Evening of October 30, 2024

                                                       Flea swag available here

 

 

Halloween

I EARLY VOTED sticker on

a tombstone

~John J. Dunphy

I am

the merchant

of stars

~Tejendra Sherchan

as the bees dance

the moon

is pierced in two

~Melissa Dennison

Solitary Wanderer

as a ghost

what I miss the most

my shadow

~John H. Dromey

Old Hall

witches' marks

carved into the walls

~Kimberly Kuchar

birthday cake

still standing

cutting time

~Elliot Diamond

candlelight dinner

a swimming moth

in my soup bowl

~Bidyut Prabha

Sunlit river

No one can see you cry

Underwater

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

Misty leaves

Haunt the window

Days grow longer

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

just

beneath the surface

truth

~Jennifer Gurney

stepping into

the vast wilderness...

I meet myself

~Jennifer Gurney

I am depressed

so I walk the dog.

The dog feels better.

~Noah Berlatsky

he doesn't want to know the secret handshake anymore

~Patrick Sweeney

tripping over a sycamore root on the way to Cézanne's mountain

~Patrick Sweeney

once I wrote it down, the morning glory let me go

~Patrick Sweeney

he spent an inordinate amount of time on the subsidiary elements of his story

~Patrick Sweeney

when the plot is worth unraveling

~Patrick Sweeney

vanishing point the words unsaid around the conference room table

~Joshua St. Claire

our squares

in different circles

mockingbirds

~Joshua St. Claire

another acceptance

a little less afraid now

of dying

~Joshua St. Claire

unwashed

the hand that sewed

sequins on the stinkbug

~Kelly Moyer

a tuft of lint

drifts from my sock

namaste

~Kelly Moyer

needlework

i trade my yarn and canvas

for a voodoo doll

~Kelly Moyer

spitwads and airplanes

i contemplate

a career in physics

~Kelly Moyer

i write myself

as the protagonist

absurdist tales

~Kelly Moyer

chronic illness

fluffing the pillows

of my escape room

~Kelly Moyer

listen

~dan smith

Morning of October 27, 2024

  

thanks for making

a positive choice

with your shoes

~Mark Valentine

this week

head outside

and experience

~Mark Valentine

your holiday is

nearly here

we're delighted

~Mark Valentine

As to summit and tooth

Begins summit.

Toothache.

Summit on.

Toothpaste.

MoU.

Toothsome.

Summit is over.

Toothpick.

Next summit.

Toothbrush.

~Partha Sarkar

musical scales

a heavy minor chord

difficult times

~Olinda Ninolakis

a touch of love

uncountable syllables

no cutting words

~Olinda Ninolakis

A delivery kid in the rain

A delivery kid

in the rain

with meagre commission

on no man's land-

the mother's womb.

~Partha Sarkar

today I see

no good

& no evil

neither good

nor evil

~Mark Gilbert

predictably

the orangutan

watches us

act predictably

while grazing

~Mark Gilbert

two quadrums

single bed.         single clap.

that buzzing        the ending

in my ear.                 of a life.

~Mark Gilbert

another autumn . . .

father's garden sea still

creaking

~Fatma Zohra Habis

weaving the canvas

unraveling the canvas —

politician's work

~Nicoletta Ignatti

election day

in the 10-day forecast

a 50% chance

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

political debate

the moderator’s sneeze

caught in mid-air

~Mona Bedi

Kamala

in Kalamazoo

today

~Jennifer Gurney

getting my brave on

I step into

the fray

~Jennifer Gurney

I wonder

what happens to all the poems

written only in my mind

~Jennifer Gurney

another little time machine great-grandchild

~dan smith

hanging roots my unreasonable expectations

~Mona Bedi

believing unbelieving what was I thinking

~Mark Gilbert

just after the storm a praying mantis

~Mona Bedi

paper boats—

the untold stories

after the flood

~Mona Bedi

a faded line

on the pregnancy kit

false spring

~Mona Bedi

 

 

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