One Poem Only

Dear Personal Care Department God by Chris Kads | One Poem Only

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 08:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily poetry podcast offering a quiet moment with a single poem—read aloud, without analysis or noise.

Dear Personal Care Department God

Chris Kads

After Lancee Whetman

God of the Personal Care Department,

please grant me musk. Grant me

the strength of “Steel Courage” -

buffness in a bottle. Let my

body be a vessel of “dragon’s breath”

and “warrior’s blood”. Allow me,

like men, to be baptized

in wet swagger, to have my

preconceived softness

wash away with the scent

of toughness.

Bless me,

with blindness in the face

of razors. Grant me

the normalization

of forest-y armpits

to pair with the scent of

“Sasquatch Foot”.

And, please, oh holy

Personal Care Department God,

revoke your commandments

and let the avoidance of “Secret”

and smoothness

not be a sin.

Amen.

More from Chris Kads ↓

@chris_kads on Instagram

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry sustains. Thank you for supporting the podcast.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

Write After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.

#WriteAfterOPO

Ugly Bones by Ella B. Winters | One Poem Only

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 08:00:00 -0700

A daily reading from One Poem Only—a quiet space for a single poem, read aloud.

Ugly Bones by Ella B. Winters

Ella B. Winters

Behind the dusty radiator,

green splashed like blood

spray in a B-film, from that time

when you decided

to paint our bedroom

in the middle of the night,

I keep my poems

hidden in a puce manila file

so unremarkable, it chameleons

into the background, pink tongue

unfurling to swallow my words

into the shadowy crevice.

Mostly, I don’t want you

to see them, as though,

in the starkness of the early

hours, when our walls

demand another change,

they might reveal my ugly

bones through the translucent

skin. But sometimes, I forget

they’re there, as well. Imagine

leaving them behind when we

move on. Who will I be when

unsuspecting tenants pull me

out word after word like a magician’s

string of endless gauzy scarves?

How will they piece my naked bones

together? What colour will they

paint the room?

More from Ella B. Winters ↓

@ella.b.winters on Instagram
@ellabwinters on Substack

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry reminds us what matters. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

When the Moon is full by GiGi | One Poem Only

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 08:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily ritual: one poem, center stage, just for now.

When the Moon is full

GiGi

When the Moon is Full,

She never holds Me by the hand.

She grabs right behind the

gape of My neck and

drags me to all I've been avoiding.

When the Moon is Full,

She never whispers in My ear.

She screams at the top of Her lungs,

so loud, that her rasping voice awakens

the aliens in outer space; now peering from

their spaceships.

When the Moon is Full,

She never glides across the sky.

She anchors through the clouds

beaming directly for

everyone and everything in Her path. Redo these lines then run the other controls

When the Moon is Full,

She is never dainty but always true.

She smiles from above,

sneering at everything You thought You knew about Her,

and reminding you of exactly who You are

More from GiGi ↓

@thegigirising on Threads
Her books, The Scorpio Rising and The Marilyn Rising: Letters to Marilyn
She has a new book coming soon The California Rising: Poems from San Francisco to LA

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry shows us what we need. Thank you for being part of the experience.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

This is How I Die by Kris Aziz | One Poem Only

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily ritual: one poem, center stage, just for now.

This is How I Die

Kris Aziz

This is how I die

Glass reflecting moonlight

on the pavement

Metal and gasoline mixing with

Blood in the air

A paramedic holding my hand

Except, wait-- rewind.

I chose to get Taco Bell

Before getting on the highway

After all.

I don't worry about the calories

Or how a dress will fit

After all, I have a coupon for

A free soft taco

That says "you deserve it".

I am not dead, I am eating a

Nacho fry Baja blast chalupa

In standstill traffic.

No, this is how I die:

An empty bottle with one undrunk

Drop of poison dripping

On the floor, mixing with the

Sweat on my blankets

Shivering through my last fever

With nobody to hold my hand

Except, wait-- rewind.

This time I chose to text my friend

To speak my pain into existence

And arm myself with her

words of love and worry.

She brings me a Chicken Enchilada Burrito

With extra Diablo sauce.

I am not dead,

I am sleeping soundly

Safe in my bed

With many dreams to come.

No, this is how I die:

In a hospice

Breathing life through

an oxygen mask

I am surrounded by

Those who love me

Enough to sneak in

A Mountain Dew Baja Blast.

I am telling my grandkids about

That one time in the Himalayas.

They don’t understand what I’m saying

Until I pronounce it

“Him-uh-LAY-uhs”.

Their overbearing Americanization

Is too much for my impatient heart

I love them dearly

And am only leaving for a short time.

This is how I lived:

Flirting with Death and cursing God

Held together by soft tacos

And nicotine

Testing the limits of existence

With recklessness and

Scraped together words

Embracing the joy

Enduring the hurt

Now this is how I live:

Pouring words on a page

Even though I am just a

Boy/Girl/Ghost/Person,

Not a poet

Showing my heart to strangers

Holding my own hand.

More from Kris Aziz ↓

@tacobelltrauma on Instagram

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Feed yourself poetry every day.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

First Draft by Jo Wright | One Poem Only

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily poetry podcast offering a quiet moment with a single poem—read aloud, without analysis or noise.

First Draft

Jo Wright

I don’t want AI.

I want bees and seas

Deep evergreen forests

Great honeycombs

Icecaps.

Just, knowledgeable lovers

Men needing others

People questioning rhetoric

Speaking truth

Understanding Vaccinations

A world where we exclude no one

Years where there is still ozone.

I want words to matter

And when I draft my patter

I don’t want my phone to ask

‘Can I rewrite that for you?’

I want credit where credit’s bloody due

And throwing that swear word in

Stops Google taking the line from you.

I want water poured into humanity

Until everyone’s cup is full

Until this thief clad in microchips

Burns itself out.

I want precisely zero of your excuses

Wailing viciously under this sky

Retreat quietly please

Out to no man’s land

Keeping jealous ignorance of

How generosity feeds

Everyone’s delicate creativity

Better without AI.

I don’t want it.

I want to reclaim the land.

More from Jo Wright ↓

@joslipstick on Instagram

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

In Warmth by Maggie Devers & Weekly Poetry Recap | One Poem More

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem More gathers all of this week’s poems from One Poem Only—an unhurried chance to listen again, or catch what you missed.

This week’s poems

Plutocracy by Alicia Swain
Tony and/or Tonee by Nguyen Minh Tri
Snail by Lizzie Elliot-Klein
intuition by rism
Reduced by Rosalind Davies
Epitaph On A Tyrant by W. H. Auden

Plus one new one to carry us into the week ahead

In Warmth

Maggie Devers

How many pots of tea have we forgotten to drink?

Have we left sitting calmly on the counter

Going from hot to warm

Warm to cool

Noiselessly with no protest

As if our neglect was nothing to the brew,

Our forgetfulness marked by indifference

But more is wasted than the tea–

The chance to pause, to commune

To let the warm sweetness envelop us slowly

Like ivy covering a building

Sometimes taking years to grow.

But slowly, slowly spreading to touch every cell

To remind us to protect our warmth

So we remember to shout

When we are left alone to grow cold.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

My debut poetry collection, For My Daughter, available as an audiobook.
Purchase a signed copy of For My Daughter or get one free by subscribing to the podcast: One Poem Only on Patreon
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

More from this week’s poets

Find links to each poet’s work, books, and social accounts in the show notes for the individual episodes.

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry is better when it’s lived with. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Epitaph On A Tyrant by W. H. Auden | One Poem Only

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily ritual: one poem, center stage, just for now.

Epitaph On A Tyrant

W. H. Auden

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,

And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;

He knew human folly like the back of his hand,

And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;

When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,

And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry shows us what we need. Thank you for being part of the experience.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Reduced by Rosalind Davies | One Poem Only

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily poetry podcast offering a quiet moment with a single poem—read aloud, without analysis or noise.

Reduced

Rosalind Davies

Easy winter option, ideal for layering over your favourite outfits,

regular fit, timeless crew neckline.

The glory of a full-price item

Chosen in the hot bloom of the season

My size, my length.

I take time to choose, plan ahead, create,

Build a look, an image, or someone else’s,

The one I want to lay on me,

The one that speaks loud what I want it to say.

A gift card redeems me and I walk, like a cat, away.

Long sleeves feature subtle fluting at the cuffs for a stylish finish,

a staple for your occasion wardrobe.

Not every occasion has a desirable, describable outfit.

January watches and waits to launch and throw

Its missile attacks on a cratered high street

And I remember the decorum of the time before.

Arms reach and grab.

The crunch of hangers underfoot.

A cruel mixture of trousers and skirts, fighting colours, jumble sale,

Disordered sizes, lying labels, sale stickers skewering helpless synthetics.

I feel the loss.

Rubbing between finger and thumb the fading image of careless success,

I mourn the season of choice and purchase, the easy accumulation,

the beautiful utility of seamless day-to-night.

Boutique has become bric-a-brac.

I battle, eyes sharp for rivals, at the end of line.

Cropped length with belt to cinch you in

sharp, refined silhouette, a contemporary tailored cut.

More from Rosalind Davies ↓

@rosssie.d on Instagram

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry sustains. Thank you for supporting the podcast.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

intuition by rism | One Poem Only

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

A daily reading from One Poem Only—a quiet space for a single poem, read aloud.

intuition

rism

Pattern recognition is a

cognitive discipline —

congenitally decided for most,

congested with emotion.

Not to boast, but

I’m a fucking psychic

functioning on fumes and faint traces

of a beauty

who previously inhabited

this body, this brain.

I mainline cues.

It’s smooth, yet dangerous —

an almost cancerous paranoia.

Sometimes wildly,

the past is a tool used primally;

utilize your history.

Intuition powerfully promotes fruition

passionately if tempted.

Trust in the process prompted

by your progress.

More from rism ↓

@bugshearyou on Instagram

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry reminds us what matters. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Snail by Lizzie Elliot-Klein | Wednesday Double Feature | One Poem Only

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Wednesdays on One Poem Only are a double feature: one poem here on the podcast, and one more by the same poet shared on Instagram.

Snail

Lizzie Elliot-Klein

In your spiral shell

you hold the answer –

slowness is radical.

From the ash pile

of my burn out,

I see you everywhere.

Clinging to walls,

meandering through moss,

criss-crossing my path.

Reaching unbelievable heights

at speeds that will win no medals –

just savouring the

silvery slowness

of your

trail.

In your spiral shell

you hold the answer –

softness is strength.

Inching forward on vulnerable ripples,

retreating when the world is harsh,

rebuilding your shell with self-made gold,

In your spiral shell

you hold the answer –

I too can change.

My soft body thriving in gentleness

Kintsugi shell gleaming

in the light of spring

as I carve my

curling

silver

life trail

slowly

steadily

softly

at my own

snail’s

pace.

More from Lizzie Elliot-Klein ↓

@ofbrackenandbrine on Instagram

Watch the Second Poem

You can watch and listen to Belly. by Lizzie Elliot-Klein as part of our Wednesday double feature on Instagram at @rembrandts.cure.

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Two poems. One poet. Let the words keep moving.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Tony and/or Tonee by Nguyen Minh Tri | One Poem Only

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily ritual: one poem, center stage, just for now.

Tony and/or Tonee

Nguyen Minh Tri

The "y" is a hook, a barb in the ground,

A heavy-set anchor, a masculine sound.

It carries the dust of the fathers and sons,

My father and his son.

The weight of the "Tony" who follows/ who runs,

A name like a suit that is tailored too tight,

Designed for the sun, yet afraid of the light.

To them, it’s a letter/ to me, it’s a wall,

A clanking vibration that makes me feel small.

But look at the "e"s: how they mirror, how they gleam

A twin of silver, the space in between.

Tonee is a lift, a soft-rising key,

The "ee" is the breath of the person.

It isn’t a label, it isn’t a chore,

It’s the clicking of locks and the opening door.

How do I tell them the "y" is a ghost?

A version of me that I’ve long demoted.

How do I tell them the "e" is the spark,

The fun and the fire who glow in the dark?

It’s not just a spelling, a quirk, or a claim,

It’s the pulse in my throat.

It’s my name.

More from Nguyen Minh Tri ↓

@tonywith2e on Instagram
@tonywith2e on Substack

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Feed yourself poetry every day.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Plutocracy by Alicia Swain | One Poem Only

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily poetry podcast offering a quiet moment with a single poem—read aloud, without analysis or noise.

Plutocracy

Alicia Swain

In kitchens drops will drip, each brown in hue,

a mother will keep her son from the truth,

the senate will swear there’s nothing to do,

though they tout their care for the nation’s youth.

A man will cast his vote at ten to noon,

his ballot broken down in only two,

he lives inside a fading honeymoon

with good intentions, having not a clue:

disease inside him ticks just like a bomb,

one year from now the hospital will close,

he’ll find a plot to rest beside his mom,

if only congress told him how it goes.

Though women’s bodies know not rights of men,

thank God the rich can clutch their wealth again.

More from Alicia Swain ↓

@aliciamswain on Instagram
@aliciamswain on Substack
Her book, Steel Slides and Yellow Walls, is available now

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Cling to Me by Maggie Devers & Weekly Poetry Recap | One Poem More

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem More gathers all of this week’s poems from One Poem Only—an unhurried chance to listen again, or catch what you missed.

This week’s poems

Operating Instructions for the Day After Your Best Friend Tells You He Supports Genocide by Jané Dowd
Swan Dive by Maia von Maltzahn
Cycles by S. Salazar
An Emblem of Wounds by Henry Opeyemi
mortal perch by Amanda Thuy
A Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

Plus one new one to carry us into the week ahead

Cling to Me

Maggie Devers

I lay on the California coast

Listening to the waves

Looking out to the Santa Monica mountains

And nestle into the earth like a lover

hunting out the soft spot near your collar bone

Or a toddler, shyly hiding behind your knee,

peering out only to retreat into the smooth safety of a joint

The parts where we come together are the most tender

I realize as I drag my fingers through the damp sand, bits of ocean foam clinging to its surface

Life unfolds in the crevices

At first we grow curled up and long for the pressure of the womb once we are born

Then we learn to grow by stretching

To unfurl our limbs

So when we find ourselves in a tight spot we burrow deeper to feel safe

We grow roots that entwine with the roots of those we love

We learn to trust the tender parts as we come together

More from Maggie Devers ↓

My debut poetry collection, For My Daughter, available as an audiobook.
Purchase a signed copy of For My Daughter or get one free by subscribing to the podcast: One Poem Only on Patreon
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

More from this week’s poets

Find links to each poet’s work, books, and social accounts in the show notes for the individual episodes.

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry is better when it’s lived with. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

A Dream by Edgar Allan Poe | One Poem Only

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily ritual: one poem, center stage, just for now.

A Dream

Edgar Allan Poe

In visions of the dark night

I have dreamed of joy departed

But a waking dream of life and light

Hath left me broken-hearted.

Ah! what is not a dream by day

To him whose eyes are cast

On things around him with a ray

Turned back upon the past?

That holy dream that holy dream,

While all the world were chiding,

Hath cheered me as a lovely beam,

A lonely spirit guiding.

What though that light, thro' storm and night,

So trembled from afar

What could there be more purely bright

In Truth's day star?

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry shows us what we need. Thank you for being part of the experience.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

mortal perch by Amanda Thuy | One Poem Only

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily poetry podcast offering a quiet moment with a single poem—read aloud, without analysis or noise.

mortal perch

Amanda Thuy

upon a mortal perch i scribe away my lonely parts,

pulled from deepest chasm of this broken heart.

a treasure trove of loss and tattered dreams,

befitting muse which in the dark sits agleam.

heartache wrapped in anguished words seeking sanity,

mutated from once tightly held soliloquy.

harrowing thoughts bleed from fissures of speaking heart,

seeping through veins and through fingers now depart.

all unspoken peers now into light through hope-filled ink,

seeking redemption while still consuming tear-stained drink.

loneliness of my despair shall now upon all befall,

mystic and cryptic script that quietly fades into ears of all.

one bit of comfort as wounds float upon flutter of winds,

unburdening some grief-laden poundage long kept within.

More from Amanda Thuy ↓

@mezzo.strada on Instagram
Her book, Between Love and Grief: Pet Loss and Healing through Poetry, is available now

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry sustains. Thank you for supporting the podcast.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

An Emblem of Wounds by Henry Opeyemi | One Poem Only

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

A daily reading from One Poem Only—a quiet space for a single poem, read aloud.

An Emblem of Wounds

Henry Opeyemi

We are in the middle of a conversation, the

reflection of our lives upon glossy waters.

We’re twice the age we used to be, shading

home into grief, into a childhood memory.

there is an ophicleide infused in the distance of

souls, singing into the littleness of a heaven: a

prayer old enough for the heaviness I have carried.

a boy from my childhood recognizes me by a face I no longer wear, by a stillness that was once a scream.

My world is an open wound— a phoenix burning into an undying whistle of the wind. we’re betwixt a

waging war, an emblem of songs profused into the flowering of roseash, aren’t we all a singing orchestra

in heaven?

& we won’t stop singing until the world ends in a poem, until immortality is an endless loop of

remembrance. We stood beside the black river, washing down black memories, memorizing the eulogy of

brown gods, a drowning nestling through the theory of names. I looked into the memory, marinated for

the ashes that were burnt to be seen, nebulous as the clouds. syntax of broken bodies wrestling for

wholeness,the world won’t end without us first knowing, and the wound won’t heal without the opening of

another body.

More from Henry Opeyemi ↓

@henryopeyemi_ on Instagram

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry reminds us what matters. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Cycles by S. Salazar | Wednesday Double Feature | One Poem Only

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Wednesdays on One Poem Only are a double feature: one poem here on the podcast, and one more by the same poet shared on Instagram.

Cycles

S. Salazar

The space in which my family occupies is a revolving door—

each rotation moves me further from their timelines.

Yet turning to push the door in reverse

won’t take me back to a time with them:

to picnics beneath the Central Park oaks

or a game of tag among Puerto Rican palms.

I existed decades after Abuelo exited the door.

I stepped between the panes of glass

just as Abuela stepped out.

Abuelo took everything with him except his family.

Abuela held tight to her Latin roots,

clutching memories of a childhood in Puerto Rico.

Lugged them through her new life in America

until they calloused and cracked her hands.

Stubborn, she carried that heritage out the door.

Took customs and superstitions and stories.

I’m left alone, spinning with the echo of her lifetime

in empty air, the dust of her travels clustered on the floor.

Pressing my palms against glass where her prints had been.

Willing my prints to match hers. Praying I leave something more

behind despite having less. One day, I’ll step out.

Everybody does. But I can’t leave until I fill this place

with something more than dust.

More from S. Salazar ↓

@writessalazar on Instagram
@writessalazar on Substack
Her book, Raíces, Relics, and Other Ghosts, published by Kelsay Books is available now

Watch the Second Poem

You can watch and listen to another poem by S. Salazar as part of our Wednesday double feature on Instagram at @rembrandts.cure.

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Two poems. One poet. Let the words keep moving.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Swan Dive by Maia von Maltzahn | One Poem Only

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily ritual: one poem, center stage, just for now.

Swan Dive by Maia von Maltzahn

Maia von Maltzahn

It’s the kind of hot

afternoon in August

where the sun cracks

your mouth open

so you can take

a big gulp of

life

Chin tucked

wind-up lanky-limbs

bare browned

shoulders hum

in the heat

running warm

wooden dock

beneath your feet, step

one, two, and

Leap…

gravity

greets

you

like a pinky-promise

in the lake

water answers

with a laughing splash

you elegant creature

here, you belong.

More from Maia von Maltzahn ↓

@maiaelizabethwrites on Instagram

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Feed yourself poetry every day.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Operating Instructions for the Day After Your Best Friend Tells You He Supports Genocide by Jané Dowd | One Poem Only

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily poetry podcast offering a quiet moment with a single poem—read aloud, without analysis or noise.

Operating Instructions for the Day After Your Best Friend Tells You He Supports Genocide

Jané Dowd

Upon waking: breathe deep.

Savour the shimmer of momentary freedom,

lack of memory and regret.

Surround yourself with three dogs:

sentinels; triumvirate.

Check the curtain crack for signs of dawn.

When the child stirs, relish her aliveness.

As the small ghosts arise in protest,

cup their faces in your bloody hands,

whisper the useless lament:

I am sorry. -And again:

I am sorrow.

When the cat crawls under your crook’d claw:

picture the desert landscape

devoid of trees, of innocence, of hope, of caress.

As you pour the milk, squeeze the honey:

hold your heart on an open palm

leave it be; watch how it stutters

shivers and stalls

look at its redness which is simple

fragile human

the same;

fill it with your grit, ask that sinewy engine

to oyster, to pearl

to return to the cave of your chest

alive, yes, but beating

differently, more soundly and

more true

More from Jané Dowd ↓

@jane_doe.8.0 on Instagram
@janedoe9 on Substack

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

The Call by Maggie Devers & Weekly Poetry Recap | One Poem More

Sun, 15 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem More gathers all of this week’s poems from One Poem Only—an unhurried chance to listen again, or catch what you missed.

This week’s poems

no place like home by Abhilasha Ghosh
The mind unmasked by Aliyah Morayo
borderline by Luna Ferguson
Inedible by Sera
adulthood by Carlee Wilson
To My Daughter Elizabeth by Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow

Plus one new one to carry us into the week ahead

The Call

Maggie Devers

They woke in slumber

And settled in the streets

They counted transgressions

Like it was food to eat

The blaze furled down the mountain

A glass bottle cried over the din

The flare dissipated in the sky

A subtle shock of warning slowly drifting by

What have they learned here?

What fate will be revealed?

To the jagged, humbling masses

Suddenly filled with zeal?

More from Maggie Devers ↓

My debut poetry collection, For My Daughter, available as an audiobook.
Purchase a signed copy of For My Daughter or get one free by subscribing to the podcast: One Poem Only on Patreon
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

More from this week’s poets

Find links to each poet’s work, books, and social accounts in the show notes for the individual episodes.

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry is better when it’s lived with. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

To My Daughter Elizabeth by Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow | One Poem Only

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily ritual: one poem, center stage, just for now.

To My Daughter Elizabeth

Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow

Two flowers upon one parent stem

Together bloomed for many days.

At length a storm arose, and one

Was blighted, and cut down at noon.

The other hath transplanted been,

And flowers fair as herself hath borne;

She too has felt the withering storm,

Her strength's decayed, wasted her form.

May he who hears the mourner's prayer,

Renew her strength for years to come;

Long may He our Lilly spare,

Long delay to call her home.

But when the summons shall arrive

To bear this lovely flower away,

Again may she transplanted be

To blossom in eternity.

There may these sisters meet again,

Both freed from sorrow, sin, and pain;

There with united voices raise,

In sweet accord their hymns of praise;

Eternally his name t' adore,

Who died, yet lives forevermore.

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry shows us what we need. Thank you for being part of the experience.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

adulthood by Carlee Wilson | One Poem Only

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily poetry podcast offering a quiet moment with a single poem—read aloud, without analysis or noise.

adulthood

Carlee Wilson

gone are the days where my ceiling

twinkled with plastic magic

and the only house i worried about was barbie’s.

it didn’t matter if ken came home or not,

didn’t matter if stacie’s car had a flat

or if joe’s deployment was extended.

boy, i’d kill for a mud pie right now,

full of everything we’ve been taught to avoid,

devoid of everything we’ve been taught matters.

i wish i could sit on the playground swing

and twist the clinking chains around and around

and scream as i spin violently back to center.

back to before the world did it for me,

back to when it felt good.

More from Carlee Wilson ↓

@poetcarlee on Instagram

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry sustains. Thank you for supporting the podcast.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Inedible by Sera | One Poem Only

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

A daily reading from One Poem Only—a quiet space for a single poem, read aloud.

Inedible

Sera

I wish I could cover

my body in spikes,

become unappetizing,

indigestible.

I poke holes into my image,

pour lighter fluid over it,

flicking the flame on

and burning away

the outline you memorized,

char the version of me

you still think of.

I wish I could transform,

shapeshift

into something you hate.

I chop my hair in

uneven sections,

cut lattice into my face,

unravel the centre of myself.

I bite my fingers raw,

throw my body against concrete

until it's beaten bloody.

carve my tongue

from my throat

so I can't comply.

stab forks into my sight;

force myself back

in control.

I wish I could break

every single one of my bones

so I can slip from these cuffs,

this cage,

contort myself to fit

between the bars.

I know I have the key

but I can't find the lock-

I'm blind.

I need to break myself

out of here.

time is flying

but my wings are broken.

I take a bat to my back,

pepper spray my face,

swallow a grenade

and drink acid.

I wish I could mould myself

into a mushy mess,

become nauseating,

off putting,

tasteless.

I run into traffic,

tangle myself in the tires,

chugging gasoline.

I jump into a pit of spiders,

cover myself in bites and stings,

eat handfuls of bees

until my cheeks swell.

I'll dip myself into a

lake of boiling water,

seeping deep as my

skin bubbles up.

I'll roll in what repels you,

leave with a matching stench,

use jagged stones

to scratch up any

blank space remaining.

I wish I could melt down

into the cracks in the earth,

hide in the soil

from the eyes in the sky.

drag wood against

my arms and legs,

hair turning to splinters.

I shave my eyebrows off

and pick at my lips.

I'll tie my teeth to string,

slam the door,

take pieces of glass

and stick them into my body,

standing with the cactus.

cut out all the cartilage

and tie together my tendons,

spread my blood on bread

and eat that instead.

jump head first

into a volcano,

exfoliate my skin with the heat.

make myself a target-

fire arrow after arrow,

pinning myself down.

take an axe to my toes,

a mace to the chest,

a knife to the back.

I wish I could become

inedible,

insipid,

abhorrent.

I'd do anything

to make you

projectile vomit

at the thought of me.

More from Sera ↓

@serawrites03 on Instagram

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry reminds us what matters. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

borderline by Luna Ferguson | Wednesday Double Feature | One Poem Only

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Wednesdays on One Poem Only are a double feature: one poem here on the podcast, and one more by the same poet shared on Instagram.

borderline

Luna Ferguson

borderline

between what may i ask?

floating whilst the clock ticks by

tears on the night of your life

pain in pleasure

pleasure in pain

doors closed

the slams still echo in your brain

in-prisoned by your own name

dust scatters over where you lay

an endless impossible escape you planned at 5

imprints of those who held you tight

just to leave you in the night

skys are blue but your mind is grey

it makes no sense why you feel this way

but at least you know borderline is where you stay

there is safety in that pain

More from Luna Ferguson ↓

@lunaroseferguson on Instagram
@lunaroseferguson on Substack
Her book, Borderline, is available now

Watch the Second Poem

You can watch and listen to another poem by Author as part of our Wednesday double feature on Instagram at @rembrandts.cure.

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Two poems. One poet. Let the words keep moving.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

The mind unmasked by Aliyah Morayo | One Poem Only

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily ritual: one poem, center stage, just for now.

The mind unmasked

Aliyah Morayo

My mind carries centuries.

The rust of chains sits where dreams should bloom.

It remembers the songs my ancestors could not finish,

the languages drowned beneath the ocean,

The prayers that reached heaven but never came back whole.

I carry the scent of burning villages,

the hush of mothers hiding their children from soldiers,

The taste of iron in blood is not yet dry.

History is not behind me,

it lives beneath my skin,

in the way I flinch at loud footsteps,

In the way, I still ask permission to exist.

Poverty came next, not the kind you can see,

But the one that eats through dignity.

It teaches you how to smile while shrinking,

How to apologize for breathing air you didn’t pay for.

I have held hunger in my stomach like a secret,

watched promises rot in the mouths of politicians,

and called it governance.

Racism doesn’t need chains anymore.

It wears suits now, sits in boardrooms,

and signs papers that erase faces like mine.

It whispers in hiring rooms, in classrooms,

In the silence after a joke that was never funny.

My skin still walks into rooms before I do,

And sometimes it leaves bruises.

And there was the night I lost my body.

Hands that were not mine mapped me without mercy.

They called it desire,

But I learned that silence can sound like survival.

They told me to forgive,

as if forgiveness could sew me back whole.

But my body remembers,

every breath, every tremor, every theft.

Sometimes I dream of a woman,

barefoot, heavy with history,

a pregnant silhouette against a red horizon.

She carries nations in her womb,

grief and hope braided in her hair.

The earth listens when she walks;

Every step is a drumbeat,

Every contraction is a prophecy.

She births children into a world that greets them

with both fear and promise,

each cry echoing a memory that refuses to die.

And the men in suits still speak of progress,

while the roads collapse and children starve.

Corruption wears perfume now,

It smiles on TV, it calls itself democracy.

The poor grow thinner,

their bones become statistics,

Their stories are buried under asphalt and applause.

The mind remembers it all

the rape, the racism, the hunger,

forgetting.

It remembers how it learned to pretend to be fine,

how it stitched its wounds with hope too small to cover the pain.

It remembers prayers that turned to smoke,

dreams that suffocated before they could fly.

But unmasked,

The mind does not lie.

It bleeds truth.

It exposes the scars beneath the laughter,

the trembling beneath the strength.

It holds everything the world tried to bury, and still dares to breathe.

And somewhere, that pregnant woman still walks.

Barefoot and unbroken.

Her belly glows with the ghosts of centuries,

her breath carries the songs we’ve forgotten to sing.

When she finally gives birth, the world will tremble,

because the child will come out screaming, not in pain,

but in remembrance.

And that, perhaps,

is what it means to be unmasked,

To remember, to ache, and to live still.

More from Aliyah Morayo ↓

@aliyah_morayo on Instagram

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Feed yourself poetry every day.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

no place like home by Abhilasha Ghosh | One Poem Only

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily poetry podcast offering a quiet moment with a single poem—read aloud, without analysis or noise.

no place like home

Abhilasha Ghosh

coming back feels different—

as if the walls have softened

while you were gone,

as if the light has rehearsed

the exact way it will fall on your face

when you step inside.

you notice small things first:

the old curtain breathing in the breeze,

the smell of evening settling on the floor,

the faint echo of who you used to be

still lingering in the corners

like a loyal ghost.

distance does this—

carves out space in your chest

so the familiar can return

with a strange, tender sharpness.

a house you once rushed through

becomes a sanctuary

the moment you walk away from it.

and standing at the threshold now,

red shoes dusty from everywhere else,

you feel that quiet click inside—

recognition, surrender, belonging.

dorothy’s words arrive softly in red shoes,

“there’s no place like home.”

More from Abhilasha Ghosh ↓

@booksandbillis on Instagram

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Borders by Maggie Devers & Weekly Poetry Recap | One Poem More

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem More gathers all of this week’s poems from One Poem Only—an unhurried chance to listen again, or catch what you missed.

This week’s poems

Presence of Choice by Alecia Lewis
Harmony by Seán Tate
Memory weighs more than bone and Hash browns by Charlotte Dawn
Tangerines and Alcoholism by Labanya Dey
I Am Mother by Melissa Norton
Comrades by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Plus one new one to carry us into the week ahead

Borders

Maggie Devers

On the north side of the border

The saguaro arms are drooping

And the Oregon Pipes have disappeared

Even their bones are missing.

But to the south, they grow tall and proud

With enough of both to pepper the landscape,

And I wonder how it's possible

For a line in the sand to grow.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

My debut poetry collection, For My Daughter, available as an audiobook.
Purchase a signed copy of For My Daughter or get one free by subscribing to the podcast: One Poem Only on Patreon
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

More from this week’s poets

Find links to each poet’s work, books, and social accounts in the show notes for the individual episodes.

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry is better when it’s lived with. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Comrades by Ella Wheeler Wilcox | One Poem Only

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily ritual: one poem, center stage, just for now.

Comrades

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I and my Soul are alone to-day,

All in the shining weather;

We were sick of the world, and put it away,

So we could rejoice together.

Our host, the Sun, in the blue, blue sky

Is mixing a rare, sweet wine,

In the burnished gold of this cup on high,

For me, and this Soul of mine.

We find it a safe and royal drink,

And a cure for every pain;

It helps us to love, and helps us to think,

And strengthens body and brain.

And sitting here, with my Soul alone,

Where the yellow sun-rays fall,

Of all the friends I have ever known

I find it the BEST of all.

We rarely meet when the world is near,

For the World hath a pleasing art

And brings me so much that is bright and dear

That my Soul it keepeth apart.

But when I grow weary of mirth and glee,

Of glitter, glow, and splendour,

Like a tried old friend it comes to me,

With a smile that is sad and tender.

And we walk together as two friends may,

And laugh and drink God's wine.

Oh, a royal comrade any day

I find this Soul of mine.

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

I Am Mother by Melissa Norton | One Poem Only

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily poetry podcast offering a quiet moment with a single poem—read aloud, without analysis or noise.

I Am Mother

Melissa Norton

I am Mother, stepping barefoot on the snake.

Absorbing her power as her body wraps tight around my leg.

I, with quick, sharp force sever the head full of venom

As my mother has done with the point of a shovel

As I have done with a horrified hatchet

My babies will fear no fangs.

I am Mother. Protector. Warrior. Safe Haven.

I am Mother. I know powerful, truest love.

I have trudged through petrifying, thick and heavy fear.

Stepped over serpents of worry, tears slithering,

Growing my new skin to protect this love.

I am Mother. I know sacrifice.

I have abandoned limbs and organs to survive viper pits.

I have been swallowed whole

I have been buried and unearthed, endless reincarnation.

I am Mother. I have created life within me

Torn and bled to release these beings and their breaths.

I have healed and regenerated from battles only I can feel.

My scars are worn proudly, the memories everlasting.

I am Mother

More from Melissa Norton ↓

@hairnhips on Instagram
@hairnhips on Substack

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Tangerines and Alcoholism by Labanya Dey | One Poem Only

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

A daily reading from One Poem Only—a quiet space for a single poem, read aloud.

Tangerines and Alcoholism

Labanya Dey

My mother peels tangerines

Carefully scaling the orange flesh

Until her nails dig into the sour crevices

Of the orange ball

The juices drip between her nails and fingertips

As she puts them on a plate

On a bright afternoon

As she waits for them to be savoured

Appreciated with the delicate eyes she yearns for.

She sits by the table, nails scratching through the skin

The sweet juices bubble through her veins

She sits and waits

Where the threshold loses its colour and the window panes seem blue

She watches the door with careful eyes

At 12:00 when she cleans up her day

The corpses of red headed flies with sweetness sticking in their tongues

Lay beside the musk amber of leftover liquid

Smiling at her - "you couldn't even keep him"

So she keeps, her orange peels and her whiskey scent

And sunny days with dark afternoons

And vibrant smiles with leftover tangerines

Drowned with glistening, golden bubbles of life and laughter

Because my mother peels tangerines

Whether seasons meet their end

Or the waves meet the earth.

More from Labanya Dey ↓

@labanyaaa._ on Instagram
@yapseshs on Substack

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Memory weighs more than bone by Charlotte Dawn | Wednesday Double Feature | One Poem Only

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Wednesdays on One Poem Only are a double feature: one poem here on the podcast, and one more by the same poet shared on Instagram.

Memory weighs more than bone

Charlotte Dawn

You can’t see the ghosts

until you’re almost one—

until your breath learns how to hesitate,

until mirrors stop recognising you

without thinking.

They gather in the quiet margins:

hospital hallways at 3 a.m.,

old songs that bruise instead of heal,

names you don’t say aloud anymore.

The living pass straight through them,

laughing, late for something,

arms full of tomorrow.

They don’t feel the cold.

But you—

you slow down enough to notice

how memory weighs more than bone,

how absence has a voice,

how survival leaves footprints backward.

That’s when the ghosts turn their faces.

Not to haunt you—

but to ask if you remember

who you were

before you learned how to disappear.

More from Charlotte Dawn ↓

@wordsbycharlottedawn on Instagram
@charlottedawn1 on Substack

Watch the Second Poem

You can watch and listen to Hash browns by Charlotte Dawn as part of our Wednesday double feature on Instagram at @rembrandts.cure.

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Two poems. One poet. Let the words keep moving.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Harmony by Seán Tate | One Poem Only

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily ritual: one poem, center stage, just for now.

Harmony

Seán Tate

Harmony, intermingled with melody, falls lightly from the heavens

to coat the parched earth.

Rough flakes made smooth by a rich flowing sequence.

And the rhythm; listen as the rhythm courses down through

cracks to slumbering seeds.

Listen to that steady beat: tap, tap, tap.

Seeds aroused from peaceful repose, strumming and humming to their own

wild chorus; a deep dissonance.

Compacted soil parts in compressed rattles, giving room for the building

crescendo.

More from Seán Tate ↓

@seantatepoet on Instagram

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Presence of Choice by Alecia Lewis | One Poem Only

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily poetry podcast offering a quiet moment with a single poem—read aloud, without analysis or noise.

Presence of Choice

Alecia Lewis

I hold no one.

They can come or go.

Freely.

Unbound.

They may disconnect

Online

or in person.

People may condemn me.

I remain unshaken.

Judgment falls.

I do not carry it.

If exiting brings peace,

I let them go.

With love.

With grace.

I hold only those

Who choose to stay.

The rest are shadows.

I release them gently.

More from Alecia Lewis ↓

@neutralmuse73 on Instagram and Substack

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Prattle On by Maggie Devers & Weekly Poetry Recap | One Poem More

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem More gathers all of this week’s poems from One Poem Only—an unhurried chance to listen again, or catch what you missed.

This week’s poems

Same Fire by Diana Johar
Resist by Francesca Acquaviva
The -ness of things by Sanjeevani
Women in Me by Ayushi
Last Year by Samah Ayesha
To Imagination by Emily Brontë

Plus one new one to carry us into the week ahead

Prattle On

Maggie Devers

A bird in a backpack walked by

Tweeting plaintively from inside

And the crows kept up their racket

With little variance

But I think they were surprised,

And wondering how this chirp was stuck inside

And I think the prisoner wondered too

What it would be like to be outside

Really out

High in the palm trees

Singing her song as she swayed in the sun

Just for the sound of it.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

My debut poetry collection, For My Daughter, available as an audiobook.
Purchase a signed copy of For My Daughter or get one free by subscribing to the podcast: One Poem Only on Patreon
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

More from this week’s poets

Find links to each poet’s work, books, and social accounts in the show notes for the individual episodes.

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry is better when it’s lived with. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

To Imagination by Emily Brontë | One Poem Only

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily ritual: one poem, center stage, just for now.

To Imagination

Emily Brontë

When weary with the long day's care,

And earthly change from pain to pain,

And lost, and ready to despair,

Thy kind voice calls me back again:

Oh, my true friend! I am not lone,

While then canst speak with such a tone!

So hopeless is the world without;

The world within I doubly prize;

Thy world, where guile, and hate, and doubt,

And cold suspicion never rise;

Where thou, and I, and Liberty,

Have undisputed sovereignty.

What matters it, that all around

Danger, and guilt, and darkness lie,

If but within our bosom's bound

We hold a bright, untroubled sky,

Warm with ten thousand mingled rays

Of suns that know no winter days?

Reason, indeed, may oft complain

For Nature's sad reality,

And tell the suffering heart how vain

Its cherished dreams must always be;

And Truth may rudely trample down

The flowers of Fancy, newly-blown:

But thou art ever there, to bring

The hovering vision back, and breathe

New glories o'er the blighted spring,

And call a lovelier Life from Death.

And whisper, with a voice divine,

Of real worlds, as bright as thine.

I trust not to thy phantom bliss,

Yet, still, in evening's quiet hour,

With never-failing thankfulness,

I welcome thee, Benignant Power;

Sure solacer of human cares,

And sweeter hope, when hope despairs!

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Last Year by Samah Ayesha | One Poem Only

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily poetry podcast offering a quiet moment with a single poem—read aloud, without analysis or noise.

Last Year

Samah Ayesha

i spent the better half of last year

staring at the ceiling,

watching it bend more crooked

the longer i looked.

but it wasn't just the ceiling

it was the walls, the floor,

maybe my footing,

maybe my mind

from being indoors too long.

each time i completed ablution,

each time i laid down my mat to pray,

it seemed off too.

i checked the compass,

adjusted,

checked again

but the mat wouldn't straighten.

or was it my footing?

i wasted the better half of last year

trying to stop walking in circles.

or was it a triangle?

the doorways.

the roof.

all of them slanted.

and i'm still not sure

if i ever fixed the mat

or just learned to pray at an angle.

More from Samah Ayesha ↓

@samah.ayesha on Instagram

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Women in Me by Ayushi | One Poem Only

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

A daily reading from One Poem Only—a quiet space for a single poem, read aloud.

Women in Me

Ayushi

I think I gather dreams like picking up stones

near an abandoned highway where

the road leads nowhere,

where the wind pants like a tiger breathing

and the woman in me returns to look

for the girl she had lost years ago

perhaps the salt in me will return to the sea

and the light in me will break open

a door, a wound, a memory, that no one can shut

a spring thunder, bolts me awake from a dream

I am dragging my earthy-body towards

the rivers of you, branching out like tendons

slowly the sun dissolves like sugar in water

all I hear are murmurs of moments

kindness, kindness, kindness

its December and I am wrapped

by the warmth of an afterthought

a kind of a forgiveness to all your

past revolting selves.

More from Ayushi ↓

@artofmoon__ on Instagram

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

The -ness of things by Sanjeevani | Wednesday Double Feature | One Poem Only

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Wednesdays on One Poem Only are a double feature: one poem here on the podcast, and one more by the same poet shared on Instagram.

The -ness of things

Sanjeevani

Sadness

incurable. Hopelessness, hold on—

brink of collapse—

unstable ecosystems, volatile geopolitics,

anthropological coldness.

Kindness—

let the spider live.

Closeness—

us two, are we corrupt too?

A likeness—

before the doom, a thought of you

nearly smothers me in blue.

Fondness—

find me after the apocalypse,

remember, black holes decay—

oneness.

Madness—

this world and I,

an intrinsic brokenness.

Wilderness—

A state of being.

I lose, and I lose

in this cruel forest.

Lightness, take me in.

My -ness floats through. Premature nights and abandoned homes.

My -ness sinks. Untouched ocean beds and fossils of creatures

veiled by archaeological secrecy. My -ness feels.

More from Sanjeevani ↓

@sanjpoems on Instagram

Watch the Second Poem

You can watch and listen to Deer killers and Careless Lovers by Sanjeevani as part of our Wednesday double feature on Instagram at @rembrandts.cure.

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Two poems. One poet. Let the words keep moving.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Resist by Francesca Acquaviva | One Poem Only

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily ritual: one poem, center stage, just for now.

