Morning of September 22, 2024

 

 

golf course sniper

aiming to make

a hole in one candidate

~John J. Dunphy

monsoon night

a cockroach has eaten

my m & m

~Tejendra Sherchan

moon in virgo

looking up

vaginoplasty

~Adele Evershed

what we believed to be our fairytale eggplant

~Kelly Moyer

misogyny

a twist of salt

on the lyme

~Kelly Moyer

cost of living

a crisp

two-dollar apple

~Kelly Moyer

midlife romance

the ripeness

of discount nectarines

~Kelly Moyer

beyond the veil

all the reasons

to become a nun

~Kelly Moyer

the world

waits

in the inbox

~Noah Berlatsky

yarrow leaves

I almost went

to law school

~Joshua St. Claire

 

Evening of September 18, 2024

 

And So the Ego

~Kelly Moyer 

Photos available here

Jazz Trio

glorm-glorm-glouourm-gle-

gl-glee-gl-glee-gl-glorm           gling

glee-gl-gl-gl-glorm 

boum ba-ba-boum boum

ts-tss boum ba-boum boum tss

ta-ts-tsss-ta-ts

glorm glorm glorm ba-boom

glorm glee ba-boom ta-ts-tsss

ta-ts-tsss ba-boom

~Morley Carothers

before and after his white lies heat mirage

~Hifsa Ashraf

dried lilacs her illness in a nutshell

~Hifsa Ashraf

soccer kick the parabola of adrenaline rush

~Hifsa Ashraf

political rhetoric winding up the wireless fidelity

~Hifsa Ashraf

full house

too many hearts

I fold

~Olinda Ninolakis

Statistically speaking frequentists seem a little too flippant

~dan smith

the collapse of to-do lists survival instinct

~Arvinder Kaur

after the tunnel the mountains’ open arms

~Arvinder Kaur

vast blue

the loneliness of a cirrus

just like mine

~Arvinder Kaur

The aberrations of too much tripe

and not enough treacle

~Kathryn Lasseter

 

 

 

sweat from my brow

adds salt to bubble tea

August heatwave

~Patricia Carragon

Far and Bare

night squalls.

snakes bite.

~Kathryn Lasseter

Vertigo

Mound of art.

Ants in the belfry

~Kathryn Lasseter

Maleficent

make eyes at varmints

transact tempo

~Kathryn Lasseter

a crapulous man with a crapulous Poe on his tee-shirt

~Patrick Sweeney

a C-note says he talks to the hovering dragonfly

~Patrick Sweeney

queasy with complex prognostications, we let the thriller come to a confusing end

~Patrick Sweeney

fire in the top of the silver maple, I've come to my algebraic limit

~Patrick Sweeney

dirt between her toes

she walks in the way

of sun-faced buddhas

~Patrick Sweeney

 

 

 

 

See Our Five Fleas Merch

Morning of September 13, 2024

 

Please, Take a Seat

~Kelly Moyer

Photos available here

sleepless night

a tiny version of me

in the freezer

~Emil Karla

the owl

on the lookout

for dragons

~Emil Karla

generation gap

missing cow's milk

with my coffee

~Melissa Dennison

first bite

a baby leech

on my ankle

~Tejendra Sherchan

lightning can strike twice —

the second wife

also a psychopath

~Stacy Taylor

total eclipse —

people don’t see

what they don’t want to see

~Stacy Taylor

a spiritualist

in dark shades

smiles at the eclipse

~Robert Witmer

certitude

to be lost and to find

your own footprints

~Robert Witmer

psychedelic moon landing

I fantasize...

all of those small steps

we never took

~Joana Figueiredo

lost deeper

in the static blackness

we stare

at the turned off TV; we are

nothing more than

shadow silhouettes; trapped

on bare screens

~Joana Figueiredo

in need of a hug runaway train

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

in the city of self-pity knowing the residents by name

~Joana Figueiredo

these pebbles in my hand

far older than I will ever be

                          yet

~Tom Blessing

who i was

i am not

who i am

i will not be

impermanent

like the wave

~Tom Blessing

waiting for the garbage truck

ravens, seagulls, and me

~Tom Blessing

dying from drought

the weeds around

the fire hydrant

~John J. Dunphy

aurora borealis

setting the focus

to infinity

~Rupa Anand

the innocence of

believing David Cassidy

could be mine

~Jennifer Gurney

seashells —

nothingness

of the serial hoarder

~Maurizio Brancaleoni

A stillborn citizen

A festoon stands

By a galloping train

In rain.

Sees the clock time-

A poem without rhyme.

And taunts the citizen.

Does the festoon know why?

