Morning of July 4, 2024

 The Reign of AI

~Yukyung Katie Kim

special olympics;

the weight he lifts

and yet

hearing his name cheered

the moments he smiles

~Anthony Lusardi

her body

is a vast temple

bells

within her stomach

announce mealtimes

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

Your dreams

I’m so gifted at finding

Finding your dreams come true

Any time I count sheep

That’s the only time I wake

I put my hand on the stove

Blunt pain was everything I felt

It was all a dream

~Jin-Woo Ahn

new rules

to the restraining order—

the clouds

always changing

into something new

~Anthony Lusardi

A Celestial Journey

running with a useless white suit

adding weight

lasers were passing right by

I’ve seen the hope

empire falls, and the new world forms

rest with my fellow friends

run and run until I am out of energy

what was the rumble

Thought the world was in peace

~Dongeon KIm

Going Question

 

I heard and I repeat:

if "it goes without saying,"

why are you saying it to me?

~Charles A. Perrone

Seeking Paradise

standing in line

the stress of going somewhere

to relax

taking flight

five hundred sardines

in one can

the terror of turbulence

ordering brandy

with breakfast

~Wanda Amos

red, white but no blue --

still blooming on July 4th

my poinsettias

~John J. Dunphy

heat-parched wood

fence rails buckle and bleach

~JL Huffman

a private school meant a Christian school

beseeched god with Rosary beads

and asked for the sun to dance

~Fhen M.

the sun performs a Kuratsa dance

around the Milky Galaxy

~Fhen M.

T i z n i t

Oasis town draped in date palms

The traveller wanders its souk

Back in time through alleyways

A glimpse of sun scarcely penetrates

Precious jewels, nomadic treasure

A citadel amongst red rocks of the Atlas

The muezzin calls, the iftar is ready

~Olinda Ninolakis

snow-fed stream

seeping into bones

an ancient chill

~Suraj Nanu

distant thunder . . .

I know now from where

the mushrooms bloom

~Suraj Nanu

frozen tundra

my footsteps divide

days and nights

~Suraj Nanu

incognito mode —

we ask the child bride

to hide her tears

~Debarati Sen

Goes to the infinity elder sister

Goes to the infinity

Elder sister

Promising that one day she will return...

But where will her abode of peace be?

I began to think and think by the pond that evening.

Suddenly I saw the fireflies coming with her new address.

I see my elder sister talking to the fireflies every evening.

~Partha Sarkar

School

I wish that it ended. She keeps talking and talking. I’m not listening, who is? Nobody

listening there, all sleeping. School is such a waste.

I wish that time stopped. I never thought it was fun. Schools should host more

parties. We stayed there until 9. It ended in a flash.

I wish that he didn’t. Throwing that beautiful ramen away. I’m inside the school

starving. While he wastes that ramen. My poor beautiful delicious ramen.

~Andrew Ban

birds blow by fast in July wind

followed by hats

then ghosts of seasons past

~Steve Van Allen

an old crate

once filled

with clementines

now holding

old computer wires

~Anthony Lusardi

Morning of July 3, 2024

The Sudoku Master

~Kelly Moyer

Photography available here

green sauce peppersalt pyrex

~J. D. Nelson

salad flange witness of dreams

~J. D. Nelson

& now for the lake awol biology

~J. D. Nelson

one haiku after another cicada

~Keith Evetts

old birder

the night jar

under his bed

~Keith Evetts

quiet

at last

winter fly

~Keith Evetts

couth 2nd forest laughter in a tree

~J. D. Nelson

wording how long is an idea diet

~J. D. Nelson

brackish dream conchcode again again again

~J. D. Nelson

Beyond the Paler Things

When he awoke,

I calmed him with talk of his favorite river.

I told him his body could somersault

over and over the river.

faster and faster

soaring through imagination that traversed heaven and Earth.

In phases of recovery and nullness.

You wanna feel something beyond the paler things,

But this is a delusion you shouldn’t indulge in.

~Grace Lee

monsoon drizzle…

a bubble forms and bursts

before landing

~Tejendra Sherchan

mister man in the moon awaits sleep

for light years he has lain awake

his marbled azure eyes gazing

around an indigo galaxy

he has named each star

and still hopes for a call from home

to capture loneliness

~Alfred Booth

the finely glazed cup

fell and crashed

its one-of-a-kindness

cradles no more tea

medicinal herbs

or hot toddies when

his fingers fumble like maple syrup

and too much color burns in his eye

~Alfred Booth

from sea to sickened sea

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

concrete cancer collapsing into dust

~John Hawkhead

nothing lasts inside shoes

~John Hawkhead

dry river still stretch marks

~John Hawkhead

telefaxed

into the future

smoke signals

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

The Tulip

tulips poke up out of the ground ahead of schedule

they have fallen victim to the rain.

take the bulb with you

but what do you do after they bloom?

do you let them crumble? let them wither?

It’s hard to imagine a person

doing something nefarious to the garden

there is an acceptance of fantasy without making it illicit.

