Evening of October 6, 2023

  

 

 if ever I sit

beside calm waters

surely

this flying beetle

will smack my face

~Sharon Ferrante

Growing Pains

I laid down in the grass today,

but it wasn't the same

as it used to be

when I was a kid.

I couldn't sense the Earth

spinning beneath me

or imagine anything magical

beyond the flat sky.

It just felt like I was waiting

for the worms to take me.

~Gabriel Bates

Minutes

evil thoughts

tall shadow on a

detached garage

 

Mildly schnockered ranting with adorable senior neighbors never in my lifetime would I ever

have thought I’d hear these old conservative white people decrying: “My God, they

shouldn’t do that!”

 

Indeed!

That’s all we

were ever saying!

~Jerome Berglund

eight years old

investing all my money

in sea-monkeys

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

Brook Lint

 

six degrees of pancetta :: ombudsperson

 

Long Island entire and enough

 

by Asclepius I swear – bread and multiplication tables

 

beyond rye the fool’s journey

 

candlelight vigil :: ownership of thunder

~Jerome Berglund

in the beginning

I’m the breath

of a dinosaur

~Sharon Ferrante

Insurgents

prehistoric shield bugs

slip through the chinks

~JL Huffman

Apostate

 

Learn today that most tire places are closed on Sundays this I must question as people get

flats on that day as often as any we’d rather be praying and resting too assure you but

vehicles must be made drivable.

 

the manager smashes

one dish after another –

everyone cheers!

~Jerome Berglund

poets say

they can read minds

I wonder

could I put words

to your screams

~Sharon Ferrante

Fruit Pies

 

mostly garbage dog food begat begat begat

 

Owatonna best budget inn

 

moon past a chimney forced perspective

 

the prologues to epaulettes

 

writing with motion a migrant

~Jerome Berglund

your thoughts and my thoughts

appear simultaneously

moonlight

~Nani Mariani

lobotomy

 

morning sunlight’s golden honey drizzled decadently, so abundant even Venetian blinds’

shadows can look promising in such a light graham crackers and candy corn sandbars with

exposed shoulders girl with lilies by Rivera every speck of dust and scratch on the table

glass comes into startling clarity

 

pine cones decompose

the crack has gotten

wide and green

~Jerome Berglund

Morning of October 4, 2023

 promises broken roads named for presidents

~John Pappas

what's left of me after right and wrong

~Deborah Karl-Brandt

utility of scarecrow as kigo

~Patrick Sweeney

the right side of my brain a rainy sycamore

~Patrick Sweeney

back home the memory of wind

~Mona Bedi

                                up

rollercoaster 

                                            and down

                                                                     these 

                                                                                       moods

~Stephanie Zepherelli

family graveyard

parts of me

already buried

~Mona Bedi

the peeling label

on the old beer bottle

death poem

~John Pappas

i can’t swim

don’t place me in water,

scatter me…no

place me under a tree

so I may hear birdsong

~Wanda Amos

death poem the empty aquarium’s hum

~John Pappas

getting through another day without satori

~Patrick Sweeney

it's not only me the psychiatrist’s visit

~Mona Bedi

clock-watchers in windowless rooms

~Patrick Sweeney

buffalo nickels    I'm stuck between numismatics on a train

~Patrick Sweeney

where brambles wind

spindles of brier and barb

our intertwined tongues

~John Hawkhead

summer heat

a fan cools

what's left of me

~Deborah Karl-Brandt

the loquacious defendant

gags upon receiving

a gag order

~John J. Dunphy

Morning of October 3, 2023

truth at times snow

~LeRoy Gorman

the raven is watching you      always watching you

~Tom Blessing

getting a lop-earned foothold shoe horn

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

drowning in memory autumn rain

~LeRoy Gorman

I can’t remember when I stopped remembering the scent of violets

~Joshua St. Claire

big

            boned

moon

            i

block

            the

last

            fatphobe

~Adele Nwankwo

republicanism

reminding me to renew

my birth control

~Adele Nwankwo

raking sand runes

with toy shovels

foretelling Wall Street

~Elliot Diamond

the viral myth

of a warty toad

lunar craters

~Elliot Diamond

that wheels-up moment–

when anything

is possible

~Jennifer Gurney

“Stand” Fast, Ketanji!

 

An angel afloat, kneeling in prayer in a pool of adversaries;

arms willing to embrace all in spite of stinging waters affronting her face.

 

Never flinching or turning away;

N’er a complaint  day-after-day

 

With silent authority

   she remains, called and purposed.

~Suzanne S. Austin-Hill

Barbie

Hollywood sign

turns pink

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

phosphenes

no I won’t listen

to what you have to say

~Joshua St. Claire

return to the office

everyone

is a different height

~Joshua St. Claire

he said "try this"

and got down on his knees

and was gone

~Tom Blessing