Evening of October 30, 2024

                                                       Flea swag available here

 

 

Halloween

I EARLY VOTED sticker on

a tombstone

~John J. Dunphy

I am

the merchant

of stars

~Tejendra Sherchan

as the bees dance

the moon

is pierced in two

~Melissa Dennison

Solitary Wanderer

as a ghost

what I miss the most

my shadow

~John H. Dromey

Old Hall

witches' marks

carved into the walls

~Kimberly Kuchar

birthday cake

still standing

cutting time

~Elliot Diamond

candlelight dinner

a swimming moth

in my soup bowl

~Bidyut Prabha

Sunlit river

No one can see you cry

Underwater

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

Misty leaves

Haunt the window

Days grow longer

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

just

beneath the surface

truth

~Jennifer Gurney

stepping into

the vast wilderness...

I meet myself

~Jennifer Gurney

I am depressed

so I walk the dog.

The dog feels better.

~Noah Berlatsky

he doesn't want to know the secret handshake anymore

~Patrick Sweeney

tripping over a sycamore root on the way to Cézanne's mountain

~Patrick Sweeney

once I wrote it down, the morning glory let me go

~Patrick Sweeney

he spent an inordinate amount of time on the subsidiary elements of his story

~Patrick Sweeney

when the plot is worth unraveling

~Patrick Sweeney

vanishing point the words unsaid around the conference room table

~Joshua St. Claire

our squares

in different circles

mockingbirds

~Joshua St. Claire

another acceptance

a little less afraid now

of dying

~Joshua St. Claire

unwashed

the hand that sewed

sequins on the stinkbug

~Kelly Moyer

a tuft of lint

drifts from my sock

namaste

~Kelly Moyer

needlework

i trade my yarn and canvas

for a voodoo doll

~Kelly Moyer

spitwads and airplanes

i contemplate

a career in physics

~Kelly Moyer

i write myself

as the protagonist

absurdist tales

~Kelly Moyer

chronic illness

fluffing the pillows

of my escape room

~Kelly Moyer

listen

~dan smith

Afternoon of October 22, 2024

 

 

Hey, Kids!

~Kelly Moyer

photos available here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

they're screwed

she thinks

escaping the shoe

~Melissa Dennison

creeping up

through the floorboards

they're coming for you

~Melissa Dennison

The Romance of Rain


Each drop

is colorless

of grief

or bliss,

a thought

in pale

oblate

obliviousness.

~Noah Berlatsky

what if I ask

the purple morning glory

to bloom over me too

~Tejendra Sherchan

Why

“Y” in rye

& whiskey,

rhythm, rhyme

thyme, malady

melody, mary lies,

lye, tie-dye, my, oh my

by & by, bye-bye, fly, away!

~Keith Snow

Daze (Days)

In the projects,

you need a calendar,

not a clock, to monitor

the arrival of your building's

maintenance man.

~Keith Snow

B

a crappy crap

navigates

the sandy peach

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

tv

dare to unplug when off

is not enough

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

trapped in

an eternal embrace

the moon longs for deep space

~Melissa Dennison

quietly

inch by inch

death steals her away

~Melissa Dennison

along the road

a stray puppy's efforts

to secure an owner

~Tejendra Sherchan

Deciding

What road to take

Shotgun

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

train like hell

the US men's

reverse diving team

~Richard Magahiz

alphabet soup gotcha journalism

~Jerome Berglund

fumbling at my front door beetle on a chain

~Richard Magahiz

from their seafloor abbey    salt sutras 

~Richard Magahiz

what am I supposed to do turnips

~Robert Epstein

in so many words plantain

~Robert Epstein

castle walls common sense

~Jerome Berglund

reform the bargaining stage of grief

~Jerome Berglund

~Jerome Berglund & Christina Chin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flea swag available here

Afternoon of October 20, 2024

 

Poet Empty Bottle

~Michael Lee Johnson

ugh

go away

mirror

go away

ugh

~Noah Berlatsky

In Praise of Wooden Shoes or Where's a Luddite When You Need One

~dan smith

self-employed no one to complain to

~Stacy Taylor

we are the movies at God's multiplex

~dan smith

my eye-hops on her textual surface around the target words

~Vijay Prasad

68 years old

and don’t feel a day

over 67

~Stacy Taylor

Origami

If my paper hen could lay eggs,

how would the eggs be folded?

~Marie Derley

Hands

Guts in one,

the weight of the world

in the other.

So much to bear.

So much to feel.

Fingers twitching,

nails clawing.

Flesh against flesh.

Is this what a grip is for?

