Afternoon of June 19, 2024


 

I will hide

deep in this forest

tell stories

to giants

a thousand years old

~Sharon Ferrante




Busy Route


a glass-bottom bus

to see who’s thrown under it

Washington, D.C.

~John H. Dromey




the identity crisis we all have waning moon

~Arvinder Kaur




my forgiveness a beast with too many heads

~Joana Figueiredo




another depth to the sunset orange bombing stops

~Arvinder Kaur




Kicking up clouds of dust I made promises I can’t fulfill

~Joana Figueiredo




soliloquy who do I think I am?

~John Hawkhead




long breakup again and again this mailer demon

~Arvinder Kaur




through the window life goes on

~Jennifer Gurney




juxta I have no position

~Sharon Ferrante




hearing my life in the lyrics the blues

~Jennifer Gurney




I am living in half delirium

for the third day in a row

I am running laps around my sanity

~Joana Figueiredo




Kitten died at the end of the day

Alive can't be that dead

Throat can't be that quiet

I buried a kitten in a computer box

Next to the grave without a cemetery, I planted a tree

I still remember how I called our son a kitten

In my old age, I will remember how I planted a tree, raised a son and built a new

house for my son

~Mykyta Ryzhykh


(Previously published in The Gorko Gazette)




trying to fix

my head with things

from the junk drawer

~Amber Winter




Summer evening—

a cicada sings in my town

silencing all its noise

~Tejendra Sherchan




transit ward

the nurse

moves

from one patient to the next

wearing the same gloves

~Tuyet Van Do




in the end

his claws

never scratched

the loneliness

out of me

~Joana Figueiredo




under the heat dome

does any damn fool

still say don't sweat it

~dan smith

 

 


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Afternoon of June 15, 2024

 

deadheading roses

how can

this much summer

have already

been lived

~Jennifer Gurney




flopped

on the bathroom floor

my mortal enemy

taking the cockroach in a cloth

I set him outdoors

~Madeleine Kavanagh




CVS pharmacy

elevator music

line of legal drug seekers

~Steve Van Allen




local market

a lady walking about

dabs

of foundation cream

on her face

~Tuyet Van Do




The faces I meet



A train at 4 a.m.

The call of the vein.

Different boulders.

Misunderstanding?


I open the door

And find a human-a glistening sardonic.


If I am happy, I am in a deathtrap.

~Partha Sarkar




I love the stone for the fact that he is steadfastly silent

I don't like people because they die


little birds kiss the glass of the universe

the world is a torn book in the hands of a child

~Mykyta Ryzhykh


(Originally published in Perceptions Magazine)




Calibrating Etymology


I used to close

with beat regards

but now beatitudes

seem more appropriate

~dan smith




No green in the clock



Once he protested alone against injustice and got defeated.

Then he thought he should protest collectively

And he joined the city of protest

And it is wise act

And it is positive.

congratulations!


But for a long time, I do not find any greenness in the clock.

~Partha Sarkar




bump stocks–

a major trigger

burning bright

~dan smith




lullabible

~Keith Evetts




shadow of a plane leaping trout

~Keith Evetts




no earthly reason why the moon

~Keith Evetts




it comes to me the cat

~Keith Evetts




the sky eats birds on the horizon

the bird shrinks to the size of a dot

the sun shines like a question mark

what will happen next?

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

 

(Originally published in Perceptions Magazine)




stepping off the train

with me

a vagabond pigeon

~Ranu Jain

 

 

Morning of June 14, 2024

 

TheCat Lady

~Kelly Moyer 

Photography available here




up close

to the crow's

knuckles

~Patrick Sweeney




turns out

you can take it with you

spoliation

~Jerome Berglund




the twisted stanines in my testing history

~Patrick Sweeney




election results macaques + sleight of hand

~Jerome Berglund




Every voter is nothing but a salained corpse



The consternation.

The helpless eyes or the greedy fleeing.

The same attire of the ages.

No new wings for, of, by people.

Only just a box to put something into. What?

None know.


Yet a queue...

A smoke billowing.

~Partha Sarkar




he was far too mathematical for reincarnation

~Patrick Sweeney




not always a bad thing crash test dummy

~Jerome Berglund




a rubber boat traveled on the waters

resistance fighters about to pull the trigger

shoot first, talk later

~Fhen M.




Zummer Evenèn



Zunlight whirlèn

Zummer Evenèn

Russlèn brook

Yollow flowerz

Storm clouds

Gather in orcha'd

Death no foe

Never can forget 'ee

Hearty vo'k zing

A zong ov rememberin'

~Olinda Ninolakis




in this part of the play, I'm the old man writing in the back room

~Patrick Sweeney




dead pixel cheese grater revisionism

~Jerome Berglund




so many triggers Shiva packing heat

~Jerome Berglund




Dog Float



I float therefore I am

My human is close at hand

She leaves me adrift on a float

All the swimmers know me

I am a canine boat


I do know how to swim

Swimmers look at me and grin 

But it's so nice to just

Observe the birds above

In humans I do trust

~Olinda Ninolakis




when we used to wonder who the pallbearers would be

~Patrick Sweeney




leaving Sheetz through the wrong door    the pretzels know the way

~Patrick Sweeney




the voice on the phone doesn't breathe

~Patrick Sweeney




a glance back and the mystic stumbles

  ~Patrick Sweeney

 

 

 


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Afternoon of June 12, 2024

 

The Insomniac

~Kelly Moyer 

Photography available here




sand grains

all her bullying

word by word

~Nicoletta Ignatti




obsessive compulsive disorder

lapping of waves

back and forth

~Nicoletta Ignatti




Renaissance Fair

costumed reenactors line up

at a porta-potty

~John J. Dunphy




marijuana dispensary

all its employees

highly trained

~John J. Dunphy




You have to love poetry

to be a poet.

