This was NOT at that other unnamed website where judges can enter the contests they adjudicate. This was at a completely different website and more reputable.

2nd Place

Free Verse Poem Contest Entry, November 22, 2025, 2nd Place

Write a free verse poem about a prized object of any kind. No rhyming patterns.

He arrived on my seventh birthday,

March of 1975,

a chrome-helmed hero with arms that gleamed—

until the emblem fell,

and I, with clumsy hands and model glue,

tried to make him whole again.

The scar of that attempt still shows.

Cut me some slack,

I was seven,

and saving the world was urgent work.

We flew together,

across backyards,

over couches,

through the narrow skies a child is allowed.

Every mission ended in triumph,

every scrape on his body

a medal of honor.

Then the moves began.

Andrews AFB to Holloman AFB,

boxes swallowed platoons whole,

soldiers vanished between states.

But Bulletman rode in my travel bag,

a survivor,

a companion who refused to go missing.

Years later, Dad retired.

Before moving home to Iowa,

I sealed him away in May of 1983,

a ceremony of cardboard and tape,

a burial in storage.

For decades he slept,

a hero entombed.

February 2021—

I opened the box,

and time collapsed.

Every flight, every rescue,

every seven-year-old victory

rushed back into my chest.

But when I unwrapped him,

he fell apart in my hands.

My heart followed.

Rare, they said.

Valuable, they said.

But no price could measure

the weight of memory.

I learned to restring him,

to honor the cracks,

to leave the nicks and scratches untouched.

I gave him back his emblem,

not original,

but enough to remind him

of who he was.

Now he stands again,

after decades hibernating in the dark.

Not perfect,

not new,

but whole in the only way that matters.

The one,

the only—

Bulletman!

My Bulletman!

© Copyright 2025 J.R. Geiger. All rights reserved.