that due to the gaps in atoms,
compacting can happen to such a degree
mankind could fit in a sugar bag:
diabetes is rife.

Galileo dropped an apple
from Pisa’s tower top 
a century later it splattered on
Newton with a plop:
gravity works in mysterious ways.


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## ritudimrinautiyal (Oct 13, 2021)

Patriarchy

Before leaving for anything, 
her hubby fills inside her, 
his space. 
When he is back,
he claims back his space. 

 Longing for her space, 
she turns to a friend, 
to create a corner inside her
for her space. 
But he too tries to drag her
into his space, 
just to fill the gaps
inside his space. 

Now she is trying to erase
all the notes
 she has taken from her mother ;
and as legacy
 she wants to leave a blank diary 
for her daughter. 

Ritu


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## petergrimes (Oct 13, 2021)

somewhere in the steppes of central asia


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## Darkkin (Oct 14, 2021)

Of Quasars and Turtle

The place, a border of cleaved land
there upon rests a clear, damp line—
basalt cliffs fall to nightshade sands

A place where the living fear to be
between the earth and this nowhere
body bound to land and soul to sea

And it was in this place of division
this humble creature first hatched—
a being, like most, faced a decision

Blood chilled by a wicked wind,
she lays on a shell pocked shore
waits for a tide, journey to begin.

Waves lash out with a bitter sting
like those course, straggled locks
of a hermit of whom sailors sing

Still she waits in gentle defiance,
for the complete turn of the tide,
held by laws of lunar compliance.

Full and bright, in midnight bloom
the moon calls her to Water’s Edge,
to face life’s battle or an easy doom.

One so simple, easy as falling asleep,
the other, a duty to life and a world
that will one day pass into her keep. 

In a deep throated roar, rose a giant,
that fabled of Old Man of the Sea,
hands poised to strike the defiant—

A pair eyes of molten gold lifted,
no fears glinted, for it was alien
to this little soul, emotion shifted.

Old Man paused, stayed the blow
that would have damned the turtle
to mysterious fathoms far below.

So easy to destroy the small thing,
yet, that golden gaze was peaceful
as the lullaby the kingfisher sings.

So the hand of the Monarch Tide,
poised to deliver that fatal strike,
paused, intrigued as turtle defied.

Golden eyes enthralled Old Man,
as from the heart of those waves
he pulled a jar, cast it to the sand.

End o’er end, by shatter and clink
the jar, fogged by salt and old age,
broke upon a stone freeing its ink.

The hatchling looked at the flow,
a river coursing to those ancient seas—
velvet, scarred with fresh moon glow.

A wonder bleeding on the sand bar,
cosmic wonders kept under glass—
waves ceded to the loosed quasar.

Old Man saw what that turtle knew.
Far beyond loggerheads and greens,
she was no beast of the ocean blue.

She as one of the impossible Lores,
the Cosmic Turtle, who one far day,
would become the water and shore.

On her shell the world would ride,
this minute, defiant hatchling, thus
she waited for the Monarch Tide.

Quasar bled to sea and sea to star—
as the Old Man of the Sea smiled,
at the sight of Turtle in the quasar.

No fear, just fresh curiosity alight,
as a contrary turtle caught a wave,
rode Monarch Tide into the night.


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## Kehlida (Oct 14, 2021)

Sailing or Sinking?

Clearing out my conscious seems impossible tonight
so I feign diversion for relief​All these feelings and theories of mine
seem worthless in the grand scheme​Wondering if I belong because I view this world in different hues
and most will remain blind as I struggle to find any use​
Ignorance holds no candle to an enlightened soul
but still we drug ourselves and become dumbed down​Starlight eyes and an elusive mind
Hoping something might numb my brain
and remove this double-edged curse from me​
Six sides of a metaphor and it maintains more substance than I do​We all fall short under the weight of innumerable excuses
for why we allow our failures to be our voices​Cosmic and curious, the colors are deafening and I find sound overwhelming
Gazing into the unknown again in search of discovery,
but afraid of the things living inside me​Seeing is believing but my vision’s cloudy
and my sight is best earned through experience or grief​
Focused on following out our ending​Unsure why our choices fail to mirror our intent
when we’ve neglect to decide upon it​Complacency is death to me, but so is floating devoid of purpose
So, still I try to fill the empty spaces in my life
and bridge the divisions in my mind​Caught up in chasing all the things I cannot understand yet
Have I lost my way again or is this loneliness a side-effect
of wandering farther than most will tread​


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## rcallaci (Oct 15, 2021)

*this challenge is now closed--**poll will open soon *


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## Matchu (Oct 24, 2021)

deleted, i'll write a blog post


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## Matchu (Oct 24, 2021)

oh sorry


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