Afternoon of February 21, 2023

 

my toe is still blushing from meeting your foot at the boardwalk

~Nolcha Fox

Song


I'm exile

I'm smoke

I'm long dead in the trenches

I am home

nowhere

alive in the fire

erasing words

with the bone of a crow's wing

I'm alone with a voice

of the blank page

~Alexander Etheridge

Last Change of Address

The earth knows we’ll return‒‒

our few feeble movements 

down under the flowers,

and our names repeated like a song’s chorus 

so the ones left won’t forget 

through all the winters.

Look, moon, sun, and moon and sun again,

the mist coming down 

to the cold lake and the churchyard‒‒

It’ll all be forgotten.

~Alexander Etheridge

Past Life

It’s strange how time falls into itself.

One second I’m here, the next

I’m back in middle school---

the hour is bright, my friends there

are so young.

That long dead day is risen

and my life is gone into 

its white-gold October 

moment, my only

life.

~Alexander Etheridge

She opened her mouth

and swallowed a bird.

She spit out feathers

instead of words.

~Nolcha Fox

my dad

still never says much

ouija board

~petro c.k.

the chug-chug-chug of a party bus

~petro c.k.

no fewer people

could see me

than already did

~Noah Berlatsky

 

Ocean Daybreak Sketch

Fogshifts

and a respiration of inland trees

Unanchored graves

Foot-tracks of light

opening

along the lengths of the tide

~Alexander Etheridge

Retreat


Laundry

Expands to fill

All space. All time. The house

Is worn by clothes and we flap loose

Worn down.

~Noah Berlatsky

Afternoon of February 20, 2023

 

another night not sleeping beauty parlor tricks

~Susan Burch

but you were gasoline draped in cyanide

~Tiffany Shaw-Diaz

diarrhea my poo live-streaming

~Susan Burch

flea-fleece-emcee

~Robert Fleming

block party too many squares

~Susan Burch

tapping the bongos fish fingers

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

earworm my brain digging it

~Susan Burch

under the night sky forest bagpiper

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

playlist pops a tune

I’ve not heard for fifty years—

I know every word

~James Penha

almost forty

still learning

how to breathe

~Tiffany Shaw-Diaz

to feel // be 

night burning into

radium

~Tiffany Shaw-Diaz

i was and wasn't

the moth

~Tiffany Shaw-Diaz

Morning of February 20, 2023

Reborn as Toulouse goose – brief and unpleasant but not unwarranted.

~Jerome Berglund

sharpening the edge of consciousness an open palm

~Kelly Moyer

like a painting

 subject only becomes clear

after a great deal of oils have been

laid down upon a tautly stretched canvas

following much mess-making

you can paint on cardboard too

wood, any number

of sundry surfaces

~Jerome Berglund

Click?

 

Slam;

  

Grunt

 

Splash -

 

Thunk.

 

Grrrow…

 

Vroom.

 

Screech!

 

Chirp. Chirp.

 

Glub,

~Jerome Berglund

mollusks murdered in cold blood orange mignonette

~Kelly Moyer

please do not touch

the signs all say

as though any of this

would be here had

some archaeologist not;

alarm didn’t sound

for those burglars

who loots ever determines

whether overseers finds cause

for any concerted shooting

~Jerome Berglund

hour by hour the hang of a curtain

~Kelly Moyer

trash day the roar of a red bud rain

~Kelly Moyer

peace with the past a swollen cork

~Kelly Moyer