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

 

 

 

 

Afternoon of December 10, 2024

 

 

Jottings

i thought i was ee cummings

until i found the shift key on the keyboard.

NOW EVERYTHING I WRITE IS A CAPITAL OFFENCE.

I was sentenced to have my serifs cut off.

~Tony Dawson

come here

listen to me closely

that's not what I said

and you know it

~John Masterson

Man vs. Nature      

unhabitable surrounds

overcome by nature

strangling the evil

found in those walls

~Joanne Macias

folding

unfolding

seeking peace

~Jennifer Gurney

no (mis)givings

this holiday season

the nuts all sugar-coated

~Bonnie J. Scherer

In a bind

the snake wraps itself

tighter and tighter around

hoping you give in

yet you now realised some

of those snakes look like people

~Joanne Macias

Bangladesh 2025 and..

The stream..

Knee deep water...

The suffocation has to cross the terror...

Hurting ligament..

Goes far the lighthouse...

No way to escape.

~Partha Sarkar

war crime

teams of lawyers find

better terms for it

~John Hawkhead

burning books

a crowd slowly circles

the edge of darkness

~John Hawkhead

arriving

in retro style

trusting

the technology

of silver foil

~Mark Gilbert

I am 15% done

with this poem.

That means

I will finish this poem

 

never.

I will never finish this poem.

~Noah Berlatsky

moon viewing

please,

no poetry

~Patrick Sweeney

twelfth month: an abbreviated list of creatures that sing

~Patrick Sweeney

he later learned the origin of the dunce cap he wore

~Patrick Sweeney

he felt an invasion of privacy whenever an actor broke the fourth wall

~Patrick Sweeney

spending an inordinate amount of time correcting movie subtitles

~Patrick Sweeney

a little gristle to chew in the mystical life

~Patrick Sweeney

becoming self-aware the algorithm quantifies emotion

~Mark Gilbert