Morning of December 15, 2022

silence is a voice too

~Joseph P. Wechselberger

coffee house open mic

poet's reading hissed by

the espresso machine

~John J. Dunphy

seventh of Advent

locked in his snow globe

Santa Claus

~Françoise Maurice

Near Genius

is like going to the amusement park,

without an all day pass

you see the blinking lights,

hear laughter

and everyone assumes you

are having a great time

except you

can't ride the rides.

~Keith Snow

each dust mote theoretically could be a world

~Joseph P. Wechselberger

misunderstood sasquatch hides among the tiny toads

~Joseph P. Wechselberger

          Puzzled

Why we have so many cross-

words, a KenKen of emotions

that never gets solved

I add one and one

you get eleven.

A jigsaw where we need

to fill in the missing,

pieces, only you

can put in place.

~Keith Snow

the last twist

of a wheel brace

sunset

~Daipayan Nair

To Be Human

We are all Medusa now,

heads sprouting wiry

snakes and eyes

that dare not open

to the world lest

we see how fate

has turned our ❤️s

to stone.

~James Penha

Year went terribly.

Much cold.

Little wealth.

Beyond fragile.

The supreme

achievement:

rest.

~Jessica Swafford

alley wall

a chalked epitaph above

the dead derelict

~John J. Dunphy

Evening of December 12, 2022

The earth is scorched

with scorn. This life. So brief.

What good are ashes after death?

Gobbled by the ground.

Returned. No refunds.

No survivors.

Forgotten. Faded photos

in a box.

~Nolcha Fox

loud air

thick with war demons

Ukrainian rescue

~Anna Cates

rigid timetable

a troop train returns

its bodies

~John Hawkhead

missile strikes

an exchange student

halves the last bagel

~Anna Cates

Watch and Prey

Turned to prey, as blood sacrifice

soon to be offered on the steppe,

like war, when masses in the church

find more wary crowd to the pews;

so on the pampas, prairie, veldt,

as some will graze while others watch,

uneasy stirring ripples through.

My skin so creeping, fleas about.

~Stephen Kingsnorth

brick kiln –

arranging my labour

in rows and columns

~Daipayan Nair

stranded vessels the clasp of ice

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

a hill of ants

within each hill

an ant hill

~Rupa Anand

heartwarming

she places his valentine

in the fireplace

~Robert Witmer

heat haze

swift screams cauterise

polythene air

~John Hawkhead

Afternoon of December 9, 2022

I. Escape

planned by the small green turtle that lived in a glass bowl,

with only a plastic tree and fake rock for company,

clean dish of water and flakes of turtle food

his only diversion as he explored his environment

~Julie A. Dickson

II. Except

late at night, he climbed from the bowl, ambitious journey

from table down to the floor heat duct through narrow

metal slats, landing in a low pan of water

for humidity – a turtle’s heated swimming pool

~Julie A. Dickson

III. Search

in the morning for missing turtle, absent from his bowl,

found in the heat duct, pan of water happily swimming.

Retrieved, returned turtle back to the glass bowl prison

where he spent the day planning his next escape

~Julie A. Dickson

cataract fact sheet

can't

read it

~Ruth Holzer

fleabag motel a parrot screeches hello

~Adrian Bouter 

in a window of the old age home canaries


~Ruth Holzer

rickshaw pulling

the pause

between each song

~Daipayan Nair

retirement cake—

thirty years

of heartburn

~Ruth Holzer

My only proper clothes

Are the two hoodies

I have lucked into

Over the several

Last months

And it goes downhill

From there

For Gerry

Veryvery

Fast

~Gerard Sarnat

He swallows all the sleeping pills,

he bags his head in plastic.

He leaves no note, no text, no cry.

He only leaves us silence.

~Nolcha Fox

false sense of well-being better than no sense at all Xanax

~Ruth Holzer

every day a pilgrimage wheelie bins

~Ruth Holzer

i escape

with white horses

this disjunctive world
 

~Wanda Amos

five fleas...

a roo’s ear twitching

in the outback heat

~Wanda Amos

a fly

in my shiraz

dying with dignity

~Wanda Amos

Evening of December 5, 2022

 

spaceship window ……….

no more ups

no more downs

~Mark Gilbert

fingers touching keyboards we become A.I.

~Colette Kern

malaria sun the bite of betrayal

~Susan Burch

The stolen apple

oh so juicy.

One bite

he choked.

~Peter Blau

Faster, giant trash truck, faster

   squirrels are gaining on you! 

~Steve Van Allen

Endception

notes on the notes

on the notes

~Jerome Berglund

helpfully debunking

conspiracy theories

conspirators

~Jerome Berglund

I’m not a perfectionist

just because I use tweezers

to pick up confetti.

~Nolcha Fox

Ephemera

In quiet moments, he makes

tiny bubbles with his mouth.

It’s as though they might be

spirits yet to cross over

or innocents yet to be born.

I yearn to capture each one

within a dusty mason jar,

just as i might

a hastily-scribbled poem

or this post-apocalyptic firefly.

~Kelly Moyer

daddy long legs and I have nowhere to be


~Patrick Sweeney

avant garde

of entitled characters

finding the lost city

of creatures

half-human half-troll(ey)

buried

in the amazon jungle

of boxes and receipts

failing at

closing credits


~Lorelyn De la Cruz Arevalo

he fed the banister to the furnace for us

~Patrick Sweeey