Evening of October 19, 2022

 

Not Made in Heaven

Every single town in the world

has at least one woman

I would have married.

But we lived in our town

and I married you.

My Love.

~Vern Fein

                this morning

           walking in the park

                     through

                 a spiderweb

                     my face

          entangled in threads 

~Rupa Anand

skipping school

for lack of sanitary napkin

an african girl-child

left in the dark

period of taboo

~Christina Chin / Uchechukwu Onyedikam

The Better Part

Lazy when cooking, housekeeping,

I’m diligent about writing poems.

Ignoring everything but old age,

I people watch patrons in local restaurants,

eavesdrop hushed conversations,

write poem fragments on scraps of paper.

On a walk from the library I look

for my name on discarded envelopes,

postcards, spray painted graffiti, unpaid bills.

~Frank C. Modica

moønsoon rains

weather i like it

or nut

~Lorelyn De la Cruz Arevalo

signing his death warrant

the clown uses

invisible ink

~Thomas Tilton

cemetery

lying under the wall

the magpie's shadow

~Françoise Maurice

My Wife an Owl

Once a sprite blue bird,

always flying through my thoughts

and desires, in and out,

flapping her wings, singing.

 

But now feathers graying

at our dinner table,

when my lowering voice speaks,

she is an owl, tilting her head

and cupping her ear in my direction.


Not whooo, but why?

~Vern Fein

mathematical perfection

a universe

spun from chewing gum

~Kelly Moyer

at night

they emerge

moonlit clowns

~Thomas Tilton

October moon —

my broomstick comes

out of the closet

~Bonnie J Scherer

Bull in a China Shop

and I am the china.

I know you ground-pawing beef,

always thinking you can win

by throwing your weight around,

snuffling your ugly head back and forth

drooling until you charge,

break innocence into a zillion pieces.

can’t save the precious,

too much ever to sweep up.


I better never let you in.

~Vern Fein

Branded

Lift your legs

the Hoover’s buzzing, carpet drone -

recall the ease, Linoleum -

brushing cushions, clouding dust,

like the Kleenezy man’s about.

Because bare ankles bear the marks,

those jumping critters, flailing bout;

why do they choose her blood, not mine?

Branded now, generic fleas.

~Stephen Kingsnorth

(b)each

(b)itch

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

autumn evening

cat on my lap

fleas in fur

and we all

under quilt

~Mirela Brăilean

moth

emperor

ate his clothes

~petro c.k.