Afternoon of October 24, 2024

 

hurricane smashing

the reporter

protects her microphone

with

a condom

~Tuyet Van Do

Fortune cookie

Is now a misfortune cookie

Tables have turned

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

Hope

A four-lettered word

Dim sum for one

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

ant Darwin’s

crystal ball

how to get through

the footfalls

to fall

~Biswajit Mishra

moonless night

looking for the right moon

for a poem

~Biswajit Mishra

reduced milk

once part of a multipack…

I hold you so close

~David Cox

December darkness —

between us

a photon

~Vijay Prasad

my family folk art knitted brows

~dan smith

time flies — but where does it land?

~Tom Blessing

not one duck in the pond writer’s block

~Sharon Ferrante

Halloween season beware of seedy orange characters

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

All Souls' Day

our shoes caked with

graveyard mud

~John J. Dunphy

 

such

a spooky season

election time

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

I told you one day

I’d swim in your ocean

—Jupiter

~Sharon Ferrante

rest stop law

visitors will be greeted

by a fly

~Sharon Ferrante

mid-movie

an urge to peel my feet

from the sticky floor

~Sharon Ferrante

I want that

to be my killer

of today’s fear

a fly on the nose

of a lion

~Sharon Ferrante

cold dew

watering the succulents

out of habit

~Madeleine Kavanagh

SHADOW PLAY

 

The rusty nail

bends back

upon itself

to see

its shadow

wearing

a sun hat.

~Diane Webster

INTO THE SUNSET

 

At least

the railroad tracks

have a partner

to go off

into the sunset with.

~Diane Webster

not a piggy-bank

full of stones

my gall

~Hassane Zemmouri

Heron — a perfect philosopher

A lone white heron

returning home

in the evening-

A lone philosopher

even without a follower.

~Partha Sarkar

spiky bones

in my fish curry

yet they can't protect him

~Tejendra Sherchan

time travel

if only

i’d go back

a day

and keep

my mouth

shut

~Tom Blessing

if only

I could lose loss

and find found

~Jennifer Gurney

 

Afternoon of October 22, 2024

 

 

Hey, Kids!

~Kelly Moyer

photos available here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

they're screwed

she thinks

escaping the shoe

~Melissa Dennison

creeping up

through the floorboards

they're coming for you

~Melissa Dennison

The Romance of Rain


Each drop

is colorless

of grief

or bliss,

a thought

in pale

oblate

obliviousness.

~Noah Berlatsky

what if I ask

the purple morning glory

to bloom over me too

~Tejendra Sherchan

Why

“Y” in rye

& whiskey,

rhythm, rhyme

thyme, malady

melody, mary lies,

lye, tie-dye, my, oh my

by & by, bye-bye, fly, away!

~Keith Snow

Daze (Days)

In the projects,

you need a calendar,

not a clock, to monitor

the arrival of your building's

maintenance man.

~Keith Snow

B

a crappy crap

navigates

the sandy peach

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

tv

dare to unplug when off

is not enough

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

trapped in

an eternal embrace

the moon longs for deep space

~Melissa Dennison

quietly

inch by inch

death steals her away

~Melissa Dennison

along the road

a stray puppy's efforts

to secure an owner

~Tejendra Sherchan

Deciding

What road to take

Shotgun

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

train like hell

the US men's

reverse diving team

~Richard Magahiz

alphabet soup gotcha journalism

~Jerome Berglund

fumbling at my front door beetle on a chain

~Richard Magahiz

from their seafloor abbey    salt sutras 

~Richard Magahiz

what am I supposed to do turnips

~Robert Epstein

in so many words plantain

~Robert Epstein

castle walls common sense

~Jerome Berglund

reform the bargaining stage of grief

~Jerome Berglund

~Jerome Berglund & Christina Chin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flea swag available here

Afternoon of October 20, 2024

 

Poet Empty Bottle

~Michael Lee Johnson

ugh

go away

mirror

go away

ugh

~Noah Berlatsky

In Praise of Wooden Shoes or Where's a Luddite When You Need One

~dan smith

self-employed no one to complain to

~Stacy Taylor

we are the movies at God's multiplex

~dan smith

my eye-hops on her textual surface around the target words

~Vijay Prasad

68 years old

and don’t feel a day

over 67

~Stacy Taylor

Origami

If my paper hen could lay eggs,

how would the eggs be folded?

~Marie Derley

Hands

Guts in one,

the weight of the world

in the other.

So much to bear.

So much to feel.

Fingers twitching,

nails clawing.

Flesh against flesh.

Is this what a grip is for?

