One of the most sound pieces of advice I’ve seen in recent graffiti. Two other examples of good advice in graffiti in the post below. I found all three here today in Wheeling, West Virginia at the Overlook Castle.
This collection captures Days 13 through 19 of the 100 poems in 100 days creative challenge I am participating in. These entries were written daily. They were just shared as a batch in one post. The first 12 were shared daily as solo posts. These poems reflect a week of observation, reflection, and response. Each poem is a moment in time. You’ll find poetry that is personal, political, and more. I am documenting memory, grief, injustice, and the search for clarity and home.
While these seven poems are shared together, the writing continued daily,as it will continue until day 100. Future entries (Days 20–100) will be posted either individually or in small batches, like the first 19. This will keep readers present and on their toes as to when new daily poems are coming. The ongoing rhythm mirrors life itself: unpredictable, urgent, and evolving.
Each poem is paired with a Poet’s Note to deepen the context. It reflects on its inspiration. It draws connections between the personal and societal, and the intimate and the global.
Day 13 – 1/2/2026
“Rhyme”
Ukraine
Palestine
Venezuela
There is no point in trying to
Rhyme
Nigeria
Iran
Sudan
Their lives the cost at the end of the billionaires
Riches
Oil, minerals
Human greed
The West strikes again to save the Middle East
American propaganda machine
Poet’s Note
In the shadow of global conflict and the Christmas night bombing in Nigeria. This poem names the human cost behind headlines. Revealing the repeated cycles of violence. Then highlighting the ways ordinary people bear the burden of power, greed, and war. This is poetry that challenges the systems that profit from oppression. Naming places directly like Venezuela, Iran, and Sudan. I want to mention this poem is about all the places affected by these systems, and the people impacted. It is a call to witness what is often ignored.
The Top level View and the Rolling hills in the distance at Mount Wood Overlook in Wheeling, WV.
Day 14 – 1/3/2026
“Warm Places, Cold World”
I am blessed to have
many warm places in a world so cold.
My home
My car
The woods
places I feel safe
Yet when the lonely days are too rough
My partner’s arms
My mother-in-law’s couch
Or friends with shared spaces
Are places I am blessed to know
On this winding road, finding pieces of home
West Virginia roads once led me there
now the memories of
the place are
scattered
everywhere
Curating a place for me
after searching eternally
Poet’s Note
Written 1/3/2026, this poem reflects on the fragments of home we find throughout life. Safety, warmth, and belonging can appear in unexpected places, from people to landscapes to fleeting moments. Home is not just geography; it is collected through memory, connection, and care.
View from the top landing of the spiral steps at Mount Wood Castle.
Day 15 – 1/4/2026
“The Same”
Swipe.
F
l
i
c
k. M o .
v e
The days on the calendar float on by,
though they always stay the same.
R l o l.
T u r n. Change….
The numbers on the clock, never showing a repeating moment….
Though, they always stay the same.
Fast-forward or reverse, wherever you choose to press play.
World history or familial ties through bloodlines, cursed or blessed, they never look the same.
Though, they always stay the same.
Who is to blame for never making the change?
Those in history? Or Those of us living through its repeats?
Poets note
This poem traces the rhythm of repetition, the illusion of movement in days, clocks, and history. Swipe, flick, turn… As we do on our phones. Then we press play, like a movie, thinking we are deciding, thinking we are moving. Yet so much is actually left unchanged. The poem artistically depicts the movements we make on our phones. As well as showing how we rewound, fast forwarded, and pressed play on VHS tapes, DVDs, and more. Using both depictions to show time and how things change yet stay the same.
The lines stretch, scatter, and move on the page like our attempts to grasp time and meaning. Showing how moments pass, events unfold, generations bear patterns… Yet in their echo, the sameness persists. Asking quietly and plainly: when cycles repeat, who holds the responsibility? Those who lived before? Or those of us who carry the weight now?
This piece is both a mirror and a map. Acting as a reflection on history’s repetitions and the intimate, daily rhythms we navigate. It acknowledges the frustration of watching patterns endure while searching for change. Poetically playing on tension between inevitability and agency.
Axton a Transgender man posing next to graffiti reminding people to chose love over hate.
Pause here with me for a moment.
