Afternoon of May 28, 2026

 

https://sonicboomjournal.wixsite.com/sonicboom/contests

in an alternate universe

I imagine that this

is an alternate universe

~Noah Berlatsky

it began with the pearl-blue sheep's eye in biology

and the war we thought we had to fight

~Patrick Sweeney

preliminary findings that suggest 

he may have been radicalized by love

~Patrick Sweeney

half asleep

reciting a 2,000-year-old prayer

~Patrick Sweeney

New moon 

Unfinished but magical

I want to stay

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

Crack of dawn

Crows peel off the road

Before us

~Tracey Foster

every window open

the rusted creak of my neighbor's

mailbox 

~Patrick Sweeney

his teachers said: he pays attention to all the wrong things

~Patrick Sweeney

secretly, he believed that every dandelion wish would come true

~Patrick Sweeney

that childhood light of a summer Saturday morning

when everyone was alive

~Patrick Sweeney

The Poet's Lament

no one is buying

my soul

~Noah Berlatsky

A Mature Poem

I want to be pissed off at the world,

but maybe I’m just pissed off at myself...

~Michael T. Smith

Tattered gloves in May

a waving shrub

hides the gardner 

~Mark Lawlor

outgrowing myself 

nothing left undone 

this time around

~Stephanie Zepherelli 

70 years old

slow dancing 

for the first time 

~Stephanie Zepherelli 

a disjointed life 

putting bones back 

where they belong 

~Stephanie Zepherelli 

walking me home 

a perfect fit 

enchanted shoes

~Stephanie Zepherelli 

And This

And this, all about the finished definition of round words, oval words, to words replying to other

words for words sake that must have notion of tomorrow finding Jackals in commas and hyenas n

the answers of today.

~John Vlachos

edge effect—

cougar tracks

between subdivisions

~Thomas L. Vaultonburg

church parking lot—

the hearse

beside the bounce house

~Thomas L. Vaultonburg

Just like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, 

we need to be aware 

of what is in plain sight - 

otherwise misguided trust

will see us devoured whole. 

~Joanne Macias

election gala

all

you can eat

~Soumya Mukherjee

the lake at dusk

someone needs to

answer that duck

~Ian Willey

echo chambers of Congress

~Ian Willey

Afternoon of May 23, 2026

 

Paper Fish

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

Life’s a garden 

So dig it

Sunlit sky

~Sarah Mahina Calvello 

midori cocktail 

the neon-green hue

of my alienness

~Jackie Chou

waxing crescent moon 

posting photos of myself 

at my thinnest 

~Jackie Chou

Song of Songs 

Singing with singing to other singing walks the song, or is it the here or is it the there who walks

and comes and thithers.

~John Vlachos

Pigeons and Condors

A precious mockery of some such ritual, when today suddenly disappears in the exclamations of

pigeons and the screeches of condors.

~John Vlachos

ferryman

the cost to cross

the blood-brain barrier

~Cynthia Anderson

séance

the deceased dictates

a Yelp review of

the funeral home

~John J. Dunphy

Memorial Day

a veteran

who survived combat

now dead

from suicide

~John J. Dunphy

sleepy village—

dawn light touches

a fading moon


~Subhash Roy Choudhury

shutter slit 

just enough

sun wakes me

~Maya Daneva

No Heights

Must be

T     H     I     S

brave

to enter country.

~Chad Parenteau

butterfly wings

so fragile

our democracy

~Jan Stretch

meltwater

the trickle-down effect

of my pain 

~Kirsten Cliff Elliot

moonset fly-tipping my silent migraine

~Kirsten Cliff Elliot

Bach to the future the organist’s striped socks

~Cynthia Anderson

hitting the bottom of this small talk

~Maya Daneva

what this tulip hides first bee

~Maya Daneva

spring yoga the day is stretching out

~Maya Daneva

palm reading so tangled my lines

~Mona Iordan

moonshadows falling into new craters

~Patricia Hawkhead

 

under the covers scars that can’t be heard

~Patricia Hawkhead

 

sunset carving shadows in stone

~Patricia Hawkhead

rising up to swallow a star sickle moon

~Tejendra Sherchan 

stop killing each other for Pete's sake

~dan smith

Afternoon of May 18, 2026

office day 

leaving myself

on mute

~thomas david

spores of the earth

pulsing in starbursts

—prayer path

~Goran Gatalica

cosmography—

I am lost

among the words

~Goran Gatalica

war memories—

hail pinging off

the windshield

~Goran Gatalica

A sleeping angle of torturous stories and reprimands, the last of cares and worries stored in the I

Cloud.

~John Vlachos

Scripted 

To be of responding kisses, throwing all that you know of life in an obsequious transition, a terse

reminder of the scripted conversations that walk with a limp.

~John Vlachos

slow blinking

with my cat

we say I love you

~Jennifer Gurney

a quiet voice

this patch of sun

the cat likes

~Anne Fox

midnight moon

my demons and I

greet the day

~Anne Fox

Variations in exactness 

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

temple offering —

those eyes lock into mine

before its head is chopped

~Rupa Anand

my wife tells me I'm exhibiting

pre-industrial sleep patterns

~Patrick Sweeney

rainy dawn

the petro-chemical scent

of home

~Patrick Sweeney