Afternoon of May 28, 2026

 

https://sonicboomjournal.wixsite.com/sonicboom/contests

in an alternate universe

I imagine that this

is an alternate universe

~Noah Berlatsky

it began with the pearl-blue sheep's eye in biology

and the war we thought we had to fight

~Patrick Sweeney

preliminary findings that suggest 

he may have been radicalized by love

~Patrick Sweeney

half asleep

reciting a 2,000-year-old prayer

~Patrick Sweeney

New moon 

Unfinished but magical

I want to stay

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

Crack of dawn

Crows peel off the road

Before us

~Tracey Foster

every window open

the rusted creak of my neighbor's

mailbox 

~Patrick Sweeney

his teachers said: he pays attention to all the wrong things

~Patrick Sweeney

secretly, he believed that every dandelion wish would come true

~Patrick Sweeney

that childhood light of a summer Saturday morning

when everyone was alive

~Patrick Sweeney

The Poet's Lament

no one is buying

my soul

~Noah Berlatsky

A Mature Poem

I want to be pissed off at the world,

but maybe I’m just pissed off at myself...

~Michael T. Smith

Tattered gloves in May

a waving shrub

hides the gardner 

~Mark Lawlor

outgrowing myself 

nothing left undone 

this time around

~Stephanie Zepherelli 

70 years old

slow dancing 

for the first time 

~Stephanie Zepherelli 

a disjointed life 

putting bones back 

where they belong 

~Stephanie Zepherelli 

walking me home 

a perfect fit 

enchanted shoes

~Stephanie Zepherelli 

And This

And this, all about the finished definition of round words, oval words, to words replying 

to other words for words sake that must have notion of tomorrow finding jackals in

commas and hyenas in the answers of today.

~John Vlachos

edge effect—

cougar tracks

between subdivisions

~Thomas L. Vaultonburg

church parking lot—

the hearse

beside the bounce house

~Thomas L. Vaultonburg

Just like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, 

we need to be aware 

of what is in plain sight - 

otherwise misguided trust

will see us devoured whole. 

~Joanne Macias

election gala

all

you can eat

~Soumya Mukherjee

the lake at dusk

someone needs to

answer that duck

~Ian Willey

echo chambers of Congress

~Ian Willey

Afternoon of May 23, 2026

 

Paper Fish

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

Life’s a garden 

So dig it

Sunlit sky

~Sarah Mahina Calvello 

midori cocktail 

the neon-green hue

of my alienness

~Jackie Chou

waxing crescent moon 

posting photos of myself 

at my thinnest 

~Jackie Chou

Song of Songs 

Singing with singing to other singing walks the song, or is it the here or is it the there who walks

and comes and thithers.

~John Vlachos

Pigeons and Condors

A precious mockery of some such ritual, when today suddenly disappears in the exclamations of

pigeons and the screeches of condors.

~John Vlachos

ferryman

the cost to cross

the blood-brain barrier

~Cynthia Anderson

séance

the deceased dictates

a Yelp review of

the funeral home

~John J. Dunphy

Memorial Day

a veteran

who survived combat

now dead

from suicide

~John J. Dunphy

sleepy village—

dawn light touches

a fading moon


~Subhash Roy Choudhury

shutter slit 

just enough

sun wakes me

~Maya Daneva

No Heights

Must be

T     H     I     S

brave

to enter country.

~Chad Parenteau

butterfly wings

so fragile

our democracy

~Jan Stretch

meltwater

the trickle-down effect

of my pain 

~Kirsten Cliff Elliot

moonset fly-tipping my silent migraine

~Kirsten Cliff Elliot

Bach to the future the organist’s striped socks

~Cynthia Anderson

hitting the bottom of this small talk

~Maya Daneva

what this tulip hides first bee

~Maya Daneva

spring yoga the day is stretching out

~Maya Daneva

palm reading so tangled my lines

~Mona Iordan

moonshadows falling into new craters

~Patricia Hawkhead

 

under the covers scars that can’t be heard

~Patricia Hawkhead

 

sunset carving shadows in stone

~Patricia Hawkhead

rising up to swallow a star sickle moon

~Tejendra Sherchan 

stop killing each other for Pete's sake

~dan smith

Afternoon of May 18, 2026

office day 

leaving myself

on mute

~thomas david

spores of the earth

pulsing in starbursts

—prayer path

~Goran Gatalica

cosmography—

I am lost

among the words

~Goran Gatalica

war memories—

hail pinging off

the windshield

~Goran Gatalica

A sleeping angle of torturous stories and reprimands, the last of cares and worries stored in the I

Cloud.

~John Vlachos

Scripted 

To be of responding kisses, throwing all that you know of life in an obsequious transition, a terse

reminder of the scripted conversations that walk with a limp.

~John Vlachos

slow blinking

with my cat

we say I love you

~Jennifer Gurney

a quiet voice

this patch of sun

the cat likes

~Anne Fox

midnight moon

my demons and I

greet the day

~Anne Fox

Variations in exactness 

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

temple offering —

those eyes lock into mine

before its head is chopped

~Rupa Anand

my wife tells me I'm exhibiting

pre-industrial sleep patterns

~Patrick Sweeney

rainy dawn

the petro-chemical scent

of home

~Patrick Sweeney 

Afternoon of May 16, 2026

 

Election after election 

Election after election.

Will the shadows in a queue reach their destination? 

~Patha Sarkar

Three witches
 

Three witches of Time-

Past, Present and future.

~Partha Sarkar

Thought from 13th March 2023, otherwise untitled

To some extent I think it's true that we walk the path we walk one foot after the other and the

next foot starts moving before we've finished telling it not to. To some extent, I think it's true.

