Afternoon of July 5, 2024

 

Happy Hour

~Kelly Moyer 

Photography available here





I had a chat

with life today

sorry darling

I’m not always

flowers

~Sharon Ferrante




in the sea

waves of maternal

lineage

~Roberta Beach Jacobson




From the Passing Breeze


from the passing breeze

an epiphany

There is vibrancy in the grass

and a halo, wavering iridescence

summer’s searing heat


The following futures

When sprinting, I look to the kind blue


The passing breeze


a moment of sanctuary

The fading childish spark, I smile wistfully

~Austin Chung




fewer clouds today

something in the air has changed

single blade of grass

~Charles A. Perrone




that's where her cat scratched a death poem in the carpet

~Patrick Sweeney



his thoughts drown out the heartbeat in my pillow

~Sharon Ferrante




A Disk Around the Sun


Whichever you choose, the route is equally rewarding

everyone was smiling or laughing

Are we on the cusp of a genuine breakthrough?

Is it a battle for recognition?

This dorm was once a madhouse

But that life was too short

Raided and now cornered

I’m still a believer but I don’t know why

Even when you want to die

~Vincent Bae




I finished eating my daily bread

~Patrick Sweeney




give us each day our daily dread

~Roberta Beach Jacobson




small slights on a speck of dust

~Patrick Sweeney




kites so high clouds give way

~James Penha




on the verge of saying hi

the graceful way she shooed a bee

~Patrick Sweeney




alive and then some

emerging from

the opened box

Schrödinger’s cat

with kittens

~John J. Dunphy




waking to a quiet house

the white noise

of grief

~Jennifer Gurney




wildfires about happiness


It is no accident that humans can see light

Grief is universal

Swaths of smoke darkened skies

Wildfires that burn near communities

can become dangerous

and even deadly

if they grow out of control

Innocence is so very fragile and fleeting

We tell ourselves a lot of stories about happiness

As children, we used to laugh hundreds of times a day

~Regina Kim




kitchen sink

our dirty dishes washed

in moonlight

~John J. Dunphy




occasionally I defer to what actually happened

~Patrick Sweeney




she's heard enough about my neurons stretching to the moon and back

~Patrick Sweeney

 

 


Lost and Found

~Yoon Park

 


Caged In

~Yoon Park

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