Morning of May 4, 2026

 

house centipede...

I take a moment to celebrate

my fingers and toes

~Patrick Sweeney

pinball nudge instead of church

all we needed to know was the color of the vestments

~Patrick Sweeney

her cat's yawn...

and I'm a sparrow

ready to beat the dust

~Patrick Sweeney

he's the kind of guy who entertains a fly

on his knuckle at lunch time

~Patrick Sweeney

at the window

your bone-white

screaming face

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

the lonely guy 

McWoman is made 

from McRib

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

examining the dot-dash-dot of my being till dawn

~Patrick Sweeney

the same day my brother quit school

a guy came into the bowling alley

with a raccoon on a leash

~Patrick Sweeney

what's to become

of 'a penny saved'?

~Patrick Sweeney

he's memorized the names

of the neighbors

and their dogs

~Patrick Sweeney

AN ITCH UNREACHABLE

And suddenly like that there is a determined itch ,

The skin is punished by false ashes and sackcloth.

Or that armour of iron through which you cannot reach!

Clink clank– that is not the sound of your fingernails,

The skin is punished by false ashes and sackcloth.

Loud penitence indeed, an itch made your life hell!

Writhe into impossible contours, desperate to itch,

Your spine at mid back is dreaming for fingernails to reach.

Fake armour, ashes and sackcloth give rashes beyond reach,

The itchy rash crawls up the spine but you cannot scratch the itch.

~Debaleena Mukherjee

Swirl the montage and pick pocket answers. 

~jon vlahos

Paragons, a shimmering delayed tactic where shadows pillage those who live there.

~jon vlahos

Powerful words portioned out in glass flasks, a word be politics. 

~jon vlahos

almost sure

they are talking about me

silver maple blossoms

~Joshua St. Claire

megrim becoming a seismograph 

~Joshua St. Claire

dreaming in reverse haiku

~Joshua St. Claire

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Morning of May 1, 2026

May Day

a new blossom on 

my Christmas cactus

~John J. Dunphy

day done

I ride on the clouds

waving to Lucy

~Tejendra Sherchan

all night diner

spinning quarters 

on the counter

~John Pappas

No players  

All are at war.

No players to play chess. 

~Partha Sarkar

junkyard

feral cat sleeps in 

a child's car seat

~John J. Dunphy

Earth Day

child living at

our Moon Colony

celebrates a planet

she's never set foot on

~John J. Dunphy

Update

“Anyone can grow up

to be president”

now we know

you don’t even need

to grow up

~David Oates

It Will All Come out in the Wash…

Dirty

laundry – red

hats, white sheets.

~Paul Szlosek 

Countdown

I'm tired

in my marrow . . .

less than 1,000

days to go

~Kimberly Kuchar

the chill

inside the gothic cathedral

high summer

~Joseph P. Wechselberger

Impact


Wind rushes.

Skin cold.

Ripcord fails.

Earth approaches.

Impact.

~T. Morrow

Collective Optimism

Everybody believes

The world

Will not

End tomorrow

~Paul Szlosek

my cat corrects me

when she hears me say

I live alone

~Jennifer Gurney

loose tooth

the tongue keeps

checking

~Jacek Margolak

the wailing dog

some distant relative

with a spare key

~Steve Black

8 mm Fiction

A photo that graphs

One eighth of a second

Of distracted attention

Yesterday's product of

Tomorrow matter

Stirred suit of ambitions

Flushed out aroused provisions

Consequences of a shaken sequence

~Cesar Delgado

Poems Are Fictions

I'm looking at the ocean.

There isn't a boat on the ocean till

I put one there.

There it is. Do you see it?

~Peter Mladinic

All my enemies are doing well.

~Noah Berlatsky

self checkout I ask myself find everything okay?

~Mary Oishi

Morning of April 25, 2026

Don't Stare!

uninvited guests 

   not apologizing 

      for the mess

         I’ve become

~Bryan Rickert

her hospital voice

a crumpled piece of paper

made smooth

~Bryan Rickert

Fathomless foam  

Fathomless foam- 

One has to cross sea after sea after being drowned. 

~Partha Sarkar

Insight

The beginning of the beginning

of the beginning of the beginning

of the beginning of the beginning

of the beginning of the beginning

of the beginning of the beginning...