~R James Sennett Jr

shorter nights

little space for shooting stars

at our age

~John Hawkhead

we built gigantic engines

we travelled to the moon

we misunderstood Waste Not

~dan smith

if it's true

what Christians say

I'm going to hell

~Barbara Anna Gaiardoni

mending an old quilt

each night’s sleep cycle

a little deeper

~John Hawkhead

shine on

forty-foot cowboy

exit now

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

foggy shore . . . 

memory’s silence

eroding my belief

in goodbyes

~Timothy Daly

Photon

Because the soul is light, scurrying from point to shadow,

because light can fracture if interrupted—

because the fracturing of light is accomplished by hanging 

a simple glass charm from the curtain rail above my kitchen sink—

I think of you, driving down the mountain, the long, straight

road from map-point to city, your dashboard charm swinging,

your headlight fractured, your mirror cracked.

~Kathryn Reese

subglacial lake

the gelatinous maw

everts

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

unedited

I want to say love me

love my text,

consider converting

all the selfies

on my dating profile

to screenshots of poems.

~Kathryn Reese

blind date

she looks for

a way

to let him

down gently

~Randy Brooks

any old pot

of coffee

I drink it

on ice

the day after

~Randy Brooks

don’t think

of a monkey

too late

~Randy Brooks

 

Morning of September 29, 2024

 

 

wings of geese moving on with my life

~Maya Daneva

one minute from yesterday  a lonely pronoun

~Vijay Prasad

writing down another inch of grief

~Maya Daneva

wounded by her high heel echo

~Maya Daneva

the rising sparks

from a blacksmith’s furnace

shooting stars

~Tejendra Sherchan

mid-air flight

strapped in the aisle seat

a plush hamburger

~Tuyet Van Do

breath in-out

in the pauses

the green graph

~Kavita Ratna

riding out the storm

FL coast dweller puts on

his old army dog tag

~John J. Dunphy

garden threshold

planting peace lilies

a martyr's wife

~Debarati Sen

a simple guacamole

oh, the ripeness

of her karma

~Kelly Moyer

death cleaning

i keep my dirty laundry

for the obit

~Kelly Moyer

my upbringing

a highchair stowed

beneath the cuckoo clock

~Kelly Moyer

imagined futures

a cat

at the screen door

~Kelly Moyer

preemptive

i leave my hand

open flat

on the mattress

so i don’t

wake up swinging

from the moon

~Kelly Moyer

Nothing.

And then

nothing,

but

in verse.

~Noah Berlatsky

Thank you, State

You are without heart

on World Heart Day.

Thank you, State.

~Partha Sarkar

beached whale —

        in her last breath

        she just wants a selfie

~Nicoletta Ignatti

        dry leaf in the wind —

        the silent protest

        of a single woman

~Nicoletta Ignatti

 

Morning of September 22, 2024

 

 

golf course sniper

aiming to make

a hole in one candidate

~John J. Dunphy

monsoon night

a cockroach has eaten

my m & m

~Tejendra Sherchan

moon in virgo

looking up

vaginoplasty

~Adele Evershed

what we believed to be our fairytale eggplant

~Kelly Moyer

misogyny

a twist of salt

on the lyme

~Kelly Moyer

cost of living

a crisp

two-dollar apple

~Kelly Moyer

midlife romance

the ripeness

of discount nectarines

~Kelly Moyer

beyond the veil

all the reasons

to become a nun

~Kelly Moyer

the world

waits

in the inbox

~Noah Berlatsky

yarrow leaves

I almost went

to law school

~Joshua St. Claire

 

Afternoon of September 7, 2024

Critique

I don’t think you should end a poem with

“My life has changed.”

~Noah Berlatsky

You don’t think about what you say.

I don’t say what I think.

The perfect marriage.

~Nolcha Fox

purple flowers

all over a pine forest

oblivious wife

~Tejendra Sherchan

the dead are still here

plants overwatered, underwatered, forgotten

~Steve Van Allen

Give light, Sun

What to do? How to walk steadily?

Do not know the blunt skeletons

And very often get morbid.

I come across them and get sad

But I do not put forward my hand

Rather ask the Sun to come out of the clouds

And give them light so that

They can stand erect and walk.

~Partha Sarkar

The great struggle of writing

is to see the truth

in your bank account.

~Noah Berlatsky

The Net Equivalent

of standing

in the kitchen

wondering why

u walked

in there

is going to Google

but forgetting

what you were

planning to search for

~Keith Snow

falling in love with the transplant surgeon

she whispers, "take my hand"

~Morgan Ellington

night duty

the hushed whisper

from behind

~Bidyut Prabha Gantayat

stuck in traffic

a billboard promises

relief

~Nalini Shetty

autocorrect

my opinion reshaped

without consent

~Nalini Shetty

two-factor authentication

proving

I still exist

~Nalini Shetty

dystopian dreams—

the future

they warned us about

~Nalini Shetty

mono no aware

new moon

or noon awe

no more now

~Scott F. Parker

university

yes

uni

verse

i yes

visit

yes

~Scott F. Parker

unsolicited advice to self

pay attention

to what you're paying attention

to

~Scott F. Parker

 

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