Afternoon of August 12, 2024

Life Skills

~Kelly Moyer

Photography available here

 

"we came from there"

I tell

our neighbors' children

while gesturing toward

the night sky

~John J. Dunphy

a falling star —

our daughter shouts

'boom!'

~John J. Dunphy

looking up

Orion's belt

I am home

~Jennifer Gurney

school science fair

all the other exhibits

swallowed up by

our son's entry

a black hole

~John J. Dunphy

derelict starship

ran out of food first

set phasers on broil

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

clear night sky

the planets we pretend

not to see

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

Not Miss Fluffy

 

“No, Dearest. Sometimes,”

O'Keeffe insisted to Stieglitz

peering over her shoulder

at the canvas, “a pink tulip

is no more than a pink tulip.

“Focus.”

~James Penha

 

the illusion

of happily ever

after

opening the

final decree

~Jennifer Gurney

in the old trunk

his ex was somewhat

the worse for wear

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

pushing

new educational concepts

through an olive press

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

Martian flu

this stomach bug runs its course

then chews its way out

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

dispirited

the tumbledown saloon

gave up its ghost

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

evolution reenactment

my wife and I crawl

from ocean to beach

~John J. Dunphy

 

Afternoon of August 11, 2024

 

 

the comfort

of this island of one

sultry summer

~Mona Bedi

rocking the empty cradle a refugee’s blank eyes

~Mona Bedi

unfinished poem the night turns into a raven

~Mona Bedi

all the sad poets

scratching their way

toward the realization

that they've already arrived

home

in their notebooks

~Scott F. Parker

early morning at my desk

with enough coffee for now

returning myself

to myself

the only way i know how

~Scott F. Parker

final exam

if consciousness

is the cage

to which the only key

is consciousness

solve for

consciousness

solve

for yourself

~Scott F. Parker

ancestral home

granny’s hairpin

opens the door

~R. Suresh Babu

evolution can be seen as a ladder

unfortunately

some choose to climb down

flock of grey people

waiting room at the Hospital Heart Center

~Steve Van Allen

no shooting stars...

my wishes

go back immediately

~Nicoletta Ignatti

Dolls

inflatable hot air balloons

They long to fly very high

but bitten by mosquitoes

they sag

~Nicoletta Ignatti

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair”

'Fair is foul, and foul is fair

Hover through the fog and filthy air'

Come nearer the wanderings of the Weird Sisters.

The curtain-An eclipse in the air.

protests here. Protests yonder.

(guided or diverted?)

The eagle: It does not matter

whether the womb gropes to a perfect abode of peace.

~Partha Sarka

sleeping in . . .

one career stumble closer

to packing up

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

under

lap cat

laptop

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

Five years, cat,

and I have never hurt you.

Could you sit on my lap now?

~Noah Berlatsky

 

 

 

 

 

 

Five Fleas swag:

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

 

 

Afternoon of August 8, 2024

 

SidDelicious

~Kelly Moyer

Photography available here

he always had urgent information that nobody could use, or ever want to think about again

~Patrick Sweeney

his earliest memories were a buzzkill waiting to happen

~Patrick Sweeney

dead rabbit somehow no more tranquil

~Herb Tate

an antique sign pointing to a change in circumstances

~Patrick Sweeney

all this way to turn around and be stupid me

~Patrick Sweeney

path curves

universe asks

which way now

~Jennifer Gurney

maraschino cherries

in my ginger ale

it’s 5:00 somewhere

~Jennifer Gurney

twilight zone —

what I think about when I think

about thinking

~Herb Tate

disquiet

in the library

shushing the shushers

~Herb Tate

The Fun With Physics Series or How I Learned To Start Loving Those Crazy Muons
And Stop Worrying

electron fields

quark fields

W. C. Fields

~dan smith

hail

man shields himself with his

'homeless vet' sign

~John J. Dunphy

my heart weeps

every year

this anniversary

~Jennifer Gurney

many years ago, now

learning about this day…

my eyes opened

~Jennifer Gurney

fertility shrivels

weeping rain drops

a She Oak

~Wanda Amos

my grandson says

we all have gravestones

on our heads

do you know where

your bones are?

