Morning of April 22, 2024

freedom

on the other side

of an open door

~Jennifer Gurney

no doctors lurking in the apple orchard

~petro c. k.

apparently money doesn’t grow on trees

                                                                         cherry blossoms

~Joshua St. Claire

pause in the relationship girlfriend in a comma

~petro c. k.

crisis of absolutely everything bagel

~petro c. k.

Ghost Walk

A beam, opens up the shadowy

misty, nighttime sadness beyond

the casket of the temporary.

Filled with hidden, earthly treasures.

Then, you appear, pale, opaque,

playing in my mind, on repeat.

~Keith Snow

he stumbles on the line

circus tightrope walker fails

the police sobriety test

~John J. Dunphy

unable

to keep noise out

I let silence in

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

spiral staircase

the vertigo of

twisted truths

~Leon Tefft

people are complicated

people are dead

people keep being

like a hammer to the head

~Noah Berlatsky

frosted windows

clearly visible

memory loss

~Leon Tefft

inflation

just a few more

cherry blossoms

~Joshua St. Claire

No line that I have written

will ever be remembered.

No, not this one.

No, not this one either.

~Noah Berlatsky

Afternoon of April 19, 2024

 

 

 

 

change of clothes —

every year it's a month earlier

~Maurizio Brancaleoni

“Caravaggio!

The power’s out again.”

“Who cares?

I’ve got a candle

and a job lot

of black paint.”

~Tony Dawson

birthdays

those Facebook friends

long dead

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

a slave desires freedom

a caged bird dreams of a heaven

~Fhen M.

to exercise free press

is never a given

~Fhen M.

one weaves a silken flag

to freely wave it is another thing

~Fhen M.

Stormy nights

At mid-morgue and

My shaky legs outside

crawling to closet.

But where is the threshold?

~Partha Sarkar

With acute poverty the poor —

The priceless commodities

In an election-

The democratic business

Without knowing why.

~Partha Sarkar

sailing into port wine

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

Nuggets in ketchup blood

Burger from a killed pig

The grill is working at full capacity

Scorching the planet

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

The ultimate loneliness of death

A cat runs across the road at a red traffic light

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

the mouse ate the sun instead of cheese

glass grew instead of grass

rusty skeletons of snowflakes warm the remains of a nuclear power plant

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

shopping centre

a customer queueing

behind the mannequins

~Tuyet Van Do

fashion show

the model wears

an upside-down dress

~Tuyet Van Do

each morning

a 30% chance

of something

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

the sack  brown bag days

~Adrian Bouter

you flee

or you stay

flea

~Adrian Bouter

Morning of April 19, 2024

western medicine

padlocking

my ankle to the grave

~Kelly Moyer

rain-drenched milkweed

the prayer

that plummets into the ether

~Kelly Moyer

slow love

tilling

the worm dirt

~Kelly Moyer

diagnoses:  everything but the kitchen sink of her bones

~Kelly Moyer

country road

a swallowtail lights

on the edge of oblivion

~Kelly Moyer

transmigration

the dead poet's

fresh set of eyes

~Kelly Moyer

fasting casting

aside the black cloak

of worldly wants

~James Penha

garbed in ego’s shroud

its tombstone on his head—

spinning with atoms

~James Penha

dance love music

poetry

circle perfection

~James Penha

with your head

on my chest

I can hear

through your skull

the sound

of you chewing

the chips

I bought you

~Noah Berlatsky

quality self-help

exploring your nether spork

authentic upgrade

~Noah Berlatsky

the light

in the school chapel:

stained

~Stephen Toft

a lawn sprinkler

cooling

this sultry night

~Stephen Toft

snow bones

the old sheepdog

rounding up ghosts

~Stephen Toft

one day i hope

to see again the blue

i once saw on

the Hawaiian shirt

of a man drowned at sea

~Stephen Toft

cloudless sky

the acrobat

looks through me

~Stephen Toft