~Chad Parenteau

Still in love

Sweet bitterness of blackbirds

Legacy of hope

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

Something magic 

Layers upon layers

Of sunset 

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

weird girl 

i have always been

a weird girl,

they use it as an insult;

but i don't cling to

prayers of normalcy

i get to walk where i want—

maybe i'm not the one

who should change.

~linda m. crate 

i walk the astral realm

just let my dreams

be reality,

there's something broken

in this world;

and i'm ready to go home.

~linda m. crate

remembering magic & dreams

i promised myself

long ago i wouldn't lose

my magic or my dreams,

saw too many slip into

the skin of nothingness

and forget their own 

name.

~linda m. crate

every crow answered 

you tried too hard

to hold me,

instead i ran into 

the forest;

every crow answered

my prayers when i 

begged for friendship you

could not give me.

~linda m. crate 

through greasy air

AI wardens in

grumblecraft

~Richard Magahiz

like a holy flame writhed the king's fool 

~Richard Magahiz

by her iridium content

will you know

grief

~Richard Magahiz

trust the land snails with their dreams of speed

~Richard Magahiz

sunrise

my star parts

disappear

~Anne Fox

LOOK UP I yell

into the back of your phone case

~Jeanie Ngo

my mother faces

away from the window

trust

even after the war

~Jeanie Ngo

there is no pattern

to which of your string lights

are broken

~Jeanie Ngo

scientists are disappearing

that is not in the curriculum

I reach for a banned book

~Jeanie Ngo

400mg of empathy

enough to be present

and not enough to be paralyzed

~Jeanie Ngo

Afternoon of April 23, 2026

 

rain in the gutters

how a meaningless tune

became our anthem

~John Hawkhead

 

invasive species 

alien bodies trapped

by ice

~John Hawkhead

On Helping Two Old Men Navigate the Intake Machines at the Blood Work Place and Telling

the Phlebotomist about Philip K. Dick and the Movie Strange Days

scanners

what's next

thoughts

~dan smith

time zones

I run behind

yesterday

~Soumya Mukherjee

an ancient form

poets jump into the pond

frogs splash out

~Olinda Ninolakis

full moon 

a tulip thief makes a shortcut

through my backyard

~Maya Daneva

looking ill

on the outside—

old hospital

~Tony Williams

This year

New life

Death

Disappointment— Disillusionment

No footing

Shifting sands

All shall not be well

It only is.

~Ashley Lockemer

who's who?

the many double-Facebook people

behind the screen

~Oscar Luparia

crime scene piles of dismembered poems

~dan smith

                                              AN ENIGMA OF THE INFORMATION AGE

Record everything

then change and act as if you

always were this way.

~Paul Edward Costa

BEDTIME RITUAL REVIVAL

A taste of toothpaste, my pyjama fabric’s smell…unfamiliar sensations precede sleep.

So many nights blacked out in a row, redacted, never turning out the lights.

Anonymous heads nod in acknowledgement; they’ve also rediscovered wakeful evenings.

~Paul Edward Costa

SCHRÖDINGER WAITS DREAMING: POST-SCRIPT

I finally summoned the exorcist within me

who liberated my cardiovascular system’s

suspended centre

by standing against silence’s terror,

while repeatedly stating

The absence of deception compels you!

The absence of deception compels you!

~Paul Edward Costa

BLACK HOLE MOTOR

Do not lose faith that we will, one day,

learn how to harness the awesomely inert energy

of black holes light years away

to power our progress and functionality

since, after all, we have plenty of people operating in

and assisting society regularly

with massive, gaping chasms of silence

deep inside them. 

~Paul Edward Costa

Migraine

darkness flashes first

before it hurts

~Noah Berlatsky

you think you’re better than me lake superior

~thomas david

rubbing me 

the wrong way

tectonic plates

~thomas david

Morning of April 18, 2026

 Somewhere

$300 per night

we gather up

the toiletries

~Tom Bierovic

barking back

at the neighbor’s dog

lost in translation

~Tom Bierovic

Charlie Parker

the newborn

wiggles his toes

~Tom Bierovic

in Nashville...

the long eyelashes of my dead brother

and Johnny Cash

~Patrick Sweeney

the man with dirty fingernails giving us directions worth following

~Patrick Sweeney

the strange smells of other people's homes

~Patrick Sweeney

I'm the historian of what doesn't matter

~Patrick Sweeney

the inner clothesline is for the underwear

~Patrick Sweeney

apex predators whooping it up on the evening news

~Patrick Sweeney

Time

I'm running out of

~Noah Berlatsky

Breaktime

The world pauses.