But the only poems

I really love

are mine.

~Noah Berlatsky




flooded Golden Trumpets

all heaped on a drainage filter…

muddied and rotting

~Tejendra Sherchan




it was always fresh fish,

fresh meat, fresh fruits

served on an ancient table

~Fhen M.




then came a C Ration

imported, stateside

a fine range of canned foods

for not so sophisticated palates

~Fhen M.




a jungle of palm trees

turned to modern civilization

now an airport without airplanes.

~Fhen M.




I feel ashamed


The chirpings.

Birds come.

I spread crumbs.

They take them.

A mother-bird feeds a nestling.

A divine motherhood starts a day without war.


I feel ashamed of my human structure- The warmonger.

~Partha Sarkar




wordplaying with double entrées is appetizing

~Keith Snow




desert crackling orange peels tequila sunrise

~Elliot Diamond




haystack of a vacant moo

~Elliot Diamond

 

 


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Afternoon of June 8, 2024


 Recruiting


before

activity

ends in the cerebrum

a precisely located shock

it jumps!

pattern

realigned with our objective

it thinks our thoughts believes

our ends our means

are best

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel




old stump

my old butt

good company

~Tom Blessing




Hey Joe, give me a chewing gum”

barefoot, soiled feet

this boy could have been my grandpa

~Fhen M.




just words

the jurors play

hangman

~Robert Witmer




the golden egg

each morning a different

goose

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel




summer sunset

a bulbul flutters out of a bush

and flies in a curve

~Tejendra Sherchan




My journey

Without a caravan.

Feel the vacuum, beloved.

~Partha Sarkar




the dune moves on

polished metal emerges

from the sands of Mars

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel




Knowing and Not Knowing

 

There are books on my kindle

I probably won’t read before I die.

 

So much knowledge

not in my head when my head

is filled with earth.

Who knows which books?

 

I mean, Finnegan’s Wake, obviously.

But other than that.

~Noah Berlatsky




candlelight

the fortune teller smiles

through the nervous shadows

~Robert Witmer




a white pale man

wore a Donald Duck hat

hired to build roads & airstrips

~Fhen M




flea circus

a mangy cat

snarls at a tiny chair

~Robert Witmer




lying listless

in wet mud

street cats

~Rupa Anand




catastrophic heat

the tree sheds mangoes

just to keep cool

~Rupa Anand




opal sky

the morning slug’s

trail of slime

~B. L. Bruce




sun slow to set

two hoots

from the owl

~B. L. Bruce




You are a hazy

moon, hiding

your intentions

in murky

mumblings.

~Nolcha Fox




annihilation—

Mexican Devils ravage a Peepal

halfway up

~Tejendra Sherchan




Pookie—

dancing to a cover of Boom  Boom

a hearty bowl of Soupy

~dan smith




"here

take everything I have"

i hold out my

empty hands

~Tom Blessing




dining out now checking for symptoms

~Ruth Holzer




giving the bird medicine he screams and dies

~Ruth Holzer




syrtaki for once joining the circle

~Ruth Holzer




waking to the brittle voices of the morning ravens

~Tom Blessing




memory

a brief visitor to my life

the man on a raft of cans

paddling down the ganges

at hardwar

neither of us knowing

the end of the journey

~Tom Blessing

 

 


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Evening of June 4, 2024


Invented Tongue

Griblish glubmitsch

Glinglyglingly

Beritched

Griblish glubmitsch

Mumubliblik


Demingcik digribnik

Duffisuffidly

Vifucked

Demingcik digribnik

Susuçuник

~Olinda Ninolakis




the harder

I hold on

the harder letting go is

~Jennifer Gurney




barcoding

illogical fuzzy logic

tuxedo cats

~Roberta Beach Jacobson




Swiftly


swifts perform a passeggiata

at twilight in Chania harbour

tourists click pics on their mobile phone

parea gathers noone alone


poets recite verse in Terza rima now

the sun melts gently into the lighthouse - how

fast the transition from day to night

scent of jasmine our senses excited

~Olinda Ninolakis




minor misunderstanding

bring on the banjos

~Roberta Beach Jacobson




if I only knew

the path this journey

will lead to...

~Jennifer Gurney




in the corner of my eye

supernova remnant

~Roberta Beach Jacobson




write about

what you know

write about

nothing

~Noah Berlatsky