Afternoon of November 3, 2026

If Only We Could See 

~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

 

Afternoon of October 26, 2026

  

  

 

murder mischief crows stain the trees black 

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

 

 

house of cards someone used Velcro

~Cynthia Anderson

 

border crossing no one deserves this

~Cynthia Anderson

 

lukewarm coffee illusion of moonlight moving through windows

~Sarah Mahina Calvello  

giving the hairy eyeball wary coyote

~Cynthia Anderson 

 

 

the empty sockets
behind the bisque face—
closed lips scream

~Patricia Carragon

 

perfect teeth

on the dentist's 

jack o'lantern

~John J. Dunphy

 

 

discarded pumpkin an audience of squirrels

~Roberta Beach Jacobson 

 

 

A self-identifying Leonard Cohen fan—talked about the woman swallowed by the sea

~Patrick Sweeney

They only heard the words he mispronounced

~Patrick Sweeney

The security guard is yawning and checking his watch—I've already drawn up my legs from the crime scene

~Patrick Sweeney

autumn equinox

a spider’s web

in the weaver’s loom

~Alvin B. Cruz

 

 

 

autumn leaves

his hospice bracelet

loosens

~Alvin B. Cruz

 

 

If only their nonsense was their onlyness, a little bit of indescribable stupidity that persuades fools and idiots, that trips over mistakes and redundant meanings.

~John Vlachos

 

Absence of individualism is retrofitted, interrupted, talking nonsense as if it were an anthem for anteaters and tortoises. 

~John Vlachos

 

political pumpkins the stink

~Roberta Beach Jacobson 

 

 

glass flowers under sparse moonlight all these years wasted

~Sarah Mahina Calvello 

 

 

Haikuniverse wants your Halloween poems now!

http://haikuniverse.com/halloween-project-call-for-submissions/ 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Five Fleas Merch

 

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