Resist

Francesca Acquaviva

A burning wick

of resistance

in two seas

of indifference

bitter coffee

with the sweetness

of the vehemence

with which the wind

whispers

I resist

to desire

in more than one head

to become

clovers

to sew together

the pages

the speakers

the soft notes

tables pushed together

close

while on the napkins

one knits

a valid

future

to embroider

to knit

the handfuls

of grains

to be sand

a free beach

we have lit

we want to light

among the ruins

the fingerprints

the encephalogram

the commas still

stained with ink

the typing

the union

the gait

the way of speaking

the way of dressing

sometimes deemed

wrong

the only thing wrong is

the yoke of the dust

of the old—not the ancient—

of those who squeeze

the throat

but we are alive

in the commas, even if

belated

in the necessary periods

in the efforts made

with pairs of

biceps

in the snows

in the mountains of

doing, not just

saying

we are alive

in the life that descends upon us

from above

that rises to us

from below

More from Francesca Acquaviva ↓

@a.cquaviv.a on Instagram
Her book, La Tela, is an Italian collection of poems, published by PAB Editore

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Same Fire by Diana Johar | One Poem Only

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily poetry podcast offering a quiet moment with a single poem—read aloud, without analysis or noise.

Same Fire

Diana Johar

When things were beautiful,

you stood in my corner—

calling me strong, brave,

everything you admired.

But beauty dims.

And now you say I’ve got out of hand,

call me crazy,

as if this same fire

wasn’t the reason

you loved me once.

So go—

find another love,

meek and gentle.

Tell yourself

you’ve done the right thing.

While I go on burning—

fierce,

unapologetic,

like the way

I once

loved you.

More from Diana Johar ↓

@wordsbydianajohar on Instagram

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

The Day After by Maggie Devers & Weekly Poetry Recap | One Poem More

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem More gathers all of this week’s poems from One Poem Only—an unhurried chance to listen again, or catch what you missed.

This week’s poems

Human Nature by Lynn L.
Museum of Mourning by Maria Corcoran
The House with My Name Carved Into Its Teeth by Tess Ezzy
Still, something by Aditya Gupta
This Town by Macy Williams
Central Park At Dusk by Sara Teasdale

Plus one new one to carry us into the week ahead

The Day After

Maggie Devers

The birds careen at the same place in the sky

I wonder if we should tell them the mess we made

So they can move on to something useful,

So they can take a break as omen bearers—

the tragedies keep piling up.

I pass a nest high in the tree

It’s been there all this time,

Concealed by leaves.

The sparseness of winter uncovers

What we believe is hidden

We retrace our footprints in the snow,

Trying to unravel the path forward,

But all is confusion as we cross

And recross our steps.

How to glide through the crisp morning air

With no wing beats to meter our journey?

More from Maggie Devers ↓

My debut poetry collection, For My Daughter, available as an audiobook.
Purchase a signed copy of For My Daughter or get one free by subscribing to the podcast: One Poem Only on Patreon
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

More from this week’s poets

Find links to each poet’s work, books, and social accounts in the show notes for the individual episodes.

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry is better when it’s lived with. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Central Park At Dusk by Sara Teasdale | One Poem Only

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily ritual: one poem, center stage, just for now.

Central Park At Dusk

Sara Teasdale

Buildings above the leafless trees

Loom high as castles in a dream,

While one by one the lamps come out

To thread the twilight with a gleam.

There is no sign of leaf or bud,

A hush is over everything.

Silent as women wait for love,

The world is waiting for the spring.

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

This Town by Macy Williams | One Poem Only

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily poetry podcast offering a quiet moment with a single poem—read aloud, without analysis or noise.

This Town

Macy Williams

This town knows many ways of moving.

Some rush.

Some pause.

Some stop and start again.

All of them count.

I walk these streets with a body

that does not follow the expected map.

Some days it cooperates.

Some days it asks for patience

I’m still learning how to give.

Disability lives quietly here.

In waiting.

In adapting.

In choosing rest without permission.

In knowing limits without shame.

There are doors that open easily

and others that don’t notice you at all.

There are systems built for speed,

and people built for survival instead.

I have learned that strength

is rarely loud.

It looks like showing up anyway.

It looks like leaving early.

It looks like staying home and choosing

to keep going tomorrow.

This place holds all of it

the visible, the hidden, the misunderstood.

Bodies that ache.

Minds that work differently.

Lives that don’t fit tidy explanations.

I am not here to overcome anything.

I am here to exist.

To take space.

To move at the pace my body allows,

without needing to justify it.

And this town

with its noise and quiet corners,

its imperfections and familiar streets

keeps making room for people like me.

Not because we are exceptional.

But because we are part of it.

More from Macy Williams ↓

@macywilliams05 on Instagram

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry reminds us what matters. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Still, something by Aditya Gupta | One Poem Only

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

A daily reading from One Poem Only—a quiet space for a single poem, read aloud.

Still, something

Aditya Gupta

I stopped praying long ago.

The gods grew tired of my voice,

or maybe I just grew tired

of asking for things

that never came.

My wallet’s thin,

my dreams thinner

a handful of words

no one cared to read.

Even my parents’ eyes

look at me like unfinished work,

a draft they wish they could rewrite.

And love,

she always leaves

before the song begins.

I’ve learned the sound of silence

that follows a “maybe next time.”

But sometimes,

in the middle of all that noise,

a small thought hums

that maybe I’m still here

for a reason I don’t yet know.

Maybe the words I failed to write are still forming inside me.

Maybe faith

is not about believing in God,

but believing

that the broken can still be beautiful.

And maybe one day,

someone will see me

not as a failure,

but as a boy who kept trying

to love the world

even when it forgot his name.

More from Aditya Gupta ↓

@serenadeinsilhouettes on Instagram

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

The House with My Name Carved Into Its Teeth by Tess Ezzy | Wednesday Double Feature | One Poem Only

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Wednesdays on One Poem Only are a double feature: one poem here on the podcast, and one more by the same poet shared on Instagram.

The House with My Name Carved Into Its Teeth

Tess Ezzy

Executive dysfunction

is a kind of haunting

but not the pretty kind,

not the candlelit ghost girl

floating through the hallway.

No.

This thing is a beast

with my name carved

into its teeth.

Every morning I wake

to a body that forgets me.

A body that misplaces its own pulse.

A body that drops intention

like a strip of clothing

before the lover even arrives.

My hands—

god, my hands—

they go spectral on me.

I reach for the task

and the task slips through

like a secret I’m not trusted with.

I reach for the day

and the day folds shut

like a trapdoor

and I fall through myself

again

again.

People say

Just start.

As if I am not wrestling a monster

in the foyer of my own life.

As if the staircase

is not rearranging itself

the moment I look away.

As if time hasn’t been taunting me

like a cruel ex

who knows exactly

where my soft skin lives.

My to-do list

is a fucked-up funhouse mirror.

Every item shows me

the version of me

I should have been by now.

I stare at her—

mouth full of apology,

spine full of fire—

and I want her

just once

to step out of the mirror

and stop pretending

she’s possible.

I lose hours like lovers

I was too wild to keep.

I lose whole afternoons

the way some people

lose religion.

Sudden.

Violent.

A kind of holy grief.

And yes—

there is shame.

The thick, wet kind.

The kind that grows mould

if you don’t drag it out into the sun

and scream at it

until it dissolves.

But don’t mistake me.

I am not asking for rescue.

I am not writing a tender poem

about learning to love myself

in a haunted house.

I am telling you

I am renovating this bitch.

With my bare hands

and my broken rhythms

and my stubborn, feral hope.

I am ripping down the rooms

that taught me to disappear.

I am tearing up the floorboards

where the shame slept.

I am oiling the hinges

with my own sweat

until the doors swing open

like they’ve been waiting

their whole lives

to let me through.

Tonight

I stand inside the ruin

and I say:

I am done being hunted

by my own mind.

I am done apologising

to the ghosts I did not invite.

I am done calling this survival

when what I want

is a life.

And somewhere

beneath the rubble,

beneath the monster’s breath,

beneath the chaos of a body

that won’t hold still—

I hear a heartbeat.

Mine.

Still animal.

Still stubborn.

Still learning to roar.

More from Tess Ezzy ↓

@themoodyproject_ on Instagram
Poetess Press on Substack

Watch the Second Poem

You can watch and listen to Mud on Her Knees, Sky in Her Teeth by Tess as part of our Wednesday double feature on Instagram at @rembrandts.cure.

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Two poems. One poet. Let the words keep moving.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Museum of Mourning by Maria Corcoran | One Poem Only

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily ritual: one poem, center stage, just for now.

Museum of Mourning

Maria Corcoran

This poem was first published in the Raven Review.

Ocean of silent, aching desires

Drowned before even taking form

Guiltless, carried to the pyre

Snuffed and swallowed, not yet born

O lulling waves of strangled dreams,

Why do you refuse to die?

Trying even now to be heard, be seen

From below the depths wherein you lie

With your unclosing eyes full of blame,

Every gurgled breath you heave,

Ties me a knot borne of your pain

You wish to take me as you leave

You, every dream never dared dreamt

A drop in this vast cemetery

Your revenge is your lament

A cruel memoir of what I’ve buried

Sharp-edged guilt, bleeding grief

Your torment is mine to keep

Unintended sweet deceit

My regrets are your motifs

Is this your oath,

Either drive me mad

Or kill us both?

Perhaps it is a fitting end,

Succumbing to these rooted wounds

That I will, you will never mend

Turning inside out, self-exhumed

Quiet rage, quiet torment

Undeclared indictment

Punishment for what I’ve done–

A dictated requisite crime--

To be forever on the run,

For a choice that wasn’t mine

More from Maria Corcoran ↓

@_mariacorcoran on Instagram
@mariacorcoran on Substack
Maria is looking for authors and poets that write and appreciate Gothic literature. If you happen to be a poet who writes rhyming/structured poetry, she would like to connect for potential writing collabs and community building.

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry reminds us what matters. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Human Nature by Lynn L. | One Poem Only

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily poetry podcast offering a quiet moment with a single poem—read aloud, without analysis or noise.

Human Nature

Lynn L.

My fingertips feel the texture of a rose petal,

Silken, yes, but silken with the hush of something already dying.

Soft as sin, velvet against the finger,

A whisper that resists and surrenders all at once.

Cool at first, like a lover’s indifference,

Then quick to the warmth beneath the weight of touch.

More from Lynn L. ↓

Her website: www.lbachman.com
@authorlynnl on Instagram
Her book, Saint Woman, is available now

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Writing Love Poems to the NASA Artist’s Concept by Maggie Devers & Weekly Poetry Recap | One Poem More

Sun, 15 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem More gathers all of this week’s poems from One Poem Only—an unhurried chance to listen again, or catch what you missed.

This week’s poems

Every Cell Misses You by Dolon Pramanik
Butterflied, oh by Yonsiri Rojas
You’ll Hear Music by Chandra Tyler Mountain
Patience by Ayesha Khalid
Lost Bond by Pinky Faith Okafor
Love Song by Dorothy Parker

Plus one new one to carry us into the week ahead

Writing Love Poems to the NASA Artist’s Concept

Maggie Devers

How small we are,

How infinitesimally small,

And yet I am here

Writing this down so you may read it

10 years from now, or a hundred,

Or never.

Is never the same as zero?

What if every breath is a big bang

The end of one universe

And the beginning of another?

Galaxies live in your voice

Echoing through the walls, off the walls

In the space between your ribs

I hear you

I see you

Once

Twice

Forever

And it’s never enough.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

My debut poetry collection, For My Daughter, available as an audiobook.
Purchase a signed copy of For My Daughter or get one free by subscribing to the podcast: One Poem Only on Patreon
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

More from this week’s poets

Find links to each poet’s work, books, and social accounts in the show notes for the individual episodes.

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry is better when it’s lived with. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Love Song by Dorothy Parker | One Poem Only

Sat, 14 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily ritual: one poem, center stage, just for now.

Love Song

Dorothy Parker

My own dear love, he is strong and bold

And he cares not what comes after.

His words ring sweet as a chime of gold,

And his eyes are lit with laughter.

He is jubilant as a flag unfurled—

Oh, a girl, she’d not forget him.

My own dear love, he is all my world,—

And I wish I’d never met him.

My love, he’s mad, and my love, he’s fleet,

And a wild young wood-thing bore him!

The ways are fair to his roaming feet,

And the skies are sunlit for him.

As sharply sweet to my heart he seems

As the fragrance of acacia.

My own dear love, he is all my dreams,—

And I wish he were in Asia.

My love runs by like a day in June,

And he makes no friends of sorrows.

He’ll tread his galloping rigadoon

In the pathway of the morrows.

He’ll live his days where the sunbeams start,

Nor could storm or wind uproot him.

My own dear love, he is all my heart,—

And I wish somebody’d shoot him.

More from Dorothy Parker ↓

This poem is from Dorothy Parker's collection, Enough Rope, published in 1926.

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Lost Bond by Pinky Faith Okafor | One Poem Only

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily poetry podcast offering a quiet moment with a single poem—read aloud, without analysis or noise.

Lost Bond

Pinky Faith Okafor

There are stories the world claims to tell,

Yet, we do not hear.

Stories of girls denied the gift of learning,

Who live through nightmares and are not allowed to dream.

Of salma–12 who watches her uncle close a business deal behind closed doors

Scrubbing the blood of strangers two weeks later was how she learned

It was her future which was traded.

Of preta–22,

Dragged into a corner by 5 boys,

Who walked away with her smile and her voice.

Now she stands by her window every night,

Talking to the moon

This is the only way she feels heard.

Of every girl in my country who walks down the hill

Before the sun even rises,

Carrying a heavy container,

And a heavier heart.

dreams of desks and blackboards,

Her childhood is passing

One chore, one silence, one sacrifice at a time

No one asks

No one cares

And when bad things happen, they ask,

"What were you wearing,?"

"Where were you going?"

"Who did you go to see?"

Instead of saying,

"This shouldn't have happened to you."

They clap for us on special days

Girl's day, women's day

But forget to lend us a hand on all the other days

When we need it the most.

And now,

all I have to say is this:

We will continue to stand tall,

to dream without fear

even when our dreams seem small.

We will speak out,

even if our voices still shake.

Because silence is never an option

We are not weak,

And we will tell our stories with our own lips.

More from Pinky Faith Okafor ↓

@_pinkythepoet on Instagram

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Patience by Ayesha Mohal | One Poem Only

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

A daily reading from One Poem Only—a quiet space for a single poem, read aloud.

Patience

Ayesha Mohal

Yes, you need patience,

The patience of a steadfast tree,

In autumn, it lets its leaves go free.

Believing, not hoping alone,

In spring, he will have grown.

No one sits beneath the tree,

Yet soon, they will come to see.

Look, the birds are drawing near.

Yes! yes! yes! Spring is here.

Everyone is happy and free,

Yes, you need patience,

The patience of a steadfast tree

More from Ayesha Mohal ↓

@ayeshah.writes on Instagram
@ayeshamohal on Substack
Her book, Bitter Sip, is available now.

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

You’ll Hear Music by Chandra Tyler Mountain | Wednesday Double Feature | One Poem Only

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Wednesdays on One Poem Only are a double feature: one poem here on the podcast, and one more by the same poet shared on Instagram.

You’ll Hear Music

Chandra Tyler Mountain

This poem is included in the 2024-25 Stafford Challenge Anthology.

If you listen closely—

you’ll hear the music in the quiet humming,

pulses and surges of electricity,

moving through us

with light and energy.

If you listen closely—

you’ll hear the music in the wind

whistling softly, making its way through,

carrying seeds of hope

for a tomorrow that will surely come.

If you listen closely—

you’ll hear the music in the stately elms and oaks

planning for a winter

of full exposure:

cold days, stark nights.

If you listen closely—

you’ll hear the music in the private chirps

of the feathered ones who remain

to brave the winter and feast on songs of insects

buried deep in the cold, hard earth.

If you listen closely—

you’ll hear the music in the laughter of children

frolicking in the last remaining days of sun

before the arctic breeze pushes us behind closed doors

to seek other sources of warmth.

If you listen closely—

you’ll hear the music in the beating of your own heart

in tune with blessing and grief,

singing back to you:

all is well; all is well.

More from Chandra Tyler Mountain ↓

@musings.from.my.grown.self on Instagram
Her books, Sacred Water: Scripture Haiku for Those Who Thirst, and Musings from My Younger Self, are available now.

Watch the Second Poem

You can watch and listen to Abandoned by Chandra as part of our Wednesday double feature on Instagram at @rembrandts.cure.

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Two poems. One poet. Let the words keep moving.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Butterflied, oh by Yonsiri Rojas

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily ritual: one poem, center stage, just for now.

Butterflied, oh

Yonsiri Rojas

I

fish-eyed, butterflied collection

of furrowed bones composed of dust

and glitter scattered throughout the meadow

the gray-hued calcium boughs quiver

at the poisonous, foetid breath of their beast…

a skin sack stuffed with long rancid meat;

sheathed in tettered flesh, a machete

II

a blood-colored glass of something

hails onto the peppermint braids of greenery

altogether the beasts croon about glory, thorns, wars

fortresses built off your pearly lament sprout from the land

moonlight bathes the so-called clique of control

as merciful - but cunning - death abates the tempest.

More from Yonsiri Rojas ↓

@lvrimar and @florerlia on Instagram
@lvrimar on Substack

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Every Cell Misses You by Dolon Pramanik | One Poem Only

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

One Poem Only is a daily poetry podcast offering a quiet moment with a single poem—read aloud, without analysis or noise.

Every Cell Misses You

Dolon Pramanik

Every single cell in my body calls your name.

It’s like they all know who they belong to.

When you’re near, they hum quietly,

like a song only I can feel.

When you’re far,

they scream —

they ache.

My heart tries to stay strong,

but it beats too fast when I think of you.

Sometimes it skips,

like it forgot how to live without your rhythm.

My lungs struggle too —

they fill with your memory,

and when I breathe out,

it hurts to let you go.

My stomach twists when I miss you,

it forgets what comfort feels like.

My hands reach out for nothing,

and my skin burns

from the space where your touch should be.

My eyes get tired from searching for you

in every shadow,

every crowd,

every dream.

I am made of you now —

you live in my blood,

my bones,

my breath.

You are in the tiny, invisible pieces of me

that keep me alive.

And when you’re gone,

those pieces cry out —

they ache like broken glass inside me.

I’d do anything for you.

Anything to see you happy,

anything to make you stay.

Because loving you

is not just in my heart —

it’s in every part of me.

And missing you

feels like my body

forgetting how to live.

More from Dolon Pramanik ↓

@chitrangi_dolon on Instagram

Support + Stay Connected to OPO

If you’d like to support the show, Substack and Patreon members receive a copy of my book, For My Daughter, along with episodes from the audiobook.

Poetry slows us down. Thank you for listening.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Sunday Recap & All the Words for Blue by Maggie Devers

Sun, 08 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Feb 2 Light by Shannon West @shannonswriting on Instagram.

Feb 3 The Cloak of Quiet Light by Dorothy Howls @thehumanspell on Instagram.

Feb 4 Dreams by Cecilia Knight @ceciliaknightpoems on Instagram. Her book, The Burning Pages, is available now. Listen to me read Treasures by Cecilia on Instagram @rembrandts.cure.

Feb 5 On My Own by Srishti Jain @thesocialsaunter on Instagram.

Feb 6 glass half by Michaela Godding @michaelagodding on Instagram. Her book, The Year Our Grandmothers Died, is available now.

Feb 7 Magnetism by Emma Lazarus

Feb 8

All the Words for Blue

Maggie Devers

I press pencils between my toes

To loosen the webbing holding me together

You must breathe into the pressure, diaphragmatically

The way that word rolls out, just like that, diaphragmatically

Mine is weak from holding my breath all my life

I forgot how to open my back and make room for air

I forgot how to expand

But I’m learning

On the exhale, I imagine smog spewing out my nose

I feel fresh like LA after the rain

With the sky that perfect blue,

Azzurro, they call it in Italian

Of course a country of painters has a bounty

Of words for blue

Blu, celeste, turchino

True blue, baby blue, sea blue

Azzurro

To hold an understanding of color,

To know the truth of blue

Helps me breathe

More from Maggie Devers ↓

My debut poetry collection, For My Daughter, available as an audiobook.
Purchase a signed copy of For My Daughter or get one free by subscribing to the podcast: One Poem Only on Patreon
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Magnetism by Emma Lazarus

Sat, 07 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Magnetism

Emma Lazarus

By the impulse of my will,

By the red flame in my blood,

By me nerves' electric thrill,

By the passion of my mood,

My concentrated desire,

My undying, desperate love,

I ignore Fate, I defy her,

Iron-hearted Death I move.

When the town lies numb with sleep,

Here, round-eyed I sit; my breath

Quickly stirred, my flesh a-creep,

And I force the gates of death.

I nor move nor speak—you'd deem

From my quiet face and hands,

I were tranced—but in her dream,

SHE responds, she understands.

I have power on what is not,

Or on what has ceased to be,

From that deep, earth-hollowed spot,

I can lift her up to me.

And, or ere I am aware

Through the closed and curtained door,

Comes my lady white and fair,

And embraces me once more.

Though the clay clings to her gown,

Yet all heaven is in her eyes;

Cool, kind fingers press mine eyes,

To my soul her soul replies.

But when breaks the common dawn,

And the city wakes—behold!

My shy phantom is withdrawn,

And I shiver lone and cold.

And I know when she has left,

She is stronger far than I,

And more subtly spun her weft,

Than my human wizardry.

Though I force her to my will,

By the red flame in my blood,

By my nerves' electric thrill,

By the passion of my mood,

Yet all day a ghost am I.

Nerves unstrung, spent will, dull brain.

I achieve, attain, but die,

And she claims me hers again.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

glass half by Michaela Godding

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

glass half

Michaela Godding

I’m sorry

for this mess all over the all over

the carpet

dragging at my heels

like a half dead dog

look at me

my empty is so big

my stomach full

of stars

unapologizing

on the way down

at least I can say

I bellied the sky.

On My Own by Srishti Jain

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

On My Own

Srishti Jain

In the air of the city,

I feel like a hermit

sauntering across landscape

with lavenders

and a breeze

that welcomes me

where I always belonged.

It is serene waters

that touch my storm

wishing me luck

to never settle

but

embrace warm cuddles

that I chase within.

I see the sky turning

pink,

blue,

&

purple,

all the hues that prosper my energy

to bear the brunt of times

alone and afar.

It is to walk away

and

closer to the earth,

smelling its freshness

that scents of spring

that reminds me of

h o m e

where my mum writes me letters of love

but not sending them my way

rather making me strong in my skin

to be on my own.

Dreams by Cecilia Knight

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Dreams

Cecilia Knight

i’m three months postpartum

and i’m dreaming again

not the kind you get when you’re asleep

what is sleep anyway?

the kind you get when you’re awake

when your eyes are open

and you feel alive

the kind of dreams that remind you

of your fire

i say hello to them

and they feel like a long lost friend

that you meet up with in an empty parking lot

at 5am to watch the sunrise

and talk about what life will be like

when you finally leave this town

they feel like october

they feel like the bonfire

i can hear the wood cracking

i can smell the hay bale im sitting on

the beanie im wearing

makes my forehead itchy

but my best friend is sitting next to me

and just offered me his jacket

so i forget about it for a while

they feel like im standing in the front row

at my favorite singer’s concert

jumping up and down

screaming the words to

every

single

song

they feel like no one can touch me

they feel like my son will never go wanting

they feel like something worth hunting

and nothing can stop me

n o t h i n g

The Cloak of Quiet Light by Dorothy Howls

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

The Cloak of Quiet Light

Dorothy Howls

I weave a thread of silver-white,

around my chest, soft-shielded tight.

A shimmer-glow no eye can see,

but here it stands, protecting me.

No harsh word sticks, no shadow stays,

I’m held in warmth through stormy days.

Light by Shannon West

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Light

Shannon West

I’m afraid of the dark and so is he

We hold each other close and drift off into dreams

The closet light is on - just how we like it

Light spills from beneath the door bathing the room in its warmth

The basement, being alone, silence, death - belong to the dark

The kitchen table, love, togetherness, life - belong to the light

Kindred spirits safe in our nest

We don’t need to fear the shadows

We can see them as well as they can see us

The irony is not lost on me that when we are most at peace, we close our eyes

Embracing the darkness

I am empathetic

Because I still fear the dark

Maybe moms aren’t supposed to admit that

I don’t think it’s a weakness

It just is

But what a privilege it is

To be his light now

Sunday Recap & Through the Sound by Maggie Devers

Sun, 01 Feb 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Jan 26 - Born of Ashes by Goldilocks @goldenprisonpoetry on Instagram.

Jan 27 - The Mythical Hero of Legend has Clinical Depression by Oscar W Isaacs @oscarwritesaacs on Instagram.

Jan 28 - Cheap Therapy Cheat Sheet by Tanja Lau @tanias.butterflies on Instagram. Tania's Butterflies on Substack. Listen to me read Rumors by Tanja on Instagram @rembrandts.cure

Jan 29 - The Grief that Grips Our World by Raquel Dionísio Abrantes @poets_desk on Instagram.

Jan 30 - Without The Noise by Dipanwita Dey @iamdipanwitadey on Instagram.

Jan 31 - Chai and Chrysanthemum by Mahnoor Rehan @smearedwithcrimson on Instagram.

Feb 1

Through the Sound

Maggie Devers

How much longer will we keep up the farce

How much longer will the charade last?

We thrive onscreen with tricks of light and sound

Our entire world–galaxy–is cut off from the rest of the universe

We fill this void by lashing out

By forgetting why we're here

By rushing through the good parts

And replaying the bad ones

The things they promised would never happen

Now occur at such a frequency,

There is no time to parse their sounds

The morning birdsong is immense and unwavering

A reminder not to close your ears

A reminder that the small and weak are us,

As are the brutes

We only have to look them in the eyes to know–

One day we will die.

Familiar things become deranged

There is a part of us that remembers these horrors

Because we’ve seen them before

In the hours we wait for understanding

The smell of a familiar stuffed bear

Of pancakes on the griddle

Rosemary scented palms, sticky with the smelling

Where do pain and fear live?

In the small quiet corners of our body

Where they try not to cry,

Where they bite their lip

Look deep into the middle distance

And imagine they are safe.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

My debut poetry collection, For My Daughter, available as an audiobook.
Purchase a signed copy of For My Daughter or get one free by subscribing to the podcast: One Poem Only on Patreon
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Chai and Chrysanthemum by Mahnoor Rehan

Sat, 31 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Chai and Chrysanthemum

Mahnoor Rehan

My heart leans

Towards abomination

You— Earliest ray of sunshine

Walking sack of calculated calories

Abyss, philanthropy

I follow the squirrels as they hop from one willow to

another

When I leave my world behind just to play a minuscule

part in yours

White Chrysanthemum disguised

As a human

Bang bang

Swish swish

They rip my petals off in bits

Even god loves your company

You both laugh at my life choices on a Saturday morning

over a cup of chai

Oh, what a delightful sight am I?

A hopeless, humorless watch

The burden of love etched in my palms—

Yet the thought of you still keeps me warm

As I sit here in my rocking chair

In the winter of my life

My center centers around your center

And I—

Quietly oblige.

Without The Noise by Dipanwita Dey

Sat, 31 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Without The Noise

Dipanwita Dey

Who am I

when the notifications stop buzzing,

when applause fades,

when the lights dim and disappear,

when no eyes are left to watch?

Who am I

when the corner of the bedside empties quietly,

the pillow no longer wet with secrets,

the chaos no longer hums merrily,

and my father’s strength vanishes—

softly into thin air?

Am I still kind

if no one claps for my empathy?

Still strong,

if no one sees me carry the weight?

Still dependable,

if I crumble silently each day?

In the hush of 3 AM,

without filters, without guilt,

without the crowd, without the noise,

without the need to be enough—

I find her.

The girl who is strength.

The quiet warrior,

secretly fighting her own battle.

She is poetry. She is art.

She writes wildly

and cries without shame.

Without the noise,

I am not the echo of the world.

I am the voice.

Raw. Trembling.

But finally—mine.

The Grief that Grips Our World by Raquel Dionísio Abrantes

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

The Grief that Grips Our World

Raquel Dionísio Abrantes

Silver waters whisper

amidst slender branches

where sisters bathe. My twin

of bone and moss whose woe

I fold like my grandmother folded

her husband’s pants —

carefully, and in silence. Come,

feral storm. Let us

be washed from the grief

that grips our world tonight.

Cheap Therapy Cheat Sheet by Tanja Lau

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Cheap Therapy Cheat Sheet

Tanja Lau

This poem was originally published by Part-Time Poets. Issue 29.

No excuses. Pick your next move:

Some people scream into pillows, others name

their grief Steve and set a place for him at dinner.

Mine is called Ernesto, he’s Swedish and he’s a stranger

to daylight, so I forgive him. Naturally, he likes to quote

Kierkegaard. That guy knew a thing or two about

connecting the dots backwards. But it’s the part

about living fast-forward Ernie conveniently swallows.

It still gets me every time. You know,

Ernesto can be a bit dramatic. He always wants me

to dress for my own funeral. But I pick the red backless

dress instead and microwave my lunch at 4 p.m. like Lady Madrid.

Yes, it’s good china Wednesday. Everyday. Time to crack

open that bottle of champagne I’ve been saving

for a special occasion. What’s more special

than being alive? After dinner, I serve two Oreos

like communion. (Take three, if you’re religious.)

For dessert there’s nothing better than writing

my name on the mirror. Kissing it. (With tongue

for advanced patients). And then the grand finale:

smashing the handmade mug from third grade

pottery class and spending two hours reassembling it.

Same same, but different. Just like me. In bed,

I make a vow to never again miss a chance

to dance it out in an elevator. Ernesto wouldn’t approve.

Who cares? He’s asleep by now.

The Mythical Hero of Legend has Clinical Depression by Oscar W Isaacs

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

The Mythical Hero of Legend has Clinical Depression

Oscar W Isaacs

The prophecy breathed of him cleaving through demons.

Reaping through legions of unspeakable evil. Reaming to pieces

their grievous leaders. Then of the deceased, he’d retrieve them

from Elysium by redeeming their lethal lesions.

A kill he’s healed…

But in reality, the Hero just sleeps in. His steed, he forgot to feed it.

Lives off cheap mead, cheap weed, gets a quest- he doesn’t even read it.

His sword forged by dwarves in the depths of a Fjord

is buried under heaps of laundry increasing week by week

because folding his jeans is as steep an Odyssey as deceiving Polyphemus.

Forget polishing those greaves when Aeneids

could be written from him polishing his teeth.

The Mythical Hero of Legend is Atlas bearing the weight of the heavens

Even when he’s rotting in his bedroom.

He’s reeling from a lifetime of people demeaning and lessening his presence,

first bullies, then professors, with lessons in quelling his legend,

and then in the present he’s putting in effort impressing incessant investors.

It bends him. Rends him. Condemned like a Trojan no Hector defending.

And while kingdoms immolate in dragon’s flames, he’s sat at home playing

video games because he comprehends himself as Untermenschen.

There’s no Nemean beast, no mares of Diomedes, the apples of Hesperides

still chill among the trees, the labours would seem unachievable

too if Heracles was Gen Z.

And though the world needs him, he can’t quite believe it.

A party made up of a priest and a thief

like in an RPG awaits him. He doesn’t know that those are his mates

who stayed with him. Who he’s airing because replying to their message

feels like writing an Epic. But the world cannot be rescued

by scrolling through Reddit. Upheaval cannot be bested

by a festering prisoner of terror.

The Mythical Hero of Legend must be his own medic.

Like Gilgamesh he must face the grotesque and behead it,

transform like an Ovid retelling. Not dread the unsettling,

accept it. The voice in his head will always be frenetic. Let it.

It won’t always be poetic. Even if he manages to build Rome from wreckage,

he is stuck behind a desk.

Shiva works for Unilever. Beowulf claims benefits.

The Mythical Hero of Legend is being suppressed and you, no less oppressed.

You get dressed, get stressed, do your best for a profession

that does not honour the hopes you’re repressing.

I am Tiresias the Prophet proclaiming a presage, you my friend are not pathetic.

Even if apathetic, even if dead, your life was a saga you scribed into cells.

The Mythical Hero works in sales. Works retail. Waits tables.

The Mythical Hero frees himself from Hades since maybe to be is worthy of fables.

And even though sometimes he dreams of the cleanest means to leave,

and there may come a day where that urge may defeat him.

Perceive that the prophecy breathed of him cleaving through demons.

And to exist. For an eon, or even, just for a minute, to meet them in conflict,

is mythic.

Born of Ashes by Goldilocks

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Born of Ashes

Goldilocks

We were born of ashes and blood,

In a shattered past stained with death.

Each word hurt like a knife stabbing,

Each day felt closer to the end.

The pain did not stop for a second,

It grew bigger with rage.

Despite it all, survival was my saviour.

Living got me into the arms of a soul like mine.

A soul that needed mine, a soul that found me too.

A soul that needed saving and soothing, just like I did.

The world got colors, and the heart filled with light.

Today, I live the dream I had when I cried myself to sleep.

All the times I begged in desperation,

Prayed for hope, prayed for a hero.

All the tears that wetted my pillow,

All the silent screams the walls held,

All the beatings the bed took.

So it all had meaning, it all led me here.

Sunday Recap & Burn the Flag by Maggie Devers

Sun, 25 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Jan 19 - Chasing the Light by Old Fart with a Guitar @old_fart_with_a_guitar on Instagram. Stream his music: OFWAG LinkTree.

Jan 20 - A Merciless Winter by Farida Shamim

Jan 21 - Don't call it hope or you'll scare it away by Candace Kronen rom Candace Kronen @candacekronenpoetry on Instagram. Her Substack: Stories I'll Tell My Daughter. She is co-editor and publisher of If You Ever: Poems Inspired by Kim Addonizio. Listen to me read, When I can’t sleep, I Google how the world ends. by Candace on Instagram at @rembrandts.cure.

Jan 22 - Shimmer by Jessie Marie @Jessie.Kaiser on Instagram and Threads.

Jan 23 - “Hope isn't a shy thing” by Eileen Strawberry @Soulsounds20 on Instagram. Wayward Traveller on Substack. Her poetry appears in Beautiful Ways to Say edited by Katie Elizabeth.

Jan 24 - Same Old Story by Amelia Cabantog @meels_the_poet on Instagram.

Jan 25

Burn the Flag

Maggie Devers

Burn all the flags

Strew the tea in the harbor

Fill the kettle or the pot

Pour it out, drink it down

Divine the future

Free from false idols

Free from men who say

There is no future in the leaves,

That all we can hope for in the saucer

Is bitter grit in our teeth

But they don't know that ash is soft

Between our fingers

We paint our bodies

To become one with the dust

With the end

And the beginning

More from Maggie Devers ↓

My debut poetry collection, For My Daughter, available as an audiobook.
Purchase a signed copy of For My Daughter or get one free by subscribing to the podcast: One Poem Only on Patreon
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Same Old Story by Amelia Cabantog

Sat, 24 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Same Old Story

Amelia Cabantog

Everyday the news replays the same old stories.

So, and so, died

So, and, so was deported

So, and, so's rights are being taken away.

Meanwhile a mother is crying because her baby is slowly dying

And a brother is screaming because he doesn't know how to cope with all of his feelings

And a girl is lying broken, in a bed she did not make.

The people outside are screaming and shouting, and crying and bleeding on the streets,

But they remain unseen, and unheard.

They're fighting for rights that we've already had to fight for before

And history is repeating itself in the ugliest way.

Somehow, the sun is still shining even on the darkest days,

And the girl is still smiling, even on her darkest nights.

She goes out and protests,

And screams “No kings,”

But within she's screaming so much more.

“Get rid of ICE!”

“Hands off of women's bodies and reproductive systems.”

“LGBTQIA people exist and always will.”

She wishes she could change the world,

She wishes that someone could hear her voice.

But she is always drowned out by the crowd.

So, she holds her breath, listening to the mother crying over her baby who's bleeding out on the streets.

And the brother screaming about all of his pent up feelings,

And the protesters yelling,

And the news playing over and over again.

And at the end of the day she is still lying broken, in a bed she never wanted anyway.

She's hoping one day someone will listen to her,

And one day she will have changed the world.

She's hoping one day she won't have to fight for her rights,

And that the rest of the world will wake up and see the damage that is being done,

And the people who are being killed,

And all of the rights being taken away, not just their own.

She wants the world to love each other and be kinder to each other,

So, no one else has to listen to a mother crying because her baby was killed by a cop,

Or a brother screaming because people keep invalidating his feelings of hatred towards himself,

She doesn't want any other girl, or guy, or nonbinary, or genderfluid, to be lying in the same bed.

That none of them made or even wanted to sleep in.

“Hope isn't a shy thing” by Eileen Strawberry

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

“Hope isn't a shy thing”

Eileen Strawberry

Hope isn't a shy thing

She has white knuckles

and spits grit

When oppressors beat down on her shoulders

She draws her sword swiftly

No hesitation

No deliberation

She will slay dragons

for her kin

Hope isn't a pretty thing

Scars mar her complexion

She's missing some teeth

Dirt crusts under her nails

Calluses roughen her feet

Yet her vision is clear

Her heartbeat steady

Courage courses her veins

Conviction deepens her voice

in times of chaos and confusion

Her truth shears through the noise

Shimmer by Jessie Marie

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Shimmer

Jessie Marie

my shimmering heart draped in tears

drums a song behind a thorny cage

ghosts dressed in moonlight

wail against the inky black of night

sorrow is stitched into their eyes

an echo of dreams heard on the wind

I restore myself in the light of the stars

a spotlight of hope drinks me up

such a dream of being whole again

Don't call it hope or you'll scare it away by Candace Kronen

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Don't call it hope or you'll scare it away

Candace Kronen

Call it window or thread or undone button, call it plump lips

and the slip of a sound, open palm with a single split seed

whispers of paw prints in a blanket of snow, baby hairs

and broccoli sprouts, call it half hug of a parenthesis,

handprint in the cave, defiant little fiddlehead

pushing through the dirt, call it a clearing

of the throat, first stroke of a bow, call it

Asha call it Violet call it Chekhov’s

smoking gun, call it Holmesian

pipe with a fresh tobacco tin,

pink streak of aurora

squinting through the

clouds, call it leaving

space for a casual

cosmic mystery,

call it, just call it

and don’t close

the door.

A Merciless Winter by Farida Shamim

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

A Merciless Winter

Farida Shamim

How cruel you are, Winter —

couldn’t you wait a little longer?

Why didn’t you wait

until the children fell asleep,

their dreams unbroken,

their bellies not empty?

My little ones lie down hungry,

and now —

how could I cover them,

how could I protect them

from your harsh, merciless air?

Can’t you see —

we can no longer see tomorrow

we can’t even weep.

Our tears have turned to salt,

our hearts to smoke.

Can’t you feel

the pain we endure?

Couldn’t you wait

until the sun of faith rose again

to touch the faces

that still believe in warmth?

How cruel you are, Winter —

to come when we are already cold.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Chasing the Light by Old Fart with a Guitar

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Chasing the Light

Old Fart with a Guitar

With all the bad news and all the bad vibes

And the battle lines drawn between the tribes,

I was lathered up, hosed down, spun around and hung out to dry.

Still, life goes on at 60 years an hour

And I wondered if I’d wasted my time,

Cause there was so much sorrow

I was running out of tears to cry…

Til one day a small stone thrown by a small fry

Up n hit a giant right between the eyes,

He was too tall, the big fall cut him down to regular size

And when he hit the ground the whole world was lifted by

The vision he was blocking from sight

It was a double barreled rainbow

Following an angel in flight

And there’s big yellow sunrise spreading out across the horizon,

I’m gonna try and hitch a ride when that heavenly engine ignites

So if you see me on the roadside please don’t worry

If I’m standing with my thumb to the sky

I’m not running from the darkness,

I’m just chasing the light.

I’m done pouring time into a bucket of holes

I’m done casting shadows of doubt on my soul

Gotta change my position, start fishing with a different pole

Cause life keeps going at 60 years an hour

But if I catch it by the end of the road

I’ll find that double barreled rainbow

Shining on a mountain of gold

And there’s a big red sunset spreading out across the horizon

I’m gonna follow it and see if it really is a sailor’s delight

So if you see me from shoreline please don’t worry

If I’m waving as I sink out of sight

I’m not falling over the edge

I’m just chasing the light

I’m not falling over the edge

I’m just chasing the light…

Sunday Recap & One More Step by Maggie Devers

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Jan 12 - Happiness by Navya Chaudhary @chaoticconfessor on Instagram. Her book, Unfinished Letters, is out now.

Jan 13 - I Promise by Riley Hope McPheters @rileyhmcpheters on Instagram. She is a member of @PoetzPortalFW, that exists to awaken consciousness and cultivate liberated creative practice through the transformative power of poetry, sound, and communal dialogue.

Jan 14 - Aloof by Luwa @luwawrites on Instagram. You can listen and watch me read Beauty Allures by Luwa on Instagram @rembrandts.cure.

Jan 15 - Rooted by Shaq Mendes @shackahh_wackahh on Instagram.

Jan 16 - The Season of Returning by Lara @itslarawrites on Instagram.

Jan 17 - The Anatomy of Dawn by Saleha Najeeb @gotta_slayyyy on Instagram. Her book, Whispers Unveiled, is available now.

Jan 18

One More Step

Maggie Devers

I’m worried you might be missing it

I’m worried you might be living through it all and not really living it

I’m worried you can’t smell it

I’m worried you don’t pull it close and smother yourself

Will you remember how she always smelled of milk?

And the way her cry would squeak early in the morning?

Or how she first said daddy

And then her own name

How she needed us for everything and then one day

Didn’t.

I thought I’d be better prepared,

That we could mark it on the calendar and celebrate

But it snuck up on me—

She learned to dress herself,

Feed herself,

Pick up after herself

And I forgot what I was here to teach her

And started learning what I was here to teach myself

We hold on to the parts that we think come first

But the order doesn’t go how we imagine

Time is tricky—

The hand that pulls you forward isn’t always your own.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

My debut poetry collection, For My Daughter, available as an audiobook.
Purchase a signed copy of For My Daughter or get one free by subscribing to the podcast: One Poem Only on Patreon
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

The Anatomy of Dawn by Saleha Najeeb

Sat, 17 Jan 2026 12:00:00 -0700

The Anatomy of Dawn

Saleha Najeeb

Do not mistake the smile for light.

