Morning of October 23, 2023

Shortest Childhood Poem Ever Written

 

I have

nothing to say

about my childhood,

 

except I am glad

it is over, and

 

I never need

to experience it

again.

~Leah Mueller

what lies

in the human heart—

silent truth

~Jennifer Gurney

Apocalypse Love Quatrain

 

Let the continents implode

around us, we’ll die with

our hands on the Insta-Pot

making black beans for dinner.

~Leah Mueller

my favorite clothes—

the ones that

once held you

~Jennifer Gurney

overcoming our differences how many syllables in aluminum

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

old stump

crumbling to dirt

some mornings I feel like you

(this is one of those days)

~Steve Van Allen

dream currents

floating downstream in my dream the water pulls my head I feel the currents in my hair and I

don’t resist I let it pull me backwards away from the land away from my anchor my hands

stretched behind me the currents tug on my arms and I don’t know what direction I am going

it’s dusk and the air has no temperature I am weightless like the air it knows where I need to be

and I trust it to take me there I forget about everything and allow myself to let go forever

~Leah Mueller

Here Comes the Flood

the river outside

rises out of my control

 

so you rise, too,

and overtake

another innocent trailer park

somewhere else

~Laura Grant

Evening of October 21, 2023

warplanes roar —

between the gap

the buzz of escape

~Chittaluri Satyanarayana

The Social Contract Theory of Haunting

Haunt my other mood, Goodness.

Haunt the dark side of the pool, Moon.

Tonight ghosts desire silence played in loops,

fireflies patch a pale pigment together

midst the sink of moonlight.

Haunt my melancholy, Coffee beans, albeit

I possess no power to roast, grind or brew.

~Kushal Poddar

tapped for lines

 

i do not belong

to a recognizable

 

religious group

 

yet strongly believe

confession is important

 

when recommending a good beer.

~Geoffrey Aitken

drowning sorrow

hazelnut

in empty glass

~Richard Bailly

September 23, 2022

Campaign season:

the candidates seemed smart enough for office,

though not intelligent enough to have a real job

~Michael Ceraolo

(from a series titled September Scenes)

September 15, 2022

Out of Order:

the bureaucrat responded to the update

before he responded to the original email

~Michael Ceraolo

(from a series titled September Scenes)

compost pile

for mental health

the library

~Richard Bailly

Afternoon of October 21, 2023

 

cave painting

a woolly mammoth

in a red beam

emanating from

an overhead object

~John J. Dunphy

the comedy or tragedy question is getting harder to answer

~Patrick Sweeney

bingo cards filling up fast our unprecedented world

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

the improbable happening every day

~Patrick Sweeney

dead name the acceptance on hold

~Arvinder Kaur

the dead like you to remember their names

~Patrick Sweeney

flying in from the north witches in tornado’s path

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

she wants me to stop asking her if she's asleep

~Patrick Sweeney

sampling air quality wheelbarrow in spin cycle

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

I have failed at forms.

I have failed at tooth.

I have failed at these other forms.

I have succeeded at consequences.

~Noah Berlatsky

The Misunderstanding

So you think you found

a chink in my chastity belt,

do you? A way to weasel

your weasel in? I’m afraid

that’s simply a portal

to the underworld, Sir,

where I’ve stashed

the bones I’ve rattled

and the hearts I’ve crushed

like rusty ol’ cans of tin.
~Kelly Moyer

the tossed-away bouquet

sent by her ex

much appreciated by

pollinators

~John J. Dunphy

Afternoon of October 18, 2023

his anger the stranger I married

~Mona Bedi

zombie Queen still has the wave

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

 

Alexa the parents they no longer need

~Mona Bedi

old boulder this shiftless existence

~John Hawkhead

becoming the night a blackbird’s song

~Mona Bedi

hello

          hello

                     hello

the empty echo

across our universe

~Eavonka Ettinger

motion sensor

blinking lights awaken

the android

~Eavonka Ettinger

Insomnia.

I get so much done.

Until I don’t.

~Noah Berlatsky

bedtime

I point the spider

toward the basement

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

Space Problem

Every century or so

he occupies a new body;

under the floorboards,

the old ones are piling up.

He hates to throw them out,

the recycling center won't take them,

burning's illegal inside city limits,

and they're already 5 deep

in the family plot out back.

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

microplastics

invading the bloodstream

how it started

~Eavonka Ettinger

distant bombing —

the tangerine sunset

goes up in smoke

~Mona Bedi

All Souls' Day

I place flowers on

a forgotten grave

~John J. Dunphy

utamakura

struggling for words

in the graveyard

~John Hawkhead

a cacophony of caws

flock of starlings

squawk their daily prayers

~Steve Van Allen

Parameters

She curtsied him away,

when he danced

too near her.

~Keith Snow

Afternoon of October 15, 2023

tomehto

splat 

tomahto

~LeRoy Gorman

I'm a Mural

in a shoebox, mouse hole

the interior of a photon

charge, mass, spin

as per commission

I'm the paint job on a space shuttle

orbiting the planet

~Jay Passer

How Ya Doin'?

I've been better

but I've been a lot worse

I'll take the better

~Jay Passer

exasperating AI   I request an agent who has seen into her original self

~Patrick Sweeney

I never knew the secret handshake

~Patrick Sweeney

when forest was for rest

~LeRoy Gorman

with smoker's fingers, Queen Anne's lace pried open a dream

~Patrick Sweeney

the yellow crane has left without me

~Patrick Sweeney

the clairvoyant cackles my ghosted girlfriend’s name

~Elliot Diamond

she probably meant to wave

~Patrick Sweeney

I told them all about the storybook mushroom   they took my word for it

~Patrick Sweeney

Once your body was the sitar waiting for my touch

the sweet fragrance of your hair still lingers

but the cigarette that was mine is now ash

~R.K.Singh

Note to Pythagoras

please

reschedule my birth for Late Jurassic

I'd like to feed a pterodactyl with the infant body

of myself

I could use a change of pace

~Jay Passer

crime scene

all the bodies now linked

with gossamer

~John J. Dunphy

My Poetry Keyboard

 

My keyboard is a lizard that bites.

My keyboard caught the train.

My keyboard makes jam from asparagus.

My keyboard is rain, is rain, is rain.

~Noah Berlatsky

nothing is as

unnerving as the

smoke

detector

chirping

~Jennifer Gurney

an elementary knowledge of flat-in-the-back craniology

would've forewarned you a lecture on the Tang Dynasty

was in the offing

~Patrick Sweeney

It's Been Raining All Day

But

other

than

that,

there's

nothing

worth

telling

you

about.

~Gabriel Bates

Yes, of course he's a conspiracy theorist

but he's the only one I know

who speaks in complete sentences

~Patrick Sweeney

Afternoon of October 11, 2023

 

like weird barbie

i break

into my better self

~Kelly Moyer

they can cope

"be yourself,"

they say,

and then when

you become;

"oh no, not like that."

but i like me,

so they can cope.

~linda m. crate

Type 4

I follow my heart,

taking every chance

for the sake of love,

only to end up

like a plump

Costco chicken,

falling flat on my face.

~Kelly Moyer

being in an all-girl band  I bet they hate us

~Barbara Anna Gaiardoni

death poem I recycle myself

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

whirligigs basking in the shade of annihilation

~Kelly Moyer

knowledge & swords

they don't like girls

who look for

knowledge and swords,

but i found them

anyway;

because i found those

people boring.

~linda m. crate

coming into focus—

my gaze adjusts forward

20-20 hindsight

~Jennifer Gurney

french onion

a dip

in the road

~Kelly Moyer

Afternoon of October 7, 2023

