Afternoon of January 20, 2025

diving

into the new year

no intention of touching bottom

~Jennifer Gurney

desert Houdinis

a royal flush of camels

folds into sand

~Douglas J. Lanzo

shifting perspectives

a boy

and a chameleon

~Douglas J. Lanzo

into

the great wide

open

~Jennifer Gurney

remembering

mental illness

remembering

what

no memory

of why

~Shasta Hatter

the bruising number of times

I had five apples

take away two

~Patrick Sweeney

inching

toward spring

one more minute of light

~Jennifer Gurney

iron deep pan

standing the heat for years

frying donuts

~Tejendra Sherchan

add a Manchurian blizzard or two to your picture of me

~Patrick Sweeney

enough of fragility of ice covering the lake

~Fatma Zohra Habis

Now Streaming:  Consciousness

~Kelly Sauvage Moyer

mad in the mirror of this rented room

~Patrick Sweeney

press conference pressing a little harder

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

the kind of guy who doesn't count to ten

~Patrick Sweeney

within a ptolemaic universe workshopping poems

~Kelly Sauvage Moyer

in 1959 I said yes to the Spumoni

~Patrick Sweeney

paternity testing in accordance with cupid's thermodynamic arrow of time

~Kelly Moyer

I cross

the bridge at night

to the other side

the dawn breaks

and all my plans are lost

~Fatma Zohra Habis

pussyhats

back in season

this January

~Morag Elizabeth Humble

January 20

I listen to MLK, Jr's

'I have a dream' speech

while watching on mute

the inauguration

~John J. Dunphy

Afternoon of January 19, 2025

 

summer wind

with his last breath

i grow up

~Mona Bedi

pancake batter results may vary

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

her gaze until i am a gossip

~Vijay Prasad

plunge pool — i confess to all my flaws

~Mona Bedi

one cat three too many

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

marmalade in January the illusion of sunshine

~Jennifer Gurney

monolog turns into monostich short attention span

~John H. Dromey

in my city

starting day with the smells

of drunks

~Tejendra Sherchan

urban sky glow

I lose track

of a shooting star

~Mona Bedi

finally

blade of the winter

getting blunt

~Tejendra Sherchan

Bedtime

You are a good dog.

You are a diagonal dog.

Please move over.

~Noah Berlatsky

bubbling

with excitement

lava

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

hourglass —

I let him win

the argument

~Mona Bedi

Afternoon of January 15, 2025

 

 

wolf moon

the politician's

sheepish grin

~Melissa Dennison

Bukowski in space

writes like Bukowski on Earth

ham on rye and sex

~Nicholas De Marino

embracing word salad

she struggles to finish

her poem

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

I love you

 

like the little spider

that you would throw out

 

only to find that

it wove hearts

into its web for you

~Oliver Kleyer

autumn leaves

us in

the dark

~Jerome Berglund

All night

Heartbeats reverberating

Down lonely streets

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

deep dive

bubbles

of sea-ghosts

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

A Sad Dog Story

I like to scritch you,

but I don’t want you to lick me.

 

You like to be scratched

but you want to lick me.

 

Every satisfaction is also an irritation.

Such are dogs and love.

~Noah Berlatsky

mourning the death of live and let live

~dan smith

And there is hope

Dawn with dense fog.

Visibility is zero.

That means there is hope

That means fog will lift soon

That means we will see faces clearly.

~Partha Sarkar

nature

without politics

backyard garden

~Jerome Berglund

 

Afternoon of January 14, 2025

 

yet another failed attempt to reverse-engineer me

~Patrick Sweeney

 murmuration of starlings over a killing in the street

~Patrick Sweeney

on the city bus, constructing vast and intricate biographies

~Patrick Sweeney

'If you're not doing anything ' as a preface

~Patrick Sweeney

 

 

using rubber cement to glue the golden lady back together

~Patrick Sweeney

zoo monkeys

she runs her fingers

through my toupee

~Richard L. Matta

a burbling stream

winds its way through

elephant ears

the way our landline rings

and everyone listens

~Richard L. Matta

handle with care a box of mindworms

~John Hawkhead

meandering still the ghost of a river

~John Hawkhead

lost language droughts since records began

~John Hawkhead

back of the shelf so much expired thyme

~Richard L. Matta

needle dipping the sound of silence

~Richard L. Matta

the only ones

we catch and release

stink bugs

~AJ Johnson

 

Hurry to submit: http://www.wildgraces.com/Akitsu-Quarterly.html