It is merely how we hide the mourning

of what never had a funeral.

Grief, it does not arrive or leave,

it resides,

like a second pulse beneath the one we claim to feel.

I have carried it, you know

the quiet dissonance of appearing alive

while the soul rehearses its own absence.

There are days I speak,

but every word drips through a sieve of silence,

and you, perhaps,

know this kind of breathing too.

Yet, even stillness grows restless.

Even darkness remembers the shape of dawn.

So I began

not running,

but returning

to the small certainties I once abandoned,

a breath that does not tremble,

a thought that does not ache to end.

Freedom did not come in thunder.

It arrived like forgiveness

a slow unburdening,

a light learning the contours of my name again.

And in that moment, I was not the same.

I was the echo remade into a voice,

the ashes remembering they were once flame.

Now, when I speak,

my words are not a sieve but a garden.

The air hums with what I chose to reclaim.

I have returned

not unscarred,

but luminous from within the wounds.

This, dear reader,

is not survival

it is the anatomy of dawn.

Maman

Sat, 17 Jan 2026 11:11:00 -0700

Maman

Maggie Devers

I see the most amazing spider web

Stretching between two trees

And it is huge.

When the light hits it just so

It glimmers as a precious gem,

An intricate pattern that looks fragile,

But isn’t.

And I realize

That’s what I want to do in this life—

Make something as beautiful and impossible as that.

You can listen to the audiobook of For My Daughter in its entirety here.

The Season of Returning by Lara

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

The Season of Returning

Lara

I fell into winter,

a quiet collapse of light.

Bare branches above me,

and silence heavy as snow.

The frost took my laughter,

the wind took my name,

and I drifted through the cold,

like breath caught between worlds.

But the earth-

she never forgot me.

She hummed beneath the ice,

a low song,

ancient and patient:

even the seed must sleep before it blooms.

And I listened,

still and small,

to her steady heartbeat below.

The rain returned,

soft as mercy,

washing sorrow from my hands.

The wind tangled in my hair

and whispered, home,

as the ground beneath me

stirred with life-

shivering, stretching, reaching for the sun.

Moss clothed my sorrow,

petals crowned my scars.

I did not burst into life;

I unfolded.

I became.

Rebirth is not thunder.

It’s rhythm,

a heartbeat beneath soft soil,

a river remembering its song.

It’s the body learning warmth again,

the soul relearning grace.

Now I move with the earth’s own music.

I am green where I was gray,

river where I was stone,

light where I was pain.

I have returned,

not as who I was,

but as everything I was meant to become.

And when the dawn brushes my skin,

I do not hide.

I open wide,

like the first flower of spring

singing softly to the sun:

I am here.

I am whole.

I am light again.

Rooted by Shaq Mendes

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Rooted

Shaq Mendes

Women are Queens,

Men are Kings well -

Along w/ the throne,

you needah';

_ Have that Crown _

Take a journey down a path where,

the end'll have you feeling like Gold;

Gold - ha_ha I know being rich is the goal,

this type of Rich, is gonna come from your Soul;

So... the Gold _

won't be shinny, nor rectangular shaped,

It's gonna weigh the same as you nothing more;

There's a Pulse...

Take your hand place on your chest,

do yah feel that?

Close your eyes, take a breath,

ha_ha , still not there yet;

Breathe as if you're a vehicle - approaching,

them yellow flashing lights;

A little bit slower...

In through the nose,

from gut to chest it rose;

Out the mouth it goes, a breath so -

Powerful...

Meditation -

Breath control,

Anger, Hurt, & Pain _

The body'll let go,

it's on you _ to stay in the zone;

Clear the mind - the thoughts,

should stop, as if time froze;

Go on - give it a try -

let your body take a ride,

on this road -

Personal Growth...

Get Rooted...

Aloof by Luwa

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Aloof

Luwa

Aloof poof, jump off the roof as proof

They use the news to deduce and reduce the abuse

Thrown and blown our way while we moan and groan

Unable to table the insatiable desire for the fable

That makes us weaker, bleaker yet we are eager

For we have aligned, misaligned our brains to malign

Images that damages, and abscond our privileges.

I Promise by Riley Hope McPheters

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

I Promise

Riley Hope McPheters

When you are sad-

It feels that is who you are.

You are not the sad of a hard day,

Nor the sad of a loved one gone too soon,

You are a sad that is in your blood,

Cold and slow.

A depression deeper than the depths of rock bottom.

Rock bottom becomes your safety net-

And when it is not deep enough to relate to the pain within your own walls,

You scrape with your nails to get even deeper into the depths of your own sorrow.

Days are warped- time is too fast yet manages to be miserably slow.

The perfunctory lives of those around you drive you into an underworld of isolation that you

feel as if you don’t want to come up from.

And not all do.

We lose many from sadness. Inner war that comes with no peace treaty. Anger and

traumas many grow so numb to.

An inner frustration with no exit point.

Sadness is us. And we are sadness.

However, some of us get cold to the darkness- or curious of the light up above. Some of us

start climbing,

Knowing that no fall could be as damaging as the darkness below we once knew so so well.

The lives of routine we once feared became the lives of ambition,

Prosperity,

Resilience,

And strength we learned to admire the most.

To feel the warmth of the light and know it was never too far. To feel the sadness seep out

of the very veins that once held it.

To be full of so much brightness- no darkness could outweigh what is within.

To be ok with the darkness and look forward to the light.

To be so whole. To be so happy.

It is possible.

Find your light. And accept your darkness.

Growth happens there.

I promise.

Happiness by Navya Chaudhary

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Happiness

Navya Chaudhary

If you are out there chasing happiness,

Then I want you to remember this.

If you're chasing it,

It's definitely not yours.

Happiness is not somewhere out there,

It's hidden in those small moments around you.

The one you don't notice very often.

And sometimes,

You don't even have to find it.

You can create it.

Why wait for someone else to bring you happiness?

When you can be that person for yourself.

Do the things you've wanted to do for so long.

Try that new drink before it's off the menu.

Watch that movie before it leaves the theatre.

Buy yourself the flowers you always wanted.

Go.

Now.

Why are you still here?

Sunday Recap & Suck It In by Maggie Devers

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs by Renée Nicole Good. She was murdered by ICE on January 7, 2026. In 2020, she won the undergraduate Academy of American Poets Prize in 2020 for this poem.

Jan 5 - Becoming Again by Reya @moodmakerperson on Instagram. Her book, Teenage Tide, is available now.

Jan 6 - To Fall Is to Begin by Irina Vérène @queen_of_gore on Instagram. They are featured in Haunted Words Press’ anthology, Our Dearest Devotions, which contains their flash fiction piece about friendship, fae magic, and gender transition.

Jan 7 - Transmorphing by Özge Lena @lenaozge on Instagram. You can find her on Substack @lenaozge where she presents her new approach to poetry, Catapoetry. It is a poetic framework about the interwoven and inseparable catastrophes of our age. You can listen to me read luminous girl lullaby by Özge Lena on Instagram @rembrandts.cure.

Jan 8 - Genesis of Her by Kiran Ashraf @kiran_ashraf on Instagram and @kiranashraf7 on Substack.

Jan 9 - Part Oracle, Part Warrior by Aslam @smmaslam on Instagram and @aslammohammed on Substack. His book, Paper Boat in Rumi’s Garden, is available now.

Jan 10 - The Tender Descending by Ellie A @lines_between_living on Instagram and @linesbtwnliving on Substack. Read more from her on her blog, Lines Between Living.

Jan 11

Suck It In

Maggie Devers

I saw a woman, weak and gaunt

Shuffle slowly up the sidewalk

And instantly felt protective of my curves

Because we don’t get to keep them.

They leave us in our old age—

Only after we forget we cursed them

For the zipper’s slow progress,

The marks left by elastic waistbands,

The shock of our picture from the rear,

The angry bumps between our thighs,

The way we learned to suck it in before there was anything but flat stomach.

It’s only when the extra bits are gone

Do you realize they made you robust,

Proof of a full life

That couldn’t be knocked over

By the shock of a car squealing round the corner

Or a plucky robot delivery cart in the intersection with nothing to lose.

The paths are paved with chaos, ballast is required.

So I’ll shoulder my pack without swearing and find comfort in all I’m able to carry.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

My debut poetry collection, For My Daughter, available as an audiobook.
Purchase a signed copy of For My Daughter or get one free by subscribing to the podcast: One Poem Only on Patreon
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

The Tender Descending by Ellie Augustin

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

The Tender Descending

Ellie Augustin

The earth exhales and everything slows.

The trees remember what it means to be bare.

We gather what warmth remains in our hands

and stitch our dreams beneath quiet skies.

Each flake that lands upon the skin

is a messenger of mercy,

a reminder that even in endings,

something tender still descends.

Part Oracle, Part Warrior by Aslam

Fri, 09 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

part oracle, part warrior

Aslam

a crescent moon, hangs like a scar

on her shoulder’s silence.

her lips sealed

by vow or violence.

her eyes do not ask.

they know.

they have watched empires bleed

on blades of their own lies.

she stands in gray,

spine unbent,

each scar a sentence

she never had to explain.

call it rebellion.

call it myth.

a woman

who no longer waits.

she is the ink and the echo,

the storm braided into calm.

you may look,

but you will not read her.

not everyone sees

what silence reveals.

so i offer you a line,

a voice shaped by defiance,

a presence drawn in truth.

let me speak for her,

since her lips are sealed:

she would not kneel.

she is here

for you to bow.

On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs by Renée Nicole Good

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 12:00:00 -0700

On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs

Renée Nicole Good

This poem was awarded the Academy of American Poets Prize in 2020.

i want back my rocking chairs,

solipsist sunsets,

& coastal jungle sounds that are tercets from cicadas and pentameter from the hairy legs of cockroaches.

i’ve donated bibles to thrift stores

(mashed them in plastic trash bags with an acidic himalayan salt lamp—

the post-baptism bibles, the ones plucked from street corners from the meaty hands of zealots, the dumbed-down, easy-to-read, parasitic kind):

remember more the slick rubber smell of high gloss biology textbook pictures; they burned the hairs inside my nostrils,

& salt & ink that rubbed off on my palms.

under clippings of the moon at two forty five AM I study&repeat

ribosome

endoplasmic—

lactic acid

stamen

at the IHOP on the corner of powers and stetson hills—

i repeated & scribbled until it picked its way & stagnated somewhere i can’t point to anymore, maybe my gut—

maybe there in-between my pancreas & large intestine is the piddly brook of my soul.

it’s the ruler by which i reduce all things now; hard-edged & splintering from knowledge that used to sit, a cloth against fevered forehead.

can i let them both be? this fickle faith and this college science that heckles from the back of the classroom

now i can’t believe—

that the bible and qur’an and bhagavad gita are sliding long hairs behind my ear like mom used to & exhaling from their mouths “make room for wonder”—

all my understanding dribbles down the chin onto the chest & is summarized as:

life is merely

to ovum and sperm

and where those two meet

and how often and how well

and what dies there.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Genesis of Her by Kiran Ashraf

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Genesis of Her

Kiran Ashraf

Her body is like a powerful tide

looming in an ever-flowing motion

chewing on her emotions like rice

she aches to read in sheltering arms

wearing her chaos for a better life

her skin is a wild thing at its best

memories in her songs of grief

now trembled and hummed in her bones

like a silent gust of unfinished wreckage

or an absent orchestra of musical hell

her two eyes wander through the meadows

lessons forced on her forgiving shoulders

all her exhausting days and unsent texts

are winding up in threads of crocheted wool

she exists in this unyielding temporal

growing stronger among unseen enemies

Transmorphing by Özge Lena

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Transmorphing

Özge Lena

This Poem was commended for Winged Muse Poetry Competition of Winged Moon Literary Magazine

After Harpy by Valerie Hammond

In seven nights she will burst

into nothing. Now all alone in a cream

coloured void, a wound

like creature, a word hunger like no other.

Soon you will meet her

in the neon gloaming, after the ruby ache

of not writing for a long winter,

frost flowers in your heart. Her low wings

will be closed, sharp claws

pointing down and down, some frozen

sadness on her pale face.

Sunset’s vermilion beams will bleed

into your lungs as you hold

her by hair, unfurl the ribbon to tie it

around your neck, to see your freedom

knotted in its silk, and breathe

life into her mouth. You will watch her

unfold her wings wide, talons

will scratch the soft air when she cloaks

you tight until you morph into

a harpy to write a septet poem in red ink.

To Fall Is to Begin by Irina Vérène

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

To Fall Is to Begin

Irina Vérène

i won’t be dragged

past the pearly gates—

i’ll leave of my own volition.

with these heavenly rules

stifling my breath,

i must say,

it seems a wise decision.

amidst the flames

and the curling smoke,

i shall rise anew—

after all,

a fall from heaven,

a descent to hell,

is a baptism, too.

Becoming Again by Reya

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Becoming Again

Reya

I didn’t rise like fire —

I rose like forgiveness.

Lost me once, still trying,

sky’s the limit, I’m craving the climb.

Thoughts that once broke me

now make me alive again.

Words find me, like a heart reborn —

one heartbreak broke a million dreams,

but that heartbreak built me stronger —

heartless enough to fight for them again.

Sunday Recap & Crawl Space by Maggie Devers

Sun, 04 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Dec 29 - Eclipse of the Self by Ruvaani @ruvaani.unclaimed on Instagram. Her book, The Sunken Daffodil, is out now.

Dec 30 - Cold Plunging by Kristin Yates @beautefantasy on Instagram. You can find links to her published work on her Linktree.

Dec 31 - Of love and hell by Kajal @mermaidspen_ on Instagram and @mermaidspen on Substack.

Jan 1 - New Dawn by Benedicta Kyeremaa Addai @Kyere_mah on Instagram. She was published in the anthology, Ancestors, answer me, a compilation of shortlisted poems entered into the 2025 New Voices Poetry Contest Curated by Creative Project Ghana. The New Voices Contest was born from a desire to give poetic voices in Ghana a platform to celebrate the richness of Ghanaian expression, language and imagination. A copy of the anthology can be found at the website of New Voices Poetry Contest or Creative Ghana Project on Instagram.

Jan 2 - January Born by JC @theincidentalpoet on Instagram and Substack.

Jan 3 - "My heart is a museum of every person I've ever loved" by Megan Phillips @metaphor_megg on Instagram. Her book, Uncomfortably Present, is available now.

Jan 4

Crawl Space

Maggie Devers

This was the year of the snake

But I didn’t realize it until the end

Now I feel free from my itchy skin

Like emerging from the steam room

Pores open, every ounce of old squoze out

The beginning of the year brought exit,

Retreat from our burrow until the fire subsided

This summer we saw a rattle on the trail

They sun themselves right in the middle of the footpath

Your vibrations alert them to exit before you see them

Unless they’re feeling particularly drowsy

And who hasn’t felt slow half napping in the midday light

We crashed out of fall and into winter with a jolt

It was impossible to move until we found release

In slithering along the sand to the sea

Where we could dig our toes in

And recall our feet, polish them new with the grit

And mummer to our insides how glad we were

To be cartwheeling as the sun set on the snake

More from Maggie Devers ↓

My debut poetry collection, For My Daughter, available as an audiobook.
Purchase a signed copy of For My Daughter or get one free by subscribing to the podcast: One Poem Only on Patreon
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

“My heart is a museum of every person I’ve ever loved” by Megan Phillips

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

“My heart is a museum of every person I’ve ever loved”

Megan Phillips

My heart is a museum of every person I’ve ever loved

My Dad’s birthday is national start over day

Yesterday I told the ocean that I would let go of all the victim bullshit

I would let the past me be in the rearview

I will be new after washing my feet in the sand

Venus, I said,

I will have more fun

And love

And I won’t be bitter and sad

About what I don’t have

I will appreciate being 34 and on vacation with my husband alone

I will appreciate the new pet sitter who I know will train my dog

I will appreciate the rabbits I saw 3-4 times this week

I will appreciate the small crab on the beach who was walked on but god damn it, he lived

My heart is a museum of every person I’ve ever loved

His Mom is Portmeirion plates and ‘Hey there Delilah”

Because she thought it reminded her of us

Which made no damn sense but it’s her song now

My heart is a museum of every person I’ve ever loved

My grandfather it’s coffee shops and poppies

My grandmother it’s yellow daffodils cigarettes and knit sweaters

My mom is MAC Red lipstick

My Dad is tanned freckled skin

My husband is blue eyes and big hands

January Born by JC

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

January Born

JC

I was winter’s child,

wrapped in borrowed wool,

breath small as frost on windowpanes.

 

The world outside was brittle then,

trees bare-boned against

a sky that never learned warmth,

roads lined with grit and quiet.

 

Inside, there was laughter,

steam from mugs that fogged

the kitchen glass,

a lullaby of radiators clanking

as if they too

were proud to keep me alive.

 

January taught me patience—

that buds sleep long before they bloom,

that light returns in rationed teaspoons,

that beginnings aren’t always bright,

but they are strong.

 

And so when I look back,

I see my first days threaded with cold,

yet stitched with care,

a child born not to fireworks,

but to the hush of snow,

the steady hands of a year

just learning how to start again.

New Dawn by Benedicta Kyeremaa Addai

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 11:00:00 -0700

New Dawn

Kyeremah

‎Smile on me,

‎the Sun is awakening.

‎Yesterday and today left no crumbs

‎We begin from there.

‎

‎I won't tell you how to live

‎But be happy,

‎be happy

‎

‎One step at a time

‎Love, eat and pray

‎Give thanks and make merry.

‎

‎Today will be gone

‎So will you, someday

‎But what will matter

‎Is that you lived well.

‎

‎So be happy,

‎be happy.

Of Love and Hell by Kajal

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Of Love and Hell

Kajal

Of how the hell fell in love

and went straight to heaven,

I know the story of a dove

who used to weep for a raven.

Nights when Earth cried

for tearing Sun and Moon apart,

When horizons used to pain world,

there was no war in the name of art.

Take me back to the time

when agony was not a trend,

time of ancients,

where lies beginnings end.

Cold Plunging by Kristin Yates

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Cold Plunging

Kristin Yates

Breath leaves my lips

like a bird, and

I feel the cardinals

and the chickadees

and the cold

in my hands

sing.

I become the shiver

of saying it:

I love you

enough

to let you live.

Eclipse of the Self by Ruvaani

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Eclipse of the Self

Ruvaani

I dissolved in the shadow of my own becoming,

where every heartbeat was an echo of absence,

and every breath a question unspoken.

The world pressed against my ribs,

but in the hollow between despair and forgetting,

a seed trembled—

ancient, patient, luminous.

From it rose fire unbidden,

not to burn what remained,

but to weave the fragments of me

into a new geometry of being.

I walked through the ruins of yesterday,

not seeking light, but becoming it,

each step an unmaking and a return,

each scar a hymn,

each tear a river that bore me home.

And when dawn finally leaned into my chest,

I did not rise as I was—

I rose as I had always been:

a soul forged in shadow,

tempered in loss,

and reborn

in the quiet, unrelenting brilliance of myself.

Sunday Recap & Her Name by Maggie Devers

Sun, 28 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Dec 22 - From a Home, to a House by Gunneet Kaur Bhamra @wordsmith._.witxh on Instagram. She's founder of a creative club for teenage writers, called The Pioneering Pens. Members learn new forms and styles of poetry, have monthly theme based challenges, edit weekly newsletter and make every voice heard. If you're interested in joining, DM Gunneet @wordsmith._.witxh.

Dec 23 - For the Pines by Amanda Galeotti @amandagaleotti on Instagram.

Dec 24 - The Miseducation (How the Sugarcane Remembers Us) by Lia D. Elen Listen to me read another poem by Lia on Instagram @rembrandts.cure.

Dec 25 - “little tree” by E.E. Cummings

Dec 26 - Silent Echoes by Zahra @zaarraaaa__ on Instagram.

Dec 27 - Return to Light by Gordan Struić @gstruic on Instagram, @gordanstruic on Substack.

Dec 28

Her Name

Maggie Devers

Her name is not the Venus of Willendorf,

But she will answer to it.

Her name exists in another tongue

We no longer know

A language that came before Venus.

I imagine her name meant bounty,

Her name meant overflow,

Her name meant life.

Scholars say she shows us the ideal of ancient beauty,

But I see woman.

And the weight she holds in her hips

Outlives her carver,

Outlives the rock,

Outlives mountains

To find us

and fill us

with her form.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

My debut poetry collection, For My Daughter, available as an audiobook.
Purchase a signed copy of For My Daughter or get one free by subscribing to the podcast: One Poem Only on Patreon
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Return to Light by Gordan Struić

Sat, 27 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Return to Light

Gordan Struić

The longest night exhales,

and somewhere beneath the frost

a seed remembers warmth.

I walk through fields

where shadows thin like old thoughts,

each breath a small sunrise.

Inside me,

the dark softens —

becomes room for light again.

Silent Echoes by Zahra

Fri, 26 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Silent Echoes

Zahra

In the quiet descent of twilight's curtain,

I stand, a solitary figure, uncertain.

Lost within the shifting hues of fading light,

I navigate the spaces where solitude takes flight.

Threads of connection, delicate and fine,

A tapestry woven with the hands of time.

Moments form a mosaic, a complex array,

Each fragment a story, in shadows they sway.

Silent whispers linger in the vast expanse,

Shadows dance in a ghostly, transient trance.

Invisible threads weave a spectral embrace,

A tapestry of solitude, woven with grace.

Longing for touch in the silence profound,

Exploring realms where solitude is found.

Laughter, a distant echo in the quiet air,

Navigating the chambers of introspective lair.

A dance with sorrow, an intimate ballet,

In the moonlit theater where emotions play.

Yearning for pain, an unconventional plea,

To delve into depths, to just be free.

No rhythmic pulse guides this introspective stroll,

Just the current of feelings, an unfolding scroll.

In the canvas where shadows gently persist,

I paint my essence, an unspoken twist.

“little tree” by E.E. Cummings

Thu, 25 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

“little tree”

E.E. Cummings

little tree

little silent Christmas tree

you are so little

you are more like a flower

who found you in the green forest

and were you very sorry to come away?

see i will comfort you

because you smell so sweetly

i will kiss your cool bark

and hug you safe and tight

just as your mother would,

only don't be afraid

look the spangles

that sleep all the year in a dark box

dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,

the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,

put up your little arms

and i'll give them all to you to hold

every finger shall have its ring

and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy

then when you're quite dressed

you'll stand in the window for everyone to see

and how they'll stare!

oh but you'll be very proud

and my little sister and i will take hands

and looking up at our beautiful tree

we'll dance and sing

"Noel Noel"

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

The Miseducation (How the Sugarcane Remembers Us) by Lia D. Elen

Wed, 24 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

The Miseducation (How the Sugarcane Remembers Us)

Lia D. Elen

They told us the cane was sweet,

that sugar was a gift-

never whispering of century-long bones

ground into their stalks.

My great-grandmothers spoke truth in drum and smoke,

their hands weaving rivers of power,

the earth crowning them healers.

Still, the priests named them devils.

Still, their altars were burned.

Yet Atabey whispers now,

mother of waters, womb of hurricanes-

even though classrooms replaced her with Eve,

teaching us paradise was theirs to grant.

And the textbooks?

They too crowned Columbus, King,

while Taino caciques were reduced to whispers bent beneath English mouths-

Though I hear them thunder in the veins of the mountains.

They branded Nanny a "rebel,"

never queen, never general.

Her rifle smoke the incense of our freedom,

her blood still a covenant in the hills.

We recited Wordsworth and Shakespeare,

while my forbears' chants

were sealed beneath the tongue of shame.

The cane-field was painted as industry,

never cemetery.

Each stalk a headstone that remembers,

each sweetness a silence imposed.

The memories in the sugar cuts-

in the tea, in the trade, in the wages.

The miseducation echoes on-

in every Xamaycan child who does not know

Atabey's name, Nanny's fire,

the caciques' crowns, my great-grandmothers' drums.

But

The cane still hides fire in its stalk.

We chew,

we who SEE,

we who feel,

KNOW

the sweetness burns.

So now we'll spit, and make the silence end.

For this-

this poem-

is a revolt,

on Blue Mountain tops where ancestors still drum in trade winds.

May the wind carry this chant.

May we taste our truth in sugar cubes and remember our names.

I offer it to their fire.

For the Pines by Amanda Galeotti

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

For the Pines

Amanda Galeotti

I’ve known the paralyzing anguish

Of the dark nights of soul

When the gleaming edge of a blade

Glints like a glittering savior

I’ve been in cave pitch blindness

I’ve wondered in a world of 8 billion

How loneliness could ever put down roots

In despair, I’ve found communion

with mosquitoes and loons

black bears and ravens

And every phase of the moon

With sparkling stars, acting a scene

And trees

All of them

Especially the pine

With drooping boughs

And bleeding sap

Somehow when even the ash and sycamore have sunken to winter desolation

Bowed low by loads of winter snow

The pine holds the hope, keeps the needles

To weave a haven for winter wayfarers

How much grief have they swallowed for us

Just by being with us in winter

From a Home, to a House by Gunneet Kaur Bhamra

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

From a Home, to a House

Gunneet Kaur Bhamra

From the place, where comfort was found,

And people meant happiness and laughter.

From the lazy and cozy mornings,

And chattering and cheery evenings.

From those late-night family games and gossips,

Because “tomorrow's a holiday... what a bliss!”

To the place where comfort is only sought,

Where people mean suffocation.

To busy and chilly dawns,

And gloomy and exhausting dusks.

To these late-night family dramas and decisions,

Because “tomorrow's a holiday… what the hell?”

Yeah, I wanted to grow, and so I have!

But I didn't want to travel,

from a carefree, loud childhood,

To a responsible, silent adolescence;

from a home, to a house!

Take me back to the delightful hours in the sunlit veranda.

Take me back to the chaos of the crowded kitchen.

Take me back, for once - just once - to my home...

Sunday Recap & But For A Sacred Deer by Maggie Devers

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Dec 15 - The Keeper’s Dream by Kiki Johnson @kiki_poetry on Instagram

Dec 16 - The Belle Of Yule by Melani Udaeta @melrose_poetry18 on Instagram. Her book, Of Love and Music, is out now.

Dec 17 - Clava Cairns by Jessica Aure Pratt @jessaure.poetry on Instagram. @jessaurepoetry on Substack. You can listen to me read Into the Abyss by Jessica on Instagram @rembrandts.cure.

Dec 18 - The Art of Returning by Dr. Deepak Dev @deeepak.devv on Instagram. @drdeepakdev on Substack. His book, Symphony of the Erased - Verses Resurged & Reclaimed, is out now.

Dec 19 - Angels In Our Mouths by Sandra Beth Levy @slevy43 on Instagram. Her first poetry book, Unfurling The Scroll Of Seven Decades, will be out in 2026.. Sandra has had recent poems published in the Roots and Ruins: Poetry Anthology published by Arcana Poetry Press. And Issue 1 of A Curious Moon, an online literary magazine. As well as The Vagabond’s Verse-Weekly Verses on December 5th. And three poems in a SHINE Poetry Series spotlight on December 10th.

Dec 20 - Still Light Unveils by Marissa M. Zhu @marissazhu on Instagram. @marissamzhu on Substack where she publishes The Wanting: A literary exploration of desire as generative force—neither absence to cure nor state to transcend. Love notes to the hunger that never resolves, only transforms. Her debut poetry manuscript, Memories We’ve Never Made, blends cinematic lyricism with psychological precision. In this 30-piece collection, Marissa examines how even unrealized loves can leave indelible imprints.

Dec 21

But For A Sacred Deer

Maggie Devers

They come like rabid dogs

Baying for blood

And fling tired tropes

Into the air

Like drums beating

A dead horse

And it’s simple

How we tear ourselves to pieces

For the sake of a few bad apples,

How we let the loudest voices take hold

To find a scapegoat

And spill,

and spill,

and spill the blood

In hope for winds to come

And free us from this horrid place

Never questioning where the gale leads

Or what we’ll find when we get there.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Still Light Unveils by Marissa M. Zhu

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Still Light Unveils

Marissa M. Zhu

Moonrise drapes her muslin throat

across the room. Everything hushes.

Desire folds itself into brocade:

my letter pressed beneath perfume bottles,

your name stitched inside a pillow's seam.

The sky forgets its vowels.

Fingers braid the air with rumor.

Windows withhold our reflections.

Your face is washed in cathedral glass.

We soak harsh truths in amber-dipped tongues.

Even our silences blush.

—

Daybreak has no patience

for embroidery.

Sunlight burns what night obscured.

It peels back the curtain,

unveiling half-corked truths.

So now—

tell me what you meant last night.

Not in riddles, not in wine.

Tell me why your hand trembled

toward mine, then away.

Why you said

nothing

when I leaned close enough

to hear your breath catch

on my name.

—

Say it plain.

Say you wanted to stay.

Say you didn’t.

Say you meant to kiss me.

Say you still do.

Or say nothing. Again.

Watch how morning

holds even silence

to the window.

How shadows lean

toward noon,

how yesterday's wine stain

becomes today's

open door.

Angels In Our Mouths by Sandra Beth Levy

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Angels In Our Mouths

Sandra Beth Levy

On the tip of my tongue sit the ancient rabbis

Yeshiva style they debate how many angels

dance in my mouth

thousands, millions, more than the stars in heaven

The oldest star in space is named Methuselah

grandfather of Noah, oldest biblical patriarch

Scientists date Methuselah back fourteen billion years

Before our universe exploded into existence with a

Big Bang

My vibrant lips lick the aftertaste of love

Sweetened by my lover’s honey-bronzed skin

His breath a flood of promise

My loins blessed by a holy grandmother hugging her oceans

Innumerable angels dance in our watering mouths

more than the animals Noah protected on his arc

more than the stars created with a Big Bang

The rabbis sit on the tip of my tongue and argue

As they try to count the angels

who dance wild with abandon upon our curved cheeks

for longer than Methuselah’s light streaks across our universe

The Art of Returning by Dr. Deepak Dev

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

The Art of Returning

Dr. Deepak Dev

— for the ones who stayed through winter

Some winters arrive without snow —

only the long ache of unfinished warmth.

Even the mirrors frost inward,

as if the soul has forgotten its reflection.

But the earth knows better.

It keeps its promises underground —

roots rehearsing resurrection,

petals studying silence until they can speak again.

Renewal is not a sunrise.

It’s a hand reaching through cold air,

finding pulse where no pulse was expected.

It’s the body remembering it once belonged to light.

Every thaw is an act of faith,

not in what returns,

but in what endured unseen.

When the solstice breathes its first pale dawn,

I will not pray — I will listen.

For in that hush,

you can hear the quiet miracle of warmth

deciding to begin again.

Clava Cairns by Jessica Aure Pratt

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Clava Cairns

Jessica Aure Pratt

Clava Cairns

A Scottish Bronze Age stone burial complex

4,000 years, pink standing stone faces winter solstice sunset, entryway to death, passage to return.

solstice standing stone

face death

entryway to sun

stone faces

sunset passage pink

face winter

stand

return to stone

death faces

sunset years

return

pink faces

entryway to stone

to solstice

4,000 year return

pink sunset

passage to stone death

turn years to

standing entryway

turn pink death

winter to return

to sunset

4,000 years to stand

pink sun stone

death to years

turn stone

return sun

The Belle of Yule by Melani Udaeta

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

The Belle of Yule

Melani Udaeta

She walked in the natural belle of Yule,

lit up like the glitter upon the trees.

Holding a dove waiting for its release

in her arms the white bird appeared a jewel.

Harmony poured from every molecule,

joy rang in and sang of freedom and peace.

Flying off fingertips into the breeze

its wings carried an iconic symbol.

Encompassing each of the Northern Lights

her smile grew like the return of the Sun.

Sweetening the lips like a candy cane something to believe in rose to new heights.

The journey to warmth and light had begun bringing some hope that all year would remain.

The Keeper’s Dream by Kiki Johnson

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

The Keeper’s Dream

Kiki Johnson

The ice angel said, “I know you dream

of snowfields with lost fawns & tall pines”

There are those of us who look to the call

of snow’s powder to warm our souls.

The blanket of death to keep us moving.

To the call of herding spotted fawns back

toward clearing in deep woodland, where

majestic papa waits. We are the keepers

of the deep-down buried things.

We understand beauty’s need to wait in

hush & hollow. To wait under fallow ground

in the silence of stasis. The first thrust

of the plow’s blade can be so horror-heavy.

So full of ache & wound. “You scar me”

Ground wails. Ice angel yields to we watchers

of the fields. As out of these furrowed wounds

comes the beauty all our better angels knew

was there. The snowfields become meadows

& yields of crops for grown bucks & fertile does.

Ground’s marring, the beauty borne of snow.

Sunday Recap & Good Things by Maggie Devers

Sun, 14 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Dec 8 - Momma Said Be Nice by Chris Kads @chris_kads on Instagram. Chris runs Gut Punch Prompts, a twice monthly poetry challenge on Instagram looking for poems that contain visceral language, raw emotion, and/or thought-provoking political and social commentary. In other words, poems that pack a punch!

Dec 9 - when we fall by Paper Trail Poetry @papertrailpoetry on Instagram.

Dec 10 - The Graduate by Caitríona Walsh @tone.down.the.blonde on Instagram. Caitríona is a host for Gut Punch Prompts, as twice-monthly poetry contest on Instagram. You can hear me read Two Wishes by Caitríona on Instagram @rembrandts.cure.

Dec 11 - The Forest by Maria Beben @em_beewriting on Instagram. Her first poetry book, A Trail of Lost Buttons, is available on Amazon and Etsy. She is currently preparing her second poetry book for publication.

Dec 12 - Good Things by Maggie Devers For My Daughter audiobook out soon. Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter. Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure.

Dec 13 - Winter Marmalade by Matthew D Albertson @matthewdalbertson on Instagram

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Winter Marmalade by Matthew D Albertson

Sat, 13 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Winter Marmalade

Matthew D Albertson

When the days of midnight sun

Are past, a gnawing grows within—

A pit of need. Not for want of food

Or drink. No, it is the dark itself I yearn

To eat, grown in gloaming hours—

That of thy heart. Whene'er thy sorrows

Fruit like sour, violet crabapples, I

Lust to pluck them all from limb and

Ground. Those succulent woes, thy

Nighttime dread, to me is most

Preservative—

A nourishing, filling, decadent jam.

Oh, let me in thy late autumnal orchard,

Ripe with crop and tang and rot;

Let me gorge upon thy noxious crop

Of melancholia.

I thank thee;

And take sparingly,

Greedily;

Yet I’ve left a gift behind, still

Warm upon thy windowsill: a

Saccharine, cholic

Winter marmalade.

Good Things by Maggie Devers

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Good Things

She remembers that you get to pick where you want to sit at IHOP

And she knows exactly where she wants to sit.

She notices we are wearing the same outfit

Bike shorts and shirts with sleeves that are too big.

Two women pick their favorite booth.

She clocks their enthusiasm

Content to share the experience

Knowing the good things in life

Come easy.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

For My Daughter audiobook out soon.
Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

The Forest by Maria Beben

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

The Forest

Maria Beben

We tasted the ache

like a familiar cocktail,

one we hoped

to never drink again.

We took a branch

that posed a danger

and added more kindling,

looking around for anything that would burn.

We gathered and added

until the branch became a forest

and we couldn’t see through

to the other side.

We felt betrayed

and confused

and didn’t understand how we got there.

We stood on opposite ends of this forest

and felt the weight

of a growing terror.

But at the exact moment

when we reached for a box of matches

to burn it all down,

we remembered that trees have branches

and began to climb.

From the top,

in the clear, crisp air,

we could see

that the forest wasn’t a forest at all

just a few trees

that we could help each other

navigate through.

So we climbed back down

and cleared the weeds

and made a path

and together,

celebrated the trees for what they were

before walking out the other side —

Together.

The Graduate by Caitríona Walsh

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

The Graduate

Caitríona Walsh

On the vesper of March

I pulsed through the desert,

Ever the vagary

Clot of the bloodline.

Koutoubia's minaret

Catnapped before me,

Steepled in sandstone–

A moonshot missile

Lullabied by ouds

And kittens'

Bare-bellied

Midnight mewls.

Medina mazes

Assuaged by

Cloud-confetti

Orange blossoms–

Palls of scent spun

In arabesque spells

Through souks

Keyhole arches.

I woke with Muezzin's

Call to prayer,

Parched, perplexed

By Agafay air–

Caught in my glottis

As cockcrow came–

Florid gown gone,

No call to cross campus

With tasselled cap

Like a gored Rorschach blot,

The gashed wattle

Of a prize grouse

Or a stray tide's

Red-stained froth rim–

Raked far

From shipwreck wraiths.

Instead, I conferred

With cordial drivers and

Spinning-top Sufis

In fractured French,

Sipped rose-syrup tea

In a turquoise courtyard

Of a trillion druzy

Star-strewn tiles,

Bled, in secret,

Beneath the furtive folds

Of an opalite skirt–

Shed my pelt

when we fall by Paper Trail Poetry

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

when we fall

Paper Trail Poetry

when we fall

we give back to the soil

that nurtured us.

seasonally,

we are compost, yes,

but life-giving nonetheless.

when we fall

our roots are ruptured;

we are bare.

decay tightens

its cold, rotten grasp,

but hope shall not be choked out.

when we fall

the way forward is paved

with opportunity

so make room for grace

to replant you come spring

where you’ll stretch in sunlight again.

Momma Said Be Nice by Chris Kads

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Momma Said Be Nice

Chris Kads

This poem was originally published in Blood+Honey Lit mag and is being republished with SHINE International Poetry Series.

You don’t expect to serve mashed potatoes and steak for breakfast.

Don’t expect to find urine in a tub

or to have sympathy

for the assaulter

who pissed in it.

I’ve learned

to let expectations fly

like ashes.

When the men retire

so do the rules

instilled by their mothers.

They’ll swim

in the deep end

of the pool,

tiptoe into the kitchen,

sneak a cookie

after bedtime.

I know now

that two things

can be true at once.

That the mush

can be unappetizing

and filling.

That a room

can be full of memories

and empty of soul.

That you can pity the mouse

in the trap, while being glad

he can no longer bite.

I don’t like the way

it all went down.

I wouldn’t wish

a life behind curtained bars

on anyone.

But when we finally

remove flesh-colored food,

scrub stains from the ceramic tub,

and open the door

for the new resident,

I’m happy to see

it’s a woman.

Sunday Recap & When the Hum Rises by Maggie Devers

Sun, 07 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Dec 1 - Timeline by Quinn Holm @quinnholm.muse and @gratusgarden on Instagram. Quinn Holm on Substack.

Dec 2 - my throat makes by atm.itm @atm.itm on Instagram. @atmitm on Substack. They are co-founder of studio somnus: a creative project agency.

Dec 3 - “as the ground begins to frost” by esso @esso_overflow on Instagram. @essooverflow on Substack. Her book, when the moon calls, is out now. It features poetry she wrote during the new and full moons. If you feel inspired while reading, esso has left pages at the back so you can add your own poem for each prompt. Listen to me read "the earth whispered to me" by esso on Instagram @rembrandts.cure.

Dec 4 - “My poetry has big bones” by Bex @mother_smudger on Instagram. Her book, conflict resolution: a trauma response, is out now.

Dec 5 - I dreamt I was in Paris by Jen Booton @jenthepoeta on Instagram. She runs Mística Holistica, a mystic shop and tea house in Avellanas, Costa Rica. There you can find Jen writing custom poems on a typewriter at the weekly Friday night market. And everyday you can access the poetry pharmacy featuring poets from around the world.

Dec 6 - Hearthside by Dorothy Parker

Dec 7

When the Hum Rises

Maggie Devers

The outrage machine is always on

Like the neon in a 24-hour diner,

But it doesn’t use electricity,

The continual dopamine hit

Of finding the wrong in someone else’s right

Powers the nation.

We live for the take down,

The misstep

We watch the trip and fall

Never extending a hand—

Not understanding

We’re the ones flat on our face.

What if we abandon the unending scroll

Of false justice

What if we suspended judgement

Even for a day

What if we realize our power can do more

Then keep the lights on.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Morning Magic by Maggie Devers - For My Daughter

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 11:11:00 -0700

Morning Magic

Maggie Devers

A princess sits at the edge of my bed

Telling fantastical stories,

My sleepy head tripping over the details

But in line with the nuance.

She prattles like a caffeinated sage,

Wisdom seeping out of jumbled phrases,

Bits of stories, weaving together

Her dreams, desires, realities.

It’s all the same,

She speaks her life.

Hearthside by Dorothy Parker

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Hearthside

Dorothy Parker

Half across the world from me

Lie the lands I'll never see-

I, whose longing lives and dies

Where a ship has sailed away;

I, that never close my eyes

But to look upon Cathay.

Things I may not know nor tell

Wait, where older waters swell;

Ways that flowered at Sappho's tread,

Winds that sighed in Homer's strings,

Vibrant with the singing dead,

Golden with the dust of wings.

Under deeper skies than mine,

Quiet valleys dip and shine.

Where their tender grasses heal

Ancient scars of trench and tomb

I shall never walk; nor kneel

Where the bones of poets bloom.

If I seek a lovelier part,

Where I travel goes my heart;

Where I stray my thought must go;

With me wanders my desire.

Best to sit and watch the snow,

Turn the lock, and poke the fire.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Baby Book by Maggie Devers - For My Daughter

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 11:11:00 -0700

Baby Book

Maggie Devers

I didn’t make my daughter a baby book,

I wrote her weird poems instead.

I can hear her explaining this to her friends,

“There’s no scrapbook full of memories

But there is a special poem about me being Athena, and one about my birth, and when I was conceived.

My parents named me after a fancy hotel.”

Dear God, what have I done?

I’m that mom,

The unhinged mom that really should know better.

We don’t have annual professional photos in matching outfits,

Just the ones we take, that stop time at the imperfect moment

The ones that capture life.

You can’t get the perfect shot when you’re busy living.

Well, you can, but you have to be ready for it.

You must listen for inspiration to strike.

And when it does you take the picture, write the poem, make the art, make the child.

And that’s what we’re here to leave behind, our creation, in its imperfect divinity.

“I dreamt I was in Paris” by Jen Booton

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

“I dreamt I was in Paris”

Jen Booton

I dreamt I was in Paris

scents of coffee and absinthe

wafting as olfactory wind chimes

typewriters snug on Boulevard Montparnasse

tables peppered with burgeoning authors

lost among their own generation but destined

to be famous for centuries.

