Afternoon of November 6, 2026

 

 

famine
I eat 
the moon 
~Tejendra Sherchan

lotus root soup

a thousand holes

gaping at me

~Jackie Chou

 

anxiety therapy

the squeak of a marker

on the whiteboard

~Jackie Chou

zoom meeting 

she denies taking up

all my bandwidth 

~Jackie Chou

  

daily bread
the punctuality
of an absence 

~Oscar Luparia

sipping coffee
the poem
brewing 

~Elliot Diamond

 

 

Nikola Tesla in love with a pigeon 

~Sarah Mahina Calvello  

 

 

he talked of Lovecraft she heard romance

~dan smith

loneliness of days humming refrigerator

~Sarah Mahina Calvello  

after Mendelssohn

poems without words

~Roberta Beach Jacobson 

Skeltonics
the mockingbird’s best
jackhammer

~Joshua St. Claire 

 

 

 

the day
I shut my mouth for good
white hydrangeas

~Joshua St. Claire

Bashō’s moon
grasping for my spectacles
in the dark

~Joshua St. Claire

 

 

the VP's smile

bends the fluorescent light
Faust

~Joshua St. Claire

 

 

 

Always open: Red Eft Review

Afternoon of November 3, 2026

If Only We Could See 

~Photo by Roberta Beach Jacobson 

 

 

 

the satisfying crunch

of teeth through skin

apples

~Jennifer Gurney

in the bathroom a fly kisses my cheek 

~Bernadette O'Reilly 

cold morning
the crow warms its butt
on the chimney

~Sarah Paris 

                                                                                                

   Human changes        

 

Human changes its permanent addresses of both mind and body continuously.

~Partha Sarkar  

Binge Writer

                    for Jim Morrison

wrestle cut words, swallow rivers

choke towers, paper hang stars 

circumnavigate the dark, become light

pound the concrete, be ineffable

suck deuterium from every sun!

harness chariots of poetry!

~dan smith

 

purple mopheads bowl of rain in Shiki's dumpling

~Sheikha A. 

coding my way-out interstellar flashes

~Joanna Ashwell

a.i meltdown (neural networks overheating)

~Melissa Dennison

the best part
of hide and seek

hiding

~Jennifer Gurney

 

 

evening news

the world at war

with the world

~Gareth Nurden

 

get ready for it the game within the game 

~Sarah Mahina Calvello 

sugar skeletons glisten waiting for the dead

~Sarah Mahina Calvello 

 

 

doctor's office
I learn that last Christmas was

my last Christmas

~John J. Dunphy

 

 

 

 

Human 

 

Human-

a charisma crossed by conflicts. 

~Partha Sarkar

 

 

 

The Grammar of Hunger 

three plates
the last potato 
cut into four

~Young-jin Lee

 

 

Go easy on him—Quixote just recanted

~Patrick Sweeney

Autumn sun

on my big toe

a yellowjacket idles

~Patrick Sweeney

I'm getting better at sitting in the morning sun,

drinking cold coffee and gazing into the souls of dogwalkers

~Patrick Sweeney

 

Viruses keep mutating—but the archangels haven't changed a bit

~Patrick Sweeney

 

 

 

There's no direct evidence that snot-nosed kids threw stones

at the back of Kierkegaard's misshapen head

~Patrick Sweeney

 

 

 

weather vane

even a fool

can point 

~M. R. Pelletier

Afternoon of October 30, 2026

 

nuclear option

the country

a button away

~Peter Jastermsky

Feeling a rupture, dismissed as an illusion suddenly knowing a louder cacophony of silence realizing itself and managing the psyche in a shopping bag.
 
~John Vlachos

 

 

 

 

nothing matters till it does hospice moon

~Mona Bedi 

 

like a trolling stoner smoking moon

~dan smith

spoils 
of the moon
just beneath

~Roberta Beach Jacobson 

    

sunlight on the bay seems like nothing’s wrong 

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

 

 

the wind leaves no letters

~Manasa Reddy

 

the splatter of her signature her hoops and loops

~Mark Gilbert

 

 

 

Isolation obviates
Solidarity
By suppressive prolepsis.

~Frank Conahan

 

 

writing war poems

for others

like it’s 1984

                                                                        ~Mark Gilbert

 

 

 

From an Akkadian Fragment

this bread for us is bitter

.....  ...... spiral staircase [ ? ] ..... difficult

to descend .........  .... almost impossible

...   ..  to ascend

this sun bleeds us ..... .. .....

knowledge ...  .....   ... [ untranslatable ]

......  ..... is interbred ....  .......

baked in the clay .......    ...... scribes 

dream the far ..... .... ....... horizons

our ..... .. .. ......... distant star       

~dan smith

 

 

seed, gourd, and mulch
ghosts of Halloween past
present and future

~Nicholas De Marino

 

coding me from afar
dead computer language

~Roberta Beach Jacobson 

 

 

papa don’t preach

riot     us

capi   toll

for 

whom

the 

bell

~Michael Harrington