One Poem Only

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 venomAs my mother has done with the point of a shovelAs I have done with a horrified hatchetMy 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 wholeI have been buried and unearthed, endless reincarnation.
I am Mother. I have created life within meTorn 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 ↓

1. @hairnhips on Instagram
2. @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:

One Poem Only submissions are open.

This round, I’m looking for poems about what remains. What stays with us after we experience change? What survives? What do we yearn to carry forward? Send me the poem you wrote and want the world to hear. Also, if you’d like to read your own poem on the podcast, you can. Submit a clear audio file recorded in a quiet space—no perfect studio recording required. And yes, your poem can have been previously published in a literary magazine, a book, or on social media. Submissions close Thursday, October 29. I’ll respond by Wednesday, November 11. Whether I read your poem or you read it yourself, I’d love to hear what you have to share.

One Poem Only Submissions Form

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

Tangerines and AlcoholismLabanya DeyMy mother peels tangerines Carefully scaling the orange fleshUntil her nails dig into the sour crevices Of the orange ballThe juices drip between her nails and fingertips As she puts them on a plateOn a bright afternoonAs she waits for them to be savouredAppreciated with the delicate eyes she yearns for.
She sits by the table, nails scratching through the skinThe 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 tonguesLay beside the musk amber of leftover liquidSmiling at her - "you couldn't even keep him"
So she keeps, her orange peels and her whiskey scent And sunny days with dark afternoonsAnd vibrant smiles with leftover tangerinesDrowned with glistening, golden bubbles of life and laughter Because my mother peels tangerinesWhether seasons meet their end Or the waves meet the earth.

More from Labanya Dey ↓

1. @labanyaaa._ on Instagram
2. @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:

One Poem Only submissions are open.

This round, I’m looking for poems about what remains. What stays with us when we experience change? What survives? What do we yearn to carry forward? Send me the poem you wrote and want the world to hear. Also, if you’d like to read your own poem on the podcast, you can. Submit a clear audio file recorded in a quiet space—no perfect studio recording required. And yes, your poem can have been previously published in a literary magazine, in print, or on social media. Submissions close Thursday, October 29. I’ll respond by Wednesday, November 11. Whether I read your poem or you read it yourself, I’d love to hear what you have to share.

One Poem Only Submissions Form

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 boneCharlotte DawnYou can’t see the ghostsuntil you’re almost one—until your breath learns how to hesitate,until mirrors stop recognising youwithout 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 noticehow 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 rememberwho you werebefore you learned how to disappear.

More from Charlotte Dawn ↓

1. @wordsbycharlottedawn on Instagram
2. @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.

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

HarmonySeán TateHarmony, intermingled with melody, falls lightly from the heavensto coat the parched earth.Rough flakes made smooth by a rich flowing sequence.And the rhythm; listen as the rhythm courses down throughcracks to slumbering seeds.Listen to that steady beat: tap, tap, tap.
Seeds aroused from peaceful repose, strumming and humming to their ownwild chorus; a deep dissonance.Compacted soil parts in compressed rattles, giving room for the buildingcrescendo.

More from Seán Tate ↓

1. @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:

One Poem Only submissions are open.

This round, I’m looking for poems about what remains. What stays with us after we experience change? What survives? What do we yearn to carry forward? Send me the poem you wrote and want the world to hear. Also, if you’d like to read your own poem on the podcast, you can. Submit a clear audio file recorded in a quiet space—no perfect studio recording required. And yes, your poem can have been previously published in a literary magazine, a book, or on social media. Submissions close Thursday, October 29. I’ll respond by Wednesday, November 11. Whether I read your poem or you read it yourself, I’d love to hear what you have to share.

One Poem Only Submissions Form

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

Presence of ChoiceAlecia LewisI hold no one.They can come or go.Freely.Unbound.
They may disconnectOnlineor 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 thoseWho choose to stay.
The rest are shadows.I release them gently.

More from Alecia Lewis ↓

1. @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:

One Poem Only submissions are open.

This round, I’m looking for poems about what remains. What stays with us after we experience change? What survives? What do we yearn to carry forward? Send me the poem you wrote and want the world to hear. Also, if you’d like to read your own poem on the podcast, you can. Submit a clear audio file recorded in a quiet space—no perfect studio recording required. And yes, your poem can have been previously published in a literary magazine, a book, or on social media. Submissions close Thursday, October 29. I’ll respond by Wednesday, November 11. Whether I read your poem or you read it yourself, I’d love to hear what you have to share.

