Afternoon of October 10, 2026

 

 

You say he's on the lam from family and friends—poet, eh?

~Patrick Sweeney

Persistent cough; her winter kigo

~Patrick Sweeney

'Go easy with the mass extinctions; we're trying to have some laughs here'

~Patrick Sweeney

it’s time to never get up again


~Noah Berlatsky

 

 

 

broomstick to broomstick creeping ivy

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

 

 

  

 

Dharma transmission: the surprised looks on the faces

of the Halloween skeletons

~Patrick Sweeney

 

spiral of silence storm-to-be

~Pegah Rahmati Nezhad

 

 

to celebrate sorrows autumn


~Pegah Rahmati Nezhad

 

 

false positive pockets full of air bouncing peace treaties

~Biswajit Mishra

endless orbit   

golden mangos rot 

in zero-g

~Christina Chin

There was no earthly reason why he should be nervous about drinking water in zero-g


~Patrick Sweeney

a thorn-pricked finger 

I carry the scent 

 

of roses 

~Christina Chin

solar eclipse

the multicoloured moons

of the kite surfers

~Marie Derley

 

 

 

éclipse de soleil

les lunes multicolores

des kite surfeurs

~Marie Derley

 

unemployed

wizard school grads

scrolling, scrolling, scrolling

~Nicholas DeMarino

Crow's craw that did not quench my thirst,

save the day, save the date.

~Souvik Sarkar 

 

 

I approach

the end of the road

or does it approach me?

~John J. Dunphy

 

 

empty window

  the evening light 

waits for someone


~Manasa Reddy

Afternoon of October 8, 2026

  

that's not a fly in your soup sir its a shark fin sea of cortez

~Melissa Dennison

weaving in and out

car after car

a crow plays chicken

~Melissa Dennison

brave new world

unsettled

by how the fibre optic

winks

~Melissa Dennison

Every goodbye a small winter


~Manasa Reddy

checkered past continues to flap via midnight memes

~Marjorie Pezzoli

out of weapons carrying their hearts into war

~Stephanie Zepherelli

late arrival

tucking in the edges

of my opinions

~Stephanie Zepherelli

 

sharp glances

a ringlet escapes

from her hijab

~Stephanie Zepherelli

all doors

festooned with cobwebs

nowhere to escape

~Tejendra Sherchan

 

vocal chords

too small for us to hear

a lettuce snail

~Randy Brooks

 

tech bro that manufactured persona

 ~Ian Willey

 

 

 

 

panda diplomacy bamboozling the public

~Ian Willey

250 years of freedom fighting
 

~Ian Willey

soaring kite

why are there always

strings attached?


 ~Ian Willey

Doom of choice

The impending doom was in fact my own

as the scrolling between us was oh so sweet -

Ring, ring. Damn. Reality calling.

~Joanne Macias 

learning anything now is a plus cuneiform

~Ruth Holzer

 

liquidating

 

the trust

mother's spidery signature

~Ruth Holzer

 

 

 

 

mussels in wine sauce what were they thinking of

~Ruth Holzer

 

thinking hard

about thinking

about nothing

~Ruth Holzer

                                        

What the

most of my paintings

don't come right out

and say it and the others

suppress it pretty well 

only a couple poems 

come close to laying it

on the line with some

euphemisms but you 

 

get the idea

~dan smith

tundra....

not sure

what to make of it

~M. R. Pelletier

good omens

morning snow

and ravens

talking

~Tom Blessing

america today

             our dreams have

                        become a prison

~Tom Blessing

Afternoon of October 5, 2026

 

Hal’s still haunting voice misalignment

~Bruce H. Feingold

 

 

 

combing 

for clues…

head lice 

~Lisa C Reynolds

 

what's 

it going to take 

to get justice around here

~Jennifer Gurney

 

 

 

blind trust

the social truth

of fertilizer

~Robert Witmer 

 

 

back to the future

pickles

in a coal cellar

~Robert Witmer

 

 

'At the end of the day'

the mother 

of six

~Patrick Sweeney

Unless you know the number of chickens on the sovereign island of Malta; there's no winning this game

~Patrick Sweeney

Department of Education Address, 2026

 

They call our green city impoverished,

implying my area’s colleges have sunk

into a resource void, into that black hole

 

of education (now the shame of a whole

nation—which itself is an impoverished

red mark), and I wonder why our city’s sunk.

 

But even great Atlantis had never sunk

on its own. Climate wrath? A hidden loophole

in our tax codes? Or are we en-poverished?

 

His impoverished report: we sunk them shitholes.

 

~Colleen M. Farrelly 

alien(ated)

another planet

rejects me

 

        ~Colleen M. Farrelly

 

 

 

Turing test

the machine deems me

a cyborg

~Colleen M. Farrelly

 

 

toy soldiers

               the camouflage green            

of real war

~Gavin Austin

 

 

mining town

the things that don’t stay                                

buried

~Gavin Austin

 

tending the bonsai his smaller world

~Gavin Austin

 

 

 

regret the hug of quicksand

~Gavin Austin

 

Rejection does not end even after

~Jacob Gur

 

 

On a quest to seek Super Intelligence,

Failing to convince my browser 

- I am human.

~David Rudd-Mitchell

 

 

 

A defeat      

Before sending my own poem, I declare -'I am not a robot!'.  

~Partha Sarkar

winter window
an appleblossom amaryllis
pollinates my beard 

~Joshua St. Claire

 

 

 

Imagine Kerouac identifying with Montgomery Clift...
ignoring my illiteracy, I pretend to read books and watch parts of movies—I can't stop pretending now

~Patrick Sweeney 

 

 

Five Fleas Swag

https://www.zazzle.com/store/five_fleas