Nominations for the 2024 Touchstone Awards

January:

nursery ward baby's first barcode

~Keith Evetts

February:

twist of fate

a typo

in the tea leaves

~Kelly Moyer

March:

microwave burrito showing me its good side

~petro c. k.

May:

chrysalis moon  shedding my former self

~Debarati Sen

June:

on a hushed mountaintop

I play a melodious music

a rhythm of dots, dash, & space

~Fhen M.

July:

outdoors

the housefly and I

putting our feet up

~Melissa Dennison

August:

cryptocurrency the look on grandma's face

~Keith Evetts

September:

wings of geese moving on with my life

~Maya Daneva

October:

a tuft of lint

drifts from my sock

namaste

~Kelly Moyer

November:

fingers don't know how not to love your hair

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

defining

her shelf life…

the matrimonial column

~Rashmi VeSa

December:

midnight silence

another panic attack builds up

in my bones

~Nisha Raviprasad

twelve days 'til Christmas; the mother ship is over New Jersey

~Patrick Sweeney

observing the generally unobserved in the free museum of my mind

~Patrick Sweeney

 

Congratulations to these talented poets.

Afternoon of December 15, 2024

now leasing

my place

in the universe

~Kelly Moyer

 

 

 

twelve days 'til Christmas; the mother ship is over New Jersey

~Patrick Sweeney

Katsushika Hokusai Algorithm

Write, erase, rewrite

erase again, glitch, and then

an AI blossoms.

~Noah Berlatsky

new occupant

tree roots

in the basement

~Anthony Lusardi

early morning

a glaze of lake water

on the turtle’s shell

~Anthony Lusardi

clean sheets

the fresh scent

of abandonment

~Kelly Moyer

backyard renovations rings on an old stump

~Anthony Lusardi

she doesn't want to hear anything bad about bluejays in the snow

~Patrick Sweeney

moonless night

I surrender my fears

to The Elephant

~Kelly Moyer

eras

when Swiftian

meant Jonathan

~dan smith

soup kitchen

diner asks a server

for the recipe

~John J. Dunphy

observing the generally unobserved in the free museum of my mind

~Patrick Sweeney

my emotional equilibrium is easily disturbed

by the mere mention of going somewhere else

to do something

~Patrick Sweeney

when Santa crosses the thirty-eighth parallel

~Patrick Sweeney

 

 

Our Touchstone Award nominations to be announced tomorrow!

Morning of December 14, 2024

midnight silence

another panic attack builds up

in my bones

~Nisha Raviprasad

cradle rock

the spindrift

of moon fall

~Joanna Ashwell

ego trip

a tension seeking

device

~Eavonka Ettinger

checking again

the future forecast

acid rain

~Joanna Ashwell

crystal ball every face shows a tell

~Joanna Ashwell

blink & all roads converge into a comma

~Tiffany Elise

words writing haiku with the stars

~Tejendra Sherchan

all that remains in a bang the concept of a violet

~Tiffany Elise

just five more minutes fatherhood

~John Pappas

what would happen

if my life had

a table of contents

~Jennifer Gurney

war machine

running on empty

promises

~John Pappas

six light-filled knot holes

in a trusty redwood fence

half a dozen wholes

~Charles A. Perrone

Restless stars

Turning and burning

Blur of a candle

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

Nobody really knows me

Besides the

Full moon

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

The moon

will be there tomorrow

until it isn’t.

~Noah Berlatsky

dove or vulture

i can no longer

tell the difference

~Tiffany Elise

 

 

 

 

Afternoon of December 10, 2024

 

 

Jottings

i thought i was ee cummings

until i found the shift key on the keyboard.

NOW EVERYTHING I WRITE IS A CAPITAL OFFENCE.

I was sentenced to have my serifs cut off.

~Tony Dawson

come here

listen to me closely

that's not what I said

and you know it

~John Masterson

Man vs. Nature      

unhabitable surrounds

overcome by nature

strangling the evil

found in those walls

~Joanne Macias

folding

unfolding

seeking peace

~Jennifer Gurney

no (mis)givings

this holiday season

the nuts all sugar-coated

~Bonnie J. Scherer

In a bind

the snake wraps itself

tighter and tighter around

hoping you give in

yet you now realised some

of those snakes look like people

~Joanne Macias

Bangladesh 2025 and..

The stream..

Knee deep water...

The suffocation has to cross the terror...

Hurting ligament..

Goes far the lighthouse...

No way to escape.

~Partha Sarkar

war crime

teams of lawyers find

better terms for it

~John Hawkhead

burning books

a crowd slowly circles

the edge of darkness

~John Hawkhead

arriving

in retro style

trusting

the technology

of silver foil

~Mark Gilbert

I am 15% done

with this poem.

That means

I will finish this poem

 

never.

I will never finish this poem.

~Noah Berlatsky

moon viewing

please,

no poetry

~Patrick Sweeney

twelfth month: an abbreviated list of creatures that sing

~Patrick Sweeney

he later learned the origin of the dunce cap he wore

~Patrick Sweeney

he felt an invasion of privacy whenever an actor broke the fourth wall

~Patrick Sweeney

spending an inordinate amount of time correcting movie subtitles

~Patrick Sweeney

a little gristle to chew in the mystical life

~Patrick Sweeney

becoming self-aware the algorithm quantifies emotion

~Mark Gilbert

 

 

 

Afternoon of December 8, 2024

Nobody Knocks



Nobody knocks.

