Morning of February 16, 2024

Nostalgic POV


the multiverse

of a Train

Avenue

the trackless

waste of desires

yellow streetcars

ice-blue silence

of a lake

no longer freezing

~dan smith



deep winter all night long visiting ghosts

~John Pappas



tragedy to trivia the alchemy of history

~John Pappas



now it is for it isn’t an eep

~J. D. Nelson




mysterious plaidness a letter in box 1

~J. D. Nelson



daylight crown aperture extra now

~J. D. Nelson



late middle-age unable to enjoy the rule of thirds

~John Pappas



end of mission

a pattern of smoke

on repeat

~John Pappas



wildflowers the art and artifact of language

~John Pappas



writers' workshop

first-timer asks us to critique

his suicide note

~John J. Dunphy



bad dreams and nightmares

un-pleasantries as I sleep

unable to wake!

~Charles A. Perrone



a circle makes a polygon.

~Fhen M.



Saturn and hourglass

the end is the beginning.

~Fhen M.



Swan Lake


The Dance of the Cygnets

aka Tchaikovsky’s

Cygneture Tune.

~Tony Dawson



Eye 4 an Eye


i4ni + Human + ruthlessness = Humans+blindness+toothless

~David Mitchell



hooded crows

another dark tale

about priests

~John Hawkhead



rolling over

shoreline pebbles

an exclusion zone

~John Hawkhead



Prayer for peace

Sound of ‘arm men.’

Sound of ‘aim men’

~David Mitchell


 

Afternoon of February 12, 2024


We’re passengers

on the Orient Express

killing time.

~Nolcha Fox



night owl

at his regular perch

picking at a slice of pie

~Christopher Peys



mom's gratitude

for doing the dishes

and holding my tongue.

family politics

~Christopher Peys



I aired my thoughts

on the clothesline. Someone

stole them, how thoughtless.

~Nolcha Fox



Even your successes are failures.

Even your memory forgets.

It is down a long way to have nothing in your hands.

It is down a long way to be nowhere.

~Noah Berlatsky



Hey diddle diddle

Trump said he jumped over the moon

To his disgust

A black hole swallowed him whole

The end

~Philip Hornblow



Floh + Floh = zwei

~Roberta Beach Jacobson



bite

of brown recluse

scurry of legs

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

 

 

field trip

urban kids learn

where milk comes from

~John J. Dunphy



high school activist

her yearbook photo

her first mug shot

~John J. Dunphy



the felon's fingerprints

lifted from

a baby bottle

~John J. Dunphy



eddy poe, jr.



"dada, caw, caw…"

                                             he said

                     "Me a raven."



To which his father replied —


          "Nevermore, my little man,

                    go back to bed ... 


                                                                 forevermore."

~Christopher Peys



MoMA ...



an abstraction

of an abstraction

after the image

the afterimage …

still just dots

on a white wall

~Christopher Peys



feedback&distortiontheslowerosion

~Mark Gilbert


ellipsing around that which is not visible

~Mark Gilbert



the poet is a lamb drinking water

the wolf is a poem that eats us



poems drown with us in sugar water

the river of time moves towards uncertainty
 

~Mykyta Ryzhykh


(Originally published in Setu)

Morning of February 12, 2024

 


bot-to-bot transfer    my tea is cold

~Patrick Sweeney



at the end of the world is a bartender

all mortals must perish.

~Fhen M.



fulfilling my duties at the emergency exit

~Patrick Sweeney



strange tunnel

repeats my question

from a year ago

~Sharon Ferrante



plural marriage

in the name of god

and profit

~Jerome Berglund



she says if you quit poetry nobody will notice

~Patrick Sweeney



cross the waters of death

find the boatman on a mountain peak.

~Fhen M.



he held dear the tyranny of lineage & habit

~Patrick Sweeney



electoral politics

crawling under the house

to die

~Jerome Berglund



dark moon where bad dreams go

~Maria Quernel



howling moon my inner wolf

~Roberta Beach Jacobson



Noble Prow

 

My nose would make a good poem it’s punchy and pointed bumpy ride which offers a hero’s

journey worthy of Joseph Campbell fashionably nonlinear lots of twists and turns where it

sticks itself rarely fails to surprise.

 

making

a stock the

other tusk

~Jerome Berglund



warm but itchy…

wearing your gift

I think of you

~David Josephsohn



first red:  palm-cutting sprocket from the chassis of Danny's toy truck

~Patrick Sweeney



lab-grown diamonds rescheduling fall harvest

~Roberta Beach Jacobson



dark circles

eyes sipping suns


the earth burnt

crisp

~Vishal Prabhu



shattering her every dream a single act

~Roberta Beach Jacobson



their loss

more pâté

to go around

~Jerome Berglund



not a bad way to go, mesmerized by the algebra of conic sections

~Patrick Sweeney

Morning of February 8, 2024


eliminating

violets with chemical weapons

suburbia

~Joshua St. Claire



late stage capitalism

advertising the sturdiness 

of disposable plastic cups

~Joshua St. Claire



touching every

aspect of my life

cat hair

~Amber Winter



sometimes

my last-dreamed dream

wakes me

~Jennifer Gurney



come to our rescue / oh flying maker of new / you winged magician

~Charles A. Perrone



Right hand replaced with a pig's foot

flesh torn from his stomach

a thief of taxpayer’s money.

~Fhen M.



have your faith


just don't expect me

to swallow it.

~linda m. crate 



A poem started from climbing a mountain

ended in a Greek garden.

~Fhen M.



Saturday wardrobe

built entirely

on comfort

~Jennifer Gurney



february dawn

a haze…

coffee and ink

piano notes—

spilling wildly

into spring

spring frost

writing poems…

again

~Grace Moon



She


      smiles, kisses, hugs, believes

         out of ashes roses grow;

         out of madness sanity and peace come;

         from dark times a glittering, priceless diamond 

             will brighten the world.  

 

Who?


Her.

~Suzanne Austin-Hill



beloved tradition

fake-mustache photo booth–

fourth grade valentines

~Jennifer Gurney



ripped-apart Valentine heart

its pieces placed within

the body's chalk outline

~John J. Dunphy

 

Evening of February 6, 2024

 

epics written and abandoned, finely chopping garlic

~Patrick Sweeney



I've drastically underestimated my own fanaticism

~Patrick Sweeney



sentience poking at the tender spot

~Kelly Moyer



the widowhood of spiders at lunch

~Patrick Sweeney



pellets of sleet on the balding ex-manager's clean scalp

~Patrick Sweeney



fake and yet the shimmer of her death

~Kelly Moyer



cutting

deeper than we should

rusty knife

~Roberta Beach Jacobson



my pal digs deep

knows I deserve the full

six feet

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel


 

the sailor

returns unexpectedly

storm surge

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel



Grief may come

for some in waves.

Mine comes with a

baseball bat.

It hits my head

out of the park,

then runs for

home plate.

~Nolcha Fox



Poetica


If a poem falls

onto a page


and no one reads it,

 
does it make

a sound?

~Steven Bruce



the principles

we champion

hotel breakfast

~Kelly Moyer



downsizing my wardrobe

a mini skirt reminds me

I have up sized

~Wanda Amos

 

still wind, this chaos in my

memory stirs

the moonlight

~
Debarati Sen


 

shooting for the stars

child points his new .22 at

the night sky

~John J. Dunphy

 

 

Midnight Verse XXI



Why fret existential thunders

when all we are is a fleeting dream

between two slumbers.

~Steven Bruce