The hour’s late, so I won’t hold you in suspense any longer.

This week there’s a three-way tie for winner:

Winter Wonderland (not)

by Anne Howkins

In the bleak midwinter,
The garden’s never looked minter.
The snow all pristine clean and white,
Until the dog answered a call of nature.
Nobody wants to go snow-balling
Where the cur’s been peeing.

The snow lays all deep and uneven
Stopping all the folks from leaving.
There’s no feeling quite as unpleasant
As ice filling up your boots
And stockings
When you’re scraping the path.

Ice cold wind makes us all moan,
Our gloved hands can’t text or make phone calls.
Don’t talk to me about ice-skating,
When you’re an hour or more
From the emergency room.

Dad forgot to check the pipes’ lagging,
And when the temperature is arising,
And when the ice is a-melting
The house will be flooded.
The boiler’ll be broken
And you’ll probably get pneumonia.

—–

Winter Terribleness

by Michael B. Fishman

If I were in the cussing mood I’d have a lot to say about winter.
But I’m not in that mood so I’ll just call it win-TURD.
I am in a Pinwheel cookie mood.
You ever had one of those?
If you have then you knows –

-just how good that marshmallow is on that cookie base
with the rich, creamy chocolate covering the face.

And when you eat them not a creature is stirring and wh

—–

Frigid French Philologies (a descort)

by Rob Stroud

Shards of bleak winter gestate day after day.
The citric cannonade gurgled melodies of complacency.
Echinodermata rides again.

Hagar was not so Horrible.
Beware 48°52.6′S 123°23.6′W.
Fini.
A Galapagos penguin reads about tobacco.

Captain Kirk sings the National Anthem.
Angkor longed to visit Tenochtitlán.
Sheepish wolves.
From lofty Mount Olympus descended Odin.

Soon comes the summer of our discontent.

—–

Congratulations, Anne, Fishman, and Rob! You are the most terrible poets of the week!

After my first read-through, I entertained the thought of declaring everyone a winner. I laughed, cringed, and cried. Then, I decided I couldn’t duck my responsibility. I looked more closely. Anne’s poem rhymes enough to make us think the occurrences may have been intentional, mis-meters enough to raise eyebrows, and definitely contains a terrible subject. Michael’s does the same, in a very different and more cringe-worthy way (and, might I add, kudos to him for rising to the challenge of a half-word at the end). Rob’s poem is hilarious to me; probably because he’s such a proper and educated writer, so the end result is what I’d imagine he might shout out in the middle of the night during a restless slumber.

Like I said, though, I’d have crowned you all victors. Read and enjoy:

Untitled piece

by Trent P. McDonald

Oh bloody hell
I slipped and fell
My bum feels bruised
You’d think I’d get used
To stupid New Hampshire winter
Damn, an icicle splinter
In my behind
I need to see if I can find
Just a bit of color
Not this bland view that’s duller
Than a black and white photo of the bruise
On my caboose
If I can be so bold
I really hate the cold!

—–

BRRR…

by Matt Snyder

its cloudy cloudy and cold it is
Swept up and under the deep dark dank chill of the absence of light
All I see is what you see, what you see is far from me as we waver uncontrollably from the bitter
The bitter bitter white
Depressed and withered from the bitter bitter
Hardly a stutter from your cold brittle lips
Chapped and muffled and our layers of clothes bundled tight
Like Randy in a Christmas Story, we are all very much as it seems, a sight
Like the bitter bitter air we see in breath
Bleak midwinter blues
Our hue of death

—–

Squeak Mouse

by Bruce Goodman

I seem to be undergoing a process of shivication
which is no cause for celebration.
Outside the weather is extremely bleak
– did I just hear a mouse squeak?
wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie –
and inside it’s no better because I’m shivering.

I have no wood for my fire
so I think I’ll burn my auntie;
I think I’ll burn my auntie.
Fa la la la la this will be no Silent Day
– the smell of burning mutton won’t go away –
put another leg on the fire Auntie May.

—–

A Certain Type of Warmth

by tiredhamster

A flooding
Of silent whiteness
Appears within this glassy window.
But something burns
Inside, hotter
Than any truth. I remember
When we used to go
Out into the snow. I would
Shiver and shake, but you braved
Those knife-like winds.
You wanted to build snowmen
And snow castles and tiny
Snow worlds to rule over.
But now this world is without
You. Just
Flat and damp. And the snow
piling atop.

—–

Cold Stuff

by Bryntin

the snow rains down
like sparkling frozen water
difficult to drive on
if it doesn’t instantly meltdown

the slipperiness of the road now
that is cover’d o’er with snow
makes it much more likely
to skid and hit a cow

the temperature gauge has binged
to register minus 3 centigrade
that’s 26.6 Fahrenheit
if you’re not metrically skinned

but this is what it’s like
driving the middle of the winter
you can’t see the road through the screen, so
probably safer to mountain bike

it’s not all bad of course,
there’s snowmen with snowballs
and really cold air
that can make your throat go hoarse

—–

Let There Be Light

by Peregrine Arc

I don’t mind the cold or that white stuff they call snow
What I mind is the lack of light, if it’s forty days in a row.
Something kicks in, some hibernational urge
And I find myself laying in bed
Snoring a symphonic dirge

—–

An Alaskan Winter

by Violet Lentz

There’s nothing bleak about midwinter in Alaska
Nothing bare denuded or exposed
Nothing unsheltered unprotected or unshielded
Every piercing raw stinging second of it
Glimmers and glows glistens and glitters
With a resplendency rival to that of a sun

A sun who would rather sink and simper
just below the line of the horizon,
than harm one hoar frost hair
on an Alaskan winter’s crystalline head.

—–

In the Bleak Midwinter

by Joanne the Geek

It’s the bleak midwinter

cold winds are blowing

snow is falling, everyone

is miserable and frozen –

but not me

here in the southern hemisphere

it’s summer and I’m in short shorts

and a close fitting tank top

sitting out in the hot sun

getting tanned

and I think of you all up there

in the frozen north

cold and miserable

and I smile at the thought of you –

because I am an arsehole.

—–

A Bleak MidWhat

by Ruth Scribbles

Twas January in Texas
And all though the house
The AC was running
And it was cloudy and raining

Last week we had snow flurries
And temps in the thirties
Then up the thermometer zoomed
And gave us the sixties

The children all cried
Cause the snow didn’t stick
Where is winter?
They cried

The adults wondered too
And sagely said
“it’s Texas you sillies”
Get used to it

So others get blizzards
And we go to Dairy Queen
And order blizzards
To freeze our tongues
And fatten our bellies

Maybe this year or next
Who knows
And that is the story of our bleak MidWhat!

—–

Untitled piece

by Gary

Boy it’s bleeding bleak

Low chance of me doing a streak

Every day it rains

An everybody complains

Keep hoping for some snow

More chance of seeing Marilyn Monroe

In every lane and field

Dreaded mud congealed

Wind so strong

It blows over King Kong

No chance of seeing the sun

This is no bloody fun

Every day is exactly the same

Redonculous Boris that’s whose to blame

—–

God bleakly ignoring midwinter

by Doug Jacquier

The bleak midwinter arrived in

the middle of winter

and it was bleak.

Not moor bleak;

more bleak than that.

The wind was keen,

not in that American neat way

nor like mustard,

but sharp

and bleak

because it was midwinter.

I watched it being bleak midwinter

but I don’t think God did.

—–

Thank you all for playing along!! Come back tomorrow around 10 a.m. MST for next week’s theme.

Winners: D. Wallace Peach created this graphic that you can use (if you want) for a badge of honor as the winner:

©2020 The respective authors, and their poems