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 sunlights 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

Afternoon of September 16, 2026

 

A CERTAIN LOGIC

1. Nothing is certain.

2. Except paradox.

∴ Accept paradox.

~Scott Parker

driftwood

becoming a part

of the mystery

~Joanna Ashwell

seize the day

a flea in the bed

of each lodger

~Joanna Ashwell

Please Like This Post

 

The goal of social media

is to make friends and then

slowly

over time

turn them into enemies.

 

When everyone hates you

you win

and get to die.

~Noah Berlatsky

She used words I hadn't seen or heard 

since taking the Scholastic Aptitude Test

~Patrick Sweeney

Instead of offering me another beer, 

the pain-in-ass history buff is pontificating about the short lifespan of democracies 

~Patrick Sweeney

I'm the old man who can't stop coughing on the Amtrak to Pittsburgh

~Patrick Sweeney

I'm old enough to remember being warned about quicksand

and the third rail of fascism

~Patrick Sweeney

Former deep thinkers on trains are texting,

and compulsively checking their messages....

~Patrick Sweeney

unexpected obit 

pulling the trigger 

too soon 

~Stephanie Zepherelli 

On Listening to Son House Sing Death Letter Blues

my sadness pales even knowing

that it won't seem

like even a hundred 

on the burial grounds  

and I probably won't 

even be notified 

knowing that it's 

really me I mourn for

the stark lyric beauty

hits me and I almost cry

~dan smith

hey, bully

together we’ll out-bully

you

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

this too shall pass —

a refugee's last words

before deportation 

~Debarati Sen

parents' gravestone photos

each looks away from the other

forever


~Maya Daneva

 

Saint Alan

Prayers

answered.

Universe

polices

Itself

every

century

or so.

~Chad Parenteau

fallen between the fallen makeshift crosses

~Maya Daneva

emotions spark thunderstorms zigs and zags distant but close 

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

 

bowing before binary gods our nemesis

~Stephanie Zepherelli 

 

coffee and rent reality screaming 

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

 

the fianchettoed chess player

~Ron Scully

Opalescent strange rain outside the lines

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

The precious remark of absurdity develops wings the wind stops blowing, a thought is 

torn to shreds 

~John Vlachos

 

Afternoon of September 14, 2026

 

releasing itself

the butterfly in my throat 

~Marjorie Pezzoli

The ever-changing flight plan of the clouded sulphur butterfly

~Patrick Sweeney

The reporter's asking the wrong people

if there were any warning signs 

~Patrick Sweeney

The missing sock was found only after the house was condemned and demolished,

leaving the nebby neighbor to contemplate the previous owner's 

one barefooted hop into paradise

~Patrick Sweeney

People kept telling him he matched the description of the man reported missing 

~Patrick Sweeney

Under the susurration of mimosas, this is no time to mispronounce the names of the gods

~Patrick Sweeney

Searching for the emergency exit in her eyes

~Patrick Sweeney

She made her diagnosis after watching him dance

~Patrick Sweeney

I don't have time to

not have time for

the time I don't

have

~Noah Berlatsky

main character syndrome

you weren't even

the main character

in your own life let

alone mine.

~linda m. crate

i wanted to sleep in the library

knew there i would find peace

not arguments.

~linda m. crate

oblivious

to what I am thinking

a crow

~Joseph P. Wechselberger

at the zoo

two monkeys watch

a boy picking his nose

~Joseph P. Wechselberger

russets

a worm burrows

to the core

~Melissa Dennison

head-butt

I apologise

to the wasp

~Melissa Dennison

Unfinished

like Duchamp's 

smashed glass

we bounce along

thinking about

what to do

instead of what

not to do

~dan smith

libran's sick day the horoscope confirms it

~Tejendra Sherchan

a quiet green bud

teaches patience without words

vegetation

the government agency 

sets fire

~Manasa Reddy Chichili / Uchechukwu Onyedikam

♪ ♪ ♪ And I Am Telling You . . .

you are not staying

this is my house, that is my door

find yourself outside of it

by the time I finish this song ♪ ♪ ♪

or else

~S. T. Eleu

a bee

bumped into a log

and then…

~Kamrun Nahar

living their unauthorized version bootleg tapes

~Peter Jastermsky

junk drawer

there's a life in here 

somewhere

~Peter Jastermsky

chips off the old block party

~Peter Jastermsky

fight or flight another bad bird app

~Peter Jastermsky

hoping for another dream my birth mother

~Stephen Toft

lonely becoming dusk

~Stephen Toft

red light district

out of the corner of my eye

a plastic jesus

~Stephen Toft

deep winter 

i make shadows 

on your wall

~Stephen Toft

midnight cars x-ray my body

~Stephen Toft

after the x-rays

CAT scans

MRIs

so much

for privacy

~Ed Bremson

little angels 

die 

on сhristmas trees

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

the word "God"

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

polarity holding the image antique camera


~Sarah Mahina Calvello

star fracture welcome to this mad chaos 


~Sarah Mahina Calvello

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Red and Black Pear with Butterflies, Sunglasses and Black Bird

~dan smith