Evening of September 13, 2023

reliquary

the dog emperor

visits Earth

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

I Dew

We only eat olives

in the twilight,

just as the kittens

begin

to darn

their socks,

for certainty

is a lousy lover,

little more than

fodder for the plot.

~Kelly Moyer

cone fizzled out

we thought and breathed a sigh

Vesuvius

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

There are as many explosions as there are stars in the sky

Every night to underground storage and bunkers

An alarm siren sounds

 

Life is wonderful as if it started from an egg and not from a dead chicken

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

anniversary

of your death

stop texting me

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

removing

last sliver of hope

tweezers

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

the sway of curtains

leaving

claw marks on the moon

~Kelly Moyer

harvested field

strewn with dead sparrows

development

~Bipasha Majumder (De)

so much meaning

packed in the singular question –

why?

~Jennifer Gurney

Religion is a hobby club for those who have never died

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

shells on the beach war

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

open bellies conceal simple truths

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

tropical jungle death of a thousand sucks

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

unclaimed i tether myself to driftwood

~Kelly Moyer

Morning of September 12, 2023

the offspring's weight in rice the crops of sin

~Richard Magahiz

they like to dance  crypto tracking nodes glow amber

~Richard Magahiz

drunk by the feeder hummingblurred

~John Pappas

this space intentionally left blank verse

~John Pappas

armageddon

the mewl within her

peanut butter breath

~Jean-Paul Moyer

~ for Simone

my whiskers brushing both sides of the argument

~Patrick Sweeney

morning light

the heron becomes

an apostle

~John Pappas

tick

the mountains crumble

tick

you come back to me

~Richard Magahiz

slack tide

somewhere between

yes and no

~John Pappas

waiting out the rain

on a borrowed front porch –

the storm as company

~Jennifer Gurney

post-war existentialist shuffling to the broken rail in a ruined church

~Patrick Sweeney

the dynamic uncertainty of the butterfly's journey

~Patrick Sweeney

shopping for pillows with the left side of her head

~Patrick Sweeney

Evening of September 9, 2023

ruins speak the language of stones

we are all giant boulders

beside the eternal river of silence

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

(Originally published in Zin Daily)

String theory

The light from distant stars;

Could be merely

Light reflection from

The bottom of a leaf?

~David Eberhardt

Boxing before and after midnight

Basketball in the morning

Football match in the afternoon

War tomorrow on schedule

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

(Originally published in INTERALIA MAGAZINE)

carcinogens

roost near the dusk like pigeons

 

on strange wings

strange bodies rise

~Noah Berlatsky

sixth birthday

bikers' child receives

his first leather jacket

~John J. Dunphy

scratching my words fleas

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

ominous clouds behind

     evening trees at sunset

ghosts in the branches

~Steve Van Allen

Poem after music by Albéniz - “Cordoba”

As the guitar can be

Made to sound like

A voice?

Purple flowers hover the streets

In Seville…

Jacaranda

~David Eberhardt

folding

lunar tides

origami

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

Two-word poem

Rampant lizards.

~David Eberhardt

Evening of September 8, 2023

 Tickle


I feel the tickle

of stars in cells

I never knew

I was comprised of.

~Kate Langan

daily bus ride

the tobacco stained smile

of the bus driver

~Mona Bedi

No Mercy

Her fun

dam-entals

were laid down

in the for

mative years

of her youth

and honed

in the bat

tles of life.

~Kate Langan

where no one comes looking wildflowers

~Mona Bedi

shining the knife before placing on the table    divorce papers

~Arvinder Kaur

in the middle of it all stream of consciousness

~Arvinder Kaur

insomnia the world I have made inside me 

~Mona Bedi

blue moon always plus one

~JL Huffman

…and he says he loves another version of me

~Mona Bedi

Deceased

A year ago, she ceased

taking the elixir of air

into pink lungs

and died, finally

succumbing to the tempting

invitation of her diseased heart,

proffered over the two

indifferent years preceding,

and became deceased.

~Kate Langan

Bones

I am so full of noise inside

I rattle when I walk.

~Kate Langan

selfies

accidental pictures

of my feet

~Linda L Ludwig

holding the shape of his bunion grandpa's moccasins

~Arvinder Kaur

Shoo

Anger all evening

eating up the space

between the brain cells!