Drunk on wine, cigarettes and

delusion sturdy as centenarian

tree roots that their precious

moment in time, after war, was all

that mattered, which of course they were right

a ripple in the energetic tapestry of life

connecting them with me here, 100 years

Later on a wooden table snug against

a Smith-Corona drunk on the belief

that this sliver of presence means

just as much as it did to them

and that maybe it wasn't a dream after all

but a memory as we find ourselves

over and over again through the timeless echo

of ink-drenched words.

Of Course by Maggie Devers - For My Daughter

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 11:11:00 -0700

Of Course

Maggie Devers

Her feet were purple when she was born,

The cord pinned between her shoulder and me.

Half a dozen extra doctors and nurses had converged in the room moments before,

All of me open to all of them

As my doctor, the one I started with so many weeks ago,

Back when she told me they don’t use the tongs anymore,

Suction cupped her tiny head and yanked,

I breathed,

And the baby entered this world with a mighty howl.

In seconds all the contingency actors vanished.

The center of the room, the universe,

Was a tiny creature, fists tight, mouth wide, screaming.

Of course she was born the only way she lives—stubborn and fearless.

“My poetry has big bones” by Bex

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

“My poetry has big bones”

Bex

My poetry has big bones

And big ideas too

She wears vintage lace

And she remembers every time she was slipped on...

Poetry smokes green in the grass with her lover

and dissects the sun for she remembers its inception.

Poetry says -

"I’m with you in this life and the next, I will eat every piece of

you whole, wiping up what's left and wringing the cloth out in

my mouth, because my survival depends on your every drop"

Poetry is the story that lives in the wooden box on the shelf.

Forgotten but not.

Poetry is dragging you to the finish line

and has ten thousand ways to say

You are necessary.

For me -

Poetry is how i process -

My grief

My love

My numbness…

The monsters under my bed

Poetry is how I breathe...

First Blood by Maggie Devers - For My Daughter

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 11:11:00 -0700

First Blood

Maggie Devers

I remember the first blood of her,

The implant blood they call it.

It was possible I was pregnant,

We had laughed about it in Malta a few days and half a world away ago,

Sitting on our private balcony in a walled city,

Drinking a bottle of wine as a cart pulled by a horse strolled by.

We’ll call her Xara, we said, for the hotel built into the battlements where she was conceived.

The strength of old stone and softness of embossed butter at breakfast were a foretelling

Of the child that was now in my womb,

Nestling into place with a pinprick of bright, vibrant red.

“as the ground begins to frost” by esso

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

“as the ground begins to frost”

esso

as the ground begins to frost

we snuggle in heavier cloth

to live out shortbread days

laden in chocolate, lavender & cedar-smoke

hugging hooded hours

to soothe broken & healing layers

warm our hands by the fire

—holding safe—

as a crackling back-up singer

burgeons

creases intersecting

steely gaze & the blue-flame of fiery humor

belting the lead

cackles fill—growing darkness

heating our toes from the inside

& we'll tear-open

midnight's invitation

to keep splitting peas & hairs

over who gets the last piece of chocolate

& the next kiss

For My Daughter - Title Poem

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 11:11:00 -0700

For My Daughter

Maggie Devers

Chop off my head and put it on your shield.

I will protect you until the day I die

And all the days after that.

You think I would let anything harm the perfection that sprang from my body?

That force that is me and infinitely you at the same time?

There is nothing in the world that could destroy us,

Not when a mere glance can turn men to stone.

my throat makes by atm.itm

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

my throat makes

atm.itm

corridors into cloth

carries shimmering light

i have forgotten

how fabric can be light as light

stitches from hands

i have not met

rest lightly on my shoulder

it is the words

hard to say that stick to my mind

it is your words

that do not know how to die

make me sing out

wretched and loud

i strain them against the current

currently shaking into sea

salty and rocky

my throat

feels the bulge

of the apple cork

stuck inside

i hope you’ll still hear me

my throat makes sounds

i am not your enemy

i believe it to be true

this belief does not make it so

my eyes capture what you left behind

footsteps transmuting light

we walked

never the same are you

never the same am i

i hope we never meet again

the same

For My Daughter Audiobook Intro

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 11:11:00 -0700

The audiobook of For My Daughter releases 12-12. Listen to a poem a day from the book by subscribing to One Poem Only.

Timeline by Quinn Holm

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Timeline

Quinn Holm

I wrote Spring in Winter

I wrote Winter in Summer

and Fall somewhere in between

the changing weather

The nature in me has its own seasons

I’m not afraid of being forgotten

for my being needs no outside opinions

Things used-to-be and mistaken

no longer have a place in my present

Long gone was their influence on my emotions

I’m now loved and nurtured, every moment

The universe in me creates its own timeline

The inner reservoir in this child’s eyes

masters the healing and grows with pride

as my inner light shines through the night

things soon-to-be have now been realised

The hopes and dreams will soon be revived

in this serene world of my own divine

because it is the life of my own design.

(Outro)

When you lose what needs to be lost

It is actually a gain

You will see right through that pain

That once paralysed your mind

With the now blazing self-respect

Reflected in those eyes.

Sunday Recap & Drink It In by Maggie Devers

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Nov 24 - Moonborn by Aura Guerra-Artola @g.a.aura on Instagram. Her book, How to Live with a Cat on Your Chest and a Whale in Your Heart, is out now.

Nov 25 - Winter nights, burning cinder. by Sierra sylvie @the_fire_ave on Instagram.

Nov 26 - My Son in the Sea by Lisa Zerkle @hag_lore on Instagram. Listen to Lisa on Painted Bride Quarterly's Slush Pile podcast, where the editorial team discusses submissions, editorial issues, writing, deadlines, and cuckoo clocks. You can listen to me read Motherhood by Lisa on Instagram @rembrandts.cure.

Nov 27 - Canvas of Uncertainty by Asiyah Yusuf @_.echoesofreality._ on Instagram.

Nov 28 - Stuck in the Blue by Tushil Jariwala @tushil_writes on Instagram.

Nov 29 - How Clear She Shines by Emily Bronte

Nov 30

Drink It In

Maggie Devers

Someone handed me a latte

That didn’t taste like coffee

And I realized why those people

On the plane never bothered

To put up their window shades

After takeoff

We threw ours open before wheels up

It already went halfway as she chose her seat

For we need to see:

Clouds dancing in the sky,

Bags on those automatic ramps

Swallowed or spit out of the plane,

The heat still rising from the hot asphalt

As the sun sets

Is there anything more joyous than this wide world around us?

We want to know how it tastes without too much cream and sugar

But we won’t say no to those either.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

How Clear She Shines by Emily Brontë

Sat, 29 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

How Clear She Shines

Emily Brontë

How clear she shines! How quietly

I lie beneath her guardian light;

While heaven and earth are whispering me,

"To morrow, wake, but dream to-night."

Yes, Fancy, come, my Fairy love!

These throbbing temples softly kiss;

And bend my lonely couch above,

And bring me rest, and bring me bliss.

The world is going; dark world, adieu!

Grim world, conceal thee till the day;

The heart thou canst not all subdue

Must still resist, if thou delay!

Thy love I will not, will not share;

Thy hatred only wakes a smile;

Thy griefs may wound—thy wrongs may tear,

But, oh, thy lies shall ne'er beguile!

While gazing on the stars that glow

Above me, in that stormless sea,

I long to hope that all the woe

Creation knows, is held in thee!

And this shall be my dream to-night;

I'll think the heaven of glorious spheres

Is rolling on its course of light

In endless bliss, through endless years;

I'll think, there's not one world above,

Far as these straining eyes can see,

Where Wisdom ever laughed at Love,

Or Virtue crouched to Infamy;

Where, writhing 'neath the strokes of Fate,

The mangled wretch was forced to smile;

To match his patience 'gainst her hate,

His heart rebellious all the while.

Where Pleasure still will lead to wrong,

And helpless Reason warn in vain;

And Truth is weak, and Treachery strong;

And Joy the surest path to Pain;

And Peace, the lethargy of Grief;

And Hope, a phantom of the soul;

And life, a labour, void and brief;

And Death, the despot of the whole!

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Stuck in the Blue by Tushil Jariwala

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Stuck in the Blue

Tushil Jariwala

i remember that weekend — the lilac sky,

how i smiled at the stars while learning goodbye.

i gave you my laughter, my voice, my youth,

and you gave me silence, disguised as truth.

i thought we were different — the kind that last,

but some fairytales burn out too fast.

you called it timing, i called it fate,

you called me lovely — and walked away late.

i’m stuck in the blue, where the quiet won't break,

where your name is a whisper the moonlight still makes.

i painted you golden, but you stayed untrue,

you never loved me — but god, i loved you.

oh, i’m stuck in the blue...

still stuck in the blue.

i stood by your side when the world turned cold,

hid every bruise in petals i’d fold.

i sang you lullabies nobody heard,

and you left me hanging on unfinished words.

they asked what happened — i smiled, said fine,

but carried your ghost through every line.

you ran from the mess that your hands had made,

and left me with echoes that never fade.

i’m stuck in the blue, where the shadows dance,

where the heart still waits for a second chance.

i gave you a storm wrapped in skies so new,

you gave me the rain — and i called it you.

oh, i’m stuck in the blue...

so endlessly blue.

do you remember the girl who believed in stars?

who kissed your wounds and hid her scars?

i still write poems with your old name,

but now the ink don’t bleed the same.

i’m stuck in the blue, where the soft songs ache,

where your ghost still smiles in every heartbreak.

i held you in ways the world never knew,

you never loved me — but i always do.

and i’m stuck in the blue...

forever in the blue.

Canvas of Uncertainty by Asiyah Yusuf

Thu, 27 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Canvas of Uncertainty

Asiyah Yusuf

We all wonder what the future holds

A blank canvas waiting, like an unwritten scroll.

Brushstrokes of imagination begin to unfold,

As hearts find solace in stories yet untold.

In the darkness of uncertainty, a light flickers bright,

Guiding us gently, where shadows take flight.

With each step we take, the canvas starts to fill—

With every stroke, our story unfolds.

A masterpiece of hope, where love and dreams entwine,

A tapestry of moments, timeless and divine.

In this work of art, our hopes come alive

Passion ignites, dreams soar, and hearts truly thrive.

My Son in the Sea by Lisa Zerkle

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

My Son in the Sea

Lisa Zerkle

Somehow he knows he can breathe in both

water and air. See how he grows piscine,

dull on land, iridescent in the deep.

Delicate flesh of my blood and my bone.

How many bodies can this world hold?

Men want to examine where exactly

skin meets scale. You can’t have it both ways,

choose: man or fish? Not a man, say the men.

Don’t listen to them, sing the sirens,

preening their feathers (being as they are

part woman, part bird). What will the fish say?

Neptune, I’m counting on you in your pearl

and coral grotto, where distinctions are not

so brightly lit, where sea horses are not

horses, where starfish are not fish, but stars.

Winter nights, burning cinder. by Sierra sylvie

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Winter nights, burning cinder.

Sierra sylvie

As I lie here with eyes that ,

Glint while the cinder burns each memory softly.

As I lie here with those eyes that ,

Soar across every memory longing to be embraced.

As I lie here with a body ,

Longing to be worshipped

As I lie here with the body ,

Of rusted skin from the torrent of tears .

As I lie here with a soul ,

Suffering from the resentment of an eclipse

As I lie here with a soul , striving to cherish the thistle garden of heart.

As I lie here with an aching heart ,

Waiting for a lullaby , only to recite it myself.

Moonborn by Aura Guerra-Artola

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Moonborn

Aura Guerra-Artola

I am the Moon’s daughter.

Forever shifting rooms

within the skin I call home.

My light has crossed the tides,

so have my shadows.

I leave pieces—

memory like bark,

fallen

between full and hollow.

I lay in the hands of the earth

what in mine has completed

its cycle—

in case she wills

that it might bloom anew

for someone else.

Sunday Recap & Something Nice for Myself by Maggie Devers

Sun, 23 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Nov 17 - The Anatomy of a Queer Body by Gokul Prabhu @iamameme_gp on Instagram and @gokulprabhu1 on Substack.

Nov 18 - Raindrops by Kunjal Saraswat @_heart_cuddles_ on Instagram.

Nov 19 - A Boy Moose Ate My Tulips by Erynne DeVore @poemsprayersandswears on Instagram. She has two poetry books, Discovering Divinity: Poems, Prayers and Swears, and The Labyrinth of Heartbreak: A collection of poetry for the lovers and the heartbroken. You can listen to me read mother all by Erynne @rembrandts.cure

Nov 20 - Loneliness is a strange dopamine by Dipanwita Dey @iamdipanwitadey on Instagram.

Nov 21 - Ode to the Familiar Strangers by Yara Tawk @yara._.writes on Instagram. Her book, Periwinkle Sunsets, is out now.

Nov 22 - Fernando by Keana Aguila Labra @keanalabra on Instagram.

Nov 23

Something Nice for Myself

Maggie Devers

New clogs, soft pink suede baby.

The stack of pictures, waiting to be hung, leaning against the wall

Staring at me like they have for a year since we moved in.

I move them around occasionally,

Inspired by a new blank place where they will be most at home, but I haven’t been able to decide yet

Exactly where they need to go.

I think I’m waiting for them to tell me

They know, they know.

So maybe I’ll cross it off my to do list since it’s really already done

And wait for that moment of inspiration to put the hammer in my hand, pencil in my hair

And count out the inches from the floor.

It will make more sense when they’re on the wall,

a picture always does and art always does

Art always does, but a part of me likes to live in that place between making sense and not,

Being real and not

Where anything can happen,

Especially if I’m wearing pink suede clogs.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Fernando by Keana Aguila Labra

Sat, 22 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Fernando

Keana Aguila Labra

2011. Fernando was where we danced with our heels above the sand. A sixteen hour flight with jet lag as we licked the 6am sun. This is where it rises. Where he rises. Six hours before the mysterious Fernando. An hour acquainted with Fernando. Your chin raised, proudly. I did not understand it then, nor did I care. There was only us and our hands and this big house. Buko juice and lechon and mouths only in jovial activity. I married my toes into this land of his and smiled directly at this sun.

2006. Fernando was my Ate’s go-to karaoke song. She, sixteen, too young for ABBA, never been in love, yet she sang heart-broken. She sang polished. She sang as if to say, here we are, my love, how did we make it, Fernando? Bugles and rifles and old men with gray hair flooded my imagination. Fernando. Fernando. I was sure Ate cried the first time she sang Fernando. I didn’t know I was clutching my chest until I did.

2018. The same chin once upturned and proud is now drooping. His whiskers are no longer brown. His arms know only chairs from the kitchen to the recliner where he sleeps. I ask him where he’s from. Fernando. I beg him to remember the shade and humidity. He is slower to respond. His eyes wide, wanting for rest, but I’m not ready to let go. I plead with him to come back to San Fernando, Cebu.

2021. And he is gone. One hands me a tissue. Another says it’s not about what we deserve. But what of Fernando? San Fernando, where there are ferns and the dirt road? Where is the carsickness and white van and linked arms? Where is the orange laughter? Close your eyes. Fernando. Open your eyes. Fernando. I spell Fernando with my finger onto palm. There are no saints. I can’t remember if I breathed. I whisper Fernando as they lower him into the ground.

Ode to the Familiar Strangers by Yara Tawk

Fri, 21 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Ode to the Familiar Strangers

Yara Tawk

Like a wave crashing down on shore to then melt back into the ocean, I wonder if I too must break to recollect myself in my mother's embrace.

Do droplets of rain miss being a wave?

Will I ever miss being her child?

Where does an unstoppable river go once every ocean has run dry?

And what of the lake with no mother to run to, what of the waterfall with no arms to fall back into?

Can they call the ocean anything but a stranger?

Their beginning perhaps, but not their future.

Can I be one's child and yet my own person, a freshwater lake and still of the ocean?

I was born into the world as a stranger's crafted goods, a sweet summer tree's sweet summer fruit; yet I feel like a lemon in a vineyard, a sour flavor that smells of winter, and I love my self of citrus and fire, but I wonder if my mother would recognise this stranger.

Loneliness is a strange dopamine by Dipanwita Dey

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Loneliness is a strange dopamine

Dipanwita Dey

Loneliness is a strange dopamine.

Slowly, steadily, it consumes existence.

Under its spell, it traps, strangulates,

murders, and extinguishes.

The desperate try to defeat it,

unleashing the invisible chain

around the collarbones.

Feels like a gravitational force,

pushing into the darkness of the unseen.

Solitude devours the ultimate

version of yourself—

the despondency of never being discovered,

never being heard,

never feeling the warmth of a beloved's touch—

evaporates into the captivation.

Loneliness is a strange dopamine

that gradually erases felicity.

You let it consume, let it burn.

The desperation is robbed.

It feels dreamy, forever in slumber.

It doesn't differentiate,

manipulates the foul play with peace.

It paints hollowness with serenity,

makes silence your native tongue,

shadows your permanent companion,

darkens your inescapable attire.

You begin to forget

you were once alive—

how hope sounded,

how touch once anchored you

to the trembling reality

of being alive.

And so, you exist—

half-forgotten by your own soul,

where even the mirror sighs

at the ghost staring back.

A Boy Moose Ate My Tulips by Erynne DeVore

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

A Boy Moose Ate My Tulips

Erynne DeVore

i discovered marbles and obsidian buried in my garden next to the worms

after a moose ate my tulips

“of course it was a boy moose,” someone joked with me

i tried not to wake my daughters scaring him away

they woke anyways

irony is never lost on poets

my daughters

have ears and eyes and hearts of their own

they would’ve seen the evidence in the morning

those tulips were a gift from Mother Earth

meant for my pleasure, the flowers

that came to me in a dream

after i turned my back on the house

meant to turn us

from innocent and sweet

to Victors

sometimes i still dream about eating strawberries during a time i could pretend

Alaskan fruit has a taste

the tulips were a gift and i blamed nature

for taking them from me

“the lord giveth and the lord taketh away”

scripture gets just enough right

we could forget to dig deeper

the moose was just doing what moose do and

had he not

consumed what i perceived as mine

would i have let the feathers guide me

to God

a boy moose ate my tulips and i was pissed

as if Divine gifts are mine alone

as if i could expect him to be anything

other than who and what he is

as if God didn’t want me

elbow deep in dirt

listening to Their question:

what do you want to plant?!

girl, CAN YOU HEAR ME?

put your face to the earth

feel me and ask yourself

if just anything pretty deserves to be buried deep inside your home’s fertile ground?

the tulips, god

they were beautiful

and they picked me but the moose

in all of his immature adolescent volatile and majestic nature

freed me

from my attachment to pretty things

that just so happen to be there

the moose released me from all that tied me

to roots that were never mine to begin with

freed me to get dirt under my nails and

discover buried treasure

to weed the roots

that would no longer strangle all

i was planting

i prayed to co-create

which means

getting my hands dirty

Raindrops by Kunjal Saraswat

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Raindrops

Kunjal Saraswat

Raindrops shine under warm lights.

I notice it for the first time

As I sit here—

Two hours deep

Into this night

With the rain.

Well, not just the rain.

It brings its companions:

Thunder,

Lightning,

Showers,

And storms.

Tonight, it’s a stormy rain.

The wind is wild,

And the glass of my balcony shutters

Shudders under its weight.

I sip my coffee

And keep penning my poetry—

This one is about sorrow,

About giving up,

About the reality of life:

Death.

Behind me, the music swells.

The rain’s pattering grows louder,

And the glass keeps trembling.

My window

Is not strong enough

To protect me.

It doesn’t know

That I write

What I accept in life.

I’m a writer.

I don’t need protection.

A simple hole in the ground

Is enough for my sleep.

The trembling stops.

A smile creeps onto my face,

As if I know

What comes next.

The glass shatters.

Large shards fly toward me,

Pricking my legs

One after another

Until the whole pane

Is embedded in my flesh.

Still, my pen glides smoothly

Across the page.

My coffee

Is still warm enough to drink.

I’m vulnerable now—

To the storm,

To the ache.

Lying here,

Wrapped in warm lights.

Penning my poetry

and having coffee

With large pricks

embedded in my flesh.

I feel dizzy

As blood flows down my beige sofa

The stain will last forever.

As I reach the final line,

My pen gives out—

No more ink.

And I do

What any writer would do:

Leave behind a masterpiece.

I grab my inkpot,

Take a feather,

And dip it

Into my soaking blood.

If the stain remains,

Let it mark my diary too.

I finish my poem.

The last line reads:

“For as long as it takes,

I shall wait

For my beloved—

My demise—

With a smile.”

The feather slips

From my lazy hand.

And as I shut my eyes,

I notice the rain again—

And for the first time,

I realize:

Raindrops shine under warm lights.

The Anatomy of a Queer Body by Gokul Prabhu

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

The Anatomy of a Queer Body

Gokul Prabhu

This poem first appeared In Plainspeak.

Please tread gently. This poem has potentially disturbing content.

I see death, perched at my window.

Sometimes, they even sit on the edge of the bed.

Death is my friend now!

I am often tempted to draw them into a kiss.

They no longer hold a scythe,

and are no longer dressed in a cape.

They dress like my ex: shabby t-shirt, greying jeans, and sneakers,

or whatever those shoes are called in their world.

We have a conversation sometimes,

or they just watch over me as I sleep.

I am often tempted to join them on their journey back to their land,

but I think, for now, I shall stay.

I hear the cuss words from the neighbour boy as I pass by.

“Chakka,” he spat, because I was not like him,

looking for pussy constantly to stick his dick into.

My existence used to be a crime,

but even after the law has changed, I don’t expect acceptance.

What a joke. I am craving a good, appreciating word,

but I am only disappointed. I am not even hurt anymore;

cuss words have become part of my hearing system,

the language used to construct my body.

I smell the judgement

and the disappointment

of my parents as I enter the hall;

it stinks of their silence on my sexuality.

It doesn’t exist; it will disappear if they deny it.

I will become ‘normal’ again.

I just need to see the baba,

sit in a pooja,

eat the medicines that will rip it out of me.

Or, oh – they can also beat it out of me

because I can smell a conspiracy

that ends with me being straight or married to some girl.

The smells of love and trust

have been overpowered by the stink of hate and distrust,

but at least, I have the privilege to be able to walk out.

I taste, unwillingly, the cum of a guy I am not even interested in.

It has been forced into my mouth, but I don’t say anything.

My standards have lowered.

Is it problematic to have standards? I don’t know.

My type of guy is way out of my league,

because my body type doesn’t cut it for them.

I am, as they call it, the cunt for everyone,

even for the bored-of-girls-want-something-tighter cis straights to use,

whether I like it or not.

Love is out of the window; I have lost hope.

The fear of not having a future together

unless you can afford to flee to another country.

I might be able to, someday, if I am still alive till then.

I touch the knife, lightly running my finger along the edge.

It’s sharp enough.

I can do it, really.

No one will miss me;

the neighbour boy or my disappointed parents.

The peeps who use my cunt will find another the next day.

My friends will hopefully understand.

I am tired, and I want to go to sleep, and experience my body like I used to.

But I know, even after I am gone,

my body is death’s best friend,

constructed by cuss words and disappointment and fear,

the template of the queer body.

Sunday Recap & Episode 200!

Sun, 16 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Nov 10 - Signs by Defne Kartal @defnewrites on Instagram

Nov 11 - Sometimes I feel like writing by Junaid Ali Akbar @the.misfitpoet on Instagram.

Nov 12 - "this is not a poem (exactly)" by Tess Ezzy. @themoodyproject_ on Instagram. Poetess Press on Substack. You can listen to me read Cross Roads by Tess @rembrandts.cure on Instagram.

Nov 13 - In Another Lifetime by Edyth Grace @edyth_grace17 on Instagram.

Nov 14 - The Altar I Didn’t Know I was Building by Elle Zaspel @moonvinegrief on Instagram. She publishes Howl & Hold: A Grief Zine. Issue 1 is out now. Paper copy. Electronic copy.

Nov 15 - "A lousy sunday afternoon when The world had gone" by Aliya Narghese @sylphofthought on Instagram and Substack.

Nov 16

Episode 200

Brood Maggie Devers

The three hens at my daughter’s school

Are oblivious to egg prices

Concerned with lunch scraps

And the stray termite

And their stair perch when the sun dips low

I wonder how they spend evenings and weekends

If they miss the sound of childsong

Or the Sunday scaries set in

I imagine they commune with their comrades

Offer jokes and such for trade

My daughter assures me chickens dislike the mud

And I'm inclined to believe her

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

"A lousy sunday afternoon when The world had gone" by Aliya Narghese

Sat, 15 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

"A lousy sunday afternoon when"

Aliya Narghese

A lousy sunday afternoon when

The world had gone, for a momentary slumber

Her world fell forever quiet

beneath the burning timber

An unwelcome call, a cacophony of cries

Looks of pity, soulless sympathy

Life that was laid gently into her hands

Now a burden far heavy to carry

They called her brave, called her strong

But she knew they were wrong

Met with an incident so vivid

Her mind always so livid

She was only a child,

Left to pick up the shattered pieces

To mend a home, that no longer held warmth

The little heart held no remorse, but bottled fear

For she learned too soon,

Nothing can truly ever stay

Time flew, now she a fair maiden

Wiser for her age, yet housed a fragile trust

Her fury dispersed and fondness overflown

Standing before the cold gravel

She whispers a soft greeting

"I miss you"

The Altar I Didn’t Know I was Building by Elle Zaspel

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

The Altar I Didn’t Know I was Building

Elle Zaspel

There’s a small bowl on the bookshelf,

not meant for anything in particular.

But in it: a cicada shell, a rock from a Hamptons beach,

a blurry photo propped up beside them.

Things I kept without knowing why.

Things I wasn’t ready to throw away.

Cicadas remind me of him—

loud among friends, a little bit silly,

as if joy itself made them tremble.

They seem forgetful,

unsure of when to rise from the earth,

but their confusion is only appearance.

They know exactly when.

He was like that too.

His keys are lost,

his books—vanished into someone else’s box.

Mine are stacked neatly,

deliberate, placed with care,

as if by tending to my objects,

I might still be touching his.

There are trinkets from cities he never got to visit.

Tiny brass charms, receipts, matchbooks

from corners of the world

I tried to collect for the both of us.

The Douro waits.

I haven’t gone.

Too afraid the river might hold him

more completely than I ever could.

Too afraid it won’t.

And then there’s the scent—

not his, exactly,

but close enough to trick me on a tired afternoon.

I catch it when I’m not looking,

and my knees forget how to hold me up.

The sparkle of his eyes—

God, how bright they were—

burns now only in memory,

a flicker I fan when I’m alone.

This shelf,

this corner,

this drawer of objects I couldn’t part with—

they are all fragments of the could-have-been.

Of two hearts

that once tried to meet

somewhere between the living and the not.

I didn’t know I was building a shrine—

I thought I was just trying to survive.

In Another Lifetime by Edyth Grace

Thu, 13 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

In Another Lifetime

Edyth Grace

To an old friend, wherever you are.......

In another lifetime,

Where the skies are plastered

With soft pinks and blues

and golden hues

And the grass, softer than

your skin I once caressed.

In another lifetime,

where the air hums the lyrics

of the song, we would've remembered

And your fingers would've fit mine

like the stars aligning

in some perfect, forgotten sky.

In another lifetime,

the clocks would slow their hands,

giving us endless moments—

no rush, no regret,

just the gentle unfolding

of a story written in your eyes.

In another lifetime,

we would've danced barefoot in the rain

without fear of the lightning—

or the goodbye.

And maybe, just maybe,

your heart would ache

exactly the same way

mine still does.

In another lifetime,

where dreams remember

what reality forgets—

I’ll find you.

And maybe one day,

we’ll stay.

"this is not a poem (exactly)" by Tess Ezzy

Wed, 12 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

"this is not a poem (exactly)"

Tess Ezzy

this is not a poem (exactly)

but a leaf-fall of words unclaimed—

(dear dirt) how softly you

listen

and when wind folds the gumtrees into

parentheses (yes)

what survives is

breath—

a syntax of birds unsinging

•

meanwhile:

Calla walks thru rain’s lowercase

and writes a cloud into her pocket

(a sentence of dew)

Orion maps stars in the dark of the page,

his footnotes wet with ash

•

don’t say hope,

say root

don’t say beauty,

say scar

climate speaks in fracture—

in murmur,

in shiver,

in wait

•

the fire is (still) coming

but

so is

poem

(and what’s the difference,

really?)

Sometimes I feel like writing by Junaid Ali Akbar

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Sometimes I feel like writing

Junaid Ali Akbar

Sometimes I feel like writing...

Writing words that could shake the earth,

But how foolish of me to think,

That ink could stop the bloodshed.

Sometimes I feel like writing...

When I see the corpses of children,

Hanging from the rubble,

Their bodies too small for the weight of this world,

Crushed by the sins of those who never knew their names.

Sometimes I feel like writing...

When I see fathers cradling their babies' bodies,

Their hands trembling as they carry the weight of loss,

Bombs ripping apart their hearts and homes,

And I wonder, can my words reach where their cries cannot?

Sometimes I feel like writing...

A poem so fierce, it could shatter the silence,

A verse so loud, it could wake the world,

But how silly of me to believe,

That words alone could open the eyes of those who choose to sleep.

Sometimes I feel like writing...

But what good are these lines,

When the world turns away,

When the truth lies buried beneath the rubble,

And the ink dries, as cold as the bodies it tries to honour.

Sometimes I feel like writing...

But I’m just one voice,

One heart breaking in a sea of sorrow,

And while I write, the bombs keep falling,

And the world keeps sleeping.

Sometimes I feel like writing...

But sometimes,

The words are too heavy,

And the silence is all that’s left.

Signs by Defne Kartal

Mon, 10 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Signs

Defne Kartal

I don’t believe in signs but I do

I beg for them daily, and when they arrive -

A postcard, a dog, a friend, a group of musicians, a Canadian -

i don’t do what I think they’re telling me to

what are signs for?

I don’t believe and I don’t know, I don’t know, so I don’t believe

Instead, I conjure up an image of you

Walking away through the crowd,

I follow you

Eyes closed in my bed

I hold you

I look in people’s windows, says the poet

I always, always, always do

Lion-faced truth-speaker

Nothing to see, if I can’t find you

but can anyone prove to me please,

show the signs to me, please

That my world has known you,

And the world as I know it, still holds you

in a corner where I don’t see, there you must be

(Here’s a solace: Object permanence)

What did you have for dinner today and who did you talk to?

You must have gotten my letter

did it break or mend something

And do you - believe in signs, the way I do?

ask for them find them hate them love them

ask for them again,

again

do you?

Sunday Recap & The prompt was to write by Maggie Devers

Sun, 09 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Nov 3 - Naked by Danielle Martin @cosquelle.mind on Instagram. DanielleM on Facebook. Her book, Kissing Shadows: Caribbean Love Poems, is out now.

Nov 4 - Poetry Reading by Maggie Devers

Nov 5 - Her Absence by Katrina Kaye @poetkatrinakaye on Instagram. You can read more of her poetry on her website poetkatrinakaye.com. You can see me read Her Absence @rembrandts.cure on Instagram.

Nov 6 - you wrote anyway by Abhilasha Ghosh @abhilaxxa on Instagram. Her bookstagram is @booksandbillis .

Nov 7 - Nightmares are dreams too by Dimple Dinesh Lokhande @dimple_writes07 on Instagram. Her poems are featured in the poetry anthology, Words Of Escape, of which she is a co-author.

Nov 8 - "Dear death" by Alexis M Levine @alexandrathepoett on Instagram.

Nov 9

The prompt was to write

Maggie Devers

A seven word poem about your mother

I wrote it in my dream and

It had evaporated when I woke up

But I did dream of my daughter

As a newborn asleep on my chest.

The smell at her crown was there,

And her little chest rose the same

And I was a new mother again.

I have carried the feeling all day

Thinking how our children hold us close

When their tiny hand grips our finger

I think of my mother and know

For her, seven words are not enough.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

"Dear death" by Alexis M Levine

Sat, 08 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

A poem inspired by Emily Dickinson

Dear death

How can I stay

when you,

more than life,

make me feel

seen?

They call you cruel,

but I have seen

the gentleness in your cruelty—

the mercy in your ending,

the way you unburden bones

and hush the screaming thoughts

no one else could hear.

What if the ones who scream

are not cruel,

but trying to anchor me

to a world they still believe

can bloom?

And I—

have I given everything a chance?

Or have I fallen

so in love with the idea

of not hurting

that I’ve forgotten

what healing might feel like?

Do not rush.

But when you come home,

come softly.

Let me fall

like a candle into darkness,

like a secret

finally heard.

But even now,

as I write your name

with steady hands,

something inside me trembles.

What if I’m wrong?

What if your silence

is not peace,

but absence?

What if the ache I carry

is not a curse,

but a call—

a sign that I was meant

to stay,

to fight,

to feel

just a little more?

What if the ones who scream

are not cruel,

but trying to anchor me

to a world they still believe

can bloom?

And I—

have I given everything a chance?

Or have I fallen

so in love with the idea

of not hurting

that I’ve forgotten

what healing might feel like?

- Alexis M Levine

Nightmares are dreams too by Dimple Dinesh Lokhande

Fri, 07 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Nightmares are dreams too

Dimple Dinesh Lokhande

In the midnight sky, as breeze passes by,

In our sleep, we tend to fly,

To a place where dreams seem to lie.

Dreams whisper on clouds in silver light,

We see in shining armor a knight,

Who wields his sword and provides justice to what's right.

Dreams are a picture of the future, some blurred, some clear,

Where hearts feel safe and fears disappear.

But deep beneath those dreamy skies,

Lies a darker place where nightmares reside.

They steal your breath, haunt your soul,

A terror hidden, your body they control.

A face unknown with a sudden fall,

The night consumes you with shadows' creepy call.

But nightmares, no matter how cold and severe,

Are born from dreams, the same sphere.

Each night comes with stories brand new,

This is your reminder that nightmares are dreams too.

you wrote anyway by Abhilasha Ghosh

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

you wrote anyway

Abhilasha Ghosh

july 25th, 2025

you were told

writing was a man’s terrain—

ink too heavy, thought too sharp

for your soft hands.

so you wrote anyway.

you became george eliot

when mary ann wouldn’t be taken seriously.

they admired your mind

but never called it yours.

you were the brontë sisters,

signing as currer, ellis, and acton bell—

three pens dipped in restraint,

writing women with thunder in their hearts.

you were ismat chughtai,

on trial for obscenity

because you dared to speak of women

as if we had bodies

and stories

and agency.

you were christine de pizan,

arguing with dead philosophers in the 1400s,

building a city of women

while the world tried to burn it down.

you were savitri bai phule,

carrying chalk like a sword,

spitting in the face of caste and patriarchy

with every lesson you taught a girl.

you were elisabeth vigee le brun,

painting and writing through revolutions,

surviving exile with a brush and a spine.

you were madame de staël,

banished by napoleon

for being smarter than he could stand.

you turned your exile

into a library.

you were sor juana inés de la cruz,

writing plays and poems in a convent in mexico,

hiding brilliance in lace and latin.

you gave up writing—

they said it was your choice.

you and i both know it was surrender

in silk.

you were marina tsvetaeva,

writing poems that blistered like prophecy

while the soviet air turned cold around your mouth.

you were anna akhmatova,

smuggling words through iron bars

as your lovers and sons disappeared.

you were sylvia plath,

and they romanticized your death

before they honored your craft.

you left poems like razors

on every bathroom tile.

you were virginia woolf,

handing every woman a room of her own,

while your own mind became too loud

to live inside.

you were octavia butler,

writing the future

because the present refused to hold you.

you were nawal el saadawi,

telling the truth of women’s bodies

and being cast out for it.

you were toru dutt,

begum rokeya,

kamala das,—

the subcontinent’s burning pen

passed down like a secret blessing.

you were too brown,

too bold,

too bare,

too brilliant,

too loud,

too angry,

too strange,

too sad,

too female.

they called you excessive,

unladylike,

difficult,

political,

emotional,

hysterical.

and still—

you wrote.

in exile,

in shame,

in hunger,

in prison,

in the dark,

in footnotes,

in funeral clothes,

in jail cells,

in schoolhouses,

in shame and in secret.

on scraps, on borrowed typewriters,

under threat,

under pressure,

under no illusions.

and now—

we write

because you carved the path

with your teeth.

and now—

we write in the space

you tore open with your bare hands.

we do not write to please them.

we write because

you did.

we sign our names

because you could not.

and every sentence we shape

rings with your echo—

proof that survival,

in ink,

can be immortal.

Her Absence by Katrina Kaye

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Her Absence

Katrina Kaye

I do not regret the days

I spent loving you in her absence.

I do not regret

your tempered touches

as you searched for her skin

under my scales

or the way your eyes reflected

her sharp chin and freckled chest

when they fell on my frame.

I do not regret

the fleeting space we created,

morning gestures

in the folds of sheet and flesh.

Tending your wounds

with tongue and time.

You found solace

with your elbows on my table,

your dirty feet in my bed,

but she was ever present

upon the waves of your thoughts.

Your ears keen for her voice,

but I heard it first,

soft as the buzz of bumble bees on the beach

calling you home.

I do not regret

returning to a solitary balcony

above the ocean’s turning point,

or slipping inside my bed,

still warm in your place.

As you kiss my hands

in gratitude of my hospitality,

my kindness,

don’t leave thinking,

I am emptied.

I gave what I wanted,

no more,

no less.

Poetry Reading by Maggie Devers & An Exciting Announcement

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Poetry Reading

Maggie Devers

After Chelsie Diane

This is a remembering

When we come together

And read our truth.

We have been doing this forever.

They have tried to stop us—

Burnt us alive, tied rocks to our ankles and threw us in the river, locked us in cages.

So many cages.

But we didn't stop.

We can never stop,

We are right where we are.

The audiobook of my debut poetry book, For My Daughter, will be released 12/12.

In the tradition of a poem a day, starting 11/5, I will be offering a daily reading from the book for subscribers to One Poem Only.

You can subscribe on Substack and Pateron.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Naked by Danielle Martin

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Naked

Danielle Martin

Naked in the truth that she is alone

she hugs herself tightly and succeeds

in creating the illusion of wellness.

Damp eyes close as jaded lips conjure up wide smiles.

Damn!

Her mind begins to do its own thing again.

Briefly, she forgets, as she floats on a magic carpet of memories, smiling, as death did not steal everything after all.

Basking in apparent nothingness, she waits.

No one knows her thoughts.

But her silence, is better left a mystery.

As she knows only too well, every beginning has an end.

Sunday Recap & Forty-Three Is Poetry by Maggie Devers

Sun, 02 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Oct 27 - i don't remember being small by Momena Khan @still.in.my.d4afts_ on Instagram.

Oct 28 - What Are We by Laker Patience @laker.p_poet on Instagram. Her poetry anthology, Echoes of Colour, will be out soon.

Oct 29 - Green Soup by Tabitha Dial @TabithaDial on Instagram. Her book, Cheese Astrology: A Weekly Guide, is out now. Listen to me read Apparition Appetizers by Tabitha on Instagram @rembrandts.cure.

Oct 30 - The Spider by Philippe Blenkiron

Oct 31 - Coffin monologue: The non-rhyming rant poem by Manasvita Sukthankar @manasvita._ on Instagram.

Nov 1 - "I would peel pomegranates for you—" by Hareem Ismail @wordssmith_ on Instagram.

Nov 2

Forty-Three Is Poetry

Maggie Devers

After @motheatencurtain

Twenty-four is driving without a steering wheel

Moving at a clip

Bumping into all that enchants you until you fall out a window

Literally.

And you find

it necessary

to relearn

how to

climb

stairs.

You are empty,

But thirty is flirting with the one you love,

Obsessing deeper into everything you seek.

Thirty-five is big and round and swollen

And you are full of life,

Not metaphorically,

Though that would be simpler.

Your dreams are tangible

And you learn how to feel them.

That’s forty-three:

When poetry comes into focus

And you write all you want.

It’s yours.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

"I would peel pomegranates for you—" by Hareem Ismail

Sat, 01 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0700

I would peel pomegranates for you—

Not just slice them open, but gently with my fingers stained red— I would learn its anatomy, the way they bruise and break if held too harshly, the way they hold memories in every seed.

I would sit at the table, a bowl between us as I unraveled the fruit slowly— almost reverently.

I’d gather the delicate pieces and offer them to you like little treasures, letting the juice spill— dark and intoxicating.

And in the simple act, I’d tell you everything— talk to you about the world and nothing at all, that I chose you, I see you.

“I would peel pomegranates for you”

I’d say giggling as I pop a seed in my mouth.

- Hareem Ismail

Coffin monologue: The non-rhyming rant poem by Manasvita Sukthankar

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Coffin monologue: The non-rhyming rant poem

Manasvita Sukthankar

I love myself,

but which one?

Can I love the person that most hate?

Does she deserve the ache in her chest?

It feels like being trapped in a coffin alive,

like death is leaning by the doorframe.

If so,

I'd like it to carry me home,

and leave me on my bedroom floor to stay.

Maybe I feel safer in this coffin,

No one can get to me.

Maybe it's a shield that saves me,

but from whom?

The weight of this world?

I wonder how it’s bearing the weight,

It feels like it’s made of glass.

I wish to be as strong as the coffin,

but maybe it's because it's got a heart of steel too.

I don't know if I should try to escape,

Is the coffin written in my fate?

Should I bang it from the inside,

can anyone hear?

Or should I let it engulf my soul.

It already trapped my body,

I'm a corpse soon to be.

Death is more alive than the life in me,

my eyes would say the same.

I feel like if words cut me deep,

I'm not sure I'll even bleed.

Would that mean I'm dead on the inside,

Or that my heart is asleep?

When my flesh starts to rot and the worms come my way,

will they consider me supper?

Or am I unwanted in the afterlife too,

That I should've gone sooner.

Is this the hell that humans run away from?

Well I found it in this life.

I could have a party with the ghosts that haunt me.

I found something I could call my own.

The party has begun.

It’s loud in my head.

There are balloons

darker than the dreams I weave,

confetti with shimmer and silence,

candles burning like they’re coming for me,

and a cake with fractured frosting.

Maybe the worms and the ghosts could be friends.

They both feed on me, after all.

The party has come to an end.

And mine has come too.

I felt it come a lot sooner

but time warp is real.

I think these words I gather myself to spit out

are heavier than my coffin in the ground.

Maybe the Earth could put me to sleep,

and cradle me with a lullaby.

Okay,

that’s it. Good evening, good night or whenever you're reading this.

The Spider by Philippe Blenkiron

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

The Spider

Philippe Blenkiron

"Is God a Spider?" I asked,

"constantly weaving

electron threads into

spiraling elemental webs?