Did any line, feeling, or piece here stick out or to you more? I’d love to hear the details regarding which and the ways it resonated. Think about it and tell me in the comments?
or
At the end of this post you could comment a line, quote, or your full poem. Poems from the past, that align with these daily themes are welcome, as well as those written this week.
Any and all interactions or additional conversation pieces and starters highly appreciated. We enjoy reading your creative pieces, input, takes, reviews,reflections, and all the interactions in between.
Day 16 – 1/5/2026
A micro-poem on Grief
“Goodbye, Breathe”
I wish you had
thought to
breathe your quiet
warmth inside of me
one last time
before you said
goodbye
Poet’s Note
Today’s micro-poem captures grief and the longing for a final shared moment. Its brevity emphasizes the weight of absence, memory, and the lingering warmth of those we lose. Even in few lines, poetry can cradle the unspeakable and hold the echo of those gone. This was written in the shadow of grief after the loss of my mother. “Goodbye, Breathe” works at showing how some poetry is adaptable to any type of loss. Here I leave the meaning up to interpretation by the reader yet fully convey my feelings.
A Cute Graffiti Art Cat to Brighten the Post.
Day 17 – 1/6/2026
“Circus and Cake”
Downplayed self‑care in society
Overworked, under‑lived lives….
Romanticized
You work a hundred hours a week…
Just to spend all your time off feeling weak.
You barely scrape by.
Yet you have the mind to brag
and boast.
Making the hours you waste working
a competition to make yourself feel better…
No matter how much you try to… disguise it
it’s true
They made the working-class slaves
Then we thanked them for it.
They took away the circus and the cake. And instead of throwing a fit…
we blamed each other for it
Poet’s Note
“Circus and Cake” a poem reflecting on distraction through comfort. Small pleasures and fleeting indulgences that can pacify people while systemic exploitation continues. The stolen “circus” and “cake” are symbols of joy and entertainment. Throughout history, government agencies have used bread and circuses to distract their citizens. Panem et circuses was the Latin term used to represent this. The poem highlights governmental distractions and questions readers in different ways.
What has changed in our society? We had our stability (bread, cake, food, etc) and entertainment (circus, distractions that are fun, etc) all but fully removed. Yet we remain distracted. Why?
View of West Virginia, Ohio, and the Ohio River from the Overlook In Wheeling, WV.
Day 18 – 1/7/2026
Prelude: Axton curated the piece below while sitting at Mount Wood Overlook in Wheeling, West Virginia. Also called the Castle Overlook or just the Overlook. At present time tourists and locals alike use this overlook for an array of things. Most visitors come for sightseeing, unique photography, and outdoor hangouts. Others are drawn to public murals created by the local Wheeling Art Commission. Urban-exploration also tops the list of reasons you’d find an individual visiting the overlook.
But, for creative and emotionally driven humans, this paces exists to reminisce. Grief, childhood memories, or even a longing for home. Add to that the need to unpack big things in equally big spaces, that call us places like this. Last and maybe most important a giant serving of nostalgia. And now you can truly see why the overlook fits for these needs, as well as some mischievous happenings too.
“Cremated”
And every time I come home,
it’s a little
lonelier
than the last.
And every time I come home,
I wonder if
somehow
home
has picked up
and left.
Or did I?
Was the place I knew turned to crumbled remains with you? Cremate my home right along with you?
Ashes to Ashes,
Dust to Dust,
I still
just
collect
the
pieces
along the way.
My torture evergreen.
Poet’s Note
Written at Mount Wood Overlook in Wheeling, WV. A poem that explores home, memory, and loss. Sharing Feelings of grief and loss I feel when returning to the place I grew up since the death of my mother. The loss of feeling at home since she was cremated, “Cremated” poetically describes the cremation of home. The overlook, was built in the 1920’s. It was originally supposed to house a doctor before life drama got in the way of completing it. The structure now watches over absent families and scattered histories. The overlook castle (as locals call it) also showcases wicked graffiti, which doesn’t stay the same long. Here home is collected in fragments, in memories, and in what remains. For some reason, even when it feels lonelier each time I return.
Day 19 – 1/8/2026
“Vigilante Justice”
Let’s start a fire inside the United States,
figuratively, of course.
