Afternoon of October 21, 2023

 

cave painting

a woolly mammoth

in a red beam

emanating from

an overhead object

~John J. Dunphy

the comedy or tragedy question is getting harder to answer

~Patrick Sweeney

bingo cards filling up fast our unprecedented world

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

the improbable happening every day

~Patrick Sweeney

dead name the acceptance on hold

~Arvinder Kaur

the dead like you to remember their names

~Patrick Sweeney

flying in from the north witches in tornado’s path

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

she wants me to stop asking her if she's asleep

~Patrick Sweeney

sampling air quality wheelbarrow in spin cycle

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

I have failed at forms.

I have failed at tooth.

I have failed at these other forms.

I have succeeded at consequences.

~Noah Berlatsky

The Misunderstanding

So you think you found

a chink in my chastity belt,

do you? A way to weasel

your weasel in? I’m afraid

that’s simply a portal

to the underworld, Sir,

where I’ve stashed

the bones I’ve rattled

and the hearts I’ve crushed

like rusty ol’ cans of tin.
~Kelly Moyer

the tossed-away bouquet

sent by her ex

much appreciated by

pollinators

~John J. Dunphy

Afternoon of October 18, 2023

his anger the stranger I married

~Mona Bedi

zombie Queen still has the wave

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

 

Alexa the parents they no longer need

~Mona Bedi

old boulder this shiftless existence

~John Hawkhead

becoming the night a blackbird’s song

~Mona Bedi

hello

          hello

                     hello

the empty echo

across our universe

~Eavonka Ettinger

motion sensor

blinking lights awaken

the android

~Eavonka Ettinger

Insomnia.

I get so much done.

Until I don’t.

~Noah Berlatsky

bedtime

I point the spider

toward the basement

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

Space Problem

Every century or so

he occupies a new body;

under the floorboards,

the old ones are piling up.

He hates to throw them out,

the recycling center won't take them,

burning's illegal inside city limits,

and they're already 5 deep

in the family plot out back.

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

microplastics

invading the bloodstream

how it started

~Eavonka Ettinger

distant bombing —

the tangerine sunset

goes up in smoke

~Mona Bedi

All Souls' Day

I place flowers on

a forgotten grave

~John J. Dunphy

utamakura

struggling for words

in the graveyard

~John Hawkhead

a cacophony of caws

flock of starlings

squawk their daily prayers

~Steve Van Allen

Parameters

She curtsied him away,

when he danced

too near her.

~Keith Snow

Afternoon of October 15, 2023

tomehto

splat 

tomahto

~LeRoy Gorman

I'm a Mural

in a shoebox, mouse hole

the interior of a photon

charge, mass, spin

as per commission

I'm the paint job on a space shuttle

orbiting the planet

~Jay Passer

How Ya Doin'?

I've been better

but I've been a lot worse

I'll take the better

~Jay Passer

exasperating AI   I request an agent who has seen into her original self

~Patrick Sweeney

I never knew the secret handshake

~Patrick Sweeney

when forest was for rest

~LeRoy Gorman

with smoker's fingers, Queen Anne's lace pried open a dream

~Patrick Sweeney

the yellow crane has left without me

~Patrick Sweeney

the clairvoyant cackles my ghosted girlfriend’s name

~Elliot Diamond

she probably meant to wave

~Patrick Sweeney

I told them all about the storybook mushroom   they took my word for it

~Patrick Sweeney

Once your body was the sitar waiting for my touch

the sweet fragrance of your hair still lingers

but the cigarette that was mine is now ash

~R.K.Singh

Note to Pythagoras

please

reschedule my birth for Late Jurassic

I'd like to feed a pterodactyl with the infant body

of myself

I could use a change of pace

~Jay Passer

crime scene

all the bodies now linked

with gossamer

~John J. Dunphy

My Poetry Keyboard

 

My keyboard is a lizard that bites.

My keyboard caught the train.

My keyboard makes jam from asparagus.

My keyboard is rain, is rain, is rain.

~Noah Berlatsky

nothing is as

unnerving as the

smoke

detector

chirping

~Jennifer Gurney

an elementary knowledge of flat-in-the-back craniology

would've forewarned you a lecture on the Tang Dynasty

was in the offing

~Patrick Sweeney

It's Been Raining All Day

But

other

than

that,

there's

nothing

worth

telling

you

about.

~Gabriel Bates

Yes, of course he's a conspiracy theorist

but he's the only one I know

who speaks in complete sentences

~Patrick Sweeney