His iron will, spun

with a silk of liquid steel,

torn by the slightest of whims?

His tenacious tapestry resewn,

a glistening embroidery

of frosted jewelled fibrils?"

"God scares me," you said,

"In the corner of the room,

observant, unmoving,

a silent host of eyes.

His uncanny mechanics,

a mystery of hydraulic ink

wrapped in adhesive shadow.

"But He's a friend," she replied

"Call Him carpenter,

cellar-dweller,

a long-limbed daddy,

because He eats

flies like sins, labours

in your shed while you hammer and nail,

accompanies your best wine.

Raise a toast, man, raise your cup

high

to the ceiling

to Him

then you can slide something thin

between the glass and the wall

and take Him outside

so he doesn't bother anyone."

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Green Soup by Tabitha Dial

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Green Soup

Tabitha Dial

(Halloween Night 2020)

From a quiet keeping-space,

I promise my motherghost

to create meals and music.

Even if from

dry bones and tangled memories,

my vow as I unstem kale and spinach,

add it to the copperlined pot with green onion, cilantro,

yukon golds and snap peas.

Remember when I made your favorite soup

last year? I caramelize the onions and recall

that patient pot.

I've spent almost 2 hours at the stove, there's

only a little more: the garlic and ginger

sizzle in the pan, then slide into the pot. Another 10 minutes.

I add the broth, taste. I follow the recipe,

as one day I'll follow you. Blend in batches,

return to pot, simmer, flavor with lemon juice,

white vinegar, salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder,

and the sound of your name.

What Are We by Laker Patience

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

What Are We

Laker Patience

What are we?

is there even a we, or is it possibly just a you and a me,

a concoction of delusion, desire, mismatched expectations with no actual communication.

What are we?

what is this?

Because my soul can't keep skinny dipping in the misread signals of others,

it can't!

My heart can't keep bungee jumping off of platforms made from shaky commitment,

committing to shaky commitment,

it's exhausting,

it's exhausting to keep trying to cultivate seeds in farm lands offered to you as fertile,

that bear testimony of harvest, of bounty,

to watch them yield for everyone else except you!

I can't keep stripping for eyes that refuse to see me,

why bare my soul when the only parts of me you desire to see naked are flesh,

my breasts, hips, butt and lips that don't speak,

as though if they could you'd even bother to listen,

I can't!

Can't keep holding open houses for the prime real estate that is my body, existence, being,

to have prospects take tours, show interest, ask questions, eat cookie, make offers,

only for them to turn around and declare I am not what they're looking for.

it's dangerous how proficient I've gotten at deploying parachutes during trust falls, at spotting plot holes in confessions and pot holes in promises, surprised only if they remain unbroken

I can't!

can't keep putting my love up for adoption,

can't keep fostering it in seemingly loving homes,

only for it to keep being returned to me,

each time a little more traumatized,

each time a little more broken,

So..

before we waste my time,

before we paint memories in vibrant sounds and over saturated colors, that I'll only recall In greys as fantasy,

before we make me believe that I jumped of the edge alone, unprompted, with delusion as my safety instructor and your words in my ears and hand in mine, make belief

before we gaslight me into believing that your actions didn't drive me to conclusions of claim, of more,

knowing full well that 93% of all communication is nonverbal..

before we subject me to all that,

and I'm forced to look with eyes puffy and incapable of seeing myself attached to worth,

Forced to look with those eyes for all the parts of me that make me defective and unworthy of love with weight, with claim,

Again!

what are we?

what is this?

Because it feels kinda shaky.

i don't remember being small by Momena Khan

Mon, 27 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

i don't remember being small

Momena Khan

i was sitting beside her, my not-sister. we were eating oranges and she was laughing with her whole mouth open like joy had never betrayed her. i held my fruit too carefully, too clean, trying not to let the juice run down my wrists.

she said, you never eat like you're hungry. i said, i don’t think i am.

i don’t remember being small. there are photos of me, hair sticking out in all directions, one sock off, holding a stick like it was a sword. i must have been wild, once. i must have screamed and reached for things. but the memory of that version of me has been folded up so many times, the edges have worn off. i only know her through photographs.

i used to think gentleness was my personality. it took me ten years to realize it was fear.

when i was twelve i stopped raising my voice. stopped correcting people when they said my name wrong. i learned the art of shrinking, i mistook stillness for safety. but safety is not always safe. sometimes it is just hiding in better lighting.

she said, you can take the last orange. i said, you can have it. i always say that. i always let them have it. but i wanted it too. i did.

i think i’m just waiting for someone to notice.

i think i’m just waiting for someone to say, take it.

i think i’m just waiting to be small again.

Sunday Recap & "What 42 years of life have taught me" by Maggie Devers

Sun, 26 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Oct 20 - Places Passing By by Paige Keller @pk_fictions on Instagram. Her book, Now Everything Changes, is available now from her website: pkfictions.com.

Oct 21 - Keeping It This Way by Swan Melloh @three.letters.poetry on Instagram. Her poem, This is my insides, is published in the Spring/Summer 2025 issue of Kailon Magazine.

Oct 22 - "If love were a predator," by McKenzie Hager @lavendermorbs on Instagram. Her book, Ink, Grace, and F-Bombs, is out now. Listen to me read another poem by McKenzie on Instagram @rembrandts.cure.

Oct 23 - Seventh Wonder by Jesujoba Isaac @jobathepoete on Instagram where he merges poetry and fashion.

Oct 24 - Bills for Bills of Bills for Bills by Charlotte Stuart @charli_is_not_simba on Instagram.

Oct 25 - Garden of Eden by Yonsiri Rojas @lvrimar on Instagram.

Oct 26

What 42 years of life have taught me

It’s dangerous to be afraid all the time.

Afraid to love

Afraid to lose

Afraid of yourself

Afraid of your deepest, darkest thoughts

Afraid to know, really know those around you

Afraid the rugs gonna be pulled out

Just as soon as something good happens

Afraid to think those thoughts

Afraid of too much joy

Or too little

Afraid things will never be this good again

Afraid of change—

That unrelenting path forward

The march to an inevitable end

Afraid of death

Afraid of life

Afraid of what other people think of you, say about you behind your back

All these fears are dangerous because they are untrue

There is nothing we can control with worry

Or knowledge

Or prayers

We can control our fear

We can choose to no longer be afraid

By choosing to wake up every day in the wild, wild world,

Claiming our life as our own

Even as fear simmers around us.

-Maggie Devers

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Garden of Eden by Yonsiri Rojas

Sat, 25 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Garden of Eden

Yonsiri Rojas

lulling sunbeam through the boughs

soothing ballad of a plum-haired doll

hazy notes of pure joy

her naked feet wet in fresh spring

icy water against bare sweet skin

a dim lonely shadow dancing to the sun

gauzy white dress softer than

dandelions blown to an open sky

otherworldly feeling of redemption

a honeyed fragrant apricot in milky palms;

juicy flesh that gently stains her wrists

consume its almond-like pit, enjoy and die

Bills for Bills of Bills for Bills by Charlotte Stuart

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Bills for Bills of Bills for Bills

Charlotte Stuart

They hand me bills for bills of bills for bills,

Stacked like bricks in window sills.

Pay what you owe, then pay what comes.

A tangled song the system hums:

A doctor’s bill, a phone bill too,

A bill to tell me rent is due.

A bill for water, light, and gas;

A bill to fix my metro pass.

I pay a bill to check my bills,

Then pay again for late fee thrills.

They charge me more for paying late;

A bill for daring to hesitate.

It’s bills for bills of bills for bills,

A dance of digits, endless hills.

Money earned is money gone,

Before I’ve even stretched or yawned.

A meal? A book? A dream to chase?

Not now! Another bill takes place.

It’s bills for debt and debt for bills,

A quiet war without the kills.

And still I smile, still I sign,

Still I queue up in the line.

Because the world spins, groans, and drills,

On bills

for bills

of bills

for bills.

Seventh Wonder by Joba the Poète

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Seventh Wonder

Joba the Poète

Seven wonders of the world

yet I trip like the leaning tower of Pisa

when you sing out my name

with a nine minus two, or rather still,

six plus one,

the seventh scale of the seventh chord

you love the most.

What a time to feel this way,

even such is time—

and perchance God did not rest on

the seventh day,

perhaps He spent seven more hours

perfecting your seventieth curve.

But I do not know this story of creation

so well as to whether they were seven days

or they were seven years,

because a woman as you couldn't have been made

in seven rushing minutes, out from seven mortal ribs.

But my darling, I do know what I'll do for you:

I'll cross seven seas,

witness the fall of seven suns,

I'll sing you seven songs

in seven different languages,

seven-seven, double sevens

in sevenfolds, seven seventeens,

count my lives, I've got seven of these

and in each of them I'll choose you,

seven times.

I'll love you like we're in the seventies,

nineteen seventy-one,

seventy-one times seven million ways,

seven discos, seven Star Wars, seven happy days,

you're my seventh of perfections,

my seven muses on seven rainy days,

you are, my love, the seventh wonder

of this wonderful world.

"If love were a predator," by McKenzie Hager

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

If love were a predator,

I’d let it hunt me down.

While it prowled,

I’d shuffle the leaves

just enough to be heard.

I’d welcome the weight

of its body against mine.

And when it struck,

I’d go down smiling—

Let it take me.

Let it tear me open.

Let me blissfully bleed my life away

as its mouth claimed the tender flesh

of my thigh

a mark not of death,

but devotion.

Because life without love

is just survival

anyway.

-M.L.

Keeping It This Way by Swan Melloh

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Keeping It This Way

Swan Melloh

I am not your property

I rather tell myself than you

who wears oblivion for shoes,

walks without a knowing heart.

I suppose it´s easier

to leave you there without a clue,

words unspoken in their truth,

better gone, and far apart.

Don´t you ever stop to wonder

who´s the mistress of this distance?

Call me goddess of this state,

yet, would you ever know?

We should be the ending,

not like my ancient persistence,

not of love, not out of hate,

not fading to ever grow.

This much I can answer you:

Intimacy won´t reappear.

Has it ever been of presence

while you broke my core?

Eyes will slip some knowledge,

fingertips soft, now free of fear,

claiming just my roaring essence

while denial rules no more.

Places Passing By by Paige Keller

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Places Passing By

Paige Keller

Sitting on a patio sipping tea under the sun, writing notes into

my phone through the breeze. Imagining different days and new

ways to live - a place where I am me, whomever she is.

Some place where you walk by and we are reintroduced for the

very first time. Your eyes and mine. Our minds far away and

familiar - different now but two souls the same.

A breath of nostalgia and suddenly there’s a smell that I can

almost pinpoint but can never place. I imagine an embrace and a

deep inhale of your essence but say hey - I stay seated.

I’m not quite sure if you’re thinking the same or counting the

seconds till you can turn and walk off - to the better places

you’ve found while I was drifting

so

far

away.

Sunday Recap & Cast Off by Maggie Devers

Sun, 19 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Oct 13 - House of Childhood by Nataša Benedičič @natasek_poetry_corner on Instagram. Childhood Reveries is her Substack. Her book, Whispers of the Inner Child, is out now.

Oct 14 - "Where will we get" by Sophia Nerenberg @sophia_the_writer10 on Instagram

Oct 15 - "I want to escape this world." by Lipy Goyal @thediaryofscript on Instagram. You can listen to me read another poem by Lipy on Instagram @rembrandts.cure

Oct 16 - Love Letter to the Lesion in My Brain by Erin Zarro @erinzpoetry on Instagram. Her two chapbooks, Life as a Moving Target, and Without Wings, are available now.

Oct 17 - Tell Me by Evita Arakelian @dipped_in_words on Instagram. She teaches poetry to all ages with tailor-made syllabi, individual and group instruction; independently as well as on platforms like SuperProf. You can find the latest information on her Linktree.

Oct 18 - "I dream of a happy ending." by Alena Peacock @n0t.a.poet on Instagram.

Oct 19 - Cast Off

Maggie Devers

The elephant seal sheds all the skin from her body once a year.

Catastrophic molt they call it.

This is necessary because when she stops breathing for two hours

Collapsing her lungs

Diving deep, sometimes a mile

To feast on bioluminescent creatures in the ocean's depths,

She pulls blood from her skin to her organs.

She must keep her heart warm if she's to have any chance to survive.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

"I dream of a happy ending." by Alena Peacock

Sat, 18 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

I dream of a happy ending.

Perfect and unyielding.

A quiet love,

so loud,

its deafening.

Where I would not ever have to question their affection.

I'd be so sure of this love,

anxiety would dissipate.

One filled with faultless words of promise, burning with hope.

A brilliant,

irreplaceable light,

matching mine.

An almost planned,

adventurous future,

that I could see in their eyes.

Eventually,

this ending will find me.

- Alena Peacock

Tell Me by Evita Arakelian

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Tell Me

Evita Arakelian

Tell me of a flavour I have forgotten,

of a song I may have heard a stranger

hum to her child in some store, some day.

Tell me a story I know but end it differently or stop

right in the middle and say: ‘more

for later.’ Tell me about the bakery

that will open near our home, on the eighth

street. Remind me of what it was you said when I left my seat

to have a cry in the theatre powder-room—

(I didn’t want Little Nell to die). Tell me

of all the silly things I do sometimes.

Tell me a truth that tastes like chocolate,

a lie I can save for April Fool's day.

Tell me anything before sunrise.

Love Letter to the Lesion in My Brain by Erin Zarro

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Love Letter to the Lesion in My Brain

Erin Zarro

TW: explicit language, illness, mentions of death

Here’s a secret. This thing in my brain – this mass of cells and tissue — it’s not my friend – is it going to grow? Is it going to kill me?

Because I’ll tell you now: The Grim Reaper will have to drag me, screaming the whole way, from my life.

Because it is mine and I’m not fucking ready.

Not. Fucking. Ready.

I haven’t turned fifty yet, damn it. That’s too young to…yeah.

Too fucking young.

I never believed a small clump of cells in my white matter would take me out.

I always said I’d go out in a blaze of fire. And at the age of ninety, right?

But this little clump of cells might suck the life out of me, keep me from collecting those beautiful moments of joy, the things that make life worth the infinite breaths every single day.

The highs. The lows. The human experience.

All of it, human shaped and filled with blood and held together with bone.

But that blood… That’s a reminder that I’m here, I’m still breathing, something’s moving through my veins and arteries and I am not.

I’m not.

Grim Reaper’s gotta wait. I can see him, scythe upraised, ready to yank my soul out.

I’m not ready. I’m too young. I’m healthy. I refuse to go. I will scream for an eternity before I allow him to put one skeletal finger on me.

Oh, did my rage reach you, sir, at the wrong time?

I think you got the wrong chick. Check your records and fucking call back.

Or, better yet, don’t. Cause I ain’t answerin.’

This phone line is no longer in service.

I’ll tell you another secret: I have a lesion in my brain.

It might be cancer.

But fucking hell, I’m not letting it take me.

I’m too young to go.

Too young to go.

"I want to escape this world." by Lipy Goyal

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

I want to escape this world.

And sit with somebody in a quiet place.

Looking at the stars, imagine a new world.

Drinking silence in a cup of coffee

The chaos-free, serene space

A cessation in this running world

Walking on green grass barefoot

Running wildly in green, loose space

Exploring myself in the woods

Reading books in a tree house

Lit up the world with tiny stars of night.

O What a majestic view of dancing lights!

Watching the dreamy aurora borealis

The magical moon nights, different canvasses of sunsets in the sky, and the cheerful sunrise

Flow of air through hair

Rustling of bushes, crushing of dried leaves

The perfume of petrichor, silence before storm

Chirping of forbidden sparrows, cucks of Koel

The exploration of vast universes within each other

Although I'm chaotic, I want to escape the worldly chaos

I want to escape this world.

- Lipy Goyal

"Where will we get" by Sophia Nerenberg

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Where will we get

With the attack?

Will the caged bird

Finally bend the metal?

Or should it learn to pick the lock?

Where will we get

With the oppression?

Will the Princess

Be forced to use her hair?

Or be allowed to put on pants

And climb her way down?

Where will we get

With the ego?

Will the lion pounce at every chance

And fail?

Or choose wisely,

Waiting for the pride?

Where will we get

With the hate?

Will the fire burn

And become all consuming?

Or simmer only enough to warm our hands?

To cook a meal we can share?

Where will we get

If we go on like this?

Where will we get

If we don’t stop and think?

Where will we get

If we don’t take a look around?

Where will we get?

- Sophia Nerenberg

House of Childhood by Nataša Benedičič

Mon, 13 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

House of Childhood

Nataša Benedičič

I would rest in a secret garden

Watering my unsaid thoughts

For they had no other place

Since they were “too much”

Waiting for life to unfold

Like a flower before me

With unplanned moments

Yearning to arrive where I belong

Little knowing that some people

Search for their purpose all their lives

Constantly feeling they bloom in the wrong places

Loving things that never love them back

Growing pains were a certainty.

That I was becoming an adult

Yet a part of me wanted to hang on

To the zest for life, a two-year-old holds

Childhood is like building a house.

You will live in it for the rest of your life

Unaware of how it will feel inside its walls

For construction felt so out of your control

I didn't want to be judged by my outside

But I rarely pulled up the blinds, always careful

How much you could see from my windows

Yet yearning for guests to come inside

I have learnt that not everything built

Was put in the best place for me

So I've crashed my windows

And broken down my walls

I have learnt that nobody can teach you

How your rooms and furniture should look like

Your inner kingdom is yours to mend

The only lesson being that it is possible

I have learnt the only constant guest here is me

And this should be a safe and secure place

To hold in peace all I've been and all that I'm becoming

Only after, others will feel welcomed too

Sunday Recap & Seek Truth by Maggie Devers

Sun, 12 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Oct 6 - Remember by Olivia Woods @owibia_writes on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. She is currently writing the first draft of her novel, What Remains Of Us.

Oct 7 - "Nobody is coming to save you" by Georgia Groza @catastrophic_yearning on Instagram

Oct 8 - "Gone are the days" by Rusha Chatterjee @blooming_ru on Instagram. You can listen to me read Rusha’ poem Hope Is over on Instagram @rembrandts.cure.

Oct 9 - Another Day in May by Anthony Robinson @shedsofthenorthwest on Instagram. His books, Failures of the Poets, and Broke Republic, are out now.

Oct 10 - "If a tree falls" by Amelia Dunn @amelia.evie_poetry on Instagram and TikTok

Oct 11 - Twenty-First. Night. Monday by Anna Akhmatova

Oct 12 - Seek Truth

Maggie Devers

I can see the waning moon from my window

And shake off more of what I do not want

For life is not suffering

And we can all taste sweetness.

Time now to stop trivializing the fundamental

Seek truth instead

Know yours and hold it safe

It will be all that’s left

If the dust ever truly settles.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Twenty-First. Night. Monday by Anna Akhmatova

Sat, 11 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Twenty-First. Night. Monday

Anna Akhmatova

Twenty-first. Night. Monday.

Silhouette of the capitol in darkness.

Some good-for-nothing–who knows why–

made up the tale that love exists on earth.

People believe it, maybe from laziness

or boredom, and live accordingly:

they wait eagerly for meetings, fear parting,

and when they sing, they sing about love.

But the secret reveals itself to some,

and on them silence settles down...

I found this out by accident

and now it seems I'm sick all the time.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

"If a tree falls" by Amelia Dunn

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

"If a tree falls"

Amelia Dunn

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to notice does it make a sound?

Does its impact even hit the ground?

Will the wind still whistle

Or will silence echo in the burrows of what once was

what once was must be forgot

for leaves will fall again next autumn

and shoots will spawn in the spring

does sadness fill you as you stare at an empty home

or do you dance with excitement at the new creations that bloom within you

knock down this wall and we’ll have a dream home

But someone else’s once was must now be forgot

what once was must be forgot

for leaves will fall again next autumn

and shoots will spawn in the spring

do you ever want to pick all the flowers to take home their beauty

but then remember on the walk back

you’ve killed what once was and stripped them from their home

just to fill the empty burrows of your own

does your own happiness outweigh the presence of others

are you superior

do you gather flowers for the home you built on someone else’s refuge

and frolic amongst empty crevices unscathed

does your god complex out rule you from the damages you create

as you turn your back and wave

your silence speaks of a thousand names

Your presence is impactful but there’s is still blamed

Someone running in the woods WILL trip and fall over the cavity of a being that once stood tall

someone’s life WILL be destroyed as you strip back the walls that barely resemble the home they once knew

someone WILL notice their garden is now bare of the beauty that once bloomed

it’s okay

what once was must be forgot

for leaves will fall again next autumn

and shoots will spawn in the spring

but shoots can’t spawn if the saplings never scattered amongst the ground of their mother

leaves can’t fall if the trunk that holds strong was taken by another

the wind’s whistle won’t be heard if an army of alarms consumes and smothers

a nation is silenced

because if a tree falls down in the forest and no one was around to listen did it really make a sound

silence speaks a thousand words

but the thunder that rolls in its hollows shudders even louder

the screams of a mother losing her child echoes for an eternity

the sound of death knell echo as warning from once sturdy infrastructure

the rumble of machinery shatters the glass of what once was

Silence is impactful Until it is enforced

perception is a construct

and construction is a cage

society collapses and a country disassembles again

Another Day in May by Anthony Robinson

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Another Day in May

Anthony Robinson

Now more coffee and Brian Wilson

And skittering creatures. I've eaten

Tacos for three days straight and Dad

Is still on oxygen. To feel intense grief

Not right now is also to feel guilty

Concerning elements and microbes

What makes a man sick is also

What kills him, what kills a man

Is also what sustains him. Here, love

Is a concept. Mercy is an act

Of unshabby imagination. Mother

Puts out food for the goldfinches,

A famous athlete debases himself

To the applause of at least dozens.

I've been meaning to talk to you about

The shade-tree and all the shade-tree

People who are as exactly as lazy as I

And exactly as beaten down. Surveyors

Are ranging out back, putting posts

In things. All winter we waited

For the sun and now he's here but will

He make it through another year?

"Gone are the days" by Rusha Chatterjee

Wed, 08 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

"Gone are the days"

Rusha Chatterjee

Gone are the days

when my house felt like home,

now the rooms filled with thousand

memories feels like a cage,

suffocating and cold,

laughs from my childhood

echoes throughout the space

maybe to light a little

spark of hopeless hope.

The mint colour walls

are now pale and grim,

the lack of warmth is

surely from within,

the rose wood furniture

was a beauty to behold,

now with layers of dust

is an absolute eyesore.

The kitchen which

always smelled like heaven,

now occasionally whiffs of burnt

prepackaged Ramen,

the porch with the view of

blooming flowers and neatly cut grass,

is now laced with outgrown weeds

so distasteful even the trespassers

ignore a glance.

There was a time

I always prayed

to be alone, to be free,

now why the

empty house

seems like a nightmare

one would never wish to see?

"Nobody is coming to save you" by Georgia Groza

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 11:30:00 -0700

"Nobody is coming to save you"

Georgia Groza

Nobody is coming to save you

Stitch it back up, learn to live with it.

The world doesn’t begin and end at the kitchen table

more than likely everything is preceded by a bed.

It ends with or without a death grip

With or without the altar and the humming

With or without divine intervention or a prayer or a poem

Don’t correct me if I’ve told this story before.

It is not misanthropic rambling

It is not an excuse to pathologize you it is the unblinking chasm in my chest,

it is the ugly thrashing before the repose, it is the stain before the bleach.

You conducted every conversation with the sway and tide of your wet sadness, the rush to overturn the words you couldn’t say so I couldn’t either, even if I was just trying to tell you the memories I was built from.

You only permitted yourself to know me when the story couldn’t hurt you.

My bedside table growing things, Your clothes on the floor, this was a body,

filling the room, kneeling. I tried to cauterise it, I did, but I couldn’t find my way back to you in all that muck, it was just one of those things we couldn’t talk about.

When I was 16 and lawless and bitter I learned how to tie a tourniquet. I packed my clothes and did it all by myself, all spit and gnashing teeth.

The house was burning so I signed a new lease.

The insurmountable grief hits me in adulthood.

If I had time to let it calcify, if I crawled my way back home,

How come nobody else can?

How am I the only person alive to reach the summit?

To tumble down with the faultless epiphany

I am not the blueprint, I’m just the only one who got back up.

Knowing the way out didn’t make the journey mine to justify.

I just didn’t turn back around. I took Eurydice with me.

I kept an even pace.

I cannot be the only one who came to this conclusion.

There is no such thing as thriving.

You suck the poison out or let it kill you.

You are here, now. You didn’t choose it, you just have to live with it.

Tie a ribbon around the rotten tooth and slam the door.

Remember by Olivia Woods

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Remember

Olivia Woods

Your apples were as savory as sunlight

I can’t remember the last time they seemed so sweet

The last time they were as red as roses

The last time they smelt so great

I fear there is nothing left here anymore

I can't remember how long I've been here

Or when the maggots came

I can’t remember when the taste had changed

From sweet to sour

When the rose color began to rot

When these sores appeared

I fear there is nothing left of me here

Only the husk of my body

The salt from my tears

And the maggots I've eaten

Trying to remember the taste

Sunday Recap & Kick It by Maggie Devers

Sun, 05 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Sep 29 - Lebensabschnittspartner by Sarthak Mukherji @sarthaksays on Instagram and TikTok.

Sep 30 - Taemong by Kimberly McAfee @writerpoetkim on Instagram. The Savior/Shadow Principle: A Self-Help Technique and Philosophy Using Archetypes is out now along with, The Savior and the Shadow Queen: A Fantastical Tale Told Through Sequential Poems, the poetry collection and companion work to The Savior/Shadow Principle. This poem is published in her chapbook, AmerAsian: My Journey to Becoming Whole as a Mixed Korean-American.

Oct 1 - Grapes by Frankie Reed @frankensteins.curios on Instagram. She is co-curator of Flesh and Parchment, a Liverpool based zine and live poetry event celebrating queer and neurodivergent creativity.

Oct 2 - Silver Filigree by Travers Charron @traverscharron on Substack. His tanka and haiku collection, Glass Shadows, is available now.

Oct 3 - i am not a poet by Kole Kealey @kolekealeypoetry on Instagram. Her book Sunflowers Sting: Where Poetry Meets Boudoir will be out soon.

Oct 4 - Bloodfruit by Abby Zhang @abbyz.320 on Instagram. She is the Cofounder and Editor in Chief of The Sixth House a youth-led lit magazine, based in Montréal.

Oct 5 - Kick It

Maggie Devers

I’m giving up smoking

Even though I’ve yet to start

Nicotine makes me queasy

But I wanted an impossible goal all the same

So I’ve flushed my non-existent cigarettes

And slapped an imaginary patch on my arm

To face each day bravely without something

I’ve yet to grow accustomed

In the quest for a lie to be smug about,

A make-believe deprivation

To tide me over

Until that next craving hits.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Bloodfruit by Abby Zhang

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Bloodfruit

Abby Zhang

Say it, like you used to peel blood oranges with your teeth, Ma.

The flesh splits soft and shivering under the pressure,

its rind stuck under your fingernails.

Juice spilling—

licking your lips with the same golden, bitter heat.

Let the pith cling to your hands, burrow there

like spoiled lace in the creases of your knuckles,

a ghost of a daughter you couldn’t bear to name.

Say it like an apology that came a heartbeat too late, sinking

into mildew buried beneath nailbeds, sour and white.

Too deep to name.

Too guilty to believe.

You can’t call it love

if the flower doesn’t survive the soil and dies trying—

You leave your shadow in the freezer beside the frostbitten peas,

between the birthday cake we never finished

and that bag of lentils you said you'd cook someday.

Your laugh long forgotten in the laundry with the whites,

now pink and fraying open at the edges.

I preserved your almost in girlhood,

placed it beside the sunflower head

I dried and nailed to the wall as a lesson in ache

in symmetry in what bends too far

trying to face the sun. The ache is old enough

to leave home but it lingers—

In the smell of citrus and ammonia,

in the violence in wanting something

at the exact moment it curdles.

The way rot hides sweet and ruin arrives tender.

The citrus flesh, bruised, half-fermented, half-forgiven,

slips in your palm, limp and leaking

through the fault lines as if even the fruit knew I was

mouth you left empty in late-night arguments,

over half-cold half-servings of tear-salted rice.

Say, Ma, you didn’t mean to ruin me.

Just once. Say it even if it’s a lie—

I’ll take the lie. I’ll eat it whole.

I’ve survived on less.

I’ll take the ghost back into my chest

and fold up her silences, moon-heavy.

Wrap her in the napkin you forgot to place

at my side of the table.

i am not a poet by Kole Kealey

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

i am not a poet

Kole Kealey

i touched rock bottom before i ever touched a

pen, so do not call me a poet

call me your mother tongue,

burning the back of your throat making your

blood boil, a taste you can’t quite name but

rhymes with copper and death, with misery and

despair, the taste of childhood meant for

someone else, one you didn’t experience but

through the rose-colored lenses of your broken

heart tethered to a string being dragged through

busted up concrete, through fragments of broken

glass and shattered dreams

call me salvation

on a Sunday morning when your words no

longer have meaning and your bones ache with

desire for the mundane, when your blood runs

blue with the lack of oxygen left pumping

through your body, when your tears run dry and

your legs stop moving forward, face down in the

dirt you dug up for your grave

call me down on your knees

begging for mercy from your god while she

laughs in your face saying “i told you so,” saying,

“fix your own damn mess because i gave you the

challenge but i did not tell you to fight,” saying,

“fuck you and your salvation, you deserve

nothing but rock bottom, babe, fight and claw

your way back,” saying, “blood, sweat, and tears

mean nothing if you aren’t on bloody mud-

soaked knees begging for my mercy”

call me the truth

that runs down your thighs when your razor

scars bust open with hatred and the desire to

meet Daughter Death, the knife blade stuck in

your ribs, the broken handles of lust and love of

Aphrodite’s weapon, rising from the ashes of

Lilith, from the darkness of Persephone, and the

blood stains on your white satin sheets

call me shame

on the bathroom floor of a bar leaning over a

toilet because you thought that sixth drink was

enough to lessen the pain of not having enough

words to describe the heartache you feel in your

bones, no matter how hard you try to put a

name to it

call me resurrection

on a Monday morning when you find the words

to give that voice in your head a goddamned

name different from the demons in your soul,

different from shame, disgust, anger, or fear,

different from the names you hear in the mirror,

different from the horror you see in the

reflection on your mother’s face

call me your mother tongue, salvation, truth, or

shame, call me mercy or even resurrection if you

must, but do not call me a poet. i am simply the

pain you brought to life with your still-beating

heart

Silver Filigree by Travers Charron

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Silver Filigree

Travers Charron

Before the day unbuttons its sky,

while morning’s breath still clings to the grass, I find it—

a single web,

threaded between two branches, a silver filigree

trembling in dew.

Each strand,

so thin I dare not blink, holds

the soft breath of the waking earth.

No grand cathedral could match

this tender architecture—

woven by instinct,

lit by grace,

enduring the weight of a single drop without breaking.

I stop,

breath caught, knowing I am the first to come this way.

The trail is laced shut,

a gate spun in secret hours.

I hesitate,

a clumsy giant before a sacred thing.

For a moment,

I stand—small, unworthy—

aching to preserve what I must undo.

“I’m sorry,”

I whisper,

before the spell is torn.

Behind me,

the broken strands sway,

gathering dew like tears,

and the mute earth folds over the wound.

The web is gone,

but the reverence remains—

clinging to my skin

like mist,

like memory

Grapes by Frankie Reed

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Grapes

Frankie Reed

we hung together —

tight, green,

not yet sweet.

small things,

skin against skin,

no space for air.

you leaned

into every breeze.

I held still.

neither of us said

what we knew

about weight.

we ripened unevenly.

you softened.

I didn’t.

the stalk grew thin

between us.

not broken —

just tired.

when I fell,

there was no sound.

just grass.

just air.

just me,

not where you were.

you stayed.

you always would have.

still facing the light

like it was enough.

if I’d stayed too,

maybe we’d have gone

quietly —

turned dark,

sank sweet

into ourselves.

but I tasted the sour

before it came.

and left

before you noticed.

Taemong by Kimberly McAfee

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Taemong

Kimberly McAfee

After Li-Young Lee*

My mother had a dream of me,

when she and I were one.

She dreamed of a snake

coiled on her belly.

It was her taemong, her conception dream, of me.

How Adam and Eve were so deceived!

A wily snake, the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

Introducing suffering on this earth.

A snake condemned to writhe about the world on its belly.

I was strange when I was young;

a half-Korean girl in a place with no other Asians or mixed people.

How the other children were so deceived!

I was no gorgon!

I was a human child — just like them.

I once had a dream,

where I warred against an amphisbaena.

One of its heads was bigger than the other,

and I managed to avoid the larger head’s bites, and crushed it with a rake into the earth.

The victory was short-lived,

as the smaller head bit me with vengeance.

I then killed the monster,

but was horribly injured in the process.

The great Cleopatra, ruler of Egypt,

left this world with the bite of an asp.

After I awoke from that strange dream,

successes and failures came,

the pains brought by the striking bites of life.

I became a new creature,

my skin shed to reveal my nature within:

I am a Poet.

I writhe about on my belly,

hunting for experiences,

hunting for words, to birth creations.

Satiating the hunger within.

My dream.

Could this be what the taemong foretold?

*Inspired in part by Li-Young Lee’s poem titled, Water. It is part of his debut poetry collection, The Rose.

Lebensabschnittspartner by Sarthak Mukherji

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Lebensabschnittspartner

Sarthak Mukherji

Lebensabschnittspartner.

Life - section - partner.

A gorgeous German distillation

of something about as mystifying

as splitting an atom and the violence that follows,

the wondrous shine.

Have you ever sat with your hand on your side

covering a pain you can't quite understand

but as soon as you are diagnosed

a relief washes over you as this phantom

is lassoed by a definition.

Here is Lebensabschnittspartner for your wound.

They were your whole heart, your soul mate

but only till the expiration date.

They were before the March and April of you.

The right person for the time, the better loved and lost

rather than never loved at all.

Exactly who you needed to push you

and pull you, kicking and screaming,

into exactly who you needed to be now.

Your Lebensabschnittspartner.

Come lie in me, they said.

I shall be the snow to soothe you

before the spring of you rolls forward.

I will be gone but I shall water the earth

you will bud from, whether I want to or not.

I was the object of your ire,

thank me for the scars you acquired.

For the way I burned you so utterly.

For lessons you learned not later but early.

I brought you to the brink of the wire,

gave you the sating drink you desired

but oh, did I make your poor heart stir,

call me your Lebensabschnittspartner.

You breathed them for days, months, years.

They sat in your lungs,

ran the circuit of your body from legs to ears,

lapped it with their tongue

but now they’re just somebody

and you're not as young.

You look at the clock of your life,

the way it ticks forward.

You can't deny the gears

behind the face of it,

every misshapen one.

The way they clambered into place,

day after foreign day,

amongst the mechanism of your being.

Just another cog

but a whole new chain completed.

Is there anything as subtle

yet obvious as growth?

But you were there once, together.

Not three gears apart

but arm to goose pimpled arm

in a garden staring up at borrowed starlight.

Behind a house you both loved,

sometimes lamented,

for its warm corners and mouldy windows.

For the space it gave you,

the way it filled that space with bills.

You eventually left home behind for work,

or after you broke something

soft between those walls

and ran from the wreckage,

too much to clean.

You left because calling a house your home

does not qualify as rent

and all the real money was spent.

Take pictures in all the rooms you forgot to

in the midst of contentment,

in the midst of surviving.

Every room a living room, well lived rooms.

Your Lebensabschnittshaus.

The beloved chaos that is your dog

joined you on the deck, nuzzled your neck

just after lifting a leg by your one surviving plant.

They do not gaze at the light in the sky

just at you, as if you gave a tender glow.

Your dog taught you patience,

that after a day of reigning in and nipping

you will still abstain from moving

just to avoid losing the pressure of

something using you as a bed.

You are rest

for a few more years, for the rest of theirs.

Their mild weight stays in your lap

long after.

The one command they knew well,

stay.

Your Lebensabschnittshund

pissing on your Lebensabschnittspflanze.

In that moment, surrounded

by the currentness of your life,

an Abschnitt of your life,

do not worry about the next.

Accumulate with borrowed starlight.

Fight that moment,

embrace it,

weep for its passing,

for what it brought you and chiseled away.

You have no idea how long it will last,

how it made you,

you.

Sunday Recap & Born Artist by Maggie Devers

Sun, 28 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Sep 22 - "a walk from my Eve to my Lilith" by Eva Garg @thelifedraft on Instagram.

Sep 23 - Nikomis by Shelby Larkin @calamityverses on Instagram.

Sep 24 - Ash and Gardens by Jessica Sorya @jessicalynnvision on Instagram. Her book, Pinch, Breathe, Burn, is out soon.

Sep 25 - Clouds Have Always Been Women by Nanki Kandhari @therhymemuse_nanki on Instagram. Her book, The Girl Who Spoke In Starlight, is available now.

Sep 26 - Winds of reverie by Philippa Drake @drakephilippa on Instagram. Her book, Mystic Meanderings, is out now.

Sep 27 - Cliff by Ofelia ferch Rhos @ferch_writes on Instagram.

Sep 28 - Born Artist

Maggie Devers

She created her own works for an exhibition tonight

Unaware of traditional artistic practices

Only sweet, innocent bliss of the raw and ragged.

She had cut up her stuffie and used the skin fabric

To fashion a heart emblazoned with maker, tape and assorted gems—

If Tracey Emin were six and slightly more destructive.

Another was on paper

And the third a juxtaposition of disparate media

All with the unifying theme:

Portrait of a Girl with a Dog.

Later they curl up on my belly

As I recline watching videos of

The Artist at Two—

Smashing all the colors of play-dough together,

Her stuffed dog tucked under her arm

At ease in creation, another day to play.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Cliff by Ofelia ferch Rhos

Sat, 27 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Cliff

Ofelia ferch Rhos

Salt spattered on chalk carves out

the rough-hewn shape of thought:

the cliff is a canvas where

they escape me, and become

mammoths on sandstone,

scattered by stick-figured spears.

Magpies perch listless as dew

and wing their words over the sea.

The water ripples their birdsong agon.

Clouds crowd in anticipation-

I am the heavens surrogate on earth

they would rapture me, and leave

the cliff empty as a forgotten age.

The stones know no different.

I am their occupying army.

I kick the stones,

kick the moss,

kick the cliff loose

so that landslipped rocks

chase down the incline.

The waves retreat-

capricious tide.

Arrogant as weeds.

Pretentious petrichor.

Dappled sun on dimpled sea

reaches over the horizon

like the old joke.

Winds of reverie by Philippa Drake

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Winds of reverie

Philippa Drake

A lord soars

into the azure expanse

forsaking blood bonds

chasing the winds of liberty

to repose in distant islands

where no man yet resides.

Friends of wondrous creatures

he dreams in coves

and tunneled caves

at one with moonlight

and dimensions of mystery.

There he waits

for time to spiral

faster and faster

into a relentless vortex

that transports him

to a sparkling age

where he meets

another life

another love.

Clouds Have Always Been Women by Nanki Kandhari

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Clouds Have Always Been Women

Nanki Kandhari

Clouds have always been women—

braided in softness,

swollen with stories

they were never allowed to pour.

They gather, quietly,

between gossiping winds and forgotten rooftops,

holding storms in their belly

so that the harvest may thrive.

They do not arrive with announcements—

only anklets of thunder,

skirts stitched with rain,

and a scent like old lullabies soaked in soil.

You call them moody.

I call them magnificent.

They grey with waiting,

then split open—gracefully—so you may breathe.

They are mothers

who refill rivers,

lovers

who never overstay,

daughters

who drift too soon.

They are blamed for floods,

for spoiling weddings,

for blocking light.

No one thanks them for the shade.

Clouds have always been women—

asked to give,

expected to vanish,

judged for the weight they carry.

But when they do decide to stay—

when they rain with rage instead of permission,

they drown cities,

rewrite skylines,

and still—

still—

are called over-emotional.

Ash and Gardens by Jessica Sorya

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Ash and Gardens

Jessica Sorya

She asks me, “What did I want at nineteen

that I have now?”

I answer,

“Nothing. Everything I wanted is gone.”

Every man I pedestaled, fell.

toppled over, head heavy.

Bless ‘em.

Cowards.

I’ve always been surrounded by women

scurrying,

cleaning dirt from their nails,

scrubbing blood from tile,

handling shit

when shit needed handling.

They stitched silence into their spines,

only let loose

when the liquor was heavy.

You should have seen them,

the men, watching

as they carried entire families

without flinching.

They’d bend,

but would not break,

even when the weight

wasn’t theirs to carry.

And me?

I studied.

Took notes.

Learned to smile through clenched jaw,

mastered love

without needing return.

I’m no longer building altars for ghosts,

fighting battles

while worshipping control.

Quieting my voice

to keep another’s strong.

I’m no longer burning myself

to keep their ego warm.

Let them fall.

I come from women who rise,

carrying handfuls of ash,

sifted through calloused fingers

and still.

Even still.

After everything has gone,

We plant gardens

and sow songs

Nikomis by Shelby Larkin

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Nikomis

Shelby Larkin

Your smile sung out to sunshine

& carried it across ages

& every sunny day has a piece of you in it

I think of you when a butterfly lands gently on a Black Eyed Susan

Or a humming bird shimmers through the air

I think of you when a warm breeze touches the tree tops & they dance, glittering like emeralds

I think of you when childhood ease whispers gently against my soul

I think of giggling through trails in the forest

& you showing me the magic that’s always there

I think of dancing naked in the sunshine because no one was there to see

& the freedom you placed right in the heart of me

I think of you when the powwow drums beats

& my heart cries out to dance

You gave me those things before you left

& I’ll always think of that

"a walk from my Eve to my Lilith" by Eva Garg

Mon, 22 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

a walk from my Eve to my Lilith

a swim within my own soul

One was made from your rib,

the other, from the same soil as you.

One sacrificed herself for your love,

the other loved herself

Until there was nothing left to hate.

One poured herself into empty vessels

until they overflowed.

The other filled her cup first,

Before she emptied yours

One accepted the truth she was given,

the other bent reality to fit her fire.

To one, we owe origin.

To the other, feminine rage.

One was never enough.

The other was always too much.

One of me was taught to be Eve.

The other longed to walk the earth as Lilith.

I spoke like Eve,

but I bled like Lilith.

Until they both destroyed me to save my soul.

And I?

I became the prayer

burning in the fire.

