Afternoon of September 21, 2026
wabi sabi
for get ting
which
is which
~Vishal Prabhu
kleptocurrency
stacking the coins
by
bits
~Tré
the boys next door
at it again
four
moons
~Tré
lab tests
I identify
as
a pincushion
~Tré
They
will find you 2:35 p.m. scrolling.
~Souvik Sarkar
for
sanity chestnut trees in sunlight a moment of peace
~Sarah Mahina Calvello
sun
unfolding spiraling days back from the mess
~Sarah Mahina Calvello
afloat
on quicksand
~Pegah Rahmati Nezhad
suffering
from their suffering street cats
~Pegah Rahmati Nezhad
th(i)s
too shall pass
~Pegah Rahmati Nezhad
aligning
with the inclining hill half moon
~Tejendra Sherchan
what
the war leaves behind shrouded moon
~Mona Bedi
deep
grief the bed still unmade
~Mona Bedi
Sorrow's Mysteries
cannot be solved
by Angela Lansbury
or the gun
on the table
they are only
ended so
lean back relax
change
the channel
~dan smith
Metaphors
tumble in the washing machine
of my brain and come out
all mixed up soggy and wrinkled
I try to put a different spin
on them in the dryer that is my heart
and they do come out softer
and smoother if not new
or
improved
~dan smith
the devil
really
has plenty of
advocates
~Noah Berlatsky
the strait roars
a shuddering moon
smoked
out
~Kavita Ratna
Record-breaking Nashville heat
ends two days before fall begins.
Red
hot anger at
how we treat the earth.
~Jeffrey Taylor /
Janelle Curlin-Taylor
unicorns, mermaids,
fairytale propaganda—
wander
in the real
~Maximilien Hein
faint stretch marks
are all I have left
of
you
~Marie C Lecrivain
I’ve
started
to remove
the paintings we hung
to showcase our relationship
but the blank spaces
were all lies
just like
us
~Marie C Lecrivain
Celebrate with smols poetry journal (September 22)
Submit your ultra-short poetry: https://smolspoetryjournal.blogspot.com/
Afternoon of September 18, 2026
war
criminal first person plural
~Kelly Sauvage Moyer
My heart
is an open-faced sandwich,
prepared with blackened avocado,
a half-grind salt
and the glistening shards
of a dead woman’s dream.
~Kelly Sauvage Moyer
eating
my heart out spirochetes
~Kelly Sauvage Moyer
my AI buddy
does the heavy sifting
tells
me what to believe
~Mark
Gilbert
in my gorilla suit
I can’t solve the world’s problems
~Mark
Gilbert
a plastic bag of doggy poo
words I would have wanted
never
to have written
~Mark
Gilbert
orangeness
be gone
with
ye
~Roberta Beach Jacobson
I caw at the crow
perched alone
atop the dead tree…
it plays deaf
and
mute.
~Diane Webster
For a writer
a sentence handed down
would
be a good thing.
~Jon Spencer
staring sidelong
at his reflection
in the laptop’s
dark theme,
the hunched scholar
lifts up the chair
gripping fistfully
its
grilled rungs
~Marcus Ten Low
T'ai Chi —
balancing what refuses
to
settle
~Debarati Sen
midnight stroll
ghosts of the past
walking
in my footsteps
~Debarati Sen
Poetry
I have written her name
in countless ways mannered and colloquial
thru moonrise and sunset calm and storm.
Her name is poetry. She lives beyond the norm.
She walks in sunlight's madness.
Bestows her kisses oh, so sparingly.
The fleeting glimpses of her beauty nothing to compare.
I'm
left in the wreckage. Left in the burning air.
~dan smith
spirit
birds and me kindred
~Rupa Anand
MIRROR
There
was a smudge on the mirror.
I wiped it with my sleeve.
With the smudge gone,
my wrinkles showed more clearly.
I
looked for a moment,
~Young-jin Lee
THE
SEAT
A seat opened up on the bus.
Two people spoke at once.
“Go
ahead.”
“No, you go ahead.”
While
they offered it to each other again,
a student who had just
boarded
walked between them and sat down.
~Young-jin Lee
beneath the moon
a
small flower opens
no one sees
~image and text Manasa Reddy