Morning of July 30, 2024

 

 

 

outdoors

the housefly and I

putting our feet up

~Melissa Dennison

Olympic

flame-throwers

dragons

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

flashing church billboard

‘We love you

Sundays at 10’

~Christa Pandey

blaspheming against tv testimonials as a hobby

~Patrick Sweeney

requiem mass

donning the muted colours

of shadow

~John Hawkhead

they threw half-eaten hoagies at the Hurdy Gurdy Man

~Patrick Sweeney

Love is giving him the top half of the bagel every time.

~Rachel Turney

what if all my

dandelion wishes

come true...

~Jennifer Gurney

muscle memory

each room in the house

with its own flinch

~John Hawkhead

Bastille Day

convict breaks out

a deck of cards

~John J. Dunphy

in the sea

diving into flames

water dragons

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

the bronchial cough of the trash-picking bear

~Patrick Sweeney

no one in my reading group knew how to tie a shoe

~Patrick Sweeney

 

 

Morning of July 27, 2024

 

The Burlesque Dancer

~Kelly Moyer
 
Photography available here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hold for Poet

Thank you

For your patience.

Our poets are helping

Other readers. Please do not turn

The page.

~Noah Berlatsky

it was in the Roman-controlled Antioch

in the late first century AD

that the plagiarist copied his unnamed sources

~Fhen M.

vows

after so many husbands

I know what to say

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

open window

a gentle breeze

caresses my hair

how warm your hands were

on our last meeting

~Fatma Zohra Habis

 

 

 

starred restaurant—

coming and going of flies

at lunch time

~Nicoletta Ignatti

Mud Holes

Just because you see little holes in the mud

is no reason to suspect earthworms were here.

Birthday candles are the same diameter

and mud is a kind of icing on layer years.

~Terry Trowbridge

asteroid

horizon so close you can

see your back

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

you must be this tall ↆ

to exit the quicksand

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

 

 

Morning of July 25, 2024

Llama getting ready for her book tour

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

 

 

 

rising

from the dead

banana bread

~Biswajit Mishra

Where does an assassin go?

Where does an assassin go?

Time is too timid to answer.

~Partha Sarkar

Captain Vibrato


You sailed on ships of light

beyond our wisps of stars.

Sent us postcards

filled with trembling trees

and all your mad fragility

that pled wish you were here.

They were postmarked immortality.

~dan smith

my open mouth

in a dentist’s chair

a nearby fly

rubs its antennae

~Arvinder Kaur

the flashing antennae—

a hiding cockroach behind

toilet flush

~Tejendra Sherchan

thefireflylessnessofdarknesswithin

~Arvinder Kaur

chewing Mona Lisa artsy cannibal ants

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

the moon had no craters,

the sun had no sunspots,

Neptune & Uranus were not planets

a time when telescopes were not invented

~Fhen M.

The sun says

The grey matter of a human's brain.

(We are proud of it!)

And "it is bright but dead"

Very often the sun says.

~Partha Sarkar

IVF clinic —

this feeling

of not being enough

~Debarati Sen

paradise 1

let's imagine that paradise does exist

let's imagine that, after having served my time in purgatory,

I could get into paradise

will I come across the old troublemakers again?

~Marie Derley

paradise 4

are we laughing in heaven?

(if not, I'm not going)

(same goes for the Wi-Fi)

~Marie Derley

the aging magician's mind

now playing tricks — on him

~John J. Dunphy

 

 

 

 

Five Fleas swag:

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