~Lewis Leverett

anxiety—

learning to live with

the stranger in me

~Mona Bedi

Flowers 

a dash of colour

moss hides the words

~Graeme Needham

hanging by a single hook

the widower's

address sign

~Patrick Sweeney

he didn't need any mnemonic induction

to trip off to other realms

~Patrick Sweeney

accepting the 'will of heaven'

doesn't mean you can't change

the position of the fan

~Patrick Sweeney

empty diner

the scent of grease humming

with a ceiling fan

~Melissa Dennison

 

 

white splashes

in the garden...

a pigeon's abstract art

~Melissa Dennison

A quandary 

Of thems and selves and sips and numbers rounding up their lives, measured into precise

compartments of knickknacks and tea things.

~John Vlachos

doomed friendship 

you were minimalistic,

i am avant-garde;

perhaps the friendship

was doomed from the

beginning. 

~linda m. crate

New moon

Unfinished 

But complete 

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

Evening of May 14, 2026

 

situational awareness 

hazardous materials license

~Jerome Berglund

ostrich festival 

making the impossible 

possible 

~Jerome Berglund

silent retreat soup du jour

~Jerome Berglund

magic castle 

the prestige is a trick 

of the copperfields

~Jerome Berglund

mass vacatur

everything this supreme court 

has wrought 

~Jerome Berglund

Both of us     

You are right. 

I am also equally right 

and thus both of us are equally wrong or right. 

~Partha Sarkar

Obscure faces

Haunt me obscure faces.

I take refuge in the silhouette.
 

~Partha Sarkar

this is a perfect day

to never leave the house

again

~Noah Berlatsky

knowing

all the sizes of doors

a beggar

~Tejendra Sherchan

Don't disturb

Don't disturb anyone by telling the truth.
 

~Partha Sarkar

separate but separate

segrenation of black and state

~Nicholas De Marino

vote with your Roku tithe

churcharation of mouse and state

~Nicholas De Marino

in our outer

I need some

     space

~Nicholas De Marino

X-Files

I want to believe.

XL-Files

I want to believe it fits.

XXX Files

Also, it's sexy.

EX-Files

I want to believe it's her, not me.

EP-Files

I just want to keep my head down and go back to making a laughable minimum wage while corporations make more money than they've ever made in the history of money and just wait for the Orange Man behind the Red, White, & Blue Curtain to be replaced by the next

~Nicholas De Marino

Block

 

Flat roofed        Brick box        Three

Windows high        Twelve wide

Six doors        Blue        Cloudless sky

BBQ haze        Dandelion and burdock

Breeze        No people        Just nets

Sheets and blinds        Obscure

One flashing light        Twice for help?

~Daniel Cartwright-Chaouki

Afternoon of May 12, 2026

 

Welcome, Friend

~Kelly Sauvage Moyer

One 

The very one who self becomes, a self of always, a that, a part of some moment in a

maybe….walks with his shadow holding hands.

~john vlachos

The Little Agony

The little agony appeals, a screaming flower afraid in the wind, like tiny moments holding hands

to stay alive….bruised cheeks pulling up a smile that bleeds.

~john vlachos

statue

wearing iron-framed glasses

with no glasses

~Tejendra Sherchan 

gas-lit tongues

lashing out

dark night

~Kavita Ratna

who goes on top 

settling it

in our grave

~John Hawkhead

war updates

numberless stars

born today

~Bipasha Majumder (De)

I must stop asking mathematicians

about the integer zero

~Patrick Sweeney

under authoritarian rule

he goes right on C-spiking the free radicals

~Patrick Sweeney

putting things inside other things

is one way to get through the day

~Patrick Sweeney

passing the second bookmark in my used copy of Catch-22

~Patrick Sweeney

the clipped nails of the fatalistic traveler

~Patrick Sweeney

tomato plant

tied to its stake by

mom's rosary

~John J. Dunphy

“no kings” rallies

250 years

after we first said it

~Douglas J. Lanzo

I've drunk the wine 

and the owl is quiet 

—empty page 

~Sharon Ferrante 

another day

not one haiku 

in my pond 

~Sharon Ferrante 

low on sage…

fifty monsters 

in the cabinet 

~Sharon Ferrante 

never say never mind

~Barrie Levine

Afternoon of May 9. 2026

 

The Love Buggy

~Kelly Sauvage Moyer

Google

the kitchen

of the Internet,

why did I come

here again?

~Keith Snow

in the blink of an eye

borrowing billions

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

peace march

no need for tear gas

to cry

marche pour la paix

pas besoin de gaz lacrymogènes

pour pleurer

~Marie Derley

a headless doll

all the faces of war

~Arvinder Kaur

neighbour’s tree

what forbidden apples look like 

~Arvinder Kaur

there till the poem lasts dandelion clock

~Arvinder Kaur

fully loaded

dandelion clock

flight check

~Randy Brooks

 

country-fried steak

two shakes of jalapeño juice

like grandpa

~Randy Brooks

 

the way his bandana

calls more attention

to his toothless smile

~Robert Epstein

new buds

the balder I get

the longer my beard

~Robert Epstein

just retired

filling her appt. book

with smiley faces

~Robert Epstein

when we switch

into a two-for-one

singularity

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

only the perfect 

cookies for my one true love 

singularity 

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

the skull-shaped urn

might have been a mistake

your eyes follow me

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

The Last Robot 

The sun grew large and red

Earth now its closest satellite

humanity long extinct 

the last robot surrendered 

to the small eaters 

last as they had been first 

ten billion years before 

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

daybreak —

an outer space star

sets earth rock ablaze

~Sarah Mirabile-Blacker

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