It’s another night for poetry around here.

It’s a bit cold outside for the past couple of days. That might have been on my mind when I wrote these.

Sorry if I’m not profound tonight

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Modern Igloos

Fort Madison, Iowa, 24 January 2026

Frost paint windows off white

The cold invades where you’re closest to the outdoors

Only stone, wood, electrified heat sources, and a cup of tea

Hold off the entropy.

You think back to the old cartoons

Inuit chilling both ways in igloos

And being thankful for civilization

Because you know you couldn’t answer the Call of the Wild.

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Didn’t want to do another winter poem, so I combined the cold weather with one of my recent obsessions, the ocean. It’s a weird obsession considering I only lived near the ocean for a very short time in my childhood and for most of my life I’ve never lived closer than 850 miles than the nearest part of the ocean (Gulf of Mexico). But maybe living near the Mississippi River sparked something like it with me. Apologies are likely in order for my parents who once had a catamaran for sailing on the the lakes in Iowa but I was not as enthusiastic about it back in those days like I should have been.

I started thinking about the old sailors who make the trip around Cape Horn in southern Chile. I’ve long heard legends about how challenging the trip was. This is me picturing what it might be like.

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Cape Horn Days

24 January 2026, Fort Madison, Iowa

On the bridge, morning watch,

Sealed coffee mug fastened in the holder

Protection from the fifty-foot waves

And the blows of the Horn’s gales.

It’s not like it was with the old clipper sailors.

We have a restaurant-level galley and temperature-controlled cabins,

They had a fire pit, iron kettle, swaddled in wool to keep cold and water away.

We have electronic GPS navigation and radar, WiFi and satellite radio,

They had compass and charts if lucky, the stars and waves if they weren’t.

Steel and polymer vessels are far stronger than

Their wooden clipper ancestors.

But they both had to dodge typhoons and icebergs alike.

The Horn looms in the distance through his binoculars

Its waters wild, beautiful, and treacherous.

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Now for a quick commercial break, lol.

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If You’re Interested in the Poetry You See Here… You Might Want to Check Out Some More…

My first collection of poetry is out.

Since Substack doesn’t have the setup for this (that I’m aware of), I’ve set up something at my WordPress sister site, Liegois Media. I have my own Internet storefront page where you can order my chapbook for $6 per copy. The link is below.

The Flow and the Journey

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Hope 2026 is going all right, all things considered. Take care everyone.

-30-

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While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.

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All right, one more batch of poems for 2025.

I had thought I hadn’t been doing this series for too long, but a quick review of past posts indicated I’ve been doing this now for at least two years. It’s wild I’ve been doing this for that long.

In a glance at the file I’ve been using to store this year’s poems, I counted 29 poems I’ve written, both published and unpublished, since the start of the year. Considering I only ever wrote poetry once in a blue moon for nearly all my life, this is a massive increase in productivity.

Hopefully, I can keep this up. I have to say I’ve never put as much attention into my poetry as I have my fiction work, but I do hope putting in the time and work pays off in the end, if not financially then at least artistically.

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I’m glad it’s becoming late fall/early winter now. I’ve always felt I did better in colder climates than warmer ones – maybe some heritage from my Wisconsinite parents and grandparents. But I also wonder if it would be everything I’d hope for, so this poem grew out of these thoughts.

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Rainy Night in Iowa

Fort Madison, Iowa, 28 December 2025

Skies uniform gray

Mist and wet saturate the ground

Seep into your hoodie and cap

Streetlights reflect onto wet pavement.

Fog gray shades and fades everything,

Convert hi-beams to decorative lights

Left with the fear of Iowa wildlife

Jumping into your path.

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It’s getting close to the end of the year and I’m trying to race to reach my word count goal before New Year’s Day 2026. The possibility of me making the deadline can be described as possible but with no more time to lose. However, ever since my journalism days, a tight deadline has always inspired me – as well as this next poem.

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Immovable Deadline

Fort Madison, Iowa, 28 December 2025

In the end, it comes down to math:

Number of words yet to write

Number of days, hours, and minutes to write,

And a formula you hope will total the right number at Deadline.

No more hemming and hawing

As the numbers are there in your face

One thing to keep in mind: those words

Don’t have to be your best to make it to the Deadline.

