Morning of June 25, 2024

 

we’ve rolled together

bounced off each other a few times

but eventually settled

in this U-shaped valley

where the stream meanders to the sea

~Mark Gilbert

 

 

all this dusk burning my story

~Tiffany Elise

solstice or the inferno of same same

~Tiffany Elise

'Glacier is dead...'

Frightens the human stomach

The last message

From the river

For farming.

~Partha Sarkar

security

that gorgeous jazz

my bank plays me

to placate me soothe me

calm me down

distract me convince me

everything’s going to be fine

 

If you would like to hear ambient birdsong instead of jazz music please press 1 now.

~Mark Gilbert

I once saw bound bouquets

of blue roses at a market

as a child

so many years ago

that now it feels like

it was another person

puzzling over their indigo petals

~Simon Kaeppeli

now heavy reading

the paperback beach novel

drenched by the tide

~John J. Dunphy

Urban design



Polished streets

Streamlined for efficient traffic

Darkened windows fail to catch the eye

Nothing to see here

A homeless man is ushered away

Lest he would make people think

~Simon Kaeppeli

god’s waiting room

a crossword puzzle

with the easy ones

already filled in

by somebody else

in the queue

~Mark Gilbert

I list

my car for sale –

very same day

check engine light

comes on

~Jennifer Gurney

and maybe it was too hard

for you

to stop the ivy

from spreading

from choking off

the oak

~Tiffany Elise

don’t ask —                                                       i will end up saying  
                                          
                      yes to everything

~Rupa Anand

 

 

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Afternoon of June 19, 2024

 

I will hide

deep in this forest

tell stories

to giants

a thousand years old

~Sharon Ferrante

Busy Route

a glass-bottom bus

to see who’s thrown under it

Washington, D.C.

~John H. Dromey

the identity crisis we all have waning moon

~Arvinder Kaur

my forgiveness a beast with too many heads

~Joana Figueiredo

another depth to the sunset orange bombing stops

~Arvinder Kaur

Kicking up clouds of dust I made promises I can’t fulfill

~Joana Figueiredo

soliloquy who do I think I am?

~John Hawkhead

long breakup again and again this mailer demon

~Arvinder Kaur

through the window life goes on

~Jennifer Gurney

juxta I have no position

~Sharon Ferrante

hearing my life in the lyrics the blues

~Jennifer Gurney

I am living in half delirium

for the third day in a row

I am running laps around my sanity

~Joana Figueiredo

Kitten died at the end of the day

Alive can't be that dead

Throat can't be that quiet

I buried a kitten in a computer box

Next to the grave without a cemetery, I planted a tree

I still remember how I called our son a kitten

In my old age, I will remember how I planted a tree, raised a son and built a new

house for my son

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

(Previously published in The Gorko Gazette)

trying to fix

my head with things

from the junk drawer

~Amber Winter

Summer evening—

a cicada sings in my town

silencing all its noise

~Tejendra Sherchan

transit ward

the nurse

moves

from one patient to the next

wearing the same gloves

~Tuyet Van Do

in the end

his claws

never scratched

the loneliness

out of me

~Joana Figueiredo

under the heat dome

does any damn fool

still say don't sweat it

~dan smith

 

 

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Afternoon of June 15, 2024

 

deadheading roses

how can

this much summer

have already

been lived

~Jennifer Gurney

flopped

on the bathroom floor

my mortal enemy

taking the cockroach in a cloth

I set him outdoors

~Madeleine Kavanagh

CVS pharmacy

elevator music

line of legal drug seekers

~Steve Van Allen

local market

a lady walking about

dabs

of foundation cream

on her face

~Tuyet Van Do

The faces I meet

A train at 4 a.m.

The call of the vein.

Different boulders.

Misunderstanding?

I open the door

And find a human-a glistening sardonic.

If I am happy, I am in a deathtrap.

~Partha Sarkar

I love the stone for the fact that he is steadfastly silent

I don't like people because they die

little birds kiss the glass of the universe

the world is a torn book in the hands of a child

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

(Originally published in Perceptions Magazine)

Calibrating Etymology

I used to close

with beat regards

but now beatitudes

seem more appropriate

~dan smith

No green in the clock

Once he protested alone against injustice and got defeated.

Then he thought he should protest collectively

And he joined the city of protest

And it is wise act

And it is positive.

congratulations!

But for a long time, I do not find any greenness in the clock.

~Partha Sarkar

bump stocks–

a major trigger

burning bright

~dan smith

lullabible

~Keith Evetts

shadow of a plane leaping trout

~Keith Evetts

no earthly reason why the moon

~Keith Evetts

it comes to me the cat

~Keith Evetts

the sky eats birds on the horizon

the bird shrinks to the size of a dot

the sun shines like a question mark

what will happen next?

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

 

(Originally published in Perceptions Magazine)

stepping off the train

with me

a vagabond pigeon

~Ranu Jain

 

 

Morning of June 14, 2024

 

The Cat Lady

~Kelly Moyer

up close

to the crow's

knuckles

~Patrick Sweeney

turns out

you can take it with you

spoliation

~Jerome Berglund

the twisted stanines in my testing history

~Patrick Sweeney

election results macaques + sleight of hand

~Jerome Berglund

Every voter is nothing but a salained corpse

The consternation.

