Evening of July 31, 2023

first day in the office —

delegating my tasks

to ChatGPT

~Roman Lyakhovetsky

after dinner

discarding

her husband

~Wilda Morris

feeling

a little salty

potato chip moon

~Susan Burch

paralyzed by the sting of a potter wasp

dragged from its rolled-leaf home

and eaten alive by larva—

I would not want to be

this striped oak leaftier catepillar

~Wilda Morris

cooling shelter

volunteer removes a water bottle from

a sleeping guest's hand

~John J. Dunphy

sleet from shaved bunions

the perfect poverty

of her life

~Patrick Sweeney

scorching his pleats chef

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

train cows the moos in my head

~Susan Burch

splashes of light sake

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

no use regretting that I never made it to the turquoise mines of Sinai

~Patrick Sweeney

old oven new sylvia plathing it

~Susan Burch

Afternoon of July 30, 2023

 

rusty lock the smell of rain

~Hifsa Ashraf

counting on the power line crows

~Hifsa Ashraf

a refugee’s dreams sinking in the small boat

~Hifsa Ashraf

tainted rutabaga

his long suffering

coming to a bitter end

~Linda L. Ludwig

skating through blue grass derby queen

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

washing ashore some of the evidence

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

Fish-eyed moon staring straight at the sun sees everything

~Cynthia Damon

the ache behind my last

life as a rose

~Tiffany Shaw-Diaz

when every shade of night fades into us

~Tiffany Shaw-Diaz

cut grass

the drudgery

of sameness

~Tiffany Shaw-Diaz

dandelion fluff

sometimes i just

want to be

~Tiffany Shaw-Diaz

Evening of July 29, 2023

childhood diary

even now

what she wonders

~Richard L. Matta

mudflats

all that’s left

between us

~Richard L. Matta

as we turn

to glance at our past …

we see our future

~Jennifer Gurney

static electricity

our charged words switch

to emojis

~Richard L. Matta

a justification of crooked toes this rocky path

~Arvinder Kaur

a narrative of broken bangles lost rainbow

~Arvinder Kaur

poet mocks himself

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

engineering humor airline seats

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

right under his nose

lips

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

So I Go Walking



Mother’s day dinner stuffs me so full of warm alcohol and lobster ravioli and love…

Quarantine sticks me up in a house full of hidden arguments threatening to boil over at a

moment’s notice…

I’m a little tired today and it's too cold to walk to the gym anyway…

Last night forced one too many handfuls of chex mix down my throat…

Depression swirls in my stomach with the changing of the seasons and I just don’t want to

have to think about anything at all.

~Izzy Astuto

in the flea’s diary

one more

bloody workday

survived slippery slopes…

note to self—avoid the matting

bug out

~Richard L. Matta

midsummer relief —

using the bark of the cherry

as a backscratcher

~Colette Kern

Home Invasion

Yesterday holds a gun to my head,

demands wasted time in nickels and quarters.

Today holds the bullets, collects empty cartridges.

You’re so disappointing, he says.

Tomorrow tip-toes to the door.

He wants to leave before the bleeding starts.

~Nolcha Fox

where the sea grapes grow

and the sand sparkling white

i sit in my

~Gillena Cox

Thou art more lovely

Thou art more

Thou art

Thou

~Noah Berlatsky