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