Afternoon of October 21, 2023

 

cave painting

a woolly mammoth

in a red beam

emanating from

an overhead object

~John J. Dunphy

the comedy or tragedy question is getting harder to answer

~Patrick Sweeney

bingo cards filling up fast our unprecedented world

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

the improbable happening every day

~Patrick Sweeney

dead name the acceptance on hold

~Arvinder Kaur

the dead like you to remember their names

~Patrick Sweeney

flying in from the north witches in tornado’s path

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

she wants me to stop asking her if she's asleep

~Patrick Sweeney

sampling air quality wheelbarrow in spin cycle

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

I have failed at forms.

I have failed at tooth.

I have failed at these other forms.

I have succeeded at consequences.

~Noah Berlatsky

The Misunderstanding

So you think you found

a chink in my chastity belt,

do you? A way to weasel

your weasel in? I’m afraid

that’s simply a portal

to the underworld, Sir,

where I’ve stashed

the bones I’ve rattled

and the hearts I’ve crushed

like rusty ol’ cans of tin.
~Kelly Moyer

the tossed-away bouquet

sent by her ex

much appreciated by

pollinators

~John J. Dunphy

Afternoon of October 18, 2023

his anger the stranger I married

~Mona Bedi

zombie Queen still has the wave

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

 

Alexa the parents they no longer need

~Mona Bedi

old boulder this shiftless existence

~John Hawkhead

becoming the night a blackbird’s song

~Mona Bedi

hello

          hello

                     hello

the empty echo

across our universe

~Eavonka Ettinger

motion sensor

blinking lights awaken

the android

~Eavonka Ettinger

Insomnia.

I get so much done.

Until I don’t.

~Noah Berlatsky

bedtime

I point the spider

toward the basement

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

Space Problem

Every century or so

he occupies a new body;

under the floorboards,

the old ones are piling up.

He hates to throw them out,

the recycling center won't take them,

burning's illegal inside city limits,

and they're already 5 deep

in the family plot out back.

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

microplastics

invading the bloodstream

how it started

~Eavonka Ettinger

distant bombing —

the tangerine sunset

goes up in smoke

~Mona Bedi

All Souls' Day

I place flowers on

a forgotten grave

~John J. Dunphy

utamakura

struggling for words

in the graveyard

~John Hawkhead

a cacophony of caws

flock of starlings

squawk their daily prayers

~Steve Van Allen

Parameters

She curtsied him away,

when he danced

too near her.

~Keith Snow

Afternoon of October 15, 2023

tomehto

splat 

tomahto

~LeRoy Gorman

I'm a Mural

in a shoebox, mouse hole

the interior of a photon

charge, mass, spin

as per commission

I'm the paint job on a space shuttle

orbiting the planet

~Jay Passer

How Ya Doin'?

I've been better

but I've been a lot worse

I'll take the better

~Jay Passer

exasperating AI   I request an agent who has seen into her original self

~Patrick Sweeney

I never knew the secret handshake

~Patrick Sweeney

when forest was for rest

~LeRoy Gorman

with smoker's fingers, Queen Anne's lace pried open a dream

~Patrick Sweeney

the yellow crane has left without me

~Patrick Sweeney

the clairvoyant cackles my ghosted girlfriend’s name

~Elliot Diamond

she probably meant to wave

~Patrick Sweeney

I told them all about the storybook mushroom   they took my word for it

~Patrick Sweeney

Once your body was the sitar waiting for my touch

the sweet fragrance of your hair still lingers

but the cigarette that was mine is now ash

~R.K.Singh

Note to Pythagoras

please

reschedule my birth for Late Jurassic

I'd like to feed a pterodactyl with the infant body

of myself

I could use a change of pace

~Jay Passer

crime scene

all the bodies now linked

with gossamer

~John J. Dunphy

My Poetry Keyboard

 

My keyboard is a lizard that bites.

My keyboard caught the train.

My keyboard makes jam from asparagus.

My keyboard is rain, is rain, is rain.

~Noah Berlatsky

nothing is as

unnerving as the

smoke

detector

chirping

~Jennifer Gurney

an elementary knowledge of flat-in-the-back craniology

would've forewarned you a lecture on the Tang Dynasty

was in the offing

~Patrick Sweeney

It's Been Raining All Day

But

other

than

that,

there's

nothing

worth

telling

you

about.

~Gabriel Bates

Yes, of course he's a conspiracy theorist

but he's the only one I know

who speaks in complete sentences

~Patrick Sweeney

Afternoon of October 11, 2023

 

like weird barbie

i break

into my better self

~Kelly Moyer

they can cope

"be yourself,"

they say,

and then when

you become;

"oh no, not like that."

but i like me,

so they can cope.

~linda m. crate

Type 4

I follow my heart,

taking every chance

for the sake of love,

only to end up

like a plump

Costco chicken,

falling flat on my face.

~Kelly Moyer

being in an all-girl band  I bet they hate us

~Barbara Anna Gaiardoni

death poem I recycle myself

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

whirligigs basking in the shade of annihilation

~Kelly Moyer

knowledge & swords

they don't like girls

who look for

knowledge and swords,

but i found them

anyway;

because i found those

people boring.