~Tom Blessing

bored

the holes

in our blue boat

~Robert Witmer

night storm clouds

a hole shows the blue sky

with one star

~Tejendra Sherchan

death's door

an invisible hole

in the metaphor

~Robert Witmer

 

 

Afternoon of August 4, 2024

 

The Asemic Vacuum Cleaner Demo Being A Poem In Which I Embrace The Group's Critique That They Don't Understand My Poems And By Which The Lack Of Meaning Is Its Meaning And Because It Is Flawed By Having Some Meaning It Doesn't Have Any Meaning

The cosmic sucking sound of entropy

of worlds being pulled apart gone

is any disordered delight

in deforestation now only

deserted deserts of mind blowing

emptiness forever bubbles bursting

cyclic universes coming and going

like traveling circuses

~dan smith

this funfair

down the helter skelter

on a doormat

~Keith Evetts

brazen fly

killed by temptation

my girlfriend’s lemonade

~Chad Parenteau

he spent his life as a non-playing character

~Patrick Sweeney

opening myself to this umbrella

~Maya Daneva

5:45 a.m.    the complete, unabridged and unexpurgated story of how he put his roof on

~Patrick Sweeney

as a silk flower I might last forever

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

it makes perfect sense that the buttermilk boy would be the one to see the Mother of God

~Patrick Sweeney

flooded with moonlight our sunroom

~John J. Dunphy

sugar ants rushing to the scene of the nosebleed

~Patrick Sweeney

a fly not moving on the hour hand not moving

~Sharon Ferrante

house sparrows bathing in the dust of my walkway edging

~Patrick Sweeney

summer evening

the cumulus behind a house

out-wings it

~Tejendra Sherchan

waiting room…

a butterfly fish

jumps on my lap

~Sharon Ferrante

after the long rain

inhaling

all the earth spices

~Kathleen Cain

swarming bees

at the feet of Buddha…

taking refuge

~Tejendra Sherchan

after his child's death

the 'God'

in his correspondence

downsized

to 'god'

~John J. Dunphy

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

~Charles A. Perrone

I blink

my visit

is over

~Jennifer Gurney

 

Morning of July 30, 2024

 

 

 

outdoors

the housefly and I

putting our feet up

~Melissa Dennison

Olympic

flame-throwers

dragons

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

flashing church billboard

‘We love you

Sundays at 10’

~Christa Pandey

blaspheming against tv testimonials as a hobby

~Patrick Sweeney

requiem mass

donning the muted colours

of shadow

~John Hawkhead

they threw half-eaten hoagies at the Hurdy Gurdy Man

~Patrick Sweeney

Love is giving him the top half of the bagel every time.

~Rachel Turney

what if all my

dandelion wishes

come true...

~Jennifer Gurney

muscle memory

each room in the house

with its own flinch

~John Hawkhead

Bastille Day

convict breaks out

a deck of cards

~John J. Dunphy

in the sea

diving into flames

water dragons

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

the bronchial cough of the trash-picking bear

~Patrick Sweeney

no one in my reading group knew how to tie a shoe

~Patrick Sweeney

 

 

Morning of July 27, 2024

 

The Burlesque Dancer

~Kelly Moyer
 
Photography available here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hold for Poet

Thank you

For your patience.

Our poets are helping

Other readers. Please do not turn

The page.

~Noah Berlatsky

it was in the Roman-controlled Antioch

in the late first century AD

that the plagiarist copied his unnamed sources

~Fhen M.

vows

after so many husbands

I know what to say

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

open window

a gentle breeze

caresses my hair

how warm your hands were

on our last meeting

~Fatma Zohra Habis

 

 

 

starred restaurant—

coming and going of flies

at lunch time

~Nicoletta Ignatti

Mud Holes

Just because you see little holes in the mud

is no reason to suspect earthworms were here.

Birthday candles are the same diameter

and mud is a kind of icing on layer years.

~Terry Trowbridge

asteroid

horizon so close you can

see your back

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

you must be this tall ↆ

to exit the quicksand

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

 

 

Morning of July 25, 2024

Llama getting ready for her book tour

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

 

 

 

rising

from the dead

banana bread

~Biswajit Mishra

Where does an assassin go?

Where does an assassin go?

Time is too timid to answer.

~Partha Sarkar

Captain Vibrato


You sailed on ships of light

beyond our wisps of stars.

Sent us postcards

filled with trembling trees

and all your mad fragility

that pled wish you were here.

They were postmarked immortality.

~dan smith

my open mouth

in a dentist’s chair

a nearby fly

rubs its antennae

~Arvinder Kaur

the flashing antennae—

a hiding cockroach behind

toilet flush

~Tejendra Sherchan

thefireflylessnessofdarknesswithin

~Arvinder Kaur

chewing Mona Lisa artsy cannibal ants

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

the moon had no craters,

the sun had no sunspots,

Neptune & Uranus were not planets

a time when telescopes were not invented

~Fhen M.

The sun says

The grey matter of a human's brain.

(We are proud of it!)

And "it is bright but dead"

Very often the sun says.

~Partha Sarkar

IVF clinic —

this feeling

of not being enough

~Debarati Sen

paradise 1

let's imagine that paradise does exist

let's imagine that, after having served my time in purgatory,

I could get into paradise

will I come across the old troublemakers again?

~Marie Derley

paradise 4

are we laughing in heaven?

(if not, I'm not going)

(same goes for the Wi-Fi)

~Marie Derley

the aging magician's mind

now playing tricks — on him

~John J. Dunphy

 

 

 

 

Five Fleas swag:

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