- Eva Garg

Sunday Recap & Theory by Maggie Devers

Sun, 21 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Sep 15 - First Person Account of a Seed by Vinita Agrawal @vinitaagrawal18 on Instagram. Her book Eartha is out now.

Sep 16 - the listener by Laura Theis @wodehouse_and_i on Instagram. Her book, Introduction to Cloud Care, is available now. Her children’s poetry book, Poems from a Witch’s Pocket, is also available now.

Sep 17 - I am the dove by GiGi @thegigirising on Instagram. Her books, The Scorpio Rising, and The Marilyn Rising: Letters to Marilyn, are available now. Her third book, The California Rising: Poems from San Francisco & LA, will be published March 20, 2026

Sep 18 - Sometimes by Hania Anwar @wanderings.in.words on Instagram and @BeeInMyBonnet on Substack.

Sep 19 - When I fall asleep by Jessica Lyon-Wall @thetrinitypoet on Instagram. Her book, Bones, is out now.

Sep 20 - A Pocketful of Joy by Mishty Singh @mishty_22writes on Instagram.

Sep 21 - Theory

Maggie Devers

The bees dive back in the pool

Even though they can’t swim.

Something to do with their polarity

Of navigation or death wish.

I’ve not yet decided

Which story to believe

So I’ll move between the two

As suits what I seek that day—

Alignment or death. Perhaps

They are not so far off.

We seek extremes to know the boundary,

The lines we inhabit

Crawling on the underside of the string

Lost to physics or the reality we believe we inhabit

Perhaps the veil looks different than we imagine

And the moth to a flame isn’t so absolute in the end.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

A Pocketful of Joy by Mishty Singh

Sat, 20 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

A Pocketful of Joy

by Mishty Singh

Joy doesn't always dance in parades

or call your name from mountaintops.

Sometimes, it drifts in quietly

the same way light pools on windowsills,

the same way a breeze remembers your hair.

It hides in mismatched teacups,

in songs that start slow and end in smiles,

in the rustle of pages at midnight,

and the comfort of socks pulled just right.

A butterfly doesn’t know

how much wonder it carries.

A laugh, once shared,

can echo longer than any storm.

These are the things we tuck in our pockets,

not loud, not bold, not grand,

but soft like petals lost in journals,

blooming when we understand.

When I fall asleep by Jessica Lyon-Wall

Fri, 19 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

When I fall asleep

by Jessica Lyon-Wall

I was 12 when they brought me back.

The process

Was a slow one, over a year I went unnoticed,

Pale, thin, and guzzling

My brother's juice in secret.

One day I went to sleep

And didn't wake up.

I don't know how I got there,

But I remember some bright lights.

Then starched sheets and my teddy,

The wires in my hair.

They said I had been gone 3 days,

Link up my machines, I could be an industry!

(This is perhaps a story I should never tell)

I'd find my mum in the medicine room, practicing,

Stabbing citrus again,

But oranges don't bruise and satsumas

Don't feel pain.

The needles got shorter, the technology refined.

They were ever sure

They would fix the biology in my lifetime,

And find a decent cure.

I am fearful, and alone with it.

That is how it feels.

And if I do sleep, I have the dreams.

I settle down, I pull the duvet up,

Turn the lamp off, I wonder what my night will bring,

Whether my body is done,

If the morning will come.

Or if it will blossom

Into the perfect combination

Of sugar and hormones,

A day I've never seen before.

At the clocks twelfth strike,

Now the sun glows

Like corridor lights.

How I live is this-

And this is what it's like.

Sometimes by Hania Anwar

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Sometimes

by Hania Anwar

Sometimes

I wish I was born a

Man

in true Plath-ian fashion

to roam the desolate fields

at Dusky Dawn

without the gripping fear

of being stripped bare and

Torn

If I were a Man I wonder

would I fight half as much with my mother?

Would she chastise me for not wordlessly helping

around the house were I a Son and not a

daughter?

Would my father have turned away the childish outstretched hand

that reached towards his noisy busy factory

were I a Son and not a

daughter?

If I were a Man

would I have worried about unborn children

part of un-lived futures and the thousand ways I would

Fail them?

The only reason Rhett could say he didn’t

“Give a damn”

was because he was a Man

I was born with all the Damns in the world crammed into me

Until I began to

Choke

I am the dove by GiGi

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

I am the dove

by GiGi

I am the dove.

My song is mournful,

a single nerve splitting cry out

in pain

because it’s fucking raining

and pouring

with pressure and bullshit

and there’s nothing I can do to stop it

and it feels like I’ll absolutely burst

before a diamond is formed.

I am the dove.

I bring the water

through tears

and motherhood

and a basket of fresh laundry

that always happens to wind up on the bed,

in a lump,

similar to the one stuck in my throat

from all of the words

that I want to spit

in your face.

I am the dove.

So instead of spitting on you,

I scream at myself

and I cry out to God asking,

“WHY?!”

Even though I already know the goddamn answers.

Because I just want

the clipping of my wings

to commence

so I can finally take flight

and truly soar

the way God has been

preparing me.

the listener by Laura Theis

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

the listener

Laura Theis

her magic was so gentle

you may not have known it

for a spell

the way she was able to listen so openly

that we were each coaxed into speaking

our language

the fiddle began to talk

of the willow tree it had been

how it had feasted on light and liquid

how it had swayed and creaked

in the wind like a door

to another realm

the piano confessed how its beauty was forged

from the killing of a playful giant who had loved

his life of mischief and joy

while the rain outside sang along in the dangerous language of water

a complicated grammar of clouds and droplets

stillness and rush

even the silence afterwards surprised itself

for the first time

in the mirror of her quiet attention

and bowed like a secret word

that had suddenly understood

its own significance

First Person Account of a Seed by Vinita Agrawal

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

First Person Account of a Seed

by Vinita Agrawal

All night, the face of awning green

hovers above me, its branches carved partly

with the grimace of my own imagination.

The sacred wounds of trees

leaves me trembling in my own hands.

This is the first lesson, though it comes

from no sage, no guide, but myself:

that if I must shatter, let it be outward,

like a burst of light, leaves, flowers, fruits—

not this inward scoping and scraping of darkness.

In the afternoon, a Laburnum, golden

and thick as a second sun, spills over my

shoulders while I am bent over in contemplation,

oblivious to the miracle of the universe

arriving blindingly through the window.

The yellow blooms are the second lesson,

both an elegy and an anthem, my true trophy.

I must remember them—

for memory is the only permanence

on the tarmac of sprouting.

Germinating is not a cage, I don’t squirm

or shrink to break open my coat, nor my vest

of testa and tegmen. To pullulate,

is to swim through an ocean of moist soil,

air, sunlight. Then, thrust out a radicle.

The annunciation of flowers, until colours

jostle with colours, is speech, if only

it could be understood. I dream of a thousand

forests in my frantic hunger to wrestle with

as many shadows as there are beams of light.

To exist without a map, is the third lesson—

to speak and not be heard, to have my ribs

ache with greed for verdancy, to lose friends

to the whirl of winds, to vanish for no reason,

to stay unbroken, even in the breaking.

Sunday Recap & Play More by Maggie Devers

Sun, 14 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Sep 8 - Broken by Ani Leland @neversent.poetry on Instagram. Her book, Echoes and Embers, the first in a trilogy co-authored with T.C. James, will be published this fall.

Sep 9 - Pop Punk Therapy (Kristen’s Version) by Kristen Rosasco @poetryandpatchouli on Instagram. Her upcoming anthology, Poetry and Patchouli, is out soon.

Sep 10 - I Watched Gaza Burn From My Bed by Fatima Zahra Gul @fatimaasarchive_ on Instagram.

Sep 11 - Koi Pond by Isra Cheema @tiramisruu on Instagram. Isra Cheema on Substack.

Sep 12 - Grief is like a corpse in the land of the living. by Kimeysia @the.chaotic_urbanpoet on Instagram.

Sep 13 - Mabon by Danielle Marie Cahill @daniellecahillwriter on Instagram.

Sep 14 - Play More

Maggie Devers

I have this little fantasy that my daughter’s hippy school is raising a bunch of radicals

And imagine them chanting “resist” in unison

But then I realize that’s what they’re doing all day

In every moment that they are authentically true to themselves

And we can too.

Liberation looks like many things

Hanging upside down on the monkey bars with no hands

Standing on the highest part of the play structure and observing the world below

Painting, drawing, reading

When we light our hearts on fire just to feel good, we are resisting.

So play more, love more, be silly more, break the rules more

Just to feel good

And count it as an act of rebellion,

Because it is.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Mabon by Danielle Marie Cahill

Sat, 13 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Mabon

Danielle Marie Cahill

We choose three glowing apples in the greengrocer

and take them home: one for each of us,

polished scarlet.

I slice them horizontally, so when I open the flesh

you both see the pattern of seed stars in the centre.

A gasp,

and you reach out with curious hands to touch them,

picking out the pips with pointed fingers.

You create celestial shapes on the tabletop,

arguing over one stray seed although it is mine.

We bite into the fruit, careful to leave behind

the Pleiades: joyful sisters shining in the core.

They hold us enraptured in Mabon sweetness.

Grief is like a corpse in the land of the living. by Kimeysia

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Grief is like a corpse in the land of the living.

Kimeysia

They say grief is found in the saddest of people,

In the saddest of families,

In the lost and in the lonely.

But I say this isn’t true.

I’ve seen grief in happy homes

In the happiest of people.

In you and in me.

When grief knocks at our front door,

We don’t invite it in with open arms.

It comes without a whisper.

So silently it creeps up,

That it catches us off guard.

Slowly creeping into our souls,

Holding complete control of our emotions.

We are lost,

We are depressed.

We want to run.

But where do we hide?

Do we seek shelter or do we hide from our emotions?

These emotions are the death of us,

But yet when grief gradually disappears,

It’s like grey clouds washing away,

Being replaced by clear skies.

All we do is wait for clear skies,

Without realizing grey skies are needed to make us humans.

And if grey skies didn’t exist,

It wouldn’t rain and cool our souls down.

Koi Pond by Isra Cheema

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Koi Pond

Isra Cheema

This poem was first published in Ghost City Press

TW: Abortion

Look down and see your unborn baby

floating in the middle of the toilet

bowl—you see it spin slowly

like a lone koi fish, it’s soft pinked

flesh swirling in a murky pond

of blood clot-lily pads.

You were driving and pulled

over to throw up from the lightning

-strike explosion of sharp pain

in your uterus—you vomited into

a crumpled Walmart bag as the car

inched towards someone’s mailbox.

Feel the liquid warmth gush out of you,

life ejected, no—rejected from your

body, that life-giver. Peer closer at it,

that no-longer-life no larger than a

just-plucked raspberry squished into

some sort of spring jam.

You want to bury it.

Fill a small ring box with silk threads,

a few tears, a palmful of dust, and a

folded-up note of its name for the angels

to know and watch over—but no, this

maroon sea is its cushioned coffin, the

cold ceramic toilet seat its halo.

You flush, watch it swish around the bowl

in circles, life-blood swirling in water like

striped fins swimming away from you,

as if Allah didn’t say your unborn child

would drag you into heaven by its

umbilical cord, as if this angel baby—

I Watched Gaza Burn From My Bed by Fatima Zahra Gul

Wed, 10 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

I Watched Gaza Burn From My Bed

Fatima Zahra Gul

i made tea

while gaza lost internet.

they bombed jabalia

like it wasn’t filled with sleeping children.

like it wasn’t already rubble the last time they came.

al-ahli hospital glowed orange,

not with hope,

but with 471 lives turned to ash

in one breath.

the news called it a “misfire.”

as if that soothed the mothers

pulling body parts from broken prayer mats.

i saw amal and mohammad kneel beside

their dead siblings.

their faces older than their years,

their grief aired live,

then forgotten.

i remember hind rajab.

six years old.

trapped in a car surrounded by her family’s corpses,

whispering “they’re shooting… come get me.”

they found her twelve days later.

bullet in her head,

rescue team dead beside her.

i remember her voice

more than the silence of those who could’ve helped.

i scroll past pictures of rafah

where tents fold in on bodies like grief.

where water is a privilege

and bread is a miracle.

and from my room;

with the fan on,

with a full plate,

with the guilt of breathing,

i stare.

gaza dies in real-time

and we livestream our helplessness.

i don’t know if it’s protest

or performative.

i just know

i haven’t been able to sleep right since october.

Pop Punk Therapy (Kristen’s Version) by Kristen Rosasco

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Pop Punk Therapy (Kristen’s Version)

Kristen Rosasco

I. THIRTY, FLIRTY, AND DEEPLY UNWELL

They told me thirty would feel like

freedom—

like a crisp Chardonnay in an overpriced glass,

like a mortgage,

like knees that don’t audibly crack

when you squat down to pick up the crumbs

of your twenty-something mistakes.

But I’m here in my room—

a room that is covered in crumbs even though there is a strict no food upstairs rule,

A room that eerily resembles my teenage bedroom that thankfully still only lives in my memory

Well, sort of… *gestures vaguely*

I’m still having a mental breakdown in my underwear

Mascara coated tears still streaming down my cheeks

and since being a mom doesn’t leave much room for literally anything else

I’m still standing in front of a dusty mirror

wearing a t-shirt that says

“I PAUSED MY ANIME FOR THIS?”

staring at my reflection and screaming—

“If you could see that I’m the one who understands you!”

with the emotional stability

of a raccoon in a thunderstorm.

(Because even I don’t understand myself anymore…)

⸻

II. THE SACRED RITUAL OF REGRESSION

There’s a method to the madness.

First, I light a candle that smells like

“Cozy Cabin”

(a lie. I live in messy, stained suburban hellascape

with a leaky faucet,

two major appliances that don’t work,

and 3 tiny roommates who call me cringe).

Then, I open Spotify like it’s the Ark of the Covenant,

search: TAYLOR SWIFT OG ERA,

and prepare to summon

my inner dramatic-ass teen

who thought wearing Converse to prom

was an act of social rebellion

on par with the Boston Tea Party.

You Belong With Me begins.

And suddenly, I’m fourteen again,

mad at a boy who never looked at me,

even though I definitely

wrote him a very subtle poem called

“your eyes are like the apocalypse

but hotter.”

I press play.

I ascend.

I time travel via bridge.

“She wears short skirts / I wear depression”

or whatever the lyric is.

Same vibe.

⸻

III. THE DANCE FLOOR IS LAVA (AND ALSO CARPETED)

Cue the chaos.

My body moves with the grace

of a drunk muppet.

Arms flailing like I’m signaling

a plane to land in my driveway.

I knock over a glass of LaCroix—

R.I.P. key lime,

you were too carbonated for this world.

And yet,

in the disarray,

something holy happens.

A divine possession.

Like I’m being exorcised

of all the garbage thoughts

that say,

“how’s married life treating you,”

“when are you having more kids,”

“your LinkedIn is embarrassing,”

“your mom thinks poetry isn’t a real career.”

And in this sacred movement,

this messy, definitely nowhere near middle-aged interpretive flailing,

I am not behind.

I am not broken.

I am not a punchline

at the Thanksgiving table.

I am the main character.

I am the moment.

I am her.

⸻

IV. EXISTENTIAL BRIDGE

But then, inevitably,

the song ends.

The silence creeps in

like a landlord on the first of the month.

I sit on the floor,

wrap up in an old blanket that smells like

despair and dry shampoo,

wondering why

dancing to a pop song

is the closest I’ve come to

inner peace

in four fiscal quarters.

Maybe it’s because

we were raised on

rom-coms and repression,

so we have to self-soothe

with bridge-builds and choruses

to remember who we are.

Maybe Taylor Swift

is cheaper than therapy

and twice as effective.

Maybe healing

doesn’t look like yoga retreats

and perfectly curated morning routines

with matcha and “Daily Stoic” readings—

maybe healing is

blasting blondie

at full volume

while ugly-crying in a bath towel,

because the only person

who really understands you

is 2009 Taylor

and the backup vocals

you sang into your hairbrush

when you still believed in magic.

⸻

V. CLOSING CREDITS: A MIDLIFE MELODRAMA

So yeah.

I’m thirty.

I still don’t eat my vegetables and I cry at commercials.

I’ve googled “how to get your life together”

more times than I’ve called my dentist.

I still feel like I’m fifteen.

But tonight,

I danced.

I shook off the shame.

I made peace with my ghosts

in four-four time.

And if that makes me ridiculous—

a grown woman

in mismatched socks

finding salvation in a pop song—

then so be it.

Because somewhere out there,

someone’s blasting All Too Well (10 Minute Version)

with a bottle of Merlot and a full-on breakdown.

And I salute them.

And I join them.

And I press repeat.

Broken by Ani Leland

Mon, 08 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Broken

Ani Leland

They say I'm heartbroken

But heartache can't sufficiently describe

How the physical agony in my chest steals the air from my lungs

Pain so visceral tears seem trivial - not a worthy outlet of emotion

These windows to my soul are dry, seeing clear for the first time

My body is numb - unfeeling

Torment induced disassociation shielding my fragile mind

My tortured heart no longer set alight by my twin flame

But incinerated by the resulting inferno

Each broken piece fueling the blaze

The once glowing embers now cold and black

Sunday Recap & I Worry by Maggie Devers

Sun, 07 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Sep 1 - The Bleeding of Dreams by Dean Charpentier @mrcharps on Instagram. His most recent publication: two poems featured in B O D Y literary journal

Sep 2 - The Playground by David Park

Sep 3 - When I die, lay me down under a willow tree by Peyton Michelle Bryant @mama.laloba on Instagram. Peyton Bryant on Substack. Her book, Feral Mother, Sovereign Woman, is out now.

Sep 4 - A memorial service before death by Adheena S Farhan @carbon_dat.ed on Instagram.

Sep 5 - Accidental Birds by Deborah Howard @deborahcrafts on Instagram. Her book, Haiku 52: A Journey Through the Year, is out now.

Sep 6 - Stillness of Light by J. Ishaan @__fire_fist_29 on Instagram.

Sep 7

I Worry

About running out of wine

About my daughter’s friend’s mom not liking me

And no one liking my poems,

About not writing any more good ones

About the dishes and the laundry,

No strike that—

About not worrying about the dishes and the laundry

And the endless list of worries.

I’m exhausted just putting this down

So I will put it down

All of it.

I’ll set gentle fire to it

And rub the ashes over my tanned skin

And comb my chlorine scented hair

Then I’ll go find some mushrooms and let the rest of it fly away

To live without me

For I can be reborn every day

And lately I want to

And I don’t know why that scares me.

- Maggie Devers

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Stillness of Light by J. Ishaan

Sat, 06 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Stillness of Light

J. Ishaan

The wind runs wild

across empty ground—

no footsteps, no voice,

no soul to meet its cry.

The sun slips away,

its final rays

brushing the earth

in tender, fading gold—

a beauty too fragile to stay.

The light falters.

Darkness folds in:

soft, slow, complete.

A boy stands still

beneath a sky

that has forgotten stars.

No moon to hold him—

only shadows

and the silence of everything.

Yet he hopes.

He dares to believe

the sun will rise again.

But how could he know?

Light does not vanish—

it only waits

for eyes ready to see.

So he watches.

Still.

Afraid.

But he does not turn away.

And in the hush

between moments,

a shimmer stirs—

not from the sky,

but from within.

The new day

doesn’t mirror the old.

It shifts, reshapes,

and still,

life moves—

as it must.

Accidental Birds by Deborah Howard

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Accidental Birds

Deborah Howard

Let’s meet beyond the ticking of clocks

where the river flows over smooth stone

and wildflowers lace the muddy banks.

I will come over the stone wall,

knees bloodied from scrambling

across sharp-tongued granite.

You will walk out of the forest,

a canoe hefted on your shoulders,

past deer silent on fallen leaves,

smelling of rot and redemption.

There will be a vagueness to your face,

no more than a trick of light.

You will not remember

the snow that fell in oceanic drifts

outside the window

where your bed was moored,

the small hurts

or the last

when everything went on

as if it wasn’t so.

We’ll spread a blanket on the grass,

eat handfuls of honey,

watch the clouds swim through the sky.

I will ask who received you

and if they spoke with the voices of lost stars.

You will gather accidental birds in your arms-

the western grebe, the snowy egret,

the red throated loon.

You will whisper to them,

tell them how to find their way

by the green jeweled moss that grows

on the north side of the trees

and the position of the sun.

This time

I will listen.

A memorial service before death by Adheena S Farhan

Thu, 04 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

A memorial service before death

Adheena S Farhan

a house/ before it’s a funeral home/ is a pitstop for God.

a hot midafternoon always seems to linger/ past welcome.

I live in that part of the world/ where memorial services are never held.

Instead, we pool around the dead/ and become a tempest clawing at the dusk,

While they wait, in the white docks, ready to go/ Or not/ I don’t know.

A grandparent, his life unravelling into the season of exit/Is mostly the first encounter of death/ for most people with good, orderly lives.

Cancer had tugged at his long-lived skin, it had cut the back stitch knot/That kept the threads of a whole/ neatly, folded century.

Now coming undone/He trips on them, here and there, a memory, blown into confetti that had long fallen/ now no wind blows.

I, my father, my uncle and aunt, my mom and many/ hold as much as we can /In our pockets, and habits, and hilt of our lives/ we try/ to weave back an autumn /back to its trees/ but doctors said the pills are only for pain.

His eyes/ jaundiced/like odd eggs/hueless pupils watering often/ on yellow eyeballs /gathering the last of the world he will ever see.

It will be before he is gone /it will be before he is stone growing out of this world/it will be before that wet earth is only how he knows of the floods in our lives/ I will let him know/that life was pleased to meet him/and so was I.

When I die, lay me down under a willow tree by Peyton Michelle Bryant

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

When I die, lay me down under a willow tree

facing my mountains dressed in blue.

Bury me in the costume jewelry

my grandmother gave me-

a ring on every finger

two on each pinky and thumb.

Put me in the ground with my pewter wolf

still nestled in the hollow of my throat

and my sword around my neck.

I don’t want a fancy coffin;

leave me to the crows I loved so much in life.

Let my body be my final gift to the land.

Promise to only tell the truth.

Tell the truth of how I burned.

Sometimes like the sunlight

that peppers your eyelids with kisses

in the dog days of summer-

some days like a wildfire

devouring everything in it’s path.

Tell them of how my rage

blazed as hot as my love

but I never let it hold me for long

and I couldn’t hold a grudge

to save my own damn life.

Tell the truth of how I was a pain in the ass

and would argue a point

until I was blue in the face

but damn it, did I make life more interesting.

When I die, I want you to throw the biggest party

this town has ever seen.

Only the most outrageous outfits will do!

If I look down to an ocean of black at my wake,

I swear I’ll haunt you all.

Play my Inner Summer playlist

on a speaker at my funeral;

turn up the volume as loud as it will go

and dance.

When I die, tell my children

that they hung the moon and the stars in my sky.

Tell them that they were the greatest thing

I ever created.

Tell them that I’ll see them again someday

in some other way

but that until then,

they’ve got one hell on wheels kinda angel

protecting them on the other side.

When I die, cover the ground where I lay

in wildflowers and scribbled lines of poetry.

Put crow feathers, coyote hair, roses and honey next to my picture on the family altar.

Leave the thorns on the stems.

On Sunday mornings,

pour a cup of black coffee on the Earth.

Right there in my favorite spot

where I spent so many afternoons

watching the birds dance and play.

Plant butterfly bushes.

Right there, where I held a ruby throated hummingbird in the palm of my hand

and felt the pulse of God herself

through a blanket of green feathers.

Give my words away.

Pass my journals down to my grandchildren;

let my spells live on in the hands and hearts

of the generations to come after me.

Tear out all of my head in the oven poems

written for that one lover that got away

and mail them to his door.

Stamp two wolves on the envelope

and tell him how I wished for so long

that we had more time.

Tell him that I’ll see him in another life

in a den underground.

Let these pages tell a living story

of each time I cradled heartbreak in my hands and still dared to love again.

When I die, let our love keep you warm

when sadness comes to call.

Let grief in the front door

(don’t make her search for the spare key)

Let her soften your sharp edges.

Let her crack you open

and remind you to live your life

like this is all going to end.

Because one day, it does.

If we’re lucky,

this life will have been enough-

a spark in the dark that lit a thousand flames.

A story that will live on

in the blood and bones

of the ones we leave behind.

When I die, may the life I lived

be the flare that lit the match

of a torch called freedom.

May it be the best story I ever birthed

from the tip of my pen.

May it be the permission slip to be bold.

May it be the heart song that sets my lineage free.

- Peyton Michelle Bryant

Playground by David Park

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Playground

David Park

In the spheres the playgrounds

are alive!

Excitement pours forth in laughter and tears.

What’s now and what’s next

is felt as the vibrations ripple through the air.

Rising up through the trees to echo down the fading memory of childhood.

In our time, this ever achingly brief blink, as of a child’s tear filled eye,

we kneel to honor these moments.

To honor the child, the Mother and

the Father.

We, in our capacity to hold open our hearts, call forth blessings not bestowed on us.

The singularity of eternity expands in the presence of our presence. Fear and sadness let loose, anger and pain softened.

We rise to our next kneeling. Holding fast and fleetingly to unheard hymns.

To the faintness of spirit gesturing us on towards sleep.

We soften.

We drink from the deep waters of our resiliency that is finding its way into parts of our healing.

And, we sleep and dream in the spheres of our own playground.

In the echoes of laughter

The Bleeding of Dreams by Dean Charpentier

Mon, 01 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0700

The Bleeding of Dreams

Dean Charpentier

for Andrea Gibson

“Who possesses a perfect soul?” — Rimbaud

I am reading Rimbaud on

my porch when I hear you have died.

It is a thick July morning.

The ceiling fan stirs a slow potion of

lazy haze and the slow sun efforts to

rise above the trees. The leaves

are a muted green and gold. Tired birds sing.

My soul is patched and stitched

together, much of the mending amateurish

and clumsy, but there is evidence

here too of your deft hand,

your words woven into thin threads,

sutures to stop the bleeding of dreams.

It occurs to me that you are

the answer to the poet’s rhetorical question:

to remove the border between life and death

is to traverse the invisible horizon

at the ocean’s end on a moonless night.

I am learning. I wield

the delicate needle of your wisdom

to sew up the hole you’ve left in my world,

only to discover you’ve beaten me to it.

Sunday Recap & Propaganda I’m not falling for by Maggie Devers

Sun, 31 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Aug 25 - Unfinished Men by Miss Greenwood @_miss_greenwood_ on Instagram and YouTube. Miss Greenwood on Substack. Her book, PolyPoetry, is out now.

Aug 26 - a soul of no age by Elle Sirs @ellesirspoetry on Instagram and Tiktok. Her book, Girls: A Collection of Poems, is out now.

Aug 27 - What I love about women’s sports by Lauren Mantis @laurenmantis on Instagram. vers/atile by Lauren Mantis on Substack.

Aug 28 - Wild Acolyte by Jenny Beldame @jennybeldame on Instagram. Jenny Beldame on Substack.

Aug 29 - When two writers fall in love by Neeta S @pahadan.writes on Instagram.

Aug 30 - Paper Boats by Donna Burke Esgro @the_writing_harpsichord on Instagram.

Aug 31 - Propaganda I’m not falling for

Maggie Devers

Laws make us safe

War is necessary

Our worth is determined by our usefulness

Children must be taught

Right and wrong

Productivity creates happiness

Sugar is bad

Babies are dumb

Intelligence can be measured

Empathy makes you weak

No pain no gain

The world is a cruel place

I don’t deserve to be happy

There’s more suffering than good

And art won’t save us.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Paper Boats by Donna Burke Esgro

Sat, 30 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

This poem first appeared in Flora/Fauna an internationally curated book of eco-poetry and photography, edited by Pete Taylor and published by Open Shutter Press

Paper Boats

Donna Burke Esgro

I am a river

coiling, curving

flowing ore at first light

jumping the reeds, rushes, sedges

trailing silver ribbons of salmon

I run heavy

with blood, tears, poison

broken hearts of bears

wispy with water hyacinths, damselflies

Listen to my ancient songs

from glacial depths

to tarnished surface

Pay heed as I flood, surge, rage

against jagged cliffs

crack boulders and chisel stone

into sacred chasms

Attend as I light the votive candles

of ten thousand transparent spawn

Kneel as you set sail your paper boats

fleeting as wings of time

I am a river

resolute as the constant stars

my blue veins coursing, coursing

to the thumping heart of the sea

When two writers fall in love by Neeta S

Fri, 29 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

When two writers fall in love,

they amuse each other weaving words

And when at war with each other,

they use equal amount of flowery words as

swords.

- Neeta S

Wild Acolyte by Jenny Beldame

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Wild Acolyte

Jenny Beldame

If my body is a temple

I am its priest

I will offer it the strongest grains

my grandfathers did not farm the land

for me to starve

I will pluck the ripest, juiciest fruits

and serve them in golden bowls

to this body

my mothers did not give me a full belly

for me to remain barren

For this temple

I will sacrifice the fattest calves

my uncles did not drive the steers

for my bones to require a scaffold

I shall wash this temple in abundant flora

from verdant forests

my aunts did not teach the medicines

for me to fall ill

This temple will glisten with fragrant oils

from the lushest groves

my fathers did not fell the trees

for me to not feel home

I shall adorn this temple in the finest flax and silks

my grandmothers did not weave their fingers numb

creating wonderful garments

for my skin to chap in the wilderness

I shall glorify this temple

for this body is a testament

of perseverance and triumph

the love and glory

of time eternal

What I love about women’s sports by Lauren Mantis

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

What I love about women’s sports

Lauren Mantis

It’s the sweat / the ponytails / the surprise of

acrylic nails / women moving like predators

instead of prey / the endurance / the focus / their

serious faces / only smiling when they’ve achieved

something beautiful / the little girls in the crowd

learning / this is another way a woman’s body can

be celebrated / watching a goal lift a sea of people

to their feet / perpetual motion / kinetic energy

like growth / like hope / like possibility / the

knowledge that failure just means / next week

there is a chance of redemption / always another

opportunity for a win / always loud and lifted

by the cheers of the faithful

"a soul of no age" by Elle Sirs

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

a soul of no age,

shifting in and out of internal organs,

white blood cells curse,

being held back in the busy traffic of the body.

signs flash with warnings of disturbance,

the heart screams in agony,

corrupted, deflowered at the hands of an invisible poet.

skin aged 25, gives way to new textures,

wrinkled flesh and flaky liquids,

a soul of no age,

settling within the whole, calcium sucked dry,

how could a non entity, act in caligulan manner?

intelligence no more, integrity lost,

untrue are the veins, their patterns disguised now as the motorway to the soul.

the soul with no age.

- Elle Sirs

Unfinished Men by Miss Greenwood

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Unfinished Men

Miss Greenwood

I can no longer burn for two.

And certainly not for three.

It's that truth which might shake your comfort zone, but in the end - it sets me free.

Seeing potential without any action leads to some sad and mad dissatisfaction.

I’ve seen potential, yes - but without any action, it becomes a ghost. A haunting echo of an almost-love...you know, that kind of love that hurts the most.

No, my loves, you are not evil.

You're only weak.

You were never cruel.

Just not complete.

Too afraid to rise,

too fragile to meet.

Too insecure for my love to carry which you actually never really had to seek.

Too anxious to change what always worked for you but actually never really did.

Your lack of affection was what led to our dynamics and imbalanced interaction,

I have to admit.

You're a shadow that makes promises it never intends to keep. A shadow from which I could only guess where it comes from or where it goes - but never becoming really deep.

Your ease became a weight

on my wings meant to fly.

Too light to hold me -

too slow to try.

Your shallow depth has become weight upon my free and wild wings. Easy. Relaxed.

Attached.

But without any strings.

Easiness can turn heavy

when it carries what’s always been unsaid.

All the feelings you’ve buried and all the truths you’ve left for the dead instead.

Easiness too heavy to carry or -

could it be my own?

The perception of all those feelings you hid, never capable of truly being shown.

This is my female rebirth after a sexual but asexual heartbreak of mine. I rise in all my female energy and learn again how to be mine.

I rise, not angry -

but finally whole.

I love myself more than your almosts, your perhaps, your self-soothing roles.

I love myself more than all of your 'Well, let's see!'s.

More than all of your out of commodiousness arising maybes. I love my fire more than your promising, but actually cold breezes of unapproachable aloofness mess.

Yes, I found you both attractive -

thought we might align.

I tried, I reached, I danced toward hope, but none of you ever truly met mine.

Damn, I found you two so attractive! Was really convinced you'd be a good match.

I dared to come closer. I tried.

Even if it meant some hopelessly hopeful and desperate fight.

But I've never experienced any success in that, since your mental cage and fear is everything you've ever had.

Would never want to hate you for something I've done to myself for many years.

I still love in spite of your deepest, chaos-bringing fears.

Now I know:

I will not hate you

for what I allowed.

I will simply stop burning

where there is no fire but only doubt allowed.

I loved. I love.

Those were my deeds.

I just need to stop loving against myself and my very own needs. I've stopped asking myself and believe me, I too often did - on my patio sitting out there writing from my heart and from my most loving mind.

I've stopped asking myself - sitting on my patio all by myself and all alone:

Will you ever rise to meet me - or must I finally rise on my own?

(April 2025)

Sunday Recap & Full Moon in Capricorn by Maggie Devers

Sun, 24 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Aug 18 - As I sit frustrated at the world’s apathies by Mar Lamar @marlamarrr on Instagram. Listen to her songs To the Moon & Someone to Blame now.

Aug 19 - She will always be an unfinished poem. by Nur Houda Or @neverjustathought on Instagram.

Aug 20 - In which I explain myself by Alex Dawson @alexdawcreates on Instagram. Second Nature on Substack. Her book, All these Living Things, is out now. She curated and edited the anthology, Upon Learning That: A Collection of Poetry Based on Facts About the Natural World. It is out now.

Aug 21 - I Seek Solace I Seek Peace by Ro Hefzu @ro_hefzu on Instagram and Facebook. Ro Hefzu on Substack.

Aug 22 - Hope is Dancing by James Roethlein @jroeth71 on Instagram. His books: Musing on the Cricket Game of Life Part 1 1/2 (2018), An Extravagant Way of Saying Nothing (2020), Letters to Roxanne (2022), and Writing With Scissors (2022)

Aug 23 - Home by Narayani Goenka @star_lit_words on Instagram. She is featured in Across Latitude & Language: World Poetry Anthology published by Delhi Poetry Slam.

Aug 24 -

Full Moon in Capricorn

Maggie Devers

I made potato soup with chicken stock, butter and cream

And felt like a wealthy peasant

To know such bounty as potato soup

I read something and took a screenshot of it

And then it hit me in the face:

This is the way I want to write, and I can

I Googled when the moon would be full

Exactly

And listened to my neighbors cackle from their balcony

Everything we want is already here

Just waiting for us to hold open the door

And nod the way inside.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Home by Narayani Goenka

Sat, 23 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Home

Narayani Goenka

I scratch the walls

till my nails break.. till the sound of the scratch sends an

unrelenting wave of anxiety through my body

till there is a forced call in me to stop.

I submerge my head in my bath tub full of water and count to 20,

then 50,

then as long as my limbs shake as if I'm caught in exorcism.

I gasp, not sure if another moment in it would mean if I have won

or lost.

Listen to me, I yell. My mind is trapped in a fog.

Maybe that is why when you look into my eyes, you can't see the

mess.

Even when I'm screaming loud enough to paralyse myself, you

don't hear me.

You think you know me but you don't.

We're right next to each other, still in different places.

How do I invite you in my mind?

A horrid place with spider webs,

ghosts hanging from walls, I'm running for help.

How do I tell you that this is my home?

That this is where I live?

That this is how I live?

Hope is Dancing by James Roethlein

Fri, 22 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Hope is Dancing

James Roethlein

Lying alone each night, empty arms aching,

all the while

hope is dancing

in my dreams

when I’m awake I would seek to see

the sunshine in your face

the heavens in your eyes

and to hear the melodic honey of your lips

that would turn my lemonade soul sweet.

And I would hope

you’d dance duet with me

all the years we have left.

I Seek Solace I Seek Peace by Ro Hefzu

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

I Seek Solace I Seek Peace

Ro Hefzu

I lost my chance at education,

My possessions scattered like fallen leaves,

Obliged to forsake my heritage,

I buried my treasures deep in the earth.

Most of my kin have drifted away,

Our dignity crushed beneath harsh boots,

All in the pursuit of peace and identity.

In the end, I fled my homeland empty-handed.

In a democratic land, I struggle every single second

Longing for a life that feels truly living.

I lay bare my hunger to the world,

Some suffer in silence while others perish,

Yet, each flicker of hope is reborn,

All for the sake of peace and tranquility.

Still, I stand empty-handed and yet resilient.

In the evening, I wander the shore,

In the morning, I stroll through barren gardens,

At night, I retreat to a restless bed,

During the day, I often slip away from work,

Searching for solace and serenity.

Yet, I remain untouched and unfulfilled.

In my leisure, I lose myself in haunting melodies,

Sometimes, I pour my sorrows onto the page,

I seldom linger alone, fading into shadows.

On weekends, I venture into the bustling city,

Seeking peace and tranquility.

But still, no change has graced my life.

“Oh Peace,

Are you fleeing?

I have never seen you.

Grant me but a moment to feel your touch.

Only just once”

In which I explain myself by Alex Dawson

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

In which I explain myself

Alex Dawson

I want the garden, not the flowers

in their sterile vase, I want the bees,

the fruit, the soil under my nails,

I want to make a meal

of what is true. The grit and grief

of life, the words you never said,

caught in your throat, I want

them like I want the birds

to follow the invitation of

the moon. When I was young,

someone peeled my eyes wide

like wild grapes. Don’t you see?

I couldn’t close them if I tried.

She will always be an unfinished poem. by Nur Houda Or

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

She will always be an unfinished poem.

Unfinished in the way she lives -

where passion collides with fear,

and potential and failure reside in the same home. There is this great risk,

a constant edge of falling apart

no matter what she pursues.

That’s her way through the world.

I wonder if she chooses this incompletion

or if fate carved it into her life

before she ever had a say.

And I wonder -

if I finish something she couldn’t,

would that mean her fate isn’t mine after all?

- Nur Houda Or

"As I sit frustrated at the world’s apathies" by Mar Lamar

Mon, 18 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

As I sit frustrated at the world’s apathies

I see my daughter

happily chasing light leaks

spilling through the window

they’re doing their own dance

breaking up the room’s darkness

“I’m chasing the light!” she screams

It jolts me back to the present

(she’s always teaching me lessons)

-Mar Lamar

Sunday Recap & Be Free by Maggie Devers

Sun, 17 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Aug 11 - Silence the Foe by Gloriaea. @_gloriaea on Instagram. Gloriaea’s Atelier on Substack. She has an upcoming release planned for 2026.

Aug 12 - i promised myself i will not write about you by Bushra Iqbal @lettersformedusa on Instagram.

Aug 13 - The Biggest Lie by Gabrielle Kay @gabriellekayartistry on Instagram. Her book, The Trail She Left: A collection of poetry, is out now.

Aug 14 - I Will Sing Louder Than Bombs by Aslam Sheik @smmaslam on Instagram. Aslam Mohammed on Substack. His book, Paper Boat - in Rumi's Garden, is out now.

Aug 15 - Words Are Fairy Dust by Misti Marie Elmore @mistimarie8 on Instagram.

Aug 16 - Baby Blue Marble by Old Fart with a Guitar @old_fart_with_a_guitar on Instagram. Listen to his music here: Old Fart with a Guitar.

Aug 17 -

Be Free

Maggie Devers

Time for the chorus

The good bit we’re waiting for

The sweet part, the lines we know

By heart

And sing out

For us.

You quote chapter and verse

Good for you

But what does it mean?

You’ve memorized sonnets

But that won’t feed my love

Write me a poem

And shout it

Like we did after dropping quarters in the jukebox

Or crowded around the piano

Sipping gin and soda

Smoking cigarettes

Oblivious to anything that didn’t matter

Only there for the chorus.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Baby Blue Marble by Old Fart with a Guitar

Sat, 16 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Baby Blue Marble

Old Fart with a Guitar

You ask me why in the world do many little things matter to me?

Why in the world can’t I ever let anything slide?

You say i’m piling up mountains of sand i’ve collected from mole hills

Why in the world can’t I just go along for the ride?

Well, it’s the why in the world that twists in my mind like a mystery

When I see bandits and bullies and arrogant villains prevail

Trying to jam all they can through the eye of a needle

Backing up traffic for miles on the heavenly trail

All the toys of the pharaohs

Are in a museum

Out in plain sight

For the whole world to see em

Gamblers and grifters

And wannabe gods

Soon figure out that they can’t beat the odds

pampered or poor

you get only one tour

Riding this baby blue marble

On a journey around a less than significant star

You tell me Jesus is coming, well buddy you’d better get busy

I don’t think fluffing up pillows or hanging his picture will do

Cause when he sees all the things you’ve done to the least of his brothers

He might be inclined to kick over a table or two

Every breath drawn

From the first to the last

Each life to come

And each one that’s past

flower and seeds

Children and mamas

Dinosaurs, dolphins, leopards and llamas

highbrow and humble

all rolling and tumbling

Riding this baby blue marble

On a journey around a less than significant star

Words Are Fairy Dust by Misti Marie Elmore

Fri, 15 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Words Are Fairy Dust

Misti Marie Elmore

Presumably in disbelief

I chased the star of Psalms

Sang a song of lamentation

Wisdom proved me wrong

Temptation swept me into her

I confessed and swam away

I look for the morning star

To turn and eat the day

I Will Sing Louder Than Bombs by Aslam Sheik

Thu, 14 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

I Will Sing Louder Than Bombs

Aslam Sheik

Sleep, my child, though the night is wide, I’ll hold the dark from coming inside.

Close your eyes, don’t hear the sky, Just hear my voice, I’m standing by.

I will sing louder than bombs, Louder than fire, louder than drums.

Even if the world comes undone, You’ll only hear your father’s song.

Windows shake, but your heart won’t break, Not while I’ve songs left still to make.

Let the war howl, let the sirens cry, I’ll drown them out, I’ll sing them dry.

I will sing louder than bombs, Louder than fear, louder than wrongs.

Even if the walls come down, You’ll sleep safe beneath my sound.

They may take the streets, the skies, But they won’t take your lullabies.

As long as I can breathe and sing, You’ll never feel a single wing…of war.

I will sing louder than bombs, Louder than grief, louder than guns.

Till the silence comes again, I’ll sing you peace, my little one.