~linda m. crate

coming into focus—

my gaze adjusts forward

20-20 hindsight

~Jennifer Gurney

french onion

a dip

in the road

~Kelly Moyer

Afternoon of October 7, 2023

 

I think she likes me,

that red

hippoceratops

~Richard Magahiz

letting go

and giving in…

best decision ever

~Jennifer Gurney

recollections

all of them true

to our own

~Mike Gallagher

separating

our albums was the hardest part

of moving out

~Jennifer Gurney

his bank account

so many zeros

never enough

~Mike Fainzilber

impulse (out of) control

~Lee Hudspeth

adapted neuroclaws twelve hours below crush depth

~Richard Magahiz

increased thirst for darkness all hallows' eve

~C.X. Turner

mindfulness and then the crosswalk

~Lee Hudspeth

Red Sky. The birds went south. People flew into the abyss

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

are you listening to me       crickets

~Lee Hudspeth

nettle tea...

misunderstood

again

~C.X. Turner

Coyote vs. Roadrunner

 

………………………….. ||||||||||

…….****_____*****

||

~Noah Berlatsky

the never-ending

legs of a spider

autumn ledge

~C.X. Turner

ashes on the wind

the new normal

book burnings

~Mike Fainzilber

Why a Big Heart

Everyone said she had a big heart,

with smile and hands to welcome.

She didn’t expect to need a big heart

cause he had big feet to stomp on it.

~Nolcha Fox

torn faces

litter

torn tracks

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

(Originally published in Dreginald)

caution

cemetery

ahead

~James Penha

(Found on a road sign in upstate New York)

sea bottom:

steel bathyscaphes

filled with salad oil

~Richard Magahiz

Evening of October 6, 2023

  

 

 if ever I sit

beside calm waters

surely

this flying beetle

will smack my face

~Sharon Ferrante

Growing Pains

I laid down in the grass today,

but it wasn't the same

as it used to be

when I was a kid.

I couldn't sense the Earth

spinning beneath me

or imagine anything magical

beyond the flat sky.

It just felt like I was waiting

for the worms to take me.

~Gabriel Bates

Minutes

evil thoughts

tall shadow on a

detached garage

 

Mildly schnockered ranting with adorable senior neighbors never in my lifetime would I ever

have thought I’d hear these old conservative white people decrying: “My God, they

shouldn’t do that!”

 

Indeed!

That’s all we

were ever saying!

~Jerome Berglund

eight years old

investing all my money

in sea-monkeys

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

Brook Lint

 

six degrees of pancetta :: ombudsperson

 

Long Island entire and enough

 

by Asclepius I swear – bread and multiplication tables

 

beyond rye the fool’s journey

 

candlelight vigil :: ownership of thunder

~Jerome Berglund

in the beginning

I’m the breath

of a dinosaur

~Sharon Ferrante

Insurgents

prehistoric shield bugs

slip through the chinks

~JL Huffman

Apostate

 

Learn today that most tire places are closed on Sundays this I must question as people get

flats on that day as often as any we’d rather be praying and resting too assure you but

vehicles must be made drivable.

 

the manager smashes

one dish after another –

everyone cheers!

~Jerome Berglund

poets say

they can read minds

I wonder

could I put words

to your screams

~Sharon Ferrante

Fruit Pies

 

mostly garbage dog food begat begat begat

 

Owatonna best budget inn

 

moon past a chimney forced perspective

 

the prologues to epaulettes

 

writing with motion a migrant

~Jerome Berglund

your thoughts and my thoughts

appear simultaneously

moonlight

~Nani Mariani

lobotomy

 

morning sunlight’s golden honey drizzled decadently, so abundant even Venetian blinds’

shadows can look promising in such a light graham crackers and candy corn sandbars with

exposed shoulders girl with lilies by Rivera every speck of dust and scratch on the table

glass comes into startling clarity

 

pine cones decompose

the crack has gotten

wide and green

~Jerome Berglund

Morning of October 4, 2023

 promises broken roads named for presidents

~John Pappas

what's left of me after right and wrong

~Deborah Karl-Brandt

utility of scarecrow as kigo

~Patrick Sweeney

the right side of my brain a rainy sycamore

~Patrick Sweeney

back home the memory of wind

~Mona Bedi

                                up

rollercoaster 

                                            and down

                                                                     these 

                                                                                       moods

~Stephanie Zepherelli

family graveyard

parts of me

already buried

~Mona Bedi

the peeling label

on the old beer bottle

death poem

~John Pappas

i can’t swim

don’t place me in water,

scatter me…no

place me under a tree

so I may hear birdsong

~Wanda Amos

death poem the empty aquarium’s hum

~John Pappas

getting through another day without satori

~Patrick Sweeney

it's not only me the psychiatrist’s visit

~Mona Bedi

clock-watchers in windowless rooms

~Patrick Sweeney

buffalo nickels    I'm stuck between numismatics on a train

~Patrick Sweeney

where brambles wind

spindles of brier and barb

our intertwined tongues

~John Hawkhead

summer heat

a fan cools

what's left of me

~Deborah Karl-Brandt

the loquacious defendant

gags upon receiving

a gag order

~John J. Dunphy