Afternoon of August 17, 2025

 

rooster crows

at noon...

the globe spins

~Kavita Ratna

clay models

of herbivores and carnivores

living in harmony

~Tejendra Sherchan

hot road

the dancing beard of a

goat

~Kavita Ratna

alas, words were exchanged - 

some heard, some unheard, 

some understood, others not so much

but, each damned

       each piercing 

       each more condemned than the other... 

~Allen David Simon

cemetery visit . . .

the cell reception

lives on

~Barrie Levine

broken Barbie

both of us in need of

knee replacements

~Barrie Levine

Hoover

Can be a noun

and a verb.

Wound & vac are

two words that

should never be

side by side.

Troubleshooting

that machine

is trouble.

Dam!

~Keith Snow

World of dewdrops

Wrap around geraniums

Surviving cold

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

Put me down

In history

People are stranger

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

This room

Full of empty space

I need to be loud

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

Down we go

Alice

Seasons change

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

Overdue Notice

Your final embrace was due January first. You

have missed several terms already. The cost

goes up each year, and standard interest

rates apply. The sooner you comply

with outstretched arms, the more

forgiveness you will merit.

Do not tarry, for death

will not settle.

~Carol Barret

Discovery

I approach through a tunnel of Lodgepole Pine, needles

underfoot. As I climb the last dune before sea grass

disappears, the ocean turns up the volume. I see

miles north and south. A dog trots alongside a red truck.

Another leads his master’s yellow van, almost pulling it

through sand and broken shells, eager to elongate the sun.

Few walkers about. One bent man in a dark hood

carries a blue bag, pokes his stick with each stride.

He does not scan the waves, but stops to assess

a rib of driftwood, as if yearning for a lost child.

~Carol Barret

my gel pen

stays silent

drought

~Shasta Hatter

new spice mix

at the supermarket

a small adventure

~Shasta Hatter

We can't fix a car

with a hammer or obtain

Peace by making war

~Sasha Clark

I love to express

myself in the dancing words

of poetry song

~Sasha Clark

physicists say

ninety six percent

of universe is made up of

something we don't know

maybe it's love

~Tejendra Sherchan

a cosmogony wherein

the hit-and-run driver always returns

to Vogdes Street

~Patrick Sweeney

so far off topic

that neither one of us knew what

we were originally discussing

~Patrick Sweeney

sorry I'm late,

missed an eyelet

had to relace

~Patrick Sweeney

her passing clouds stop

~John Hawkhead

every hand raised but mine

~Patrick Sweeney

(g)hostess with the mostess

~Barrie Levine

the rayed arc of Friday night

--71 movies in progress and eleven unread tomes in the Western canon

~Patrick Sweeney

body popping a blister pack of blows

~John Hawkhead

at the Nimitz Library

it just got easier for cadets to avoid reading

about the Holocaust

~Patrick Sweeney