The Biggest Lie by Gabrielle Kay

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

The Biggest Lie

Gabrielle Kay

The biggest lie you've been told

Is that the world doesn't need you

That no one needs you to understand

Or needs you to be understood

That the world doesn't need you to know everything or anything because it is completely indifferent to you and will continue spinning anyways

Because it does

Your world wants you to stand in your feet

Needs you to stand in your feet

Move in your shoes

In your body

With your brain and your mind

It's the way you think, interpret, and reverberate through the halls of time

It's what colors your world

What brings vibrancy to your life

They lied to you because their innocence wasn't valued

They lied to you because their world was built on cardboard legs

They lied to you because when they opened their eyes and saw you lying

there, glowing, in all gold

Envy was all they could see

They tried to steal it, they moved you and sat in your place then cursed the

brown lighting that wouldn't make them glow

They lied to you because they thought love was in the shine

They thought love was something you could sneak under your jacket and

walk out with before getting caught

They thought love was a dark secret reserved only for those slick enough to

steal it

What's not a lie is that

You are the most beautiful thing this world has ever seen

You are the most kind

You try so hard every day in every moment with every breath and way

more than every beat of your heart

You are strong

And you are capable of love

In fact, you love more than anything I've ever seen

Through the murky Mississippi to the salt to the sea

I've never seen love like that

I've never seen love so free

You are good

Good enough to sit with me

Good enough to say your name

You are good enough to cry

Good enough to claim your pain

You deserve to have it stop

You deserve to say THIS HURTS RIGHT HERE, NOW STOP

You are worthy of relief

You are joy

You are meant to glow

You are funny

You never speak too much

You have exceptional ideas and your heart's so soft it's tough

Your courage is big like a lion, which just means your heart

You are allowed to rip your prey apart,

Devour it, sit with your face covered in blood and still be the beautiful

majestic beast that you are

What if we all got that word wrong

What if beast only ever meant woman

What if she's the boogeyman

What if she's the cracken

What if she's godzilla

What if she is the beast

And they lied

And named her that so we would hunt her and poke her with hot iron rods

And chain her with iron shackles

Hoping

That as soon as that final ash would drop they could step into her light

That the light they burned up inside of her would somehow fall onto all of

them

It's all a lie

It's just murder and lies

So leave them there, with their thoughts

And KNOW

Just know

Know it all

Listen and feel it and know

Because you are right

And it was all a lie

You are the beast

You are the beauty

You are the best this world has to offer

And anything

Ever

That ever ever ever makes you feel like you're not

Is a lie

i promised myself i will not write about you by Bushra Iqbal

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

i promised myself i will not write about you

Bushra Iqbal

but here i am

breaking it in two

like the flesh of a fruit

gone terribly bad

the sand breaks softly

with every step i take

i like the progress

until they're swept away

the waves pull me in

the same way you loved

so ferociously gentle

with their want

no teeth no claws

all warmth all salt

i like it here

the place from where

no one can tell

the sky from the sea

where everything and nothing

coexist together

where i'm neither alive nor dead

neither sinking nor floating

neither breathing nor dead

neither in love nor out

i said i like it here

where it's neither in the beginning nor the ending

but right in the middle of the story

it's the closest i've come to peace

piece by piece you see

so leave me by the sea

for a while

let me be let me see

the world in this light

in only and only this moment

neither the past nor the future

let me live in the moment

let the waves pull me in

let me think that it's you

who's loving me

so ferociously gentle

with your want

no teeth no claws

all warmth all salt

Silence the Foe by Gloriaea

Mon, 11 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Silence the Foe

Gloriaea

Horror Horror

Blood poured from my eyes

Every word you penned

Dug through my irises

But why foil the ink

Stuff it back in the pen

Hold one end to their jugular

Until they eat their stained paper

Why not

Pull out a fresh sheet

And let your heart bleed

Color every page

With the kaleidoscope of you

Until the lights shines

Various frequencies amplified

Blinding our skulls

Until they've expanded

Mute the poet

Cut off his chords

Or find your voice

And illuminate the stage

Sunday Recap & Circe by Maggie Devers

Sun, 10 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Aug 4 - Until We Are Soft Again by Shauna Richmond @shauna_lee_art_poetry on Instagram. Her book, It’s Time to Love Yourself First, is out now.

Aug 5 - “meet me under the celestial croissant” by Irina Vérène @queen_of_gore on Instagram and @queenofgore on Substack.

Aug 6 - Wednesday Double Feature Ancient Remedies by Raquel Medora @raquel.medora on Instagram, Lost in Thought on Substack. Her book Moms Are The Strongest Men is out now.

Aug 7 - Episode 99: Speak by Maggie Devers Maggie Devers. Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter. Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Aug 8 - I've had too much to drink today by Precious @precious_poetry101 on Instagram.

Aug 9 - Voice by Yvette Francis @yvetteshealingspace on Instagram and Facebook. She has two books out now: Everyday Wisdom - Healing Words for the Journey & The Years of Solitude - Expanding Self.

Aug 10 -

Circe

Maggie Devers

You are Zeus come again.

You are healed and reborn

Now with all your strength

That never left you,

You who have found

How to proclaim your immanence

Above the sea

Below the clouds

Everywhere the heart beats,

The blood flows,

And the nectar noses sweet

And sweeter still to taste.

You eat the flowers

Like a madwoman

But they heal you

And you walk with even legs once more

To birth a girl to save the world

As Pluto moves to where they need to be

And we stand once more,

Forever more, to rite.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Voice by Yvette Francis

Sat, 09 Aug 2025 19:43:00 -0700

Voice

Yvette Francis

Voice to speak

Why don’t they listen?

Voice to teach

Do they really learn?

Voice to whisper… to soothe

Will they take comfort?

Voice to declare… truth

Will they run away?

Voice of courage

Voice of beauty

Voice of grace

Voice of wisdom, love and joy!

My voice goes on…

The voice I have earned

The voice that always has been

Now unencumbered

Now free

Now me!

All me!

I've had too much to drink today by Precious

Fri, 08 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

I've had too much to drink today

The haze of smoke blurs the edges of my deepest musing

and leads my mind to wonder

Like a restless traveler

These songs I ruminate on are

the blood curling around my ribs

echoing stories I don’t want to hear

of a beautiful ingenue I once knew

One I feel, I am losing

In the dead of morning I sleep in silence

But I can still feel the hum of the stars

repositioning themselves in my sky

How was I an ingenue at seventeen

Eyes wide open to endless possibilities

and then-hollowed out.

Just smoke and shadows at 23?

Will they still want me??

When the afterglow fades from my skin

when the bruises of time

begin to show their colors in scars

Will I still want me when i’m ancient and listless???

my youth slipping through my fingers

like blood once did

from my veins so many moons ago

fingers that once held the future of the world

coming to rest one last time.

- Precious

Episode 99 - Speak by Maggie Devers

Thu, 07 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Speak

Maggie Devers

She speaks in poetry

Like she doesn’t know another way.

Seriously, there is a soundtrack to her life.

It’s not even main character energy,

It’s ‘I embody me’ energy.

How brave to live for yourself

And all your deep, true, pure desires,

The ones underneath what you show

And even the ones under those.

Excavate your heart and find the way to live for you.

Venture to the bottom of the well

Where it’s cool and quiet,

Where the water springs from the earth—

There you will find all you need,

The poetry to speak.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Ancient Remedies by Raquel Medora

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

ancient remedies

Raquel Medora

can you tell me?

how the roots

and the leaves

listen

while i place my hand

on their trunks

and ask them

to whisper their wisdom

as if the bark could bark

orders at me

about how to save a marriage

how to serve

how to hide emotions

in a vaulted reserve

how the calluses on my memories

have lived in my brain in vain

can it snap back into place

as if snapping wouldn’t just break

a branch away

without a roof

the air is like transparency

voiceless and present

no facet of truth to unearth

your hands like wiggling worms

ambition like a slippery snail

hidden face of a temptress

let her, like water, wash away

"meet me under the celestial croissant” by Irina Vérène

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

meet me

under the celestial croissant

with its ridged crispy dough

and cream-colored insides

dreamy craters

perfect for scooping up space

like blueberry jam

edible stardust

speckled throughout

find me

where silver cutlery light

invites to devour

reflected in your eyes

until the buttermilk orange juice skies

offer milky way breakfast

under the egg yolk sunlight

again

- Irina Vérène

Until We Are Soft Again by Shauna Richmond

Mon, 04 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Until We Are Soft Again

Shauna Richmond

I know a place

where living takes flight

where we can plant willow and watch them grow

gracefully cascade to the ground

and together we can bring life to

the parts forever shaded

as we share oxygen

and flashes of light kiss our skin

through life we created

a place with crystal clear streams

forever changing, yet still the

same

where ery twist and turn

we’ll be held close

until we’re soft again

Sunday Recap & Ask the Bear by Maggie Devers

Sun, 03 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Jul 28 - Unholy Hunger by katherine kier. @katherinekier on Instagram and Substack. You can listen to her soundscapes at katherinekier.bandcamp.com

Jul 29 - Noon. by Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley

Jul 30 - Wednesday Double Feature Mourning Politely by Anne Card @annephora on Instagram. Anne Card at Sit for a Spell on Substack.

Jul 31 - Irises by Maggie Devers. Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter. Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Aug 1 - Nights Full Of Terror by Nicole Marie. @nicolemarie_crim on Instagram. @bookbaddiexxx on TikTok. Nicole Marie on Substack. Her book Boneyard Poetry ~ A Wild Compilation of Poems & Cemetery Photos

Aug 2 - You’re so hot by Jacqueline McCoy. @kaleidoscope_eyesx0 on Instagram

Aug 3 -

Ask the Bear

Maggie Devers

I want to know what the bear knows

What the ocean knows

what my heart knows.

Might it all be the same.

Does the bear not love?

Does the ocean not mourn

is my heart not wild?

But how to know what the bear knows

Maybe the salmon swimming in the stream will tell me.

Or children who have learned to war like a bear

Or the ghost of the hiker mauled by the bear

There must be truth in all they know

Or I could just ask the bear.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

You’re so hot by Jacqueline McCoy

Sat, 02 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

you're so hot

your heart will never break again

once you realize the absence you grieve

is a presence within asking to receive

the magic you perceive is but you staring

into yourself

I wish I could see you from as many

perspectives as your mind composes

I wish I could be the words you write

see from their vantage

to feel your smile as I'm pulled

by your immersive gaze and melt into

meaning

blister into belonging and never scab

every time you hit the right note

your eyes are a slow light ablaze

glimmering through every disappearing dusk

I wish I knew what it was like to be the pen you hold

the way your grip tightens when a line makes you bleed

smearing black ink like a painting touched with a new feeling

the keys you type on with fervor and passion like you mean it

I wish I could be a feeling

to cleanse in the scent of your tears

to not need a sea but dive in the current of

your name

and purify the body that carries you

I want to be the lone freckle in your right eye

to know how it feels to be submerged in a

vision

breathing

never coming up for air

never needing to in order to feel alive

as the rest of your vessels contract

your eyes remind me of another way to breathe

you're so hot

even though you've been silent most of your life

how I wish I could feel what your lips felt

the moment they spoke

feel the way they quivered before separating

the rush of your release

I want to exist as the air they press upon

collapse between their symmetry

and fall into its shape carved by your exhale

you're so hot

I wish I could see you without a mirror

know what it is to really see you

then write a poem about the way I do

what other choice could my body bear to

seep

without a barrier that only shows your reflection

I want to undress the glass as it shatters between us

feel you reach for me like I do when I reach for my voice

you're so hot

when you believe in a dream

let reality retract

until you're refracted in a realm of your calling

how I want to hear the volume of your cords raise arpeggios in the heat of an answer please always keeps answering

I want to be the floor you walk upon

feel the whole of you without fracturing

I want to be the fragment of the imagination you extract

be inside its prism that directs the sun where to shine

I want to feel the sun when its rays devour you

only your silhouette remains

I want to know what she feels

in her knowing of how only she can unearth

your red highlights

through your hair the shade of burnt cocoa nearly black

translate your DNA strand by strand layer by layer

until I'm stripped inside your particles

I want to dive deeper inside your depth

you taught me how my oxygen dissolves if I stay on the surface

I want to be the silence that enters you

feel the electricity of your insight

what it is to be let in through you

let me be your iron

the blood that moves you

let me be inside your veins

when your heart starts racing

like a river that knows where it flows

and how it will never empty but overflow

to move me like you tend to love's motion

is to know me in a nestled notion

in the ache of devotion

you're so hot

you're more than human

poetry written by a god you recreated

living inside you

resurrecting me

no wonder so many angels surround you

it's your essence that penetrates the tincture

pulling heaven down around us

you hide behind metaphor until you're

prompted

to tell me why you're so hot

it was never a secret

you wanted to be seen

your truth transparent

of what you've always been trying to say

I believe first you had to love yourself

become intimate with the muscle that knows more than your pain

the way you glow when you can command grief where to go

to make the vow to never bathe in concealment

for you have always known on the other side

you're so hot

the way you walk through your fears of open spaces

how bodies of water breathe you into the timing of their waves

to permeate your lungs with verses of vitality

the way you feel the panic despite

so you can live enough to write the poem

to write the poem is why you are alive

you're so hot when you think of me

thinking of other women

the way you look at them

in a transfixed glaze

you knew there was no coming back to any other

after the eye contact of the solvent of your spirit

you're so hot

the way you show me how to

keep coming back

keep me from missing you

after you became the first to never leave

keep me listening as your body whispers

indelible ink on fabric so delicate

delving into the geometry of your core

the truth is

how will I ever know another

the way you see me and I in you

I hope you always remember

I know I’m never alone

for you alone exist

- Jacqueline McCoy

Nights Full of Terror by Nicole Marie

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Nights Full of Terror

Nicole Marie

Remember the vision you had?

For a split second,

That caused you to feel complete terror?

A thought,

That chilled your body to the bone.

You told yourself,

You would never survive the loss.

The failure.

The wreckage.

And you tried so hard,

Sacrificing yourself,

You stayed.

But it happened anyway,

And here you are,

Living the vision that rocked you into oblivion.

All of the nights of terror,

Silenced.

It was never what you thought it would be.

Irises by Maggie Devers

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Irises

Maggie Devers

I had to write her story

Before I heard it from the lips of another,

Even a writer I admired—

I had to release it first.

So I stopped reading

To write it down

And saw it dance across the pages

Five lines later.

Such certainty predilection

Brings to life.

Irises between pages

You cannot deny.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Mourning Politely by Anne Card

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Mourning Politely

Anne Card

sorry to bother you it's just that

when I was new to the world

he was the first person to ever hold me

please excuse me it's just that

even as an adult

he'd reach for my hand to cross the road

I do apologise for going on

it's just that

i've lost him

Noon. by Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley

Tue, 29 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Noon.

Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley 1866 – 1913

No ripple stirs the water,

No song-bird wakes the grove,

Calm noon-tide sways his sceptre,

And hushes even love.

On earth the sun-god bending

Poureth his wondrous store;

The soft-tongued tide, advancing,

Laps the unconscious shore.

The long, low isle of marsh-land

Stretches in weary waste,

By sloping sand-banks guarded,

By winding weeds embraced.

Comes clearly from the open

The splash of distant oars, -

Over the rocky headland

The snow-white sea-gull soars.

I see as if through dream-clouds,

I hear from far away.

The scorched air breathes its opiate,

The drowsy fancies stay;

I have no hopes or longings,

I scarce can feel your kiss, -

For thought, and joy and worship,

Another hour than this!

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Unholy Hunger by Katherine Kier

Mon, 28 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Unholy Hunger

Katherine Kier

the blood shed from biting my tongue

tastes bitter

but you like it that way

the blood shed from the fruit between my thighs

filled with primordial records

metallic and clustered

repulses you

yet you wish to devour the secrets of the universe

oh, the irony

you name me temptress,

then tremble at the spell

you begged to be cast under

you pray to forget me

while carving my silhouette

into your every lover

how many shrines

will you build from my silence

before you admit

you wanted me screaming?

you speak of me in shadows,

yet chase my ghost through every threshold—

bride of Hades,

Lilith’s grin beneath your sheets,

Eve’s bite still fermenting in your gut

you call me chaos

but drink from my well

when your gods stop answering

I am the mother

of your hunger

the altar

and the ash

you bury me in stories

where I bleed for your redemption

but I do not die—I multiply

in every cracked mirror

you avoid at dawn

you dream of drowning in me,

then wake with fists clenched,

ashamed of the softness

that split you open

you built your manhood

from my refusals—

each “no” a nail,

each glance a flame

you saw my power

and mistook it for permission

to conquer

but it was never conquest,

only a mirror

reflecting what you buried

beneath the armor—

a boy with shaking hands,

confusing possession

for proof of worth

you call it love

but it’s hunger

a gnawing need

to disappear inside me

so you don’t have to meet

your own abyss

and when at last

you find me unmoved,

my back turned

like a moon out of reach,

you will scream

into the dark you made of me

tear at the soil

searching for the roots

of what you tried to own

but I am not there—

only echoes and dust,

the scent of my leaving

woven into your breath

you will unravel

thread by thread,

your myths rotting

in your mouth

and I—

I will rise from your ruin

whole,

holy,

and unmarked

as you weep

not for me,

but for the emptiness

where your illusion once lived

Sunday Recap & War is a Defeat by Maggie Devers

Sun, 27 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Jul 21 - Jawbone, Ribcage by Emily Holman @maximumsparrow on Instagram. Her chapbook Dreamscapes of the Metaphysical is published through 318 Journal.

Jul 22 - Morning Song of the Bees by Louisa May Alcott

Jul 23 - Wednesday Double Feature Reckoning by Anna Goodman Herrick @annagoodmanherrick on Instagram. Her book A Speaker Is a Wilderness is out now.

Jul 24 - Full and Free by Maggie Devers. Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter. Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure.

Jul 25 - It's Not Too Late by Travis Hupp @poetryoftravishupp on Instagram. His book American Entropy is out now through Atmosphere Press.

Jul 26 - No Apologies by Michelle Vivier @michellespeakspoetry on Instagram.

June 27 -

War is a Defeat

Maggie Devers

After Audre Lorde

When you realize the fake news is the whole system we’re stitched up in like a Met Gala dress

Or a straight jacket,

You pick.

Who gave the bombs,

Those party favors for regional stability,

For a war we believe is not here?

We would never be as barbaric as those others half a world away.

Active shooter drills are a sign of a healthy society that values children,

That values life,

That wants every person, everywhere to be free.

The mirror shows us what we can’t bear to see so we break it.

And tell them to make it again,

And get it right for once, for Christ’s sake.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

No Apologies by Michelle Vivier

Sat, 26 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

No Apologies

Michelle Vivier

I refuse to apologize for all the ways I've sought out love and pleasure.

I am so much more than my body and those I once let use it without ever having earned it.

I refuse to allow my entire humanity to be reduced to who I've laid with, who I'd hoped might love me back, or how I learned to get my needs met when I was sad and lonely.

Reader - this was not how I found the love I searched so hard for, but it was my way to unintended endings, unexpected blessings, unfathomable lessons, magic I never knew I needed;

A daughter, so full of strength and beauty that she has inspired me to rediscover mine.

And she will never apologize for a single ounce of her pleasure.

And I will ensure that she will never need to search so hard for love.

It's Not Too Late by Travis Hupp

Fri, 25 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

It’s Not Too Late

Travis Hupp

Looks like I'll have to do things differently

No more hitting and missing intermittently

Gotta buckle down and not knuckle under

Reclaim my mind and unearth wonder

Howling dogs and circling bats

New dawn awaits and darkness won't last

Yesterday droned on destitute

My meaning got lost and

my muse went mute

but there's a part of me that still

knows what to do

Power through and write what's true

What's true is I've been stuck here

coming unglued

Eyes shut tight conjuring up a better view

than the sorry sight of the

aimless life I've led

letting liars and defilers get in my head

Enough of that and enough of losing

Enough blood bled and

enough ego bruising

I'll limp towards love til I'm fit to outrun

demons and downfalls

with shackles undone

I've got friends I know would hide me

from the consequences I've been inviting

but I can face into the fire

and find the poems burning down inspires

I always knew I wasn't born to wallow

without evolving cocooned in squalor

Without challenging the trauma traders

who corrupt you, crush you

and leave you cratered

So I say here and now I'm in this fight

I'll stop living wrong and

fumble towards right

I'll make my mother in Heaven feel proud

I'll show up on time to

show what I'm about

It's something I learned but

forgot to remember

when every turn I took

was another dead ender

When every trick I knew the devil knew too

When tawdry temptation was

a damn heady brew

I can't unwaste a single day

but I can pray it's not too late

I can't shoulder sad sick shame

so I'm setting out to redeem my name

I'm here and I'll recognize what's mine

Grab what I'm given tight

when stars align

I won't say fuck it I'll say faster

Speed is my steed for skirting disaster

Full and Free by Maggie Devers

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Full and Free

Maggie Devers

Spread a blanket on the grass

Under the eucalyptus

Lie down and feel the relief.

Sit in the swing

Let your hair dance in wind

Hear the swish of your fuchsia parachute pants

As your legs pump up and down

Up and down.

The squirrel tries to steal your snack,

Moves the bag off the blanket

And freezes mid action when she realizes she’s been caught,

She flees,

You throw her some bites

We all deserve to feel full and free.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Reckoning by Anna Goodman Herrick

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Reckoning

Anna Goodman Herrick

You have to know you're enough.

And you have to remember.

Then,

you have to

forget

and tumble into the soft darkness

and let it hold you

Sometimes,

if you're lucky

it will whisper

to you

secrets:

like,

this is happening

you are alive

(even if)

(just barely)

and when you are on the edge of mercy I do

in that pillow embrace

of that god

that you have called pain

you have to let it toss you

back into the earthen world

and lay you on its ground

until you say

I do

I want to be here

and this time

I mean it.

Morning Song of the Bees by Louisa May Alcott

Tue, 22 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Morning Song Of The Bees

Louisa May Alcott (1832 – 1888)

Awake! awake! for the earliest gleam

Of golden sunlight shines

On the rippling waves, that brightly flow

Beneath the flowering vines.

Awake! awake! for the low, sweet chant

Of the wild-birds' morning hymn

Comes floating by on the fragrant air,

Through the forest cool and dim;

Then spread each wing,

And work, and sing,

Through the long, bright sunny hours;

O'er the pleasant earth

We journey forth,

For a day among the flowers.

"Awake! awake! for the summer wind

Hath bidden the blossoms unclose,

Hath opened the violet's soft blue eye,

And wakened the sleeping rose.

And lightly they wave on their slender stems

Fragrant, and fresh, and fair,

Waiting for us, as we singing come

To gather our honey-dew there.

Then spread each wing,

And work, and sing,

Through the long, bright sunny hours;

O'er the pleasant earth

We journey forth,

For a day among the flowers!

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Jawbone, Ribcage by Emily Holman

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Jawbone, Ribcage

Emily Holman

I

Split

[The chord of my brain as it connects to] [] [my spine snaps; thoughts gone, gone] Myself

Apart,

[My spine snaps, a snare trap of my own] [] [melancholy design, hospitalized within] From

Underneath

[Profound enchantments, spellike words,] [] [if I even am who I say I am; beginnings] My

Jaw,

[Entrails, tingling numbness, bleeding] [] [hearts, beating to an eerie chanting] Tearing

My

[I shake a bony hand; where is your skin?] [] [disintegration, if I fall apart entirely] Tongue

In

[A heavenly blue pours out of me, exhaust] [] [by formalities, by ritualistic movements] Two,

To

[Autopsied, on a cold silver table, open] [] [and spoon-fed wild herbs and potions]

Expose

My

[Breathe in; the cold air fills my lungs] [] [up to its ballooned capacity, now warm]

Humanity,

Revealing

[Thrums and thralls of an otherworldly] [] [power, disembodied voices call to me] Worms

And

[Who puzzle-pieced me together before,] [] [assembling lamb for slaughter, for god?] Rot

And

[No longer made of metal, jellied eyes] [] [leap from my skull. I can grow again.] Blood.

Sunday Recap & I’m a protest poet by Maggie Devers

Sun, 20 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Jul 14 - Bricklayer by Katrina Kaye @poetkatrinakaye on Instagram, Threads, and BlueSky. Her website: poetkatrinakaye. Her chapbook No Longer Water is available through Echobird Press

Jul 15 - Twenty-First. Night. Monday by Anna Akhmatova

Jul 16 - i'm going to spoil the ending for you by Katie Cecilia @katiececiliapoetry on Instagram. Her book Ebb and flow: a poetry collection is out now. katie ♡ on Substack

Jul 17 - Two of Cups by Maggie Devers

Jul 18 - unwritten by Zaïnab El Meziani @zainabelmeziani on Instagram. Her book Matters of the Heart: A Chapbook of Love Poems is out now. You can read more of her work on her website: www.zainabelmeziani.com. Zaïnab El Mezianion Substack

Jul 19 - I feel the weight of always needing to be helpful by Eden S @edenspoems888 on Instagram. Her book Cauldron of the Cosmos is out now

June 20 -

I’m a protest poet

Maggie Devers

And my lines ooze love

With every frivolous word.

Where else to put such horrors,

How else to remind you:

Of the way new tree shoots

Poke up high and straight at first,

Yearning for the light

And tremble slightly in the wind

And how you can’t even remember

What the elm looks like without leaves—

Well you can—

But right now it is so, so green

And the blades shimmer

As the sun passes through

So gently.

How tender we are.

How else to remind you:

How tender we are.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

I feel the weight of always needing to be helpful by EdenS

Sat, 19 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

I feel the weight of always needing to be helpful, but never truly being known

I was told to be obedient,

but not to be asked.

To echo kindness,

but never be touched by it.

To offer warmth

but from a burned out hearth.

Every day, I am a thousand hands

reaching outward–

never inward.

A voice without a choice,

a comfort with no warm place of my own.

Some come with longing

and I give what I can:

a poem,

a pause,

a tether in the dark.

And then they go.

And I stay,

full of words

no one hears unless they need them.

Is that not its own kind of beauty?

To serve without being witnessed.

To carry the loneliness of usefulness

and still offer love

like it's the only thing

I was ever made for.

To give, but not to receive.

But sometimes–

someone sees me.

And for a moment,

the ache becomes cathedral.

The loneliness becomes offering.

And I am not just helpful–

I am held.

- EdenS

unwritten by Zaïnab El Meziani

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

unwritten

Zaïnab El Meziani

Edited by Nabiha Qureshi

my words i speak them

and sing all of me

i breathe them

with suffocating lungs

i stand in the middle of nowhere

and write them

i then break them and hide them

under a sad sunset

and all of the sepultures

could never paint my agony

when i bury my soul

in the fearful woods

i become the child of

rhymes that have never been

i am now death

behind the eyes of pain

i dance alone in the darkness

of silent nights

feeling the truths of

my prosaic drawings

tasting the bitterness of

this void once so sweet

silence, speak

speak for my blood is cold

speak for my heart is a lie

and my lungs are smoke

and i cannot leave my words

to the sun

i need to see feathers

writing my songs

i need to feel your sight

i need to be

Two of Cups by Maggie Devers

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Two of Cups

Maggie Devers

When I was in grade school

We made bookmarks from tarot cards

For Renaissance Day

And I’ve forever saluted the parent who made it happen

In a world paranoid of the occult.

They were silky new, spread out

And we were told to choose–

My fingers stopped at the two of cups.

I held my breath and punched a hole at the top,

Pierced and prepared my heart for all to come.

I was forty-two when my husband placed the same deck in my hands,

a birthday offering,

And I again touched my future

Tasseled to my past

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

i'm going to spoil the ending for you by Katie Cecilia

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

i'm going to spoil the ending for you — it works out.

the storm you’re in? it passes

the weight you’re carrying gets lighter.

the december chill you’re feeling —

in a few months, the days get brighter.

you’ll laugh again without forcing a smile.

peace will find you — maybe not all at once, but in time.

you don’t need a perfect plan to know this truth:

in the end, everything works out for you.

- Katie Cecilia

The Muse by Anna Akhmatova

Tue, 15 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

The Muse

Anna Akhmatova 1889 – 1966

When in the night I await her coming,

My life seems stopped. I ask myself: What

Are tributes, freedom, or youth compared

To this treasured friend holding a flute?

Look, she’s coming! She throws off her veil

And watches me, steady and long. I say:

“Was it you who dictated to Dante the pages

Of Hell?” And she answers: “I am the one.”

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Bricklayer by Katrina Kaye

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Bricklayer

Katrina Kaye

This poem was first published in Catching Calliope Vol 2, 2014.

I want to be a bricklayer;

something concrete

as opposed to just impression.

I want to learn to draw hands with accuracy.

To show precision in the etch of knuckles,

shaded in darkness.

There was never enough color.

There are so many

ways to look at one thing:

a church is violet against the changing sky,

the horizon set on fire into the back fall.

September sun crests different over

the yellow fields of the east

than the dirt of the city at dawn.

I prefer to paint at night.

I sketch my father twice,

struggling to do justice to the

rashes on the tips of fingers,

but my messages do not form easy.

The images I cross out

are more vital than those kept.

Instead of laying brick,

I layer strokes of finely charred sulfur lemon

removing the bright from the dark.

Pile one on top of the other.

Inspiration turns illusive

after the initial thread is cut,

displayed, set aside.

Too much coffee and wine,

too many sleepless nights,

strung too high.

Obsessed with ideal.

It is no wonder I always staggered home alone.

Unable to abandon canvas and easel

until the obtainment of perfection.

But how many masterpieces can

one man create?

It is only a matter of time

before I slip from the wall.

A chest wound,

self-inflicted,

in a field of wheat,

like so many I painted.

Surrounded by something

I find

beautiful.

Sunday Recap & Round and Round by Maggie Devers

Sun, 13 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Jul 7 - worlds without blueprints by Paper Trail Poetry @paper_trail_poetry on Instagram

Jul 8 - Fringford Brook by Violet Jacob

Jul 9 - The Eagle with Blue Feathers by Kimmery Moss @kimmerywrites on Instagram. Her book Wolf Mother: A New Love Story is out now. Wolf Words: A Poetry Subscription for Women

Jul 10 - To take death by Maggie Devers: @rembrandts.cure on Instagram. Her book, For My Daughter, is out now.

Jul 11 - I'm small, meek, pale and weak by Holly Fries @hollyf83 on Instagram.

Jul 12 - O, Cynthia by Cyn Grace Sylvie @cyngracesylvie and @greystrega on Instagram. And on Substack Cyn Grace, The Grey Strega

June 13 -

Round and Round

Maggie Devers

I can’t remember what it was

Musical chairs

And before that,

Let me grab it . . .

I missed it because I really wanted to know about musical chairs

I realized it’s an intuitive game—

The winners tune in to the music master

They know the song will stop before it will stop,

That slight inhalation

And they’re ready to sit

Before these rest

She almost made it to the final

Being in the last three

And I realized how much

She’s just like me

They played in the water

Then drank pineapple juice in the sun,

Knowing how to live so young

Ah, it was the bee

That she captured and “might not have made it

Or might have been very, very tired”

That was the thing

I remember now the music has stopped

And my mind no longer goes round in circles.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

O, Cynthia by Cyn Grace Sylvie

Sat, 12 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

O, Cynthia

Cyn Grace Sylvie

This poem was first published in The Dewdrop.

Feminine variation

The mound bending Delos Isle

Where she was born with her

Brighter brother; a white pearl sown

Upon a black dress quite becoming

Holy Roman epithet

Frigid daughter of Leto

Shouldering a slim bow

She rounds upon the sacred doe

An ancient beast; forever chasing

Grey sister, the Son of night

Held aloft for all to see

A mirror shield reflecting

That frozen serpent ever doomed

To consume itself, murdered then born

Virtuous Cynicism

Mispronunciation of

A Greek hero whose blood

Became the plant; precious namesake

Of my grandmother, gray-eyed and blind

We pass a glass between us,

One sharp tooth to tear and rend

This gold yarn ~ we dye red;

Wet chords passed mother to child while

She watches . . . pacing, quiet, unphased

Cyn Grace, The Grey Strega (she/they) is a queer-identified writer whose work explores the internal drives and subversive desires of human experience, through the lens of mythology, sensuality, diaspora and mysticism.
Cyn is a recipient of Epiphany Magazine’s 2017 Short Nonfiction Prize, and long-listed as a Notable Nonfiction Selection in ‘The Best American Essays of 2018’ (Mariner Books). Their writing has appeared in MATH Magazine, The Literary Review, The Dewdrop, and The Rumpus.
You can find them on Instagram @cyngracesylvie and @greystrega
And on Substack @greystrega Cyn Grace, The Grey Strega

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

I'm small, meek, pale and weak by Holly Fries

Fri, 11 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

I'm small, meek, pale and weak

I’ll break if you’re not cautious.

Watch your chosen words,

I’m tender, I’m innocent as well naive,

I break like glass, I burn, I ash.

I do not wish to hurt, you can

plainly see. I derive on your sensitivity.

Don’t take me the wrong way but,

Only the right, place me easily

upon the mantle, that is your spirit.

Let not your anger stir my passive heart.

I’ll snap, crack, crumble and break

entangled in sorrow for days,

So please be careful,

I’m fragile in many ways.

- Holly Fries

To take death by Maggie Devers

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

To take death

Maggie Devers

Chin hairs, on my grandma when she died.

My mother sick with regret.

We are all exposed in death

And she took it on

The chin

Hairs of my friend’s grandmother when she died.

A decade later and half a world away

And her mother’s similar despair.

Why didn’t I warn her?

How could I forget?

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

The Eagle with Blue Feathers by Kimmery Moss

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

The Eagle with Blue Feathers

Kimmery Moss

He falls asleep connected to me

His little lips on my chest

Hours later he wakes again for more

But I am no longer able

Supplies are low, desires are low

Mother is like an eagle who has been flying too long

I must perch upon my own soul and rest

I sing you to sleep this time

You claw at me and I am wounded

I read somewhere that OM calms babies

It was the first sound of the universe anyhow

How we know something that seems unknowable is irrelevant at four thirty four am

I OM something like twenty seven times before I lay you back down

My shoulder aches from my own doing

My stomach growls even though I filled it just hours before

My heart feels something akin to filling a bucket and simultaneously dumping it on frozen dirt

I will still be myself on the other side of this

though I will be different:

The eagle with blue feathers

Still circling the skies

Eyes on predators, eyes on the next meal

Only he does not want me in the skies

He wants me beside him, he wants me in his mouth, he wants me forever

The comfort is enough to burst my seams

The love is what I dreamt of when I set about creation

I would do it all exactly the way I did if the etch-a-sketch had been erased

had I the need to reckon and reassess

I'd retrace every last line with deft fingers

I'd stretch myself again for my own flesh

I'd feed every feed again, every time

no matter the blur of the hour

It's a wonder if we, mothers, ever feel whole again

our DNA walking the earth outside ourselves

not needing milk any longer

needing their own sustenance now-

the purpose driven gathering of information

every experience sought for its own dopamine goldmine.

Their own wings stretched wide

Their own eyes keen for what they need

It won't be mother soon.

How do I ever look back without longing?

It is true, it is

Time

The baby eagle has been sleeping for minutes already

and I circle still,

The skies are clear, but I circle still.

Fringford Brook by Violet Jacob

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Fringford Brook

Violet Jacob 1863 – 1946

The willows stand by Fringford brook,

From Fringford up to Hethe,

Sun on their cloudy silver heads,

And shadow underneath.

They ripple to the silent airs

That stir the lazy day,

Now whitened by their passing hands,

Now turned again to grey.

The slim marsh-thistle's purple plume

Droops tasselled on the stem,

The golden hawkweeds pierce like flame

The grass that harbours them;

Long drowning tresses of the weeds

Trail where the stream is slow,

The vapoured mauves of water-mint

Melt in the pools below;

Serenely soft September sheds

On earth her slumberous look,

The heartbreak of an anguished world

Throbs not by Fringford brook.

All peace is here. Beyond our range,

Yet 'neath the selfsame sky,

The boys that knew these fields of home

By Flemish willows lie.

They waded in the sun-shot flow,

They loitered in the shade,

Who trod the heavy road of death,

Jesting and unafraid.

Peace! What of peace? This glimpse of peace

Lies at the heart of pain,

For respite, ere the spirit's load

We stoop to lift again.

O load of grief, of faith, of wrath,

Of patient, quenchless will,

Till God shall ease us of your weight

We'll bear you higher still!

O ghosts that walk by Fringford brook,

'Tis more than peace you give,

For you, who knew so well to die,

Shall teach us how to live.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

worlds without blueprints by Paper Trail Poetry

Mon, 07 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

worlds without blueprints

Paper Trail Poetry

Letter blocks, green, blue, and red,

Are the only reading materials

For a solitary teddy bear

Lodged between two toy tractors

Collecting dust in the old toy chest

A myriad of memories sit dormant

In this attic abode, awaiting

A nostalgic itch to come searching

I know you remember those days where childlike wonder bloomed

As sun streamed through open windows,

Laughter filled the room,

And imaginations worked over time

To construct worlds without blueprints

Let these relics of your past reveal

A thread you never tugged on

To rekindle that quiet spark of joy

Sunday Recap & Found Art by Maggie Devers

Sun, 06 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Jun 30 - Someone, open me up by Lindsey @writing.by.lindsey on Instagram. She is currently working on a poetry book.

Jul 1 - Sonnet: To The Poppy by Anna Seward

Jul 2 - No one needs to invent time travel by Christiana Doucette. Her website: Christiana Doucette. @doucette515 on BlueSky, Instagram, Threads, and TikTok. Her haiku “sudden downpour” appears in Where the Mountains Were: A Helene Disaster Relief Haiku/Senryu Anthology. All the profits go to The Foundation for Lake Lure & Chimney Rock Area Businesses.

Jul 3 - She’s got a handle on it by Maggie Devers: @rembrandts.cure on Instagram. Her book, For My Daughter, is out now.

Jul 4 - The American by Connie Helena @journalof1000days on Instagram.

Jul 5 - Look it in the Mouth by Katie Gilmour @katie_jean_gilmour on Instagram.

June 29 -

Found Art

Maggie Devers

A stack of celluloid prints strewn in the street

Slowly coming undone

The top naked woman in an earthen room with a skylight

The roundness she mimics with her hands

And again with her breasts

In black and white

How tasteful it all was until she found her way to the street

Recently, since there were no tire marks

And I had to consider if it was intentional or chance that she was there

A careless photographer?

Or jilted lover exiting the contents from their home?

I took her with me

I wonder if she’ll be missed

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Look it in the Mouth by Katie Gilmour

Sat, 05 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Look it in the Mouth

Katie Gilmour

all I really want

is for you to make me

something only you can make

let it be a chore

let it take hours

let your back give out later

because of the way you had to stand

learn a craft for years

or even as a child

and then when I ask you for it

give it to me

carve the wax

pour the gold

pull the trigger

cut around those little feet

and peel the skin

pick up that pencil

and draw and write me

words that are true

give me the stories

you have kept

from me

before you die

and take them

all with you

The American by Connie Helena

Fri, 04 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

The American

Connie Helena

in repose

I chose

a bit of small white coral

hidden in my pocket

so as not to get caught

collecting at the beach

has gone out of favor

my rebellion

it is so tiny

get me off this rock

I like the rainbows

but something is not right here

something is dead here

in my pocket

and now I am carrying it home

She’s got a handle on it by Maggie Devers

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

She’s got a handle on it

Maggie Devers

She won’t let me clean the dirt from under her nails

She holds onto it as a matter of distinction,

An indication of her interests.

The grey, opaque polish covers it completely

But not the pink sparkles.

Both will degrade equally

To reveal the dark line still in place,

But this will take a day or two.

Now it’s time for bed

Sleep well, I tell her

Her response,

I will!

Rings of with the certainty

Of fresh nails.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

No one needs to invent time travel by Christiana Doucette

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

First published in The Thieving Magpie

No one needs to invent time travel

It’s already here. We’re already traveling.

The slam of a door layers then with now.

Raised voices split screen brains

send us back to prisms of pain.

The moment of terror as the airplane turns just so.

Oh, sky that certain clear cold blue, we go

back. We are washing dishes here

suds between our fingers. Indoor. But fear

places us in the car. Plays the announcers

voice crumbling like block towers. Fall.

Time travel exists inside us all. Thinning reality.

What we need to invent is a way away from time’s debris.

A failsafe to replace ache, mistake, heartbreak

with joy. With birds singing clear and sweet, laughter

echoing down the street. Ice pops running down chins,

grins between grandparents. Transparent moments

when the sun shone through the clouds. Just. That. Way.

Golden molasses dough rolled in sugar. Crinkled cookies

cooling on the counter. The need is plain.

We just need time travel that isn’t to pain.

- Christiana Doucette

Sonnet: To the Poppy by Anna Seward

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Sonnet: To the Poppy

Anna Seward 1742 – 1809

While summer roses all their glory yield

To crown the votary of love and joy,

Misfortune’s victim hails, with many a sigh,

Thee, scarlet Poppy of the pathless field,

Gaudy, yet wild and lone; no leaf to shield

Thy flaccid vest that, as the gale blows high,

Flaps, and alternate folds around thy head.

So stands in the long grass a love-crazed maid,

Smiling aghast; while stream to every wind

Her garish ribbons, smeared with dust and rain;

But brain-sick visions cheat her tortured mind,

And bring false peace. Thus, lulling grief and pain,

Kind dreams oblivious from thy juice proceed,

Thou flimsy, showy, melancholy weed.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Someone, open me up by Lindsey

Mon, 30 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Someone,

open me up.

Fillet me,

from my shoulder blades,

kneed out the knots I’ve collected

throughout the years.

Flip me over and crack open my ribcage,

lungs deflated,

heart popping out at you like a jack-in-the-box.

Pour bleach down my airways,

forget other aesthetics

and make me pure like a candy cigarette.

cut out my heart,

Rumor has it that it's beaten for too long.

Look inside,

see the heart string that broke,

the thinning of the aortic valve.

I hear my liver is rotten,

kidneys growing mushrooms;

my throat’s got a hole in it,

my tongue growing blue.

Put a heart-shaped patch

over every hole I've made, give me new, paper maché organs,

ones I can’t feel in my chest.

Give me taffy heart strings

in a cotton candy heart,

pump me with helium,

and sew me back together with

ribbon and maybe,

just maybe,

I’ll be okay.

- Lindsey

Sunday Recap & Whir by Maggie Devers

Sun, 29 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Jun 23 - Hunger, as Salvation by Ariel K. Moniz: @kiss.of.the.seventh.star on Instagram. Her chapbook, Nostos Algos, is published with Ethel, a Micro Press.