Get you gone

~Kate Langan

Afternoon of September 5, 2023

conference room

a dozen zombies deciding

who to fire

~Ruth Holzer

holding the world together human rights

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

Fairy Tales

 

I never did get the chance

to write a poem last night

because I was too busy

reading to my kids

before bed

in an attempt

to make time stand still.

But it never does,

not for art

and not even for love.

~Gabriel Bates

running with stencils Banksy

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

yellow is the taste

of sunshine

after a long rain

~Jennifer Gurney

mashed in the mammogram machine lunar eclipse

~Ruth Holzer

changing the shape of things a little silicone

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

girls night out

too many margaritas…

waking

to a hangover and

the sour scent of lime

~Wanda Amos

climbing Mt. Tam

I trail behind

planning

to betray you

just because I can

~Ruth Holzer

Afternoon of September 4, 2023

the perpetual vigilance of God's own worrywart

~Patrick Sweeney

corroded bones reducing me to rust

~Debbie Strange

the frugal argot of bricklayers at lunch

~Patrick Sweeney

gingerbread house crumbs on the carpet

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

Hesse on the lips of the Braille reader

~Patrick Sweeney

where are philosophers supposed to park

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

AI winter : everything nothing but a memory

~Debbie Strange

AI mispronounces the town where people live

~Patrick Sweeney

buzzwording this deep dive into a cloud of fish

~Debbie Strange

room enough for bull frogs to breathe through their skin at the Oriental Market

~Patrick Sweeney

pleading guilty to defacing public restrooms with abstruse senryu

~Patrick Sweeney

hung with care jury

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

from out of nowhere

the grizzly bear

and a bicycle

~Debbie Strange

Afternoon of September 3, 2023

snow says goodbye to me

I am silent

I melt with

the snow

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

(Originally published in THE BIG WINDOWS REVIEW)

each time I strike a

match to light a candle

I remember

~Jennifer Gurney

Learned Advice

                         EXplore

               only the  PERImeter,

 and miss the inner    essENCE

               of it all.

~Suzanne S. Austin-Hill

No fleas in the morning

dormant ‘til sunny afternoon — guess they slept in today

~Julie A. Dickson

Morning or night, cat sits vigil on my window sill

~Julie A. Dickson

If I had a time machine

I would stop you

from putting diesel in the gas tank.

~Noah Berlatsky

"a final word of advice"

he tells me

for the fourth time

~John J. Dunphy

the Barbie movie —

such deep meaning

from molded plastic

~Jennifer Gurney

neighborhood crying

hand of anger

anger of the heart

weeping cities

^^ ^^ ^^

and these are birds

look over the heads of the war birds fly

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

(Originally published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal)

aluminum birds

even they come back

from warm countries home

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

(Originally published in divot)

This poem smells blue

| | |

The color of wrinkles in the sky

¶

Black shapes in clear water

∆

This verse will be picked up by crows in the morning

And they will be thrown from heaven

On icy concrete heart rocks

~

All in vain

.

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

(Originally published in Stone Poetry Journal)

Evening of August 29, 2023

 

two snails

if they race each other

it doesn’t show

~Daniel Birnbaum

the cockroach

what we think of each other

perhaps the same

~Daniel Birnbaum

the tangerine

perhaps the last to call me

from childhood

~Daniel Birnbaum

raindrops are spitting

on the book where I’m writing

this now-wet haiku

~Jennifer Gurney

a door that never opens

sealed forever

by a family of spiders

~Steve Van Allen

early morning quake

deep sea 7.4—

the cradle does rock

~James Penha

I write this poem

composed by my shower mind

wrapped in a towel

~Jennifer Gurney

Barbie movie

sex bomb goes off

only egos injured

~Adele Evershed

second summer

finding mildew

in all my cracks

~Adele Evershed

scathing review

I pretend my poetry

was written by AI

~Adele Evershed

counting on the spiritual procrastination of the good thief

~Patrick Sweeney

stillness even when there are no deer on the trail

~Patrick Sweeney

who I was when I first tasted a ginger snap

~Patrick Sweeney

the pain of passing petoskey stones

~Adele Evershed

resting my elbow again on the tiger's back

~Patrick Sweeney

she told me I should be searching for shovel-tusked mastodons instead of snow fleas

~Patrick Sweeney