~Partha Sakar

blue dream

everything that helps close

the ozone hole

~Fatma Zohra Habis

Afternoon of September 10, 2024

those bitter comments

beyond her comfort zone

~words and image Wanda Amos

evolving circles

never ending

the infinity

of my mind

… day dreaming

~Wanda Amos

waves are incessant / they come in just to go out / and I still wonder

~Charles A. Perrone

the shattered syntax of a neither

~Vijay Prasad

if AI has an epiphany is it human

~dan smith

driver’s ed

car in P

for panic

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

he never knew who was singing along

~Patrick Sweeney

the ghostliness of setting the table early

~Patrick Sweeney

his satori ended up being the onset of a head cold

~Patrick Sweeney

he crossed three rows and two aisles to quote the 'refrigerator' haiku to me

~Patrick Sweeney

Hykoo

Refrigeration

not needed, poems will keep;

spoil, decay, rot? NOT!

~Suzanne S. Austin-Hill

tiny arms

Tyrannosaurus Rex can’t punt

the football

~Randy Brooks

Piper

I am the mourner with the bagpipes and tartan,

blowing nine notes as I approach the Gate. I can’t

guarantee the frisson that raises goosebumps

though the search for it has filled every syringe

in the alley; names proclaiming they were here,

wearing away a wall.

~Cheryl Snell

For Fifty Years I Run Naked through the Halls to Take a Test I’m Unprepared for


The test- dream wakes me

or is it the alarm’s buzz?

Either way: it's Monday

~Cheryl Snell

strawberry

slopes of Red Fuji—

a shaved ice

~Stephen J. DeGuire

potato rot

deepening with each peel

a rapist's interview

~Daipayan Nair

All the trains are dead

After I reach the station,

I find the train has passed away.

Now it is 11.59 p.m.

Now I have nowhere to go

but before me there is a lot of darkness-

The vast open space for introspection.

I sit under the stars and meditate to be enlightened.

~Partha Sarkar

The offal is sacred

The hapless food delivery boy did not know

What tragedy was waiting for him. He knocked on the door and

No sooner had the owner of the flat opened the door

Than a dog from the room pounced on the delivery boy

And scared, he fell from the stairs and died.

But after that, did it (The owner of the house) chew the bones?

~Partha Sarkar

the sea drowns in the silence of the waves

and takes the seagulls with it

I'm not a bird

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

a house is growing on the slope of my eyes

the pupils give artificial dilapidation

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

he wants to be a samurai

the boy who never looked up

from his phone

~Patrick Sweeney

snakes...

the colors and patterns

not so lovable

~Tejendra Sherchan

sometimes the clock

I watch barely moves—

neither do I

~words and image James Penha

Afternoon of September 7, 2024

Critique

I don’t think you should end a poem with

“My life has changed.”

~Noah Berlatsky

You don’t think about what you say.

I don’t say what I think.

The perfect marriage.

~Nolcha Fox

purple flowers

all over a pine forest

oblivious wife

~Tejendra Sherchan

the dead are still here

plants overwatered, underwatered, forgotten

~Steve Van Allen

Give light, Sun

What to do? How to walk steadily?

Do not know the blunt skeletons

And very often get morbid.

I come across them and get sad

But I do not put forward my hand

Rather ask the Sun to come out of the clouds

And give them light so that

They can stand erect and walk.

~Partha Sarkar

The great struggle of writing

is to see the truth

in your bank account.

~Noah Berlatsky

The Net Equivalent

of standing

in the kitchen

wondering why

u walked

in there

is going to Google

but forgetting

what you were

planning to search for

~Keith Snow

falling in love with the transplant surgeon

she whispers, "take my hand"

~Morgan Ellington

night duty

the hushed whisper

from behind

~Bidyut Prabha Gantayat

stuck in traffic

a billboard promises

relief

~Nalini Shetty

autocorrect

my opinion reshaped

without consent

~Nalini Shetty

two-factor authentication

proving

I still exist

~Nalini Shetty

dystopian dreams—

the future

they warned us about

~Nalini Shetty

mono no aware

new moon

or noon awe

no more now

~Scott F. Parker

university

yes

uni

verse

i yes

visit

yes

~Scott F. Parker

unsolicited advice to self

pay attention

to what you're paying attention

to

~Scott F. Parker

 

Buy our merch:

https://www.zazzle.com/store/five_fleas
 

Morning of September 3, 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s in the Bones

~Kelly Moyer

Photos available here

do not see me…

I am the face

of undecided

I have not picked

my story

—yet

~Sharon Ferrante

the poetry

of the lake

each breath

strikes the shore

alone

i paint

on empty rice paper

kilroy on a wall

feeling poetic

i slide into a chair

and start snoring

~Mike Rehling

collateral damage a spirit snake swallows its tail

~John Hawkhead

war footing the final bill

~John Hawkhead

crunch time cicadas taste like shrimp

~Sharon Ferrante

24 hour rolling news

I teach myself to see

things that aren’t there

~John Hawkhead

 

types of North Woods trees: deciduous, conifer, Big Foot

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

What I've learned

Summer flies are assholes

Fighting in the air

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

Labor Day

our union local president

goes into labor

~John J. Dunphy

 

only child

I am

the sibling

of myself

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

 

causation/correlation

i flip a coin

in the name of science

~Mike Rehling

I’ve decided

tonight

shall be simple

I’ll visit

the ocean

scream at it

~Sharon Ferrante