Afternoon of July 16, 2025

Our Merch: https://www.zazzle.com/store/five_fleas

 

 

when the strings

are pulled

he comes to life

and dances:

the wooden politician

false memories

of nonchalant beetles

and murders

committed by

nobody……….

~Mark Gilbert

Fahrenheit

telling me

the temperature

outside his window

and how to convert it

and who has died

~Mark Gilbert

flimsy locks

wiggling through the crack

a library card

~Jerome Berglund

at the half

everyone enters the field

to put it back together

~Jerome Berglund

trying to fit all

his personalities under one umbrella

wind chime

~Amber Winter

running to the finish line

vaping and smoking

simultaneously

~Amber Winter

Icarus Redux

from the cradle to the grave

a minefield

across no-man’s land

 

tonight's glue job

patching up today

for tomorrow’s next attempt

 

the moon drifting off, bored

the crickets spoken all they’re gonna

and my muse scrolling reels—

~Darrell Petska

seven sabbath sins since savior sent salvation – strangle society still

~Allen David Simon

battle cry silent stone statue

~Dara Royal

looking through a telescope and searching for the meaning of life in war among serene spots

~Martina Matijević

          pract  cally

            i

           ex  st

            ~Vijay Prasad

 

 

Our Merch: https://www.zazzle.com/store/five_fleas

 

 

 

Evening of July 15, 2025

 

red kool-aid

choking on the lies

we cannot tell

~image Kelly Sauvage Moyer & text Terri L.

French

 

 

 

 

 

chipping away from the inside a calcified life

~Stephanie Zepherelli

fated to die in five billion years middle-aged sun


~Tejendra Sherchan

knowing death comes at any moment primroses

~Stephanie Zepherelli

unwinding a möbius strip twisted relationship

~Stephanie Zepherelli

dying for the last time

the maladroit comedian

in hospice

~John J. Dunphy

a spider pauses

calculating the math

for pi

~Stephanie Zepherelli

 

Empathy and the squandering of the erotic.

That's you there, lifeless in the blue folder.

~Colin James

Chasing goosebumps

Somethings wild and new

Among violets

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

no proctologist

needed to recognize

a Nazi asshole

~dan smith

Lure me

Lure me at the square four directions.

Getting confused, I ride on the merry-go-round.

~Partha Sarrkar

Not humans, but other living beings

Not humans,

but being with other living beings,

grows a lot of green on my fossil.

~Partha Sarrkar

schweinerei

unlike fine winery

never ages well

~dan smith

I have had enough

of insomnia, snoring, and death.

~Noah Berlatsky

Pokemon cards

the genealogy

of tails

~Randy Brooks

now that

she’s fumigated

the lice

her blue haired

spring

~Randy Brooks

flatline

the guitar's last note

out of tune

~Jiel Narvekar

Flat Earth Martian

orbits ice wall

in hijacked saucer

~Nicholas De Marino

simple tricks

like only playing

the black keys


~Nicholas De Marino

self-reliance

we grow our own birds

from seed

~Kelly Sauvage Moyer

 

Afternoon of July 11, 2025

 

A Day in the Life

~Kelly Sauvage Moyer

Fugitive Psalm

We prayed so hard

the statue cracked

and the rats poured out singing.

~Kristina Warlen

ONEWORD

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

Inflation of words

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

foetal spooning in shared DNA


~John Hawkhead

breaking the wishbone another left hook

~John Hawkhead

a buzzword repeated the merit of margarine

~Bob Moyer

 

potted tomato picked from the shotgun rubble

~Bob Moyer

stage left the lingering curtains of neglect

~Bob Moyer

anti-stress ball as a substitution for someone's neck


~Martina Matijević

thunderstorm wind now delivering branches right in front of your doorstep

~Martina Matijević

Thousands of turnpike accidents I've never been in

~Patrick Sweeney

I could see it, because it didn't belong to me

~Patrick Sweeney

I'm the boy who left the schwa in the air above her wimple

~Patrick Sweeney

...but they said they'd let me know when the next book club meeting would be...

~Patrick Sweeney

 

Communion

I bit into the wax fruit and bled.

God watched from the cupboard

with his mouth sewn shut.

~Kristina Warlen