Morning of December 5, 2025

 

Easy to vote

 

Voting ends December 7!

https://www.chillsubs.com/best-lit-mag-awards

Hoodie Portrait

The old homeless man

pulls his hoodie up,

his head framed

in an oval portrait.

Diane Webster

zen practice

i watch

paint dry

John J. Dunphy

my one trick yoyo

up and down

up and down

Randy Brooks

college stage

Chekov never was

so funny

Randy Brooks

midday sun

trickling downstream

snowmelt

Gareth Nurden

family home visit

mildew on the attic wall

fading a lullaby


Hifsa Ashraf

 

 

child custody talk

in the backyard

budding mushrooms

Hifsa Ashraf

Our uncivilized hurriedness

 
'Excuse me... would you..'

'Just shut up'.

Partha Sarkar

Whispers

A long postcard from an ancient postman

And no door is open...

Are there whispers in the chilled stillness?

Partha Sarkar

on the sidewalk

an abir-smeared rock

worshiped as God

Tejendra Sherchan

morning devotees

line up at the temple gate

amid drifting smoke

a flower girl hesitates

basket resting by her side

Jagajit Salam

everything

depends on how

the footsteps echo

Sarah Mahina Calvello

shift of perspective

twilight’s camera

loses focus

Sarah Mahina Calvello

Picnic Table Snow

Snow cover tracked up

by wandering humans

around the picnic table

swept clean once.

Now abandoned

and exposed.

Diane Webster

Leaves Reach

October leaves cover

boardwalk boards

as if to reach back

into history when each

was a part of the tree.

 

A widow lies

on the gravestone

of her dead husband —

separate as October leaves.

Diane Webster

decomposing

in the compost pile

last week's politics


Joseph P. Wechselberger

dog scientists

worked hard to recreate Man

all night they howled

David C. Kopaska-Merkel

I find

the rest of you

in our usual spot

David C. Kopaska-Merkel

family gathering

several versions

of potato salad


Joseph P. Wechselberger

 

eating hors d'oeuvres

with toothpicks

Christmas party


Joseph P. Wechselberger

strip club

its Christmas tree

bare

John J. Dunphy

 

haikupoetwordsearch.com/about

 

 

 

Morning of December 2, 2025

 

 

over the hill

the growing list

of I-don’t-cares

~Joshua St. Claire

conflicting deadlines

my boss asks me what I mean

by Kafkaesque

~Joshua St. Claire

poetry pizza


~Mykyta Ryzhykh

haiku poet

in the time it takes to be a river stone

~Patrick Sweeney

 

 

 

the novel

I’ll never write

rain-glazed ibis

~Joshua St. Claire

 

240-million-year-old ammonite

in her three-year-old hand

~Patrick Sweeney

he's focused now on the ripple effects of 1096

nobody's going to want to get stuck sitting next to him at dinner

~Patrick Sweeney

popping a beta blocker for another turn of the Earth

~Patrick Sweeney

announcing he's not wearing the Santa hat this Christmas

~Patrick Sweeney

infinitesimal calculus

the VP's budget

next year’s raises

~Joshua St. Claire

two-olive martini

she introduces me

as artistic

~Joshua St. Claire

Cat

Why after all these years

have you declared war

on the rug?

~Noah Berlatsky

wish list

flux capacitor

set for before you left

~Jennifer Gurney

 

further down the road

hoping I won't need to remind myself

to breathe
 

~Jennifer Gurney

future

such a painful concept

now

~Jennifer Gurney

Dumb

No thoughts or prayers

Can help save the naysayers

Say the soothsayers


~Bruce Morton

doubt

maybe a hesitation

in the knees

~M. R. Pelletier

pitted stone

out the front

of the dentist's

i place a hand

against the stone facade

think about my teeth

think about the pitted stone

then walk off

looking for a glass

of wine

~Michael Buckingham Gray

runoff flow

the slow burn

of urban broth

~Peter Jastermsky

road construction

an upscale boutique

held hostage

~Peter Jastermsky

imposter syndrome

arriving at work in a

hot dog costume

~John Pappas

death poem putting the I in archive

~John Pappas

school drop-off

a mother and son duck

under police tape

~John Pappas

I’ll be happy

When I find someone to

To watch tv with

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

There is a fine line

Between independence and loneliness

Find your village

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

If You Believe

That misery loves company

just knock on the door

and watch all the lights

go out

~Gloria Parker

Keep in Mind

Only the rats that

desert the sinking ship

live to tell the tale.

~Gloria Parker

 

 

VOTING CLOSES DECEMBER 7

 

 

EASY TO VOTE!

https://www.chillsubs.com/best-lit-mag-awards

Afternoon of November 29, 2025

 

Migrant2

~Michael Lee Johnson

what we talk about

when we talk about

what we talk about

~Nicholas De Marino

junk mail

let's play

postman

~Yasir Farooq

house sparrow

through the one-way window

unreturned love

~Yasir Farooq

        baking bread

        yesterday’s news

        lights the fire

        ~Belinda Behne

first

Thanksgiving without you

empty chair

~Jennifer Gurney

without you

all the Vermillion Queens

will go astray

~Tejendra Sherchan

                                p

                                o

                                 r

             p     o     r     t     a     l

             o                  a

p     o     r     t     a     l

              t

              a

              l

~Nicholas De Marino

they should give us

a mute button for all the hurtful things

people say

~Jennifer Gurney

script kiddies pad thai


~Jerome Berglund

source music

cutting a switch

~Jerome Berglund

we call

them myths

plausible deniability

~Jerome Berglund

Whitepilled

Male

lone gunman

epidemic.

~Chad Parenteau

I have lost myself in Paris

Shed my English skin

Like a chameleon

Trying to fit in

Of course it is a waste of time

Parisians are fierce and not blind

Every little thing she does

Spells foreign... and yet

Paris has been kind to me

As kind as it gets

~Olinda Ninolakis

Don't say

Don't say 'nothing is impossible'.

I have done nothing in my whole life.

~Partha Sarkar

no after-dinner cleanup

our first Thanksgiving at

a soup kitchen

~John J. Dunphy

no joke

like the

present

~Helen Buckingham

Intervention


~Nicholas De Marino