~R James Sennett Jr

shorter nights

little space for shooting stars

at our age

~John Hawkhead

we built gigantic engines

we travelled to the moon

we misunderstood Waste Not

~dan smith

if it's true

what Christians say

I'm going to hell

~Barbara Anna Gaiardoni

mending an old quilt

each night’s sleep cycle

a little deeper

~John Hawkhead

shine on

forty-foot cowboy

exit now

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

foggy shore . . . 

memory’s silence

eroding my belief

in goodbyes

~Timothy Daly

Photon

Because the soul is light, scurrying from point to shadow,

because light can fracture if interrupted—

because the fracturing of light is accomplished by hanging 

a simple glass charm from the curtain rail above my kitchen sink—

I think of you, driving down the mountain, the long, straight

road from map-point to city, your dashboard charm swinging,

your headlight fractured, your mirror cracked.

~Kathryn Reese

subglacial lake

the gelatinous maw

everts

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

unedited

I want to say love me

love my text,

consider converting

all the selfies

on my dating profile

to screenshots of poems.

~Kathryn Reese

blind date

she looks for

a way

to let him

down gently

~Randy Brooks

any old pot

of coffee

I drink it

on ice

the day after

~Randy Brooks

don’t think

of a monkey

too late

~Randy Brooks

 

Afternoon of October 17, 2024

 

chronologically displaced the now of her body

~Vijay Prasad

A Bare Leaf

All the ants have our backs.

The giants without speech wouldn’t

Dare squash us now.

~Dominik Slusarczyk

Harsh words follow tears

Objects fly smashing down hard

A fly on the wall

~Jiel Narvekar

our yule log

flames consume

the 1990s

~John J. Dunphy

A Man Called Toothbrush

bristles

at the thought

of death

ignorant

of the fact

Sylvia Plath

would never

write a poem

about him

~dan smith

late-night thoughts

scratching at the walls

of my skull

~Nalini Shetty

news cycle—

we chew the same fears

again and again

~Nalini Shetty

chasing a buzz

through tangled wires—

still no spark

~Nalini Shetty

country cemetery

a tombstone epitaph

crumbling into brevity

~John J. Dunphy

for years she paints pictures

writes prose and poems

invisible

~Susan Pope

the kettle whistles

mouth dry

she whispers his name

~Susan Pope

Magician

 

Make magic with me.

If we wish hard

Enough we can

Summon rabbits

Wearing tuxedos.

The rabbits will

Know what we

Should conjure next.

~Dominik Slusarczyk

The Light

 

There is a light

Right at the

Bottom.

Sometimes I

See it when

I’m sleeping.

It talks to me:

It says we feel

The same pain.

~Dominik Slusarczyk

spilled ink

pooling between pages—

the moon half-full

~Nalini Shetty

eyelash on my thumb

I make a wish—

the wind takes it first

~Nalini Shetty

stale cereal

a spoonful of routine

to start the day

~Nalini Shetty

country-by-country—

one dream jumps

around the forest

~Ernesto P. Santiago

writer’s block . . .

I shake the jar really hard

to free the fireflies

~Ernesto P. Santiago

We Were Led Past Prickly Bushes

 

I never pretended to know.

I only pretended the

Lights shone when they did not.

 

I needed to see another

Stream sauntering across stones.

 

Those who know don’t

Know they know.

~Dominik Slusarczyk

 

Evening of October 16, 2024

 

atop the altar

a kitten

who knew better

~Kelly Moyer

Don’t go away

Under sunlit leaves

Coffee IV

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

Open doors

A chance to redo this

Ghost of what was

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

signs of spoilage

she longs

for a dignified death

~Kelly Moyer

autumn leaves

we shuffle through piles

of regret

~Kelly Moyer

tucked in for the night

the body

that betrayed her

~Kelly Moyer

chronic illness

if only this life, too,

were fleeting

~Kelly Moyer

RIP Tide

The moon is clutching

the oyster’s pearls,

for she has no family

of her own, while

the rest of us, orphans

all, remain unfazed,

traversing the pitch

by our sorcery alone.

~Kelly Moyer

Come back, Woolly Mammoth

Woolly Mammoth,

If you feel my pulse,

I will remain warm.

Come back Woolly Mammoth,

No warmth in the ambulance–

Only transport for the innocent.

Come back, if you can,

Along with Dinosaurs,

Following the sad last tune of extinct glaciers.

Some precocious are trying to bring you back

To bring chaos in the chaotic miasma.

~Partha Sarkar

midnight mass –

smell of mothballs

from the coats

~Daniela Misso

seated in a bed of hydrangeas my sanity

~Katherine E Winnick

crescent moon

a sickle carving the night

for a day

~Tejendra Sherchan

on the road of maybe dawn light

~Arvinder Kaur

the how of letting go waterfall

~Arvinder Kaur

on geometrical patterns your absence wrinkles

~Arvinder Kaur

 

 

live online

the randomness

of egos

~words & image Wanda Amos