Pushcart Prize Nominations from Five Fleas

 

Enjoy these exceptional poems by John Grey, Olinda Ninolakis, Jason

Ryberg, dan smith, and Diane Webster. Congrats to the nominees.

THE APOLOGY

My apology

was insincere

but she

accepted it.

Then we kissed

and made up.

At least,

she made up.

I made do.

~John Grey

K i n t s u g i

Awake and aware

The scalpel is there

Cuts in my face

Will help me place

What's right or wrong

Life is where I belong

Stitched up and plastered

Kintsugi on my cheek

Fault lines of the past

Joined up at last

~Olinda Ninolakis

 

Blind Eye

There’s been a prison-

     break of poets, tonight, and

     the hound dogs and guards

     are all out in force, but the

     moon is casting a blind eye.

~Jason Ryberg

Knucklebone

Outside the moon is

a knucklebone and someone

     is staging a post-

post-modernist production

     of Our Town in the old black

     box theater of my dreams.

~Jason Ryberg

Piece In The Valley

here a gun

there a gun

everywhere

a gun gun

~dan smith

Shadows in Jail

Shadows from the snow fence

stretch in jail-cell menace

across the drift blowing higher

in an attempt to escape

and race across the flats

to riot between highway lines

in the do-not-pass zone.

~Diane Webster

 

 

Afternoon of November 23, 2025

 

Messages

~dan smith

gliding through skyscrapers

I too fall in love

with my AI avatar

~Jackie Chou

escaping

into the breaths

of shakuhachi

our lives before

the immigrant blues

~Jackie Chou

pageant breakfast

stalks of green grapes

on our tiny plates

~Jackie Chou

\\\u8bewn0

01..{{gg”ds1`q

cat walk haiku

~Sherri J Moye-Dombrosky

Windy day

Leaves on the oak

Try to hang on

So do I

    So do I

~Tom Blessing

wrapped in a flag

old white man believing

he is america

~Tom Blessing

she had her way with my words

~dan smith

zen garden letting weeds be weeds

~Bryan Rickert

my usual walk but backwards the earth’s spin

~Bryan Rickert

I look at my screen

and remember

yesterday's screen

~Noah Berlatsky

fire drums

across the plains

tent cities

~Sherry Reniker

wisecracks–

a blind masseuse

walks my buttocks

~Sherry Reniker

sidewalk

near the feet

of the body's chalk outline

passerby places

a banana peel

~John J. Dunphy

racing against

the clock

still trying

to figure out life

before hitting 72

~John J. Dunphy

dioxide skies

the relentless rage

of refineries

~Stephanie Zepherelli

self-help book not feeling the hieroglyphics

~Stephanie Zepherelli

the soup

needing more water

homeless camp

~Stephanie Zepherelli

bleached bones

the only remains

of shipwrecked dreams

~Stephanie Zepherelli

 

 

Our 2025 Touchstone Award Nominations

Congratulations are in order for these Five Fleas nominees:

wishbones

fearing the snap

of disappointment

Joanna Ashwell

press conference-

the stomping

leads to whine

dan smith

living for years on Aretha's 'huh'

Patrick Sweeney

after the rapture a world without dogs

Julie Bloss Kelsey

distant sun

deadheading paper roses

in art therapy

Steve Black

she grabbed her walker

& rolled right out the front door

destined for the sea

Stephen Ground

she ran her fingers

through his bird's nest of a beard

& pulled out an egg


Stephen Ground

moon landing what if I have to pee

Martina Matijević

wardrobe update . . .

i crochet myself

a wise woman’s shawl

Kelly Sauvage Moyer

Curly's response

to tyranny

'nyuk, nyuk, nyuk'

Patrick Sweeney

the bad

comes with the good

joined at the head

Jerome Berglund

border crossing

an elephant stamps

my passport

Colleen M. Farrelly

tinkling triangles

the Pythagorean orchestra

a roomful of squares


Robert Witmer

thought a staircase ending mid air

Vijay Prasad

full of himselfie

Robert Witmer

Afternoon of November 17, 2025

 

Official Account

 

My brain

is the best brain

and filled with things.