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Now for a quick commercial break, lol.

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If You’re Interested in the Poetry You See Here… You Might Want to Check Out Some More…

My first collection of poetry is out.

Since Substack doesn’t have the setup for this (that I’m aware of), I’ve set up something at my WordPress sister site, Liegois Media. I have my own Internet storefront page where you can order my chapbook for $6 per copy. The link is below.

The Flow and the Journey

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2026 is coming down the road. I’m wondering what words it will bring along.

-30-

---

While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.

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Tonight is Poetry Night for me, as I continue my journey as a poet playing around with words and ideas, scrambling both up into what could be called a decent dinner or a very late brunch. We could go with either one.

Before we get into the poetry, however, I have a brief poetry celebration to commemorate.

Last year for the first time, I became a dues-paying member of the Iowa Poetry Association, a small effort on my part to try and take my poetry seriously. For the first time this year, I participated in the IPA’s competitions for their annual anthology, Lyrical Iowa. Although I did not place in any of the competitions I participated in, my poem “Peace of Mind” was selected for publication in the 2025 version of Lyrical Iowa. You can pick up a copy here: this year’s edition was dedicated to Rodney Reeves, a fellow IPA member and a member of the Burlington-area Society of Great River Poets I also belong to.

Now, on with the poetry

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I’m glad it’s becoming late fall/early winter now. I’ve always felt I did better in colder climates than warmer ones – maybe some heritage from my Wisconsinite parents and grandparents. But I also wonder if it would be everything I’d hope for, so this poem grew out of these thoughts.

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Dreams or Mirages of the North

Fort Madison, Iowa, 23 November 2025

Cradled in my head

In the heat sink of an Iowan July

Despairing of sensing cold ever again

I entertain images of ice-wind gusts over rocky and remote lands

Mountains standing sentinel over a modest hamlet

The stark beauty of winter in twilight.

However, my mind ponders

The cool images warming my overheated soul

And I question if they are mere delusions.

If my dreams became some form of reality

And I arrive at my ideal lands,

Would it merely be a cold hardship rather than one overheated?

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I only once lived in a home near the ocean, the modest-sized town of Seabrook, Texas. It was southeast of Houston, on Galveston Bay with Galveston Island a bit further southeast.

I ended up spending most of my life on the banks of the Mississippi River, but I’ve sometimes wondered whether I would have developed something of a similar kinship to the ocean I did to the river. I’ve come to consider that it might be slightly different due to apprehensions I have about very large bodies of water.

I have the type of fear of heights that has no effect on me if I’m at the top floor of a building or flying in a plane¹, but leaves me almost paralyzed at the thought of me hanging off the side of a building on a rope or even peeking over the balcony of a tall place. Similarly, I have no fear of crossing an ocean by ship, but I wonder what type of panic I would have if I ducked my face underneath the waves and all I saw was dark blue fathoms and prowling sharks below².

So, those thoughts prompted the following.

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Tepid Channels and Chilled Depths

Fort Madison, Iowa, 23 November 2025

Sitting in the brownish green of The River

Its Flow around me as I sit on the edge of the channel

Anchoring my feet in the muck of its riverbed,

The life and waters pouring around me,

I ponder what it would be like to dive into the open waters

Of the Open Sea.

I picture myself bobbing on top of the endless brine

And anxiety wrapping my heart into tap-out submission

At the thought of dipping my head above the surface

Gazing into the acres of dark blue, the alien fathoms,

Waiting for it and its dwellers to devour me,

I treasure the tepid channels above the chilled depths.

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Now for a quick commercial break, lol.

---

If You’re Interested in the Poetry You See Here… You Might Want to Check Out Some More…

My first collection of poetry is out.

Since Substack doesn’t have the setup for this (that I’m aware of), I’ve set up something at my WordPress sister site, Liegois Media. I have my own Internet storefront page where you can order my chapbook for $6 per copy. The link is below.

The Flow and the Journey

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Take care, everyone, and I’ll see you down by the bend in the river, road, or line.

-30-

---

While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.

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1. My reluctance to fly nowadays is due to crowded aircraft, cramped seating, and overcharged tickets. ↩︎
2. A new word I learned today – Thalassophobia, the fear of deep bodies of water. You can learn new stuff every day. ↩︎