One Poem Only Submissions Form

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

1. Same Fire by Diana Johar
2. Resist by Francesca Acquaviva
3. The -ness of things by Sanjeevani
4. Women in Me by Ayushi
5. Last Year by Samah Ayesha
6. To Imagination by Emily Brontë

Plus one new one to carry us into the week ahead

Prattle On Maggie DeversA bird in a backpack walked byTweeting plaintively from insideAnd the crows kept up their racketWith little variance
But I think they were surprised,And wondering how this chirp was stuck insideAnd I think the prisoner wondered tooWhat it would be like to be outside
Really outHigh in the palm treesSinging her song as she swayed in the sunJust for the sound of it.

More from Maggie Devers ↓

1. My debut poetry collection, For My Daughter, available as an audiobook.
2. Purchase a signed copy of For My Daughter or get one free by subscribing to the podcast: One Poem Only on Patreon
3. 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.

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 aroundDanger, and guilt, and darkness lie,If but within our bosom's boundWe hold a bright, untroubled sky,Warm with ten thousand mingled raysOf suns that know no winter days?
Reason, indeed, may oft complainFor Nature's sad reality,And tell the suffering heart how vainIts cherished dreams must always be;And Truth may rudely trample downThe flowers of Fancy, newly-blown:
But thou art ever there, to bringThe hovering vision back, and breatheNew 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:

One Poem Only submissions are open.

This round, I’m looking for poems about what remains. What stays with us when we experience change? What survives? What do we yearn to carry forward? Send me the poem you wrote and want the world to hear. Also, if you’d like to read your own poem on the podcast, you can. Submit a clear audio file recorded in a quiet space—no perfect studio recording required. And yes, your poem can have been previously published in a literary magazine, in print, or on social media. Submissions close Thursday, October 29. I’ll respond by Wednesday, November 11. Whether I read your poem or you read it yourself, I’d love to hear what you have to share.

One Poem Only Submissions Form

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

Last YearSamah Ayeshai spent the better half of last yearstaring at the ceiling,watching it bend more crookedthe longer i looked.
but it wasn't just the ceilingit was the walls, the floor,maybe my footing,maybe my mindfrom 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 againbut 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 sureif i ever fixed the mator just learned to pray at an angle.

More from Samah Ayesha ↓

1. @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:

One Poem Only submissions are open.

This round, I’m looking for poems about what remains. What stays with us after we experience change? What survives? What do we yearn to carry forward? Send me the poem you wrote and want the world to hear. Also, if you’d like to read your own poem on the podcast, you can. Submit a clear audio file recorded in a quiet space—no perfect studio recording required. And yes, your poem can have been previously published in a literary magazine, a book, or on social media. Submissions close Thursday, October 29. I’ll respond by Wednesday, November 11. Whether I read your poem or you read it yourself, I’d love to hear what you have to share.

One Poem Only Submissions Form

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

Women in MeAyushiI think I gather dreams like picking up stonesnear an abandoned highway wherethe road leads nowhere,where the wind pants like a tiger breathingand the woman in me returns to lookfor the girl she had lost years agoperhaps the salt in me will return to the seaand the light in me will break opena door, a wound, a memory, that no one can shuta spring thunder, bolts me awake from a dreamI am dragging my earthy-body towardsthe rivers of you, branching out like tendonsslowly the sun dissolves like sugar in waterall I hear are murmurs of momentskindness, kindness, kindnessits December and I am wrappedby the warmth of an afterthoughta kind of a forgiveness to all yourpast revolting selves.

More from Ayushi ↓

1. @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:

One Poem Only submissions are open.

This round, I’m looking for poems about what remains. What stays with us when we experience change? What survives? What do we yearn to carry forward? Send me the poem you wrote and want the world to hear. Also, if you’d like to read your own poem on the podcast, you can. Submit a clear audio file recorded in a quiet space—no perfect studio recording required. And yes, your poem can have been previously published in a literary magazine, in print, or on social media. Submissions close Thursday, October 29. I’ll respond by Wednesday, November 11. Whether I read your poem or you read it yourself, I’d love to hear what you have to share.

One Poem Only Submissions Form

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 thingsSanjeevaniSadness 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 younearly 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 losein 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 creaturesveiled by archaeological secrecy. My -ness feels.

More from Sanjeevani ↓

1. @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.