The helpless eyes or the greedy fleeing.

The same attire of the ages.

No new wings for, of, by people.

Only just a box to put something into. What?

None know.

Yet a queue...

A smoke billowing.

~Partha Sarkar

he was far too mathematical for reincarnation

~Patrick Sweeney

not always a bad thing crash test dummy

~Jerome Berglund

a rubber boat traveled on the waters

resistance fighters about to pull the trigger

shoot first, talk later

~Fhen M.

Zummer Evenèn

Zunlight whirlèn

Zummer Evenèn

Russlèn brook

Yollow flowerz

Storm clouds

Gather in orcha'd

Death no foe

Never can forget 'ee

Hearty vo'k zing

A zong ov rememberin'

~Olinda Ninolakis

in this part of the play, I'm the old man writing in the back room

~Patrick Sweeney

dead pixel cheese grater revisionism

~Jerome Berglund

so many triggers Shiva packing heat

~Jerome Berglund

Dog Float

I float therefore I am

My human is close at hand

She leaves me adrift on a float

All the swimmers know me

I am a canine boat

I do know how to swim

Swimmers look at me and grin 

But it's so nice to just

Observe the birds above

In humans I do trust

~Olinda Ninolakis

when we used to wonder who the pallbearers would be

~Patrick Sweeney

leaving Sheetz through the wrong door    the pretzels know the way

~Patrick Sweeney

the voice on the phone doesn't breathe

~Patrick Sweeney

a glance back and the mystic stumbles

  ~Patrick Sweeney

 

 

 

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Afternoon of June 12, 2024

 

The Insomniac

~Kelly Moyer

sand grains –

all her bullying

word by word

~Nicoletta Ignatti

obsessive compulsive disorder –

lapping of waves

back and forth

~Nicoletta Ignatti

Renaissance Fair

costumed reenactors line up

at a porta-potty

~John J. Dunphy

marijuana dispensary

all its employees

highly trained

~John J. Dunphy

You have to love poetry

to be a poet.

But the only poems

I really love

are mine.

~Noah Berlatsky

flooded Golden Trumpets

all heaped on a drainage filter…

muddied and rotting

~Tejendra Sherchan

it was always fresh fish,

fresh meat, fresh fruits

served on an ancient table

~Fhen M.

then came a C Ration

imported, stateside

a fine range of canned foods

for not so sophisticated palates

~Fhen M.

a jungle of palm trees

turned to modern civilization

now an airport without airplanes.

~Fhen M.

I feel ashamed

The chirpings.

Birds come.

I spread crumbs.

They take them.

A mother-bird feeds a nestling.

A divine motherhood starts a day without war.

I feel ashamed of my human structure- The warmonger.

~Partha Sarkar

wordplaying with double entrées is appetizing

~Keith Snow

desert crackling orange peels tequila sunrise

~Elliot Diamond

haystack of a vacant moo

~Elliot Diamond

 

 

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Afternoon on June 8, 2024

 Recruiting

before

activity

ends in the cerebrum

a precisely located shock

it jumps!

pattern

realigned with our objective

it thinks our thoughts believes

our ends our means

are best

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

old stump

my old butt

good company

~Tom Blessing

“Hey Joe, give me a chewing gum”

barefoot, soiled feet

this boy could have been my grandpa

~Fhen M.

just words

the jurors play

hangman

~Robert Witmer

the golden egg

each morning a different

goose

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

summer sunset—

a bulbul flutters out of a bush

and flies in a curve

~Tejendra Sherchan

My journey

Without a caravan.

Feel the vacuum, beloved.

~Partha Sarkar

the dune moves on

polished metal emerges

from the sands of Mars

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

Knowing and Not Knowing

 

There are books on my kindle

I probably won’t read before I die.

 

So much knowledge

not in my head when my head

is filled with earth.

Who knows which books?

 

I mean, Finnegan’s Wake, obviously.

But other than that.

~Noah Berlatsky

candlelight

the fortune teller smiles

through the nervous shadows

~Robert Witmer

a white pale man

wore a Donald Duck hat

hired to build roads & airstrips

~Fhen M

flea circus

a mangy cat

snarls at a tiny chair

~Robert Witmer

lying listless

in wet mud

street cats

~Rupa Anand

catastrophic heat

the tree sheds mangoes

just to keep cool

~Rupa Anand

opal sky

the morning slug’s

trail of slime

~B. L. Bruce

sun slow to set

two hoots

from the owl

~B. L. Bruce

You are a hazy

moon, hiding

your intentions

in murky

mumblings.

~Nolcha Fox

annihilation—

Mexican Devils ravage a Peepal

halfway up

~Tejendra Sherchan

Pookie—

dancing to a cover of Boom  Boom

a hearty bowl of Soupy

~dan smith

"here

take everything I have"

i hold out my

empty hands

~Tom Blessing

dining out now checking for symptoms

~Ruth Holzer

giving the bird medicine he screams and dies

~Ruth Holzer

syrtaki for once joining the circle

~Ruth Holzer

waking to the brittle voices of the morning ravens

~Tom Blessing

memory

a brief visitor to my life

the man on a raft of cans

paddling down the ganges

at hardwar

neither of us knowing

the end of the journey

~Tom Blessing

 

 

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