Afternoon of April 27, 2023

 

she never sung to console

but took us to hilltops

to scream

~Lisa C Reynolds

the striking complexity in the syntax of the pathological liar

~Patrick Sweeney

bee stings and asteroids in the vocabulary of boys

~Patrick Sweeney

he had the look of a man who was sent out to play in thunderstorms

~Patrick Sweeney

she twirls


her fork spaghetti

for the win

~Naomi G. Tangonan

she whispered: samsara is the most beautiful word

~Patrick Sweeney

only say Tochigi and my soul will be healed

~Patrick Sweeney

just remembering

from the stone age

spin tirelessly

greedy cutting down recklessly

and the flood hit

~Nani Mariani

white trash

on the ground

the morning after

a cross-burning

singed KKK robes

~John J. Dunphy

communal riots —

the same sun

shines on us

~Debarati Sen

Deep in unnamed forests, deadly new

plagues mutate from beast to man, a rear

guard action to revenge their lost habitats

as we throw pennies at dying species or

jail them in our zoos.

~Janet Stotts

stale breakfast —

mom’s eye bags

wait for a rainbow

~Debarati Sen

water hazard

its ice cracked

by a golf ball

~John J. Dunphy

riverside

boardwalk park

taking pictures

a squirrel stops

to stare at the nut

~Christina Chin / M. R. Defibaugh

Past midnight

too late to write

a good poem.

~Noah Berlatsky

Morning of April 25, 2023

all the mistakes

I’ve almost made

empty shoebox

~B. L. Bruce

cut-off shorts

letting my frayed edges

be

~Kelly Moyer

woke to acceptance

a smattering of

distant applause

~Wayne F. Burke

waiting at the gate

arriving, departing

arriving

~B. L. Bruce

a breakfast sandwich

warm from

the microwave,

a portal

to this dimension.

~jkelso

home improvement

reinforcing

the chicken legs

~Kelly Moyer

Red crayons are good for

roses, smiles, fire engines

and lonely balloons

~Jennifer Gurney

grasshopper —

    jumping on

memory's habitat

~Debarati Sen

clear sky

selfies with a trailer

hanging over the edge

~Rupa Anand

an owl calls

in the middle of the night …

lingering doubt

~Daniela Misso

Ravens

what is love

after war eats out his heart

and he turns away

after 14 months

of letters describing

things that can never last

until that day his ashes

are carried by ravens

into my back yard.

~Pris Campbell

spring again

spooning violets

into the grave

~Kelly Moyer

a parade of people moving

past my bed, the living and

the dead

5 a.m.

~Wayne F. Burke

journey cakes

i save my best stories

for the squirrels

~Kelly Moyer

Evening of April 22, 2023

The Two Chairs

we sat in this morning

in our pajamas

in the sunny kitchen

kissing

are still in the same position

this evening when I get home

in the dark I sit in

one

then the other

~Paul Hostovsky

Grammar

6 in the morning drunks 

hiccupping love letters to a departing moon 

as the sun blindingly rises 

with an exclamation point 

to end this tailspin of a run on sentence 

that spills its ink across the pages of 

the flea-bitten mangy hair 

of this dog day afternoon 

~Kevin Farrell

stacks of stolen kisses

consecutive serial numbers

retrieved by Navy divers

out at the quarry

~Rich Magahiz

Wing It


The rut I’m stuck in

is this shell

 masquerading as a temple

if this body is simply a vessel

then I’ve taken on water

am barely afloat

opting to sprout wings

rather than form gills

~Kevin Farrell

The Untied Stales

of America she has written 

over the map a little carelessly, 

transposing two letters, 

forgetting to cross one t, 

the map itself colored in 

a little sloppily, dark crayon 

spilling in from Canada

and bleeding into Mexico, 

and how perfect is that?

~Paul Hostovsky

Spanish Flea

My gym routine driven by scales,

piano, 5 finger exercise,

though damper on the sustained strings,

my mottled foot, jazz fleas, bite work.

The score, Tijuana Brass,

sound notes as jumping Spanish Flea,

though who cares nationality

when trumpet blasts blow fleas away.

We all had itchy feet that night,

in dingy basement with the roach.

~Stephen Kingsnorth

Faults

You were born into chaos before it became your shadow. You learned that your first heartbreak

didn’t unequivocally break you, it just prepared you for the future. You wondered why the stars

preferred not to be seen, then you understood them for retreating behind the shroud. You longed

as your dreams danced in the distance, only to taunt you in your sleep. You witnessed things

burn because there was no other way. You witnessed things burn because there should have been

another way. You felt your soul splash, sink, and swirl, like a tear that gets lost in a storm. And

still, the mountains patiently breathed.

~Zach Murphy

Lessons in Nostalgia



I’ve been up and coming since I’ve been down

the windows to my soul are boarded up

the door to the closet where my skeletons hang is always open


I know nothing of fine china and chandeliers


I’m from dull razor shaves and long roads back


with high friends in low places


where rock bottom is a foundation


not a means to an end


where we don’t adopt cynicism


we give birth to it

~Kevin Farrell

true true true    mechanized hosannas

~Rich Magahiz

Revision

There used to be

a live chicken in this poem.

There was a mountain

and a sailboat.

The Pacific Ocean

sloshing between stanzas.

And me like Adam

saying Here am I

to God who was also

near.

~Paul Hostovsky