Afternoon of August 4, 2023

noir nail tips

graveyard gardener

~JL Huffman

my magic claimed me

i always wanted

to be a princess,

but deep in my bones

my magic already

claimed me: witch.

~linda m. crate

derelict home

mold marches up the walls

~JL Huffman

the green fly

hesitates between his plate

and mine

~Françoise Maurice

other storms 

they say when it rains,

it pours;

which wouldn't be so bad

if my roof weren't already

leaking with other storms.

~linda m. crate

black and white zebra shunning white and black zebra

~John Hawkhead

tap

slow

sc

ro

ll

flick

to

post

us

all

smiles

~Chris Peys

under stars navigating belief systems

~John Hawkhead

won't drink poison

i'm not everyone's

cup of tea,

and that's okay;

i won't drink poison

just to have

company.

~linda m. crate

vines curl around a dead tree

codependent love

~Steve Van Allen

waste of time

maybe if you had

loved me back,

it would've been worth

everything i lost;

but you didn't and it wasn't

and i am angry for the time

i cannot have back.

~linda m. crate

cloud rainbow colors of them becoming them

~Chris Peys

advertising hoarding pointless objects

~John Hawkhead

roadside attractions

much ado about nothing

~JL Huffman

Evening of July 31, 2023

first day in the office —

delegating my tasks

to ChatGPT

~Roman Lyakhovetsky

after dinner

discarding

her husband

~Wilda Morris

feeling

a little salty

potato chip moon

~Susan Burch

paralyzed by the sting of a potter wasp

dragged from its rolled-leaf home

and eaten alive by larva—

I would not want to be

this striped oak leaftier catepillar

~Wilda Morris

cooling shelter

volunteer removes a water bottle from

a sleeping guest's hand

~John J. Dunphy

sleet from shaved bunions

the perfect poverty

of her life

~Patrick Sweeney

scorching his pleats chef

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

train cows the moos in my head

~Susan Burch

splashes of light sake

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

no use regretting that I never made it to the turquoise mines of Sinai

~Patrick Sweeney

old oven new sylvia plathing it

~Susan Burch

Afternoon of July 30, 2023

 

rusty lock the smell of rain

~Hifsa Ashraf

counting on the power line crows

~Hifsa Ashraf

a refugee’s dreams sinking in the small boat

~Hifsa Ashraf

tainted rutabaga

his long suffering

coming to a bitter end

~Linda L. Ludwig

skating through blue grass derby queen

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

washing ashore some of the evidence

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

Fish-eyed moon staring straight at the sun sees everything

~Cynthia Damon

the ache behind my last

life as a rose

~Tiffany Shaw-Diaz

when every shade of night fades into us

~Tiffany Shaw-Diaz

cut grass

the drudgery

of sameness

~Tiffany Shaw-Diaz

dandelion fluff

sometimes i just

want to be

~Tiffany Shaw-Diaz