 

~Noah Berlatsky

 

 

 

textile tariffs

the emperor’s

new clothes

~Mike Fainzilber

 

suffer little children

the smell

of rotting rice

~Mike Fainzilber

outwitting three lions a porcupine

~Tejendra Sherchan

 

 

new neighbor woodpecking the silence

~Hynek Koziol

some bullet shards

in his body

never taken out

~Hynek Koziol

old circus -

no rabbits left

in the hat


~Hynek Koziol

hearing

the latest news...

anticyclonic gloom

~Melissa Dennison

if I

     go that way --

             hoping for a

                pot of gold

~Melissa Dennison

frass...

the signature

of a moth

~Melissa Dennison

 

 

a black and white movie

from the year he was born ...

hospice

~Joseph P. Wechselberger

happy hour

a man across the bar

winks and smiles

~Joseph P. Wechselberger

 

 

listening to Frozen

letting my niece

paint my nails

~Stephen C. Curro

 

dewdrop

all the cosmos

on one leaf

~Stephen C. Curro

 

Morning of November 15, 2025

 

 

 

there again this morning

the retired racehorse in the meadow

~Patrick Sweeney

I eat tub after tub of sketchy blackberries

but will never write that well

~Nicholas De Marino

slipping

in and out of our lives

court rulings

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

economic depression

even Orion tightens

his belt


~Amber Winter

blustery day

turning my locks

into murder weapons

~Amber Winter

bouncing up

and down the escalator

tariffs

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

following stars

Australian Moth navigates

its way

~Tejendra Sherchan

recreating

once-celebrated works

AI

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

life has gotten easier since paper flowers

~Patrick Sweeney

expecting silk in a sip of mulberry wine

~Patrick Sweeney

cold fingers breaking the suction of my cup lava flow

~Amber Winter

buddhas never seem to need a leg to stand on

~Patrick Sweeney

when they tell you what the least of your worries should be

~Patrick Sweeney

Afternoon of November 13, 2025

record what I say

asleep     some are

old passwords

~Richard Magahiz

 

accumulations

of matter that's why

we date

~Richard Magahiz

climaxes

the first six orbits

then off for twelve

~Richard Magahiz

satin paramecium slippers

~Richard Magahiz

papa's whereabouts

just one thing

the twelfth Imam knew

~Richard Magahiz

geraniums

common sense is a flower

too often ignored

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

a monster

guzzling trees...

pooping buildings

in a drawing

i can't forget

~Pegah Rahmati Nezhad,

this obsession

to write my poetry

on the pebbles

while my world is busy

collecting treasures

~Tejendra Sherchan

door number three

all that’s left

of my choices

~Anne Fox

rising

against gravity

a conspiracy

of birdsong

~Anne Fox

universe

the poem I bring back

from the stars

~Anne Fox

power outage

I curl up

in the cat’s lap

~Anne Fox

friendsgiving

a hodgepodge of chairs

around the table

~Anne Fox

black friday

merchants set up tables

in the temple

~Anne Fox

snow moon

white poppy seed packets

taped to the fridge

~Anne Fox

sweet tea

she thickens her accent

for the audition

~Anne Fox

last call

she goes home with

the smell of smoke

~Anne Fox

they say

we are made of

stardust

~Tejendra Sherchan

'Luck up' in the coal mines...

and prayers for the souls of dragonflies

~Patrick Sweeney

the wind

answered

the leaf

~Patrick Sweeney

leaves are down:

the perching owl is now the white of a broken sycamore limb

~Patrick Sweeney

daily's entire page

detailing how some people

become noncitizens

~Tejendra Sherchan

woodpeckers

sound the alarm

holes in hollow men

~Robert Witmer

empty pockets

a fresh start

on the clothesline

~Robert Witmer

notes

for a climate plan

musical chairs

~Robert Witmer

memory

a tainted sample

of DNA

~Robert Witmer

wine

on the periodic table

a philosopher's stone

~Robert Witmer

'Every now and then, ' he said, 'I want to make a break for it'

~Patrick Sweeney

no eclectics in cults

~dan smith

soulmates, easier than finding shrinks


~Sarah Mahina Calvello

fuzzy slippers a hibernation starts

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

graduation photo her failed dreams in chiaroscuro

~Martina Matijević

Death is a room.


~Mykyta Ryzhykh

The iron of dreams. Erosion.

~Mykyta Ryzhykh