Afternoon of May 4, 2025

 

 

 

        Ninja Skillz

        ~Kelly Sauvage Moyer

Truth #1

~Kelly Sauvage Moyer

 

 

 

 

recycling them unread

the papers copies

you should have sent electronically

~Joshua St. Claire

Ultraviolet

 

The robin sees and hears

what I cannot,

yet returns each morning

to its perch,

never wishing to leave

the stratosphere.

~Angela Acosta, PhD

Lone heart

Gets different directions a lone heart on the avenues

But cannot decide which one is to take.

~Partha Sarkar

truck stop bathroom

my hands cleaner

than the sink handle

~Joshua St. Claire

countdown

everyone already knows

the end has begun

~M. R. Pelletier

After every carnage

Carnage!

After every carnage

There has been no ringtone in the embryo

As every carnage is state sponsored

(If not by both, at least by one)

~Partha Sarkar

summer rental house

within my closet

someone’s fishing poles


~Anthony Lusardi

spaghetti westerns

gun sounds

before hands draw


~Anthony Lusardi

a toddler

striking a pose

she saw on tv

~Anthony Lusardi

in his eternally cool fortress of sand, the Egyptian accountant's closing entry

~Patrick Sweeney

a few stains on her perfection

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

it seems wrong now to mention the uncertainty of butterflies

~Patrick Sweeney

stench of old dog

his owner

holds him close

~SJ Moye-Dombrosky

not the first to want to exchange places with the shaggy dog in the commercial

~Patrick Sweeney

birdwatching

with no desire

to know

~Joanna Ashwell

beaver moon

the odds already

stacked against us

~Joanna Ashwell

troll emojis

oh her dating profile

total red flag

~Nicholas De Marino

that wasn't the last

crusade

just the most recent

~Nicholas De Marino

showing his hands before being ordered to

~Patrick Sweeney

   

Morning of May 3, 2025

 

 

Submit to HIA by May 4!

Deadline extended due to website

woes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

nothing more to say

still blocked

on Facebook

~Julie Bloss Kelsey

 

fractal days —

my words with ordinary

meaning

~Vijay Prasad

somewhere between

wistful and confident

the wallet condom


~Julie Bloss Kelsey

hiding

chocolate eggs from myself

sugar moon

~Madeleine Kavanagh

 

 

tsuri-doro: Open through May 10


https://tsuridoro.org/contact

Cold Moon Journal: Open for submissions May 1-31!

https://coldmoonjournal.blogspot.com/2022/08/guidelines-for-contributors.html

Submit to #Femku . . . May 1-31

https://femkumag.wixsite.com/home/guidelines

 swirling
 
into my

  mojito
       .
       .
       .
mosquito
 

~Julie Bloss Kelsey

a short life

bleating calves — bound

for the meat works

~Wanda Amos

Please take me

I’m woke

Adult dodgeball

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

Blossom

Is the blush

Before the fruit.

~Tracey Foster

troubling coccydynia

even the short distance

feels longest

~Tejendra Sherchan

 

 

 

Deadline May 15: Enchanted Garden Haiku

https://enchanted-garden-haiku.blogspot.com/p/submissions-calendar.html

 

 

my hate for you

stills like an unstable liquid

poured gently

into a jar

stored on a shelf,

atomically ready,

waiting

for the first

shake.


~don farrell

Sober

my skin is thinner than any time

i’ve spent here, feeling completely

shaven, naked...waiting, hoping

to get back my clothes,

to hide myself, praying I don’t

die like this,

that someone I wish wouldn’t,

doesn’t see me

say please.

~don farrell

Why Not Neither?

I am in the middle of writing two poems.

They are wrestling in my head.

One bitter; one cheerful; they sing and they slither—

It’s exhausting. I’ll write this instead.

~Noah Berlatsky

 

 

 

Afternoon of April 29, 2025

 

Hotel Note


~Kelly Sauvage Moyer

dust motes

in a sunlight shaft

this rhetoric

of existentialism

every now and then

~Arvinder Kaur

It don't mean a thing

if Buddha ain't got that zen,

so blow that green smoke!

~Morley Cacoethes

 

 

Tell me, cat, when you

reincarnate, will you come

back as homeless me?

