Morning of July 3, 2024

The Sudoku Master

~Kelly Moyer

green sauce peppersalt pyrex

~J. D. Nelson

salad flange witness of dreams

~J. D. Nelson

& now for the lake awol biology

~J. D. Nelson

one haiku after another cicada

~Keith Evetts

old birder

the night jar

under his bed

~Keith Evetts

quiet

at last

winter fly

~Keith Evetts

couth 2nd forest laughter in a tree

~J. D. Nelson

wording how long is an idea diet

~J. D. Nelson

brackish dream conchcode again again again

~J. D. Nelson

Beyond the Paler Things

When he awoke,

I calmed him with talk of his favorite river.

I told him his body could somersault

over and over the river.

faster and faster

soaring through imagination that traversed heaven and Earth.

In phases of recovery and nullness.

You wanna feel something beyond the paler things,

But this is a delusion you shouldn’t indulge in.

~Grace Lee

monsoon drizzle…

a bubble forms and bursts

before landing

~Tejendra Sherchan

mister man in the moon awaits sleep

for light years he has lain awake

his marbled azure eyes gazing

around an indigo galaxy

he has named each star

and still hopes for a call from home

to capture loneliness

~Alfred Booth

the finely glazed cup

fell and crashed

its one-of-a-kindness

cradles no more tea

medicinal herbs

or hot toddies when

his fingers fumble like maple syrup

and too much color burns in his eye

~Alfred Booth

from sea to sickened sea

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

concrete cancer collapsing into dust

~John Hawkhead

nothing lasts inside shoes

~John Hawkhead

dry river still stretch marks

~John Hawkhead

telefaxed

into the future

smoke signals

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

The Tulip

tulips poke up out of the ground ahead of schedule

they have fallen victim to the rain.

take the bulb with you

but what do you do after they bloom?

do you let them crumble? let them wither?

It’s hard to imagine a person

doing something nefarious to the garden

there is an acceptance of fantasy without making it illicit.

~Elisa Min

neighborhood garage sales

buying each other’s

castoffs

~Jennifer Gurney

my hand on your bark

I feel your story

such depth, such life

~Jennifer Gurney

forest whispers

as if the conifers

couldn’t hear

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

Mom’s Knee

 

I sat on that knee

and now it is broken

 

they’ll put in a new one

on which I’ve not sitten

 

and never won’t though you walk

and don’t know

 

where the knee go

when I

~Noah Berlatsky

low tide

a laughing gull dives

for God knows what

~Joshua St. Claire

no pronoun fits sea and I

~Joshua St. Claire

from an ending to a beginning I can’t understand fiddler crabs

~Joshua St. Claire