Afternoon of August 3, 2026

Rem

Is the word 

I couldn’t remember 

because I didn't sleep enough.

~Keith Snow

deadline the cat on my keyboard

~Joshua St. Claire

devolving

into dactyls 

mountains of the moon

~Joshua St. Claire

Muppet theater box seats

I’ve become

a grumpy old codger

~Randy Brooks

Fierce Pelicans

 

Five white pelicans

stand on a rock

in the river

looking like

they’re holding

down an alligator

hoping it will

drown.

~Diane Webster

no road signs 

for travelers

on the skyroad

~Ingrid Bruck

Metaphor

 

This is that.

The poem is a hat

Squash it flat and it’s a hole

which in falls this.

And that.

~Noah Berlatsky

Alone, Remembering

how you once whispered

a thousand names for darkness,

leaving out your own.


~Silvatiicus Riddle

 

Late Fees

Strange librarian,

she dealt in books from other worlds––

fines paid in stardust.

~Silvatiicus Riddle

four-letter word 

for intercourse

talk

~John Hawkhead

border crossings

does a boundary separate 

or join?

~M. R. Pelletier 

One day

One day...

The vibration brings hope and despair simultaneously. 

~Partha Sarkar 

vine-pruning... 

words, words

words

~Maya Daneva

oppressive heat 

the coolness

of this chemo infusion

~Maya Daneva

Agentic Black Hole

 

spaghettification of humanity

it's not eminent domain, it's infinite progress


~Nicholas De Marino

robo-therapist my coping mechanism


~Nicholas De Marino

it's the perpendicular universes

                   you

                  gotta

                  watch

                    out

                     for

~Nicholas De Marino

his final

anthology appearance

graveyard shadows

~John Pappas

 

 

Where to Submit Your Work:

Always open: Red Eft Review

https://redeftreview.blogspot.com/p/submission-archives.html

Open August 1-15: Post-Ku

Mini poems on a postcard!

https://post-ku.com/submit/

Always open: smols poetry journal

Poems up to five words!

smolspoetryjournal.blogspot.com

Always open: The New Verse News

Poems about world news!

https://newversenews.blogspot.com/ 

Afternoon of July 28, 2026

 

 

 

body-shaming

the ugliness

of beauty magazines

~words and image: Debbie Strange

girl full of songs

when the music fades

away,

who is left inside me?

i am a girl full 

of songs.

 

~linda m. crate 

a sparrow hops through

the link

in the dog park fence

~Noah Berlatsky

vernal equinox wheezing life slowly 

~Sheikha A. 

brandmarking what isn't theirs socio-elitists

~Sheikha A. 

thunderbolt island-domes of jelly heads

~Sheikha A. 

some other me 

i often wish i 

was some other

universe's

version of me,

this one stresses 

me out.

~linda m. crate 

Tell 

And what you do, how you dispose of the knowledge, your alibi discerned at the bottom

of your coffee cup, 

philosophy on a whim, something about a cave we used to live in, about a world we used 

to think we knew, about seeing shadows on walls and tearing down illusions, 

about the sacred and the profane crawling on all fours reminding the world they used  

to stand proudly on two legs.

~John Vlachos

a table for one in an expanding war

~Patrick Sweeney

sun behind me, the sunflowers are acting like they know me

~Patrick Sweeney

he was reasonably sure

the clouded sulphur butterfly

lived nearby

~Patrick Sweeney

approaching uncomfortable mathematical boundaries

my dandelion wish aloft

~Patrick Sweeney

everyone but the sock puppet is avoiding politics

~Patrick Sweeney

He

He got old

all along he kept saying

It shouldn’t be this cold

~Steve Horel

I'm getting so cautious

been a long time

since I lost a sock

in the laundry

~Steve Horel

when the hyper fixation

 

ends, do we end;

too?

~linda m. crate 

Illusion Once 

Illusion once 24B.9 a surrogate of things piled up in corners, their corners, their closets, 

their beds, stuffing things, 

finding 78.4 tubes of the decimated heart swept under the rug, always covering and using

shrouds, wrong places and wrong times, 

a T4 Squared moment where nobody goes, no tension cracks the point, a dress rehearsal 

long gone leaving a Z trail of coal and dynamite, a perverse reference to extreme respect

and digital elegance.

~John Vlachos

remember me 

in all of my colors

not just your

favorite ones.

~linda m. crate

hurricane cone(head) of uncertainty

~Debbie Strange

paleo dig

the waste chamber

of a whistle-pig

~Debbie Strange

Afternoon of July 26, 2026

the writer's diagnosis

his life enters

its final chapter

~John J. Dunphy

 

 

bookmarked the pages where i grew up

~Mona Bedi

 

*Mitch*

Your 

obstructions 

are being

obstructed 

to death.

~Noah Berlatsky

divorce

wife awarded 

both burial plots

~John J. Dunphy

armed

with nothing but a bassoon

she fires

a single note

at the Ghost of Christmas Past

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

moths 

forever never ever

butterflies

~Myron Arnold

Only the cockroaches

Only the cockroaches make democracy perfect. 

~ Partha Sarkar

The waves are crashing into the shore

and receding

leaving behind dark pools

which slowly crawl towards the ocean

as if was its shadow

shrinking behind the tide

following and cowering,

drowning under foamy bubbles

and in the bellies of

barren fish.

~Abdullah Bin Imran

 

waves lap

at the rusting

ruins

salt encrusted

skyscrapers

~Melissa Dennison

 

another

ship of migrants

turned around

the cost

of air

~Melissa Dennison

after wind

grass

one way

~Elliot Diamond

Instructions


Water

the silence

until it

grows

birds.

~Ismail Adekunle Hassan

Inventory


One moon.

Two pockets.

Neither

holding

what I came for.

~Ismail Adekunle Hassan

Ourselves 

Always in a forgotten place, next to a maybe of an almost, striding in great

halls, to be replaced, a discarded piece of memory shivering in the cold. 

~John Vlachos