Morning of December 19, 2024

 

sparrowsong

the girl i remember

myself to be

~words and image Kelly Moyer

from an original line drawing by Molly Harrison

stars?

or holes punched in the top

of my box

~Anne Fox

star navigation…

I find my way

back to earth

~Anne Fox

unpacking…

all the ants

from our old house

~Anne Fox

imagination

a butterfly without

its predators

~Tejendra Sherchan

It’s not fun

To be one of the plates

With no direction

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

Wasted words

Among geraniums

Trying again

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

No escape. It waits.

The laundry.

~Noah Berlatsky

my day

folds and unfolds

clean sheets

~Jennifer Gurney

skating

on the edge

of life

~Jennifer Gurney

etched

in the back of my mind

past-life birthdays

Roberta Beach Jacobson

rain on pavement

car tires shatter the stoplight

into red fragments

~Diane Webster

skylight

illuminates

escape

~Diane Webster

 

 

gallery lighting

the second wife’s

tramp stamp

~words and image Kelly Moyer

Nominations for the 2024 Touchstone Awards

January:

nursery ward baby's first barcode

~Keith Evetts

February:

twist of fate

a typo

in the tea leaves

~Kelly Moyer

March:

microwave burrito showing me its good side

~petro c. k.

May:

chrysalis moon  shedding my former self

~Debarati Sen

June:

on a hushed mountaintop

I play a melodious music

a rhythm of dots, dash, & space

~Fhen M.

July:

outdoors

the housefly and I

putting our feet up

~Melissa Dennison

August:

cryptocurrency the look on grandma's face

~Keith Evetts

September:

wings of geese moving on with my life

~Maya Daneva

October:

a tuft of lint

drifts from my sock

namaste

~Kelly Moyer

November:

fingers don't know how not to love your hair

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

defining

her shelf life…

the matrimonial column

~Rashmi VeSa

December:

midnight silence

another panic attack builds up

in my bones

~Nisha Raviprasad

twelve days 'til Christmas; the mother ship is over New Jersey

~Patrick Sweeney

observing the generally unobserved in the free museum of my mind

~Patrick Sweeney

 

Congratulations to these talented poets.

Afternoon of December 15, 2024

now leasing

my place

in the universe

~Kelly Moyer

 

 

 

twelve days 'til Christmas; the mother ship is over New Jersey

~Patrick Sweeney

Katsushika Hokusai Algorithm

Write, erase, rewrite

erase again, glitch, and then

an AI blossoms.

~Noah Berlatsky

new occupant

tree roots

in the basement

~Anthony Lusardi

early morning

a glaze of lake water

on the turtle’s shell

~Anthony Lusardi

clean sheets

the fresh scent

of abandonment

~Kelly Moyer

backyard renovations rings on an old stump

~Anthony Lusardi

she doesn't want to hear anything bad about bluejays in the snow

~Patrick Sweeney

moonless night

I surrender my fears

to The Elephant

~Kelly Moyer

eras

when Swiftian

meant Jonathan

~dan smith

soup kitchen

diner asks a server

for the recipe

~John J. Dunphy

observing the generally unobserved in the free museum of my mind

~Patrick Sweeney

my emotional equilibrium is easily disturbed

by the mere mention of going somewhere else

to do something

~Patrick Sweeney

when Santa crosses the thirty-eighth parallel

~Patrick Sweeney

 

 

Our Touchstone Award nominations to be announced tomorrow!

Morning of December 14, 2024

midnight silence

another panic attack builds up

in my bones

~Nisha Raviprasad

cradle rock

the spindrift

of moon fall

~Joanna Ashwell

ego trip

a tension seeking

device

~Eavonka Ettinger

checking again

the future forecast

acid rain

~Joanna Ashwell

crystal ball every face shows a tell

~Joanna Ashwell

blink & all roads converge into a comma

~Tiffany Elise

words writing haiku with the stars

~Tejendra Sherchan

all that remains in a bang the concept of a violet

~Tiffany Elise

just five more minutes fatherhood

~John Pappas

what would happen

if my life had

a table of contents

~Jennifer Gurney

war machine

running on empty

promises

~John Pappas

six light-filled knot holes

in a trusty redwood fence

half a dozen wholes

~Charles A. Perrone

Restless stars

Turning and burning

Blur of a candle

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

Nobody really knows me

Besides the

Full moon

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

The moon

will be there tomorrow

until it isn’t.

~Noah Berlatsky

dove or vulture

i can no longer

tell the difference

~Tiffany Elise