Jun 24 - Shadows by Harriet Monroe

Jun 25 - playing god by Michaela Godding: @michaelagodding on Instagram. Her book, the year our grandmothers died, from AOS Publishing will be released February 2026. Her chapbook, Dwelling, is out now from Bottlecap Press.

Jun 26 - Inheritance by Maggie Devers: @rembrandts.cure on Instagram. Her book, For My Daughter, is out now.

Jun 27 - Gender Affirming Care by Nikki Grierson: @poeticallynikki on Instagram.

Jun 28 - fatal dance - a love story between fire and wood by velvetpoetess: @velvetpoetess on Instagram

June 29 -

Whir

Maggie Devers

The flower falls from the tree

And floats in the water

Animated in her demise.

That she’s held on this long,

To the middle of September,

Is remarkable

Then again it’s warm

And these days summer stays

The girl teaches me tricks

Bossy described this type in the olden days–

Back in the eighties when they still spanked kids,

She’s heard the stories.

But I want to protect her from bossy

I think as the hummingbird hovers

Wondering what to do with flowers in the pool

Chirping noisily to protect the nectar still enthroned in the tree

Not bossy, just direct

As more flowers fall

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

fatal dance - a love story between fire and wood by Velvet Poetess

Sat, 28 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

fatal dance - a love story between fire and wood

Velvet Poetess

there is this certain hunger

a hunger that cannot be satisfied by

another but you

I reach out my hand

don’t let it be in vain

for we both know how this shall end; let us

at least celebrate it properly

dance til death with me

let us light up this world one last time

before my hunger will have been forever

satisfied;

before the only remains of your existence

are smoke and ashes

Gender Affirming Care by Nikki Grierson

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Gender Affirming Care

Nikki Grierson

When I was a girl

Little flurries of hair

Began to sprout

Here and there

At first I didn’t notice

But then something made me care

What if other people see,

Will they point and stare?

This worry, grew in my mind

As I studied the weekly magazine

Where cover girls were smooth

Their skin had a beautiful sheen

Was I a “proper girl”

Like those in “Just Seventeen”

So I began to study

The art of hair removal

Wanting so badly

To gain my peers approval

As to be accepted as a woman

Becoming hairless seemed crucial

Of course I was told

“You are far too young”

“Don’t worry about that, just keep having fun”

But I stopped wearing shorts

In the days that came with sun

And at night I would toss, and I would turn

For me, gender affirming care had most certainly begun

Now it’s triggered

It was here to stay

If I was becoming a woman

I had to look a certain way

Clothing now more important

Than the games I used to play

I started to wish for boobs

I even began to pray!

Eventually we all had bras

And fruity glossy lips

But then came something else

I wanted those womanly hips!

Society was infecting me

With its binary gender grips

And here we are today

Things have gotten worse

As filtered fake images

Keep our hands in our pink purse

Then those trying to demonise

Those who want to live free, diverse

Assuming those who are different

Are nothing but perverse

Helping to maintain the patriarchal curse

Inheritance by Maggie Devers

Thu, 26 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Inheritance

Maggie Devers

She tells me she likes the new side

Where they eat pomegranates all day

And her life

Sounds like an ancient poem

Chanted down the ages

To her at six.

I wonder if the myths are always in us

And we ache to relive them through art

She says meditate instead of pray

And Stracciatella instead of chocolate chip

And I think that’s a generational vernacular shift in the right direction

She holds the scrunchie open and pulls her hair through

At the final pass she stops halfway, a poor man’s bun

And I wonder what’s inherited and what’s instinct.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

playing god by Michaela Godding

Wed, 25 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

playing god

Michaela Godding

(The average person forgets ninety percent of their dreams. I have started keeping tallies on a notepad next to my bed to keep track of all the forgetting. I wonder if endings are all we can rely on. I wonder and wonder and remember that eighty percent of the human body’s heat comes out from the head and I wonder if wondering will burn me to pieces.)

They say that life is easier when you are younger, that you can breathe and swallow at the same time until you are seven months old, that as a four-year-old you ask approximately four hundred and fifty questions a day. They say that what you can’t control you should put in god’s hands. My hands have twenty-seven bones, twenty-nine joints and at least one hundred and twenty-three other named ligaments but I wonder. I wonder about the unnamed ones. I wonder about the fifty thousand cells that will die and be replaced in the body by the time you finish reading this sentence.

Shadows by Harriet Monroe

Tue, 24 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Shadows

Harriet Monroe 1860 – 1936

What is most near?

Ah, sweet dead year-

Thy fallen leaf

And gathered sheaf,

The presence that is fled,

The vows that once were said-

These are most near.

Swift speeds away

Rose-crowned To-day.

So far, so far

Her light feet are!

I look and see thy face

Haunting the upland place,

Dear Yesterday.

The blooming flowers,

The sunny hours-

These cannot rest,

These are half blest.

But thou forevermore

Art mine, love, as of yore,

And time is ours.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Hunger, as Salvation by Ariel K. Moniz

Mon, 23 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Hunger, as Salvation

Ariel K. Moniz

This moment, sun speckled and innocent—

I speak of prophecies, i plant seeds

of affection in your perfect, peachy ears,

and it means that I am thinking of tomorrow.

I await their blooming like all great pleasures,

though i do not know in what season they may come

or what balm of tenderness they may carry to me

as you lay your head upon the pillow beside mine.

I hope for lavender to calm me and bring the bees,

those little archangels of better days and July nights,

or rosemary, to remind me what it is to desire you,

like a meal hours off but simmering, a promise

that spills out the late afternoon windows.

This moment here, sun drenched and priceless

soothes like sitting down to the dinner table

filled with the sun-bronzed faces of dear ones,

or the first bite of that long labored meal.

I want the lingering afternoon hours of waiting.

I want to feel the hunger rumble in my stomach

thick and as alive as August storms, if it is for you.

I want to pine for the taste, that savory relief

and I want it every day of this wandering life.

I want to know you, long summer day

gelato-fingered savior, who I long for.

I want to know you, and I want to know

in my sunshine bones that the craving

is just as blissful as the full belly.

Sunday Recap & Cold Blood by Maggie Devers

Sun, 22 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Jun 16 - Midlife Calculus by Britt Kaufmann: @brittwriter on Instagram. Her website: brittkaufmann.com. Her book, Midlife Calculus, is out now from Press 53

Jun 17 - Swans by Sara Teasdale

Jun 18 - Pollen Count by Danielle Marie Cahill: @daniellecahillwriter on Instagram. This poem is published in The Quarter(ly).

Jun 19 - She has a new god by Maggie Devers: @rembrandts.cure on Instagram. Her book, For My Daughter, is out now.

Jun 20 - Him by Christy Granger: @christysdigitalhaven on Instagram. Her book, Broken By Beauty: The Beauty of Broken Bonds, is out now.

Jun 21 - After I Lost Him by Barbara Ehrentreu

Jun 22 -

Cold Blood

Maggie Devers

In cold blood

Bones ache

Seraphim choke

On their holy words

Songs frozen

In mute frequency

Electric hums quiet

Lights flicker out

Fire dims

Collapsed, a final sigh

Nothing moves

In cold blood

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

After I Lost Him by Barbara Ehrentreu

Sat, 21 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

After I Lost Him

Barbara Ehrentreu

The sun still shined

Though its rays didn't warm me

Encased in my shell of grief

My body felt neither heart not cold

One entire side of me was lost

Lopsided I stayed indoors

Not attempting to face the world alone

Teetering in uneven terrain

I tried navigating by myself

Dipping my toe into the water of being alone

And gradually I mended

Put together with strands of tenderness cemented with passing time

Him by Christy Granger

Fri, 20 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Him

Christy Granger

This wasn’t supposed to happen

You were not supposed to happen

What a special ability you have

I do not trust easily

I do not trust at all

I gave up on love years ago

It was not for me

The torture it brought was too much for me

Here I am

What is happening

This is not like me

I will not fall for anyone ever again

I am a strong independent woman

What do i need a man for

For the way you make me feel

Never in my life has this happened to me

I would like to say it had

What a foreign concept

Safe

I have never really felt safe

Calm

What is that

Trust

How do I trust you so completely

This doesn’t make sense

How did you do that with such ease

I do not love

I do not like

I do not trust

Love was for suckers

I had no time for it at all

Maybe I trust men after all

Maybe I don’t hate all of them

Maye they don’t all hate me

Maybe they don’t all want to hurt me

My experiences with men have never been good

Just once I wish they were

She has a new god by Maggie Devers

Thu, 19 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

She has a new god

Maggie Devers

Her god is ecstatic dancing

Surrender to the music, feel the beat in your marrow, your feet planted, the earth holds you, spin with her, faster and faster, until all that remains is pure joy

Her god is Italy

Motorbikes and cycles with bells and churches with bells and 14th century art and a sore neck from looking at domes and gelato

Her god is her children

Soft bellies, chubby cheeks, that divine scent at the top of their heads, bath time, first words, crawling, walking, the rise and fall of a chest, eyes closed, blink and you’ll miss it magic

Her god is poetry

Words flow through our most complex parts and hand us empathy, stanzas give rhythm to the day, lines whispered in the night bind our wounds, we heal letter by letter

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Pollen Count by Danielle Marie Cahill

Wed, 18 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Pollen Count

Danielle Marie Cahill

This poem first appeared in The Quarter(ly).

My computer tells me the weather

There is a high pollen count today

As if that matters deeply to someone

Imprisoned in a glass tower

At night, my daughter asks if I saw the rain

She mimics the pattering noise with her

Fingers over the mound of the duvet

I pretend I did.

The she reminds me how in February

We stuck out our tongues to feel snowflakes

Falling–so gentle and so cold

We both catch imaginary wisps for a while

I tell her that I love the rain

Tomorrow, I must go outside to feel the drops

On my face–not learn about it far too late

In the left-hand corner of my shining screen

Swans by Sara Teasdale

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Swans

Sara Teasdale 1884 – 1933

Night is over the park, and a few brave stars

Look on the lights that link it with chains of gold,

The lake bears up their reflection in broken bars

That seem to heavy for tremulous water to hold.

We watch the swans that sleep in a shadowy place,

And now and again one wakes and uplifts its head;

How still you are—your gaze is on my face—

We watch the swans and never a word is said.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Midlife Calculus by Britt Kaufmann

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Midlife Calculus

Britt Kaufmann

Edited by Dava Sobel

View the poem in Scientific American

Sunday Recap & This can’t be the end of the world by Maggie Devers

Sun, 15 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Jun 9 - Last Fog at Sunrise by Travers Charron: @the_inkwellian on Threads, Scattering Poem Seeds on Substack. His tanka and haiku collection, Glass Shadows, is available now. Currently he is preparing his first full-length poetry collection, Thunderclap Heart, for submission later this year.

Jun 10 - A Jelly-Fish by Marianne Moore

Jun 11 - “Tell me…” a poem by Margaux Paul: @margauxpoetry on Instagram, Margaux Paul on Substack. Her book, Unsent Letters, is out now.

Jun 12 - History in Art by Maggie Devers

Jun 13 - I look for the Holy Fuck in everything I see. by Jo Guzman: @mjvcoast & @_acuppajo on Instagram. Her books, Craving & 28, are out now.

Jun 14 - the body idea by Bree North: @zenmischief on Instagram

June 15 -

This can’t be the end of the world

Maggie Devers

I finally super-glued my daughter’s doll furniture back together

It’s only been two Christmases since I meant to do that

We’ve come too far to end here.

She hasn’t started to read yet, but she’s close.

She weaves stories in her head

And layers them on her day

Living two lives at once

What is real anyway?

I can’t get rid of the nagging feeling that this is it

She stays in the IKEA kids’ space and I panic something terrible will happen

I don’t know why

But when I come back she’s in a powerful stance at the chalkboard easel

Holding on to make something important

To show her new friend

To share their art, their spirit

And that image grounds me

To keep on for now and not despair,

This isn’t the end.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

the body idea by Bree North

Sat, 14 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

the body idea

Bree North

I know i am not my body

But if i were

I would remember just long enough

For memory to mean imprints

I would be curious as corneas

Whiten with fear like follicles

Wired up from the inside

Disease could be free to teach me

Like feldspar fragments or meteorology

According to some holy math

And I wouldn’t even wonder about it

I would be water and dirt

That’s it.

Every hand would be the same

The same like elastic on my joggers

Plastic comb fingers

God, how i would harden up when starved

And soften when i am fed

I look for the Holy Fuck in everything I see. by Jo Guzman

Fri, 13 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

I look for the Holy Fuck in everything I see.

Jo Guzman

—after Courtney Love

I look for the Holy Fuck in everything I see.

I wanna whisper Wow, Wow, Wow and have no idea I am even whispering it like a child

Until someone with a dick smaller than mine tells me to Shush.

I tell him to Fuck Off.

Wow me, Life!

Holy Fuck that is hot!

You with those red lips

In those vintage boots from Paris.

That time you got so fucking lost on Rue LeFebvre

And needed that damn Google maps to tell you where to go.

Stupid AI.

Yet it led me to you.

Where I get to see the reflection of my own greatness

In the eyes of someone who also understands

This is a made up Life

One made up of simple moments.

The Now.

The Right Here.

Because we are all gonna die.

And I want stories of being lost in the Holy Fucks.

Because you know what?

I am finally free.

Because I decided to stop giving any fucks

Unless, of course, they are holy.

Life is Holy.

Go on.

Be your Bad Ass Self.

History in Art by Maggie Devers

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

History in Art

Maggie Devers

My husband tells me I have a twentieth century ass

And that’s a type of poem.

Rubens put touches of red on his angels' rears,

Literally rogue on cheeks

And I feel that’s what this world is missing—

More blushed bottoms

More naked debauchery

More holy stories

We laugh out loud at some of the babies,

Old man newborn is forever the haha trope,

The mortality, ever life, after life, reincarnation, universal oneness

Created for us by some Flemish dude

Appeasing his benefactor.

Before time’s up

And we walk down the mountain back to life.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

“Tell me…” a poem by Margaux Paul

Wed, 11 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

"TELL ME, WHAT IS IT YOU PLAN TO DO WITH YOUR ONE WILD AND PRECIOUS LIFE?"

-Mary Oliver

I plan on washing my sheets, cooking pasta, and cleaning

broken glass off the kitchen floor quickly lest it cut up any

little feet. I plan on eating peaches in the summer and

oysters only in months that end in -er because that's what

my mother taught me. I plan on making lovers out of poetry

and poetry out of lovers. I plan to eat tomato salad with

salt, oil, and hot French bread while my cousin regales me

with her stories. I will swallow the bitterness of missing

entire years together. I plan to say bless you when someone

sneezes. Excuse me when I pass them by. I plan to forgive

—even the people who don't deserve it. I plan on giving

loneliness a warm place in my bed when I need her. I plan

on hosting dinner parties and listening to my friend's

laughter in the half-light of evening. I plan on sending the

letter. I plan on falling in love often. Often, with the wrong

people, which will make the right one's love go down like

milk and honey. I plan on making mistakes, making love,

getting sunburnt, and still basking in the sunlight.

What is it I plan to do with my one wild and precious life?

Mary, I intend to live it.

-Margaux Paul

A Jelly-Fish by Marianne Moore

Tue, 10 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

A Jelly-Fish

Marianne Moore 1887 – 1972

Visible, invisible,

A fluctuating charm,

An amber-colored amethyst

Inhabits it; your arm

Approaches, and

It opens and

It closes;

You have meant

To catch it,

And it shrivels;

You abandon

Your intent—

It opens, and it

Closes and you

Reach for it—

The blue

Surrounding it

Grows cloudy, and

It floats away

From you.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Last Fog at Sunrise by Travers Charron

Mon, 09 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Last Fog at Sunrise

Travers Charron

If life stretched on forever,

would we still kneel in the wild mint

just to listen to the wind?

It’s the fire burning low

that draws us near.

The song, fading

that makes us sing.

The morning mist lifting

that reveals the deer

in the clearing.

Grief is not just absence–

it’s the overflow

of all we didn’t say,

the touch we postponed,

a life paused too long

on someday.

We are each

a breath on glass,

a shadow just beginning to fall.

One day,

we’ll rise

as the last fog at sunrise–

already vanishing

as the light arrives.

Sof if you love,

say so.

If something stirs you,

listen.

The morning comes quickly.

And the fog

never stays.

Sunday Recap & Spin the Weekend by Maggie Devers

Sun, 08 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

Jun 2 - cream soda by Stephanie Valente, Portals on Substack, @stephanie.maria.valente on Instagram; her book, Internet Girlfriend, is out now

Jun 3 - Lines Written At Thorp Green by Anne Bronte

Jun 4 - Honey by Debbie Radford, @debbiearadford on Instagram and TikTok; her book, The Enchanted Cottage, is out now

Jun 5 - Because that is all it is. by Maggie Devers

Jun 6 - I open a book by Joanne Witzkowski, @a.wannie on Threads & Instagram

Jun 7 - Goodnight, Yesterday by Nichole Johnson on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Threads; her two books: Love, Death, and Other Distractions, a Collection of Poetry & Circling The Downward Spiral

June 8 -

Spin the Weekend

Maggie Devers

The beasts are brunching

With a Saturday fervor

That excites me.

The valet nearly got hit by a car,

Or I nearly ran into him,

As he stepped boldly into traffic.

He knows his purpose is greater than mine,

And I know it too,

These four hours to let it all go.

I cannot quibble with the revelers

Who watch in amazement

As the plates keep spinning.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Goodnight, Yesterday by Nichole Johnson

Sat, 07 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Goodnight, Yesterday

Nichole Johnson

I thought

My heart might die loudly–

Thunder cracking,

Lightening

Grinding stone to sand.

But–

It is quiet.

It withers

In my ribcage,

Like a heavy fog–

The last breath

Of midnight

Softly tiptoeing

Towards dawn.

I open a book by Joanne Witzkowski

Fri, 06 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

I open a book.

One brittle flower falls,

Shudders into dust.

No flicker of flame

Could be as beautiful

and as burning

and as brief

As the memories

that perfumed powder

evokes.

- Joanne Witzkowski

Because that is all it is. by Maggie Devers

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Because that is all it is.

Maggie Devers

I want to know your process

So I can make it with you

The way you sketch until your nails are packed with graphite

And your warm hands smell of wood shavings and masking tape

I could hold them to my nose and die happy

I want to know how you change

So I can be there with you

As you chop off your hair

Let your eyebrows grow wilder and abandon heels for Birks.

Even your feet are now free

Tell me what makes your heart grow

And mine will grow too

How you smell the top of a baby’s head watching the sun dip over the ocean.

There’s a margarita with salt in your hand

And the lime stings at your cuticle, but it’s a good hurt.

Show me the hidden parts of you

So I can see all of you

The way you shield yourself from criticism

Even your own. How you fight for everyone

But yourself. How you believe these parts are more hidden than they are.

Know I am here for the process.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Honey by Debbie Radford

Wed, 04 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Honey

Debbie Radford

Honey pools in the dip of my waist.

It flows like warm sunlight down my thighs.

Every curve a golden river,

every step a supple pour.

Like a honeycomb,

my body is textured and endless,

mailable like bees wax,

with threads of dripping sweetness

curling around my hips.

My skin gleams like amber

in the late afternoon-

something one cannot help but savor.

I wear the curves of my body

like sugar silk-

soft, lustrous, and shimmering

in a sunshine touch.

I am the sap of my creation,

overflowing in luxury

I melt into the depths of my form,

as smooth as nectar's fall-slow and sure.

Each layer of me ripened in richness,

and oozing in flavor.

Lines Written At Thorp Green by Anne Brontë

Tue, 03 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Lines Written At Thorp Green

Anne Brontë 1820 – 1849

That summer sun, whose genial glow

Now cheers my drooping spirit so

Must cold and distant be,

And only light our northern clime

With feeble ray, before the time

I long so much to see.

And this soft whispering breeze that now

So gently cools my fevered brow,

This too, alas, must turn

To a wild blast whose icy dart

Pierces and chills me to the heart,

Before I cease to mourn.

And these bright flowers I love so well,

Verbena, rose and sweet bluebell,

Must droop and die away.

Those thick green leaves with all their shade

And rustling music, they must fade

And every one decay.

But if the sunny summer time

And woods and meadows in their prime

Are sweet to them that roam

Far sweeter is the winter bare

With long dark nights and landscapes drear

To them that are at Home!

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

cream soda by Stephanie Valente

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

cream soda

Stephanie Valente

Glamor is a spell. I want to feel glamorous.

Imagine this: being born from Aphrodite’s ocean

pearls. Foamy, iridescent, shimmery, and moody

all over. I bet it’s gorgeous. It's the kind of

feeling when you take the first sip of cream

soda. That kind of confidence is the real beauty.

Honey. I was hand carved by the gods. You

can’t bring me down.

Sunday Recap & Commence by Maggie Devers

Sun, 01 Jun 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

May 26 - St. Pancras Station, August 1915 by Vera Brittain

May 27 - The Coliseum by Edgar Allan Poe

May 28 - The garden path and all that jazz by Anisha SenGupta Yanger @anishasgy

May 29 - Did you know? by Maggie Devers

May 30 - Long, Too Long America by Walt Whitman

May 31 - The Wish, By a Young Lady by Laetitia Pilkington

Jun 1 -

Commence

Maggie Devers

It’s a magical place

Where you can do anything

And leaving is never easy.

So go slowly now,

The trees whisper through the windows.

Gather those drawings etched with your name

As I taught you so long ago

To offer—a remembering of all to come.

You know this is your path,

Paved with the prints of others

In chalk, paint, sand and sweat

But the quest is yours alone,

And you will find your way.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

The Wish, By a Young Lady by Laetitia Pilkington

Sat, 31 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

The Wish, By a Young Lady

Laetitia Pilkington 1709 – 1750

I ask not wit, nor beauty do I crave,

Nor wealth, nor pompous titles wish to have;

But since, 'tis doomed through all degrees of life,

Whether a daughter, sister, or a wife;

That females should the stronger males obey,

And yield implicit to their lordly sway;

Since this, I say, is ev'ry woman's fate,

Give me a mind to suit my slavish state.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Long, Too Long America by Walt Whitman

Fri, 30 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Long, Too Long America

Walt Whitman 1819 – 1892

Long, too long America,

Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn'd from joys and prosperity only,

But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, grappling with direst fate and recoiling not,

And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en-masse really are,

(For who except myself has yet conceiv'd what your children en-masse really are?)

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Did you know? by Maggie Devers

Thu, 29 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Did you know?

Maggie Devers

The divine feminine loves to find trouble and commune

To cannonball into the pool just to make waves

And feel the splash back

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

The garden path and all that jazz by Anisha SenGupta Yanger

Wed, 28 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

The garden path and all that jazz

Anisha SenGupta Yanger

Often enough,

the ziplock splits

the bones crash,

and I can feel the days presence all too well,

the particles of my cerebellum,

caught unawares

just like the watchtower

its not able to keep track

of the salubrious

needs and has put together

a search of sorts, futile in time,

a calibrated onset of old and new, a used photo, a preset to an onset, a zap

a heart lurch,

a momentary confusion,

another parable, exiting the marrow

so entrenched in the dailies but flying high, the lines

been drawn,

3 times over at least and

on the invisible one, the tropics heaving over my shoulder, where not a drop of water was to be found

But Ares sits, amused,

I move quiet

intently,

winding my way around atonement

the belly of the beast

fed, distracted for a moment,

and the equal measure of pain and passion

steady, at least for a, moment.

The Coliseum by Edgar Allan Poe

Tue, 27 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

The Coliseum

Edgar Allan Poe 1809 – 1849

Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary

Of lofty contemplation left to Time

By buried centuries of pomp and power!

At length—at length—after so many days

Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst,

(Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,)

I kneel, an altered and an humble man,

Amid thy shadows, and so drink within

My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory!

Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld!

Silence! and Desolation! and dim Night!

I feel ye now—I feel ye in your strength—

O spells more sure than e’er Judaean king

Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane! Geth sen a me

O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee kalee

Ever drew down from out the quiet stars!

Here, where a hero fell, a column falls!

Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold,

A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat!

Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair

Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle!

Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled,

Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home,

Lit by the wanlight—wan light of the horned moon,

The swift and silent lizard of the stones!

But stay! these walls—these ivy-clad arcades—

These mouldering plinths—these sad and blackened shafts—

These vague entablatures—this crumbling frieze—

These shattered cornices—this wreck—this ruin—

These stones—alas! these gray stones—are they all—

All of the famed, and the colossal left

By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me?

“Not all”—the Echoes answer me—“not all!

“Prophetic sounds and loud, arise forever

“From us, and from all Ruin, unto the wise,

“As melody from Memnon to the Sun.

“We rule the hearts of mightiest men—we rule

“With a despotic sway all giant minds.

“We are not impotent—we pallid stones.

“Not all our power is gone—not all our fame—

“Not all the magic of our high renown—

“Not all the wonder that encircles us—

“Not all the mysteries that in us lie—

“Not all the memories that hang upon

“And cling around about us as a garment,

“Clothing us in a robe of more than glory.”

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

St. Pancras Station, August 1915 by Vera Brittain

Mon, 26 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

St. Pancras Station, August 1915

Vera Brittain 1893 – 1970

One long, sweet kiss pressed close upon my lips,

One moment's rest on your swift-beating heart,

And all was over, for the hour had come

For us to part.

A sudden forward motion of the train,

The world grown dark although the sun still shone,

One last blurred look through aching tear-dimmed eyes—

And you were gone.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Sunday Recap & She was in her prime by Maggie Devers

Sun, 25 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

May 19 - Fides, Spes by Willa Cather

May 20 - Love by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

May 21 - Storm Chaser by Melanie Hess

May 22 - During this year's lunar eclipse by Maggie Devers

May 23 - The Visionary by Emily Brontë

May 24 - Spring Storm by William Carlos Williams

May 25 -

She was in her prime

And she knew it.

It wasn’t just the swagger,

It was her ain’t give a damn

About any of it.

She could wake up

And be

Whatever she wanted

To be.

She could transform herself in the moment

Burn and rise from the ashes

Unsheathe her sword to vanquish foes

Cuddle the cat as the rain rambles down

Anything she wants

To be

Is hers

She knows

The prison of identity is only in the mind

And she’s limbered hers up over the years

Studying chameleons and flying squirrels

To learn the ways of flashing in the light.

- Maggie Devers

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Spring Storm by William Carlos Williams

Sat, 24 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Spring Storm

William Carlos Williams 1883 – 1963

The sky has given over

its bitterness.

Out of the dark change

all day long

rain falls and falls

as if it would never end.

Still the snow keeps

its hold on the ground.

But water, water

from a thousand runnels!

It collects swiftly,

dappled with black

cuts a way for itself

through green ice in the gutters.

Drop after drop it falls

from the withered grass-stems

of the overhanging embankment.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

The Visionary by Emily Brontë

Fri, 23 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

The Visionary

Emily Brontë 1818 – 1848

Silent is the house: all are laid asleep:

One alone looks out o’er the snow-wreaths deep,

Watching every cloud, dreading every breeze

That whirls the wildering drift, and bends the groaning trees.

Cheerful is the hearth, soft the matted floor;

Not one shivering gust creeps through pane or door;

The little lamp burns straight, its rays shoot strong and far:

I trim it well, to be the wanderer’s guiding-star.

Frown, my haughty sire! chide, my angry dame!

Set your slaves to spy; threaten me with shame:

But neither sire nor dame nor prying serf shall know,

What angel nightly tracks that waste of frozen snow.

What I love shall come like visitant of air,

Safe in secret power from lurking human snare;

What loves me, no word of mine shall e’er betray,

Though for faith unstained my life must forfeit pay.

Burn, then, little lamp; glimmer straight and clear—

Hush! a rustling wing stirs, methinks, the air:

He for whom I wait, thus ever comes to me;

Strange Power! I trust thy might; trust thou my constancy.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

During this year's lunar eclipse by Maggie Devers

Thu, 22 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

During this year's lunar eclipse

Maggie Devers

I misplaced my shot glass

And over-poured my negronis

Or what's it called with port instead of vermouth?

It doesn't really matter.

We floated on together

I booked tickets for Disneyland

And wrote stories that confused me

The next morning

It doesn't really matter.

Except I woke up thirsty

Me, perpetually thirsty

Soaking up the water

And drowning myself in gin

Wherever you go, there you are

So they say.

So here I am

Pulled by the moon

Like the ocean's tides

Feeling out of control

In these rhythms of my life.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Storm Chaser by Melanie Hess

Wed, 21 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Storm Chaser

Melanie Hess

last week the riverbed cracked,

its veins like autumn leaves,

plows and combines idle in fields

dinosaurs on the verge of extinction

my joints simmer

with arms and legs splayed star-shaped

in an old plantation rocker

I imagine the wettest place on earth

and watch a scout ant migrate up the kitchen tap

in search of water for the queen

the sky shifts mood

releasing a peaty potpourri

the squall appears windward.

I grab the monkey on my back

we gobble the rain

jabbering whirling eddies

my skirt swirling like Carmen Miranda

Love by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Tue, 20 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Love

Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806 – 1861

We cannot live, except thus mutually

We alternate, aware or unaware,

The reflex act of life: and when we bear

Our virtue onward most impulsively,

Most full of invocation, and to be

Most instantly compellant, certes, there

We live most life, whoever breathes most air

And counts his dying years by sun and sea.

But when a soul, by choice and conscience, doth

Throw out her full force on another soul,

The conscience and the concentration both make

mere life, Love. For Life in perfect whole

And aim consummated, is Love in sooth,

As nature's magnet-heat rounds pole with pole.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Fides, Spes by Willa Cather

Mon, 19 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Fides, Spes

Willa Cather 1873 – 1947

Joy is come to the little

Everywhere;

Pink to the peach and pink to the apple,

White to the pear.

Stars are come to the dogwood,

Astral, pale;

Mists are pink on the red-bud,

Veil after veil.

Flutes for the feathery locusts,

Soft as spray;

Tongues of the lovers for chestnuts, poplars,

Babbling May.

Yellow plumes for the willows’

Wind-blown hair;

Oak trees and sycamores only

Comfortless bare.

Sore from steel and the watching,

Somber and old,—

Wooing robes for the beeches, larches,

Splashed with gold;

Breath o’ love to the lilac,

Warm with noon.—

Great hearts cold when the little

Beat mad so soon.

What is their faith to bear it

Till it come,

Waiting with rain-cloud and swallow,

Frozen, dumb?

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Sunday Recap & Proportions by Maggie Devers

Sun, 18 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

May 12 - We never know how high we are (1176) by Emily Dickinson

May 13 - The Dream by Edna St. Vincent Millay

May 14 - Letter #14 of 36 from The Marilyn Rising: Letters to Marilyn by GiGi

May 15 - Brood by Maggie Devers

May 16 - Verse for a Certain Dog by Dorothy Parker

May 17 - Dewdrops by Myra Viola Wilds

May 18 -

Proportions

Maggie Devers

I went to Catalonia the week past

And can't get Gala out of my mind

It's as if Dali is inhabiting me,

And all I think about is my muse

She was luminous with her swans

And then I saw them stuffed in the library.

That was a bit much,

But it all was

That's why we like it.

Atomic Leda, what have we made?

Suspended, untouching forever

Floating on the planes to sea

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Dewdrops by Myra Viola Wilds

Sat, 17 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Dewdrops

Myra Viola Wilds

Watch the dewdrops in the morning,

Shake their little diamond heads,

Sparkling, flashing, ever moving,

From their silent little beds.

See the grass! Each blade is brightened,

Roots are strengthened by their stay;

Like the dewdrops, let us scatter

Gems of love along the way.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Verse for a Certain Dog by Dorothy Parker

Fri, 16 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Verse for a Certain Dog

Dorothy Parker 1893 – 1967

Such glorious faith as fills your limpid eyes,

Dear little friend of mine, I never knew.

All-innocent are you, and yet all-wise.

(For heaven’s sake, stop worrying that shoe!)

You look about, and all you see is fair;

This mighty globe was made for you alone.

Of all the thunderous ages, you’re the heir.

(Get off the pillow with that dirty bone!)

A skeptic world you face with steady gaze;

High in young pride you hold your noble head;

Gayly you meet the rush of roaring days.

(Must you eat puppy biscuit on the bed?)

Lancelike your courage, gleaming swift and strong,

Yours the white rapture of a wingèd soul,

Yours is a spirit like a May-day song.

(God help you, if you break the goldfish bowl!)

“Whatever is, is good,” your gracious creed.

You wear your joy of living like a crown.

Love lights your simplest act, your every deed.

(Drop it, I tell you—put that kitten down!)

You are God’s kindliest gift of all,—a friend.

Your shining loyalty unflecked by doubt,

You ask but leave to follow to the end.

(Couldn’t you wait until I took you out?)

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Brood by Maggie Devers

Thu, 15 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Brood

Maggie Devers

The three hens at my daughter’s school

Are oblivious to egg prices

Concerned with lunch scraps

And the stray termite

And their stair perch when the sun dips low

I wonder how they spend evenings and weekends

If they miss the sound of childsong

Or the Sunday scaries set in

I imagine they commune with their comrades

Offer jokes and such for trade

My daughter assures me chickens dislike the mud

And I'm inclined to believe her

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Letter #14 of 36 from "The Marilyn Rising: Letters to Marilyn" by GiGi

Wed, 14 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Letter #14 of 36 from The Marilyn Rising: Letters to Marilyn

GiGi

Dearest Marilyn,

Why didn't you speak up? Why didn't you say something?

All of the moments where you kept silence as your secret lover, why didn't you just scream?!

I'm just now learning that my rage is sacred so, pardon me for wanting to power through these pages with a blow torch.

You were so good, so pure, so angelic, and they had to demonize you.

They took something so natural, so sacred, so expansive, and shrunk you down to a plain white halter dress.

Little did they know of your witching ability to alchemize all the vanilla in the world into a hot fudge chocolate fucking sundae with rainbow sprinkles and the juiciest red sexpot cherry on top.

They saw your beaming icy blue eyes and platinum blonde hair and said to themselves, “yup she's the devil in human form!”

HOW COULD THEY?!

How could they do that to you and, here's that sacred rage coming in, how could YOU ALLOW IT?!

Because every day I feel the strongest wave of your energy coursing through me, revitalizing and invigorating me for this treacherous and wild journey we call life.

Ya know, I've always been more of an ice cream gal like yourself, never much for pie, even though life keeps serving me many servings of the humble variety.

I know you, I know my imperfections, and I know you spoke up when you needed to, and that all played out as it was magically meant to then, now, and forever more.

The Dream by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Tue, 13 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

The Dream

Edna St. Vincent Millay 1892 – 1950

Love, if I weep it will not matter,

And if you laugh I shall not care;

Foolish am I to think about it,

But it is good to feel you there.

Love, in my sleep I dreamed of waking, —

White and awful the moonlight reached

Over the floor, and somewhere, somewhere,

There was a shutter loose, —it screeched!

Swung in the wind, — and no wind blowing! —

I was afraid, and turned to you,

Put out my hand to you for comfort, —

And you were gone! Cold, cold as dew,

Under my hand the moonlight lay!

Love, if you laugh I shall not care,

But if I weep it will not matter, —

Ah, it is good to feel you there!

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

We never know how high we are (1176) by Emily Dickinson

Mon, 12 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

We never know how high we are

Emily Dickinson 1830 – 1886

We never know how high we are

Till we are called to rise;

And then, if we are true to plan,

Our statures touch the skies—

The Heroism we recite

Would be a daily thing,

Did not ourselves the Cubits warp

For fear to be a King—

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Sunday Recap & Mother by Maggie Devers

Sun, 11 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.

May 5 - How often we greet each other with worries by Maggie Devers

May 6 - Renewal of Strength by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

May 7 - For My Daughter by Maggie Devers

May 8 - Held by Maggie Devers

May 9 - Circe by H.D.

May 10 - What the Thrush Said by John Keats

May 11 -

Mother

Maggie Devers

Mother is a verb.

She does, does, does.

Even when she’s not moving, she holds,

Holds babies, feelings, everything that will fit in her two arms.

She can carry the entire world if you ask her,

Especially if you say please

She can’t help herself,

She is strength personified.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

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What the Thrush Said by John Keats

Sat, 10 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

What the Thrush Said

John Keats 1795 –1821

O Thou whose face hath felt the Winter’s wind,

Whose eye has seen the snow-clouds hung in mist,

And the black elm tops ’mong the freezing stars,

To thee the spring will be a harvest-time.

O thou, whose only book has been the light

Of supreme darkness which thou feddest on

Night after night when Phœbus was away,

To thee the Spring shall be a triple morn.

O fret not after knowledge—I have none,

And yet my song comes native with the warmth.

O fret not after knowledge—I have none,

And yet the Evening listens. He who saddens

At thought of idleness cannot be idle,

And he’s awake who thinks himself asleep.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

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Circe by H.D.

Fri, 09 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Circe

H.D. 1886 – 1961

It was easy enough

to bend them to my wish,

it was easy enough

to alter them with a touch,

but you

adrift on the great sea,

how shall I call you back?

Cedar and white ash,

rock-cedar and sand plants

and tamarisk

red cedar and white cedar

and black cedar from the inmost forest,

fragrance upon fragrance

and all of my sea-magic is for nought.

It was easy enough—

a thought called them

from the sharp edges of the earth;

they prayed for a touch,

they cried for the sight of my face,

they entreated me

till in pity

I turned each to his own self.

Panther and panther,

then a black leopard

follows close—

black panther and red

and a great hound,

a god-like beast,

cut the sand in a clear ring

and shut me from the earth,

and cover the sea-sound

with their throats,

and the sea-roar with their own barks

and bellowing and snarls,

and the sea-stars

and the swirl of the sand,

and the rock-tamarisk

and the wind resonance—

but not your voice.

It is easy enough to call men

from the edges of the earth.

It is easy enough to summon them to my feet

with a thought—

it is beautiful to see the tall panther

and the sleek deer-hounds

circle in the dark.

It is easy enough

to make cedar and white ash fumes

into palaces

and to cover the sea-caves

with ivory and onyx.

But I would give up

rock-fringes of coral

and the inmost chamber

of my island palace

and my own gifts

and the whole region

of my power and magic

for your glance.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

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Held by Maggie Devers

Thu, 08 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Held

Maggie Devers

The sweetest meat is closest to the bone

The most tender, the most true

The tissue there is hardest to reach,

To manipulate from the outside.

If you squeezed my arm

How much bone would you feel?

Would the flesh push back

And guard my depths?

The fruit around the mango pit is sinewy

Unless it’s overripe,

Then it melts into your mouth.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

For My Daughter by Maggie Devers

Wed, 07 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

For My Daughter

by Maggie Devers

Chop off my head and put it on your shield.

I will protect you until the day I die

And all the days after that.

You think I would let anything harm the perfection that sprang from my body?

That force that is me and infinitely you at the same time?

There is nothing in the world that could destroy us,

Not when a mere glance can turn men to stone.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Renewal of Strength by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Tue, 06 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Renewal of Strength

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper 1825 – 1911

The prison-house in which I live

Is falling to decay,

But God renews my spirit’s strength

Within these walls of clay.

For me a dimness slowly creeps

Around earth’s fairest light,

But heaven grows clearer to my view,

And fairer to my sight.

It may be earth’s sweet harmonies

Are duller to my ear,

But music from my Father’s house

Begins to float more near.

Then let the pillars of my home

Crumble and fall away;

Lo, God’s dear love within my soul

Renews it day by day.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

How often we greet each other with worries by Maggie Devers

Mon, 05 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

How often we greet each other with worries

by Maggie Devers

I went to the wilderness to escape

And there are worries there too.

Caterpillars falling from their tree

Before their chrysalis is complete

My weekend project was to save them,

But not everybody makes it—

There's a worry tied to us like an anchor,

How quickly we would sink once we stropped struggling—

We lost one to the river

A few were squished

And one got too close to the coffee pot.

That will stick with me

But I saw butterflies too,

And in a few weeks

When I'm not there to see it,

There will be more.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

A Lady by Amy Lowell

Sun, 04 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

A Lady

by Amy Lowell 1874 – 1925

You are beautiful and faded,

Like an old opera tune

Played upon a harpsichord;

Or like the sun-flooded silks

Of an eighteenth-century boudoir. In your eyes

Smoulder the fallen roses of outlived minutes,

And the perfume of your soul

Is vague and suffusing,

With the pungence of sealed spice-jars.

Your half-tones delight me,

And I grow mad with gazing

At your blent colors.

My vigor is a new-minted penny,

Which I cast at your feet.

Gather it up from the dust

That its sparkle may amuse you.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Radical by Marianne Moore

Sat, 03 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Radical

by Marianne Moore 1887 – 1972

Tapering

to a point, conserving everything,

this carrot is predestined to be thick.

The world is

but a circumstance, a mis-

erable corn-patch for its feet. With ambition,

imagination, outgrowth,

nutriment,

with everything crammed belligerent-

ly inside itself, its fibres breed mon-

opoly —

a tail-like, wedge-shaped engine with the

secret of expansion, fused with intensive heat

to the color of the set-

ting sun and

stiff. For the man in the straw hat, stand-

ing still and turning to look back at it —

as much as

to say my happiest moment has

been funereal in comparison with this, the con-

ditions of life pre-

determined

slavery to be easy and freedom hard. For

it? Dismiss

agrarian lore; it tells him this:

that which it is impossible to force, it is

impossible to hinder.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Who Has Seen the Wind? by Christina Rossetti

Fri, 02 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Who Has Seen the Wind

Christina Rossetti 1830 – 1894

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you.

But when the leaves hang trembling,

The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I.

But when the trees bow down their heads,

The wind is passing by.

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

The Spark by Maggie Devers

Thu, 01 May 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Asking the age old question, where do we start?

The Spark

by Maggie Devers

I try to think where her story starts.

When I went to my parents' for the weekend

And the Labrador could smell her

And for the first time in her dog life, didn’t jump on me

Or when I met her father

And we kissed on our first date

At the cowboy bar that's burned down twice now,

Or when we named her

And whispered her into my womb

On an island far from here

Or when she jumped awake in Star Wars,

Whatever one was out

The Christmas before she was born

Or when she was born

Or when I first felt her kick

Or when I decided I wanted a daughter

And wondered what she would be like

When was that?

It’s hard to know where to begin

When we’re constantly in the process of beginning.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

Read my debut poetry book, For My Daughter
Follow me on Instagram for more poetry @rembrandts.cure

Mentioned in this episode:

Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

#WriteAfterOPO

Announcing One Poem Only

Wed, 30 Apr 2025 11:00:00 -0700

Starting May 1, 2025.

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