The fingers break.

Built on precision.

Tested by time.

~T. Morrow

NASA planning

to do permanent settlement

in the moon...

since I don't own a house here

I wish to do one there

~Tejendra Sherchan

piercing the air 

a violin screams 

with grief

~Stephanie Zepherelli 

falling into 

morning coffee 

last night’s regrets

~Stephanie Zepherelli 

in prison

the invisible bars 

of expectation 

~Stephanie Zepherelli

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Afternoon of April 15, 2026

 

Submission form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdDF3gcy35ARN51wcAUcTYf4FVOnLtC9xlAb-h67HxzJfXkUw/viewform?fbclid=IwY2xjawRNAitleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFuRmcyZ1hXRXRQTmlTZ1Zvc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHjnNzhn6d_-kG60fuOtT6K1ixGwWVte0w5FjC4gRoyGWRluQ-E173XrqJGa7_aem_nGOJDxM5qRxHL11RJSGkIg

                     

So long

So long as there are two humans, 

there will never be a ceasefire. 

~Partha Sarkar

yr gov't at work

UFOs and teleportation

waffle land of tarnished arches

~dan smith

govsplaining

answering our questions

before we ask

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

church bells

rung by 

a tornado

~John J. Dunphy

the politician's murder

upgraded to

an assassination

~John J. Dunphy

Paper mache worries

They tend to crumble

In the wind

~Sarah Mahina Calvello 

brown mountain 

logs float

and no more

~Princes Rose Manuel 

guarding Earth

from asteroid hits

greatness of Jupiter

~Tejendra Sherchan

Landlord

The landlord said

the house was being sold

so moved from a room

with green mould

to one with grey mould

and another landlord.

~Paul Bavister

Choked on smoke

from the factory over the fence

that made plastic bottles

for pure water.

~Paul Bavister

we chimps

typed this

by chance

~Paul Bavister

you can't do the Watusi when the lumbago kicks in

~Patrick Sweeney

part of my practice is waiting for a voice from a cloud

~Patrick Sweeney

casing the joint...

the attention he never paid

in school

~Patrick Sweeney

an ant with wings...

he's learning how

to lip-sync

~Patrick Sweeney

(Fee to submit)

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Afternoon of April 11, 2026

Theme: Revenge, vendettas, grudges, feuds, rivalries, etc

Fiction: Up to 10,000 words (all genres)  /  Poetry: Up to 10 standard manuscript pages

The older you get

the more each new moment

recalls an old

humiliation.

~Noah Berlatsky

Spilling wine

On chocolate dirt

On murmuring roots

~Sarah Mahina Calvello 

dewy morning

forgotten in the fairy ring

a plastic wand

~Gordon Gearhart

the dried old leaves fall

never fears their end knowing

their time will return

~Joanne Macias

waterbed

of pillow lava

extra firm

~Nicholas De Marino

string theory

strung between

modules

~Nicholas De Marino

аs a child 

no one knew 

the operating principles of military aviation

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

 

Kardashev Scale

have the UFOs

just been slumming

~dan smith

 

 

And  it utters vociferously

 

'I am at war..I cannot help killing innocent people...

now I have no time to think of the butterflies...

kindergarten...future's children park without fear...' 

It utters vociferously 

and throws stones at the flowers. 

~Partha Sarkar 

 

 

bioscience systemic sticker shock

 

bioscience systemic sticker shock – 

                                            why was I quarantined for years

~Scott C. Holstad

blind

 

an eye for a mouth

garbled trace of

humanity left in

traces at table

along with knife

the size of Judas.

~Scott C. Holstad

Duality

Of twilight crickets

Slow mandolins

~Sarah Mahina Calvello 

Ravens song

Time goes by

Is it enough?

~Sarah Mahina Calvello