New neighbor—

she didn’t know.

~Carla Schwartz

I do not want

your raw and honest poetry.

 

I want your poetry

overcooked and rubbery

and filled with lies.

~Noah Berlatsky

family plot

a semblance

of group therapy

~Carla Schwartz

hot water—

we are now entering

the mesopelagic zone

~dan smith

saying yes

to her imaginary friend...

summer's end

~Cezar Ciobîcă

Olympic games

a flea jumps off

my cat's fur

~Cezar Ciobîcă

the ghosts

that still haunt us

hunter's moon

~Cezar Ciobîcă

cat’s

whereabouts

a mystery

~Tejendra Sherchan

my vet tells me it’s time

~John J. Dunphy

too soon i arrive at a character

~Vijay Prasad

birdsong in my brainstem passes the Turing test

~D.W. Baker

When riding

Don’t look in

The rat king’s eyes

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

Nothingness

Of a vast night sky

Yet it’s everything

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

Our Nominations for The Red Moon Anthology

(November)

yielding to the futility of helping an autumn fly escape

~Patrick Sweeney

(October)

our squares

in different circles

mockingbirds

~Joshua St. Claire

(September)

one minute from yesterday  a lonely pronoun

~Vijay Prasad

(August)

Earth again at last


herds of bison keep


radio silence

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

(July)

IVF clinic —

this feeling

of not being enough

~Debarati Sen

(June)

contemplate the moon

but don't let the neighbors see you

taking notes

~Patrick Sweeney

(May)

unfazed

the moon has so little

left to say

~Kelly Moyer

Best of luck to these talented nominees!

Evening of December 3, 2024

 

Fractals

I am a flower.

Bent beneath the sky, I thirst!

I am also rain.

~Silvatiicus Riddle

I am impressed at your vast and calculated indifference.

~Noah Berlatsky

rice pudding because it comes with the meal

~Patrick Sweeney

wealth management

investing in sea-monkeys

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

From now on I will eat only pie.

~Noah Berlatsky

barbed wire the morning glory entwines and blooms over

~Tejendra Sherchan

the palm reader's lucky guess

~Patrick Sweeney

Are you just going to leave that there?

~Noah Berlatsky

sometimes life is

the runny part of an

undercooked fried egg

~Jennifer Gurney

reconciliation

we seek a deeper meaning

as the moon shadow

crosses

the sun

~Wanda Amos

morning brew...

thoughts sifting

through coffee grains

~Katherine E Winnick

autumn deepens

the color

of a leaf

~Madeleine Kavanagh

sunset

a noble wine

in the grape stomper's purple feet

~Robert Witmer

in spite of

closing arguments

opening night

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

passing the window

again and again

goldfish

~Robert Witmer

Haiku

a box full

of nothing

~M. R. Pelletier

 

 

Afternoon of November 29, 2024

 

Handiwork

~Kelly Moyer and Hunter Sauvage

the roar of traffic

rushing by

platelets in the bloodstream

~Melissa Dennison

                                recovery

                                e                                 

                                l

                                a

                                p

                                s

                               recovery

                                           e   

                                           l

                                           a

                                           p

                                           s

                                           e                                              

~John J. Dunphy

Problems to face

In a gilded cage

The moment hidden

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

Watching cityscapes

Fade back into stardust

Tell me why

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

Don’t be afraid

To be a stiletto

In a room of flats

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

Coffee gone cold

Where did all the hope

Run off to?

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

the frog

won’t vanish in

my mind

~Noah Berlatsky

hide and seek

        the shadows charm

an elfish moon

~Elliot Diamond

only planet tending to rise from the west the Venus

~Tejendra Sherchan

fingers don't know how not to love your hair

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

Shrieks cut the night__

Forest silent in respect

Even the trees know

~Beth Ramos

globe warming another new year in the gasp of twelve gongs

~Rashmi VeSa

what ifs and why nots ribboned road

~Rashmi VeSa

defining

her shelf life…

the matrimonial column

~Rashmi VeSa

picking one more bone of contention sidewalk crows

~Rashmi VeSa

Brushing Aside the Curtain

Let's look at this another way, he said,

It's not which side of the mirror is real,

but which you'd prefer to inhabit,

and who you have to kill to stay there.

That's when I knew:

I'd go out with him again,

I'd trust him with my dog,

I'd let him drink my blood,

but I could see by the third drink,

I'd never be good enough for him.

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

the dead sign on

radio clears its

low-bandwidth throat

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

Happiness—

a butterfly’s journey

crushes in seconds

~Patricia Carragon

heavy rain

seven blackbirds on a wire

melt into black puddles

~Steve Van Allen

desperate fly

lands on my burger

it is november

and i can understand

the desire to just hang on

but, fly,

you made a bad decision

so did i

now i have a crushed fly

embedded in my bun

~Tom Blessing

coffee shop drive thru

three ravens wait beside the window

for their treats

~Tom Blessing

silent meditation

the dog looks at me

and whimpers

~Tom Blessing