We can start by using oppression,
hatred, and bigotry
as gasoline to fuel this movement.
Melting down ice into nonexistence.
Covering the country’s soil in fluids
other than
spilled blood
from darker complexions,
the first time in a whole fucking year….
The presidency ….
has three entire years to go, still ….
Scariest thing, if you ask me,
the collective inability to remember how things were before…
When they were just a minute fraction of the pie closer to equality
We do not want… Venezuelan oil.
We do not want to overthrow……
Greenland.
Mexico.
Canada.
We want education, affordable healthcare, workers’ rights,
equality for all
Now
OR vengeance for each and every infraction.
Come tomorrow and on.
A vigilante is what we need….
And a vigilante I may soon be.
Poet’s Note
A piece that uses fire as metaphor, representing accountability and resistance rather than destruction. It critiques complacency, systemic injustice, and the erasure of memory. Then it names the need for moral vigilance and collective action. This is poetry that refuses to stay passive in the face of oppression.
These seven days trace a path through personal and global reflection, grief, memory, and resistance. They examine cycles of oppression, moments of warmth and home. The tension between complacency and action lives in these poems. From international injustice to intimate loss. Stolen joy and moral awakening find their homes here. Poems as witness, critique, and call-to-action. Each a fragment of a daily personal creative contest. Join me in observing the world and responding with honesty, urgency, and reflection.
I feel like everyone in the world could use this advice right now.
Please feel free to share this post with anyone you think would benefit from reading these poems in any form. Have an artistic or poetic friend? Share this with them and challenge them to create one poem or piece of art every day for 100 days.
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More surprisingly sound advice from graffiti in Wheeling, West Virginia.
Every so often, a simple idea creates a creative avalanche. I’m hoping that this will be that.
Write a poem a day.
But do it for one hundred days.
Then share it publicly.
No paywall, no panel of judges, no polished submission packets, no gatekeeping. Just writers showing up where they are, writing through whatever weather they’re standing in.
I’m joining in.
Not because I want more pressure, or because I think productivity equals worth, but because poetry thrives on repetition, attention, and witness. A poem a day doesn’t have to be perfect. It has to exist. It has to respond. It has to mark time. It is practice, which we all have been told makes perfect!
For indie poets, marginalized writers, and creatives working outside institutional publishing, challenges like this matter. They create visible momentum. They pull poetry out of private notes apps and put it back into conversation. They remind us that poetry isn’t precious, it’s necessary.
This post documents my entry into the challenge, and it begins with day one, where else?
Day One of One Hundred
“Ice”
It’s cold outside,
my desire is on fire,
something more just out of
r
e
a
c
h.
The plows came through these
Appalachian city streets,
though the ice stayed
Immigrant mothers pray
for their brothers,
others try to feed their
families.
No matter the kind,
crushed ice
is my favorite.
Poet’s Note
This poem lives in the overlap between weather and policy.
Between what freezes naturally and what is enforced.
Ice shows up twice here. Once as winter, salt trucks, plows, and streets that look cleared but still aren’t safe. The other time as ICE, immigration enforcement, the quiet terror that doesn’t melt when the roads do.
Crushed ice is impact. It’s aftermath. It’s what happens when something large and heavy moves through a place and leaves fragments behind.
I didn’t want to explain the metaphor inside the poem. I wanted it to sit unresolved, because that’s how it exists in real life. Some people experience winter. Others experience surveillance. Sometimes it’s both, at the same time, in the same city.
Why This Challenge Matters to Me
Writing a poem every day for one hundred days isn’t about proving discipline. It’s about practicing attention. About letting the world interrupt me and answering back in language.
As an indie publisher, poet, and community builder through Poeaxtry and The Prism, I care deeply about visibility for small voices, especially voices that don’t get invited into traditional literary rooms. A public challenge hosted on a platform like Threads lowers the barrier to entry. It lets poets write in public without asking permission.
This is also about sustainability. One poem a day is manageable. It fits between work shifts, hikes, grief, anger, and ordinary survival. Over time, those daily poems become a record, not just of craft, but of living through a specific stretch of history.
If you’re participating too, or considering it, this is your nudge. You don’t need permission. You don’t need an audience. You just need to start.
