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

Afternoon of October 11, 2023

 

like weird barbie

i break

into my better self

~Kelly Moyer

they can cope

"be yourself,"

they say,

and then when

you become;

"oh no, not like that."

but i like me,

so they can cope.

~linda m. crate

Type 4

I follow my heart,

taking every chance

for the sake of love,

only to end up

like a plump

Costco chicken,

falling flat on my face.

~Kelly Moyer

being in an all-girl band  I bet they hate us

~Barbara Anna Gaiardoni

death poem I recycle myself

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

whirligigs basking in the shade of annihilation

~Kelly Moyer

knowledge & swords

they don't like girls

who look for

knowledge and swords,

but i found them

anyway;

because i found those

people boring.

~linda m. crate

coming into focus—

my gaze adjusts forward

20-20 hindsight

~Jennifer Gurney

french onion

a dip

in the road

~Kelly Moyer