~Morley Cacoethes

Gritting My Rodent-Resembling Teeth

Triturating my rodent-resembling top teeth on

their nether, underneath counterparts

gritting them like a tree’s bark against a saw,

like a nail file against a cat’s overly sharp claws,

I wither myself away into ivory shards;

Admittedly, when I have no sustenance I gnaw

on my body’s infinitely available flaws,

until I’m left dismantled in my own boneyard.

~Mira Fox

The Very Itch of Me

within the shadows i lurk and when you least except it there i am floating upon you with

deepening urges desiring in impaling you –annoyingly hovering over you constantly dancing

about you –longing to be near and close as your ear humming my cravings in touching you

–everywhere anywhere you leave expose to me; legs arms fingers lips neck and back –your skin

so erotically appetizing –exciting me into a frenzy of implying and suckling upon you –tickling

your toes nibbling at those tender lobes exploring all of you –i loiter in stalking you till i pounce

drinking you in filling myself full of you sharing the very disease of me –then taking flight only

to return –addicted to the very DNA of you for our bond is strong –such intimacy we shared

having left my mark upon you –causing you to recall remembrances in the very itch of me.

~Michael Butkovich

 

 

long after

the ink has dried

family, still

~Jennifer Gurney

The Good Fight

~Kelly Sauvage Moyer

 

 

 

 

Collapsed squares become wrecktangles.

~Richard Kostelanetz

Death’s life’s “bottom line.”

~Richard Kostelanetz

Robots are modern slaves.

~Richard Kostelanetz

Some speak nonsense unintentionally.

~Richard Kostelanetz

Correct punctuation goes unnoticed.

~Richard Kostelanetz

Whatever is was possible.

~Richard Kostelanetz

rumbling thunder

silencing all the chattering

for once

~Tejendra Sherchan

green skies

I try to remember

Earth

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

lost colony

naught but shard and bone

a howl at the moons

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

between wishing and fulfilment Saturn’s transit


~Arvinder Kaur

green spring loving the alien

~Scott Wiggerman

hidden tunnel

light on the other

side of the world

~Scott Wiggerman

responding

to an ancient call

mourning doves

~Scott Wiggerman

closed casket

a fly mourns

to get in

~Scott Wiggerman

the bulldozer

is faster than the tree

law of the jungle

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

 

 

Deadline May 1: Nominate (2024) poetry

for the Dwarf Stars 2025 Anthology

http://www.sfpoetry.com/dwarfstars.html

 

 

Morning of April 26, 2025

 

RULES OF THUMB

Desire is bad for your posture,

Thinking is bad for your breath,

Life is bad for your health

~Richard Collins

class action

with all your

spare time

~Jerome Berglund

Good Dog

The good dog has one job:

do not step in poop.

She failed.

~Noah Berlatsky

our grandfathers

firing cannons

above the clouds

~Jerome Berglund

seasons below ground

only if

you change floors

~Jerome Berglund

YES, EMPTINESS

These snowcloud mountains

struck by a slanting

sliver of dawn — 

an avalanche 

of silence.

~Richard Collins

local eatery

an adjacent diner

finger-combing his beard

~Tuyet Van Do

The Brave Thing

what’s left of your face is swollen

another nurse every six hours

who you will never

have children with

keeps looking

at her phone.

~John Dorsey

Progress

Few appreciate

the ubiquitous flush toilet

but elderly folks,

often repeatedly,

WHOOSH

watch and

wonder.

~Allan Lake

HALF MOON FULL BRIGHT

a broken silver doubloon

bitten in half by a toothless knight

this half moon still shines 

its full worth

~Richard Collins

 

the night hoots

a worm moon

slips to day


~Elliot Diamond

Moon shimmering

Plum blossoms

The cards I’ve been dealt

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

Weird feeling

Living a loop

Déjà vu

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

length of day

a dung beetle

rolling eyes


~Elliot Diamond

I WAS BORN IN 1952

I was born in 1952, a year most stellar,

ten years after the book Old Yeller,

when England first heard The Goon Show,

which revolutionized radio,

with Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers,

spawning a generation of funny fellers.

and who could forget Singin’ in the Rain

with Gene Kelly higher on love than cocaine

and to think: I was just minus seven

when Hiroshima was sent to heaven.

~Richard Collins

war in hyperlink
 

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

 

https://sonicboomjournal.wixsite.com/sonicboom/world-collage-day