~Elisa Min

neighborhood garage sales

buying each other’s

castoffs

~Jennifer Gurney

my hand on your bark

I feel your story

such depth, such life

~Jennifer Gurney

forest whispers

as if the conifers

couldn’t hear

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

Mom’s Knee

 

I sat on that knee

and now it is broken

 

they’ll put in a new one

on which I’ve not sitten

 

and never won’t though you walk

and don’t know

 

where the knee go

when I

~Noah Berlatsky

low tide

a laughing gull dives

for God knows what

~Joshua St. Claire

no pronoun fits sea and I

~Joshua St. Claire

from an ending to a beginning I can’t understand fiddler crabs

~Joshua St. Claire

Afternoon of June 29, 2024

 

The Vanlifer

~Kelly Moyer 

Photography available here

wish I could download laundry print it out folded

~Keith Snow

he knew he was in trouble

when he began folding

his dirty laundry

~Patrick Sweeney

I need someone to scream out loud my thinking.

~James Penha

contemplate the moon

but don't let the neighbors see you

taking notes

~Patrick Sweeney

shoes

entirely superfluous

in summer

~Jennifer Gurney

From another era

 

We don't know exactly

the date of birth of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps he was born

a few years before Jesus Christ.

~Marie Derley

dirt streaked window

making broken patterns

rivers of obscured glass

~Rae Greenwood

becoming

a sidewalk toadstool

leapfrog

~Eavonka Ettinger

neighbor's incessant pounding headache

~Eavonka Ettinger

rotting mangoes

on a river bank—

smell still sweet

~Tejendra Sherchan

on a hushed mountaintop

I play a melodious music

a rhythm of dots, dash, & space

~Fhen M.

one night stand

up comic laid

off from his gig

~John J. Dunphy

pathless woods

this yearning

to discover myself

~Mona Bedi

filling my cup

with your absence

winter rain

~Mona Bedi

late night broadcasts the rustling understory

~John Pappas

creeping sepia becoming the unknown ancestor

~John Pappas

carrying with me the parts of me i wanted to leave behind

~Mona Bedi

Whiskey dogs in the scullery

Goose girls who keep fires lit

And go to and fro bearing wash

And children

Beyond is a carriage

Whose lantern burns

The color of absinthe

Horses bear it further Manes thick

With luminous flies and their

Hooves echo the Thunder of creation

~Joe Pagano

house steps

a vase of Calla Lilies

buried in the dust

~Tejendra Sherchan

then nothing

 

time goes by

and we go with it

in fifty years we won't be here

or in what condition

flowers that will bloom a few times

and then what?

~Marie Derley

bring me my horoscope and a Geiger counter

~Patrick Sweeney

she said: the quasi-scientific names of pharmaceutical products are only bothering you

~Patrick Sweeney

 

 

Afternoon of June 27, 2024

 

the seventh galaxy...

so the first six just

not good enough?

~Richard Magahiz

neosilk rubbed

wormholes spill out

through her fingers

~Richard Magahiz

with each tiptoe    another crater

~Richard Magahiz

On Top?

 

Stand on top of the rock

that mimics a fossilized

cow patty dropped

by a Neanderthal bovine.

 

Makes you look like

a come-to-the-party-

too-late fly wandering

on sun-baked manure.

~Diane Webster

reading Lovecraft

to the carnivorous plants

I'm touched

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

risk assessment

funding cut for

asteroid watch

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

I wake to find

black hoofprints on your back

nightmare?

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

the dinosaurs

no more toilet paper

on the shelves

~Randy Brooks

curling her hair

straight

frozen orange juice cans

~Randy Brooks

fox not going anywhere

outside

the eagle’s stomach

~Randy Brooks

Together In Alone

 

The solitary woman walks

down the only dirt road

in and out from land

occupied by a lone

tree seen for miles.

~Diane Webster

Toward Point

 

Sharp triangle of light

slices through the darkness

on street level where

one human silhouette

 

drags its shadow

toward the apex point

separating, joining

day to night merge,

submerge silhouette.

~Diane Webster

old clay pitcher

still unfilled with night long

Monsoon rain

~Tejendra Sherchan

political argument

two buttheads

butt heads

~John J. Dunphy

 

Morning of June 25, 2024

 

we’ve rolled together

bounced off each other a few times

but eventually settled

in this U-shaped valley

where the stream meanders to the sea

~Mark Gilbert

 

 

all this dusk burning my story

~Tiffany Elise

solstice or the inferno of same same

~Tiffany Elise

'Glacier is dead...'

Frightens the human stomach

The last message

From the river

For farming.

~Partha Sarkar

security

that gorgeous jazz

my bank plays me

to placate me soothe me

calm me down

distract me convince me

everything’s going to be fine

 

If you would like to hear ambient birdsong instead of jazz music please press 1 now.

~Mark Gilbert

I once saw bound bouquets

of blue roses at a market

as a child

so many years ago

that now it feels like

it was another person

puzzling over their indigo petals

~Simon Kaeppeli

now heavy reading

the paperback beach novel

drenched by the tide

~John J. Dunphy

Urban design



Polished streets

Streamlined for efficient traffic

Darkened windows fail to catch the eye

Nothing to see here

A homeless man is ushered away

Lest he would make people think

~Simon Kaeppeli

god’s waiting room

a crossword puzzle

with the easy ones

already filled in

by somebody else

in the queue

~Mark Gilbert

I list

my car for sale –

very same day

check engine light

comes on

~Jennifer Gurney

and maybe it was too hard

for you

to stop the ivy

from spreading

from choking off

the oak

~Tiffany Elise

don’t ask —                                                       i will end up saying  
                                          
                      yes to everything

~Rupa Anand

 

 

 Buy our merch:

https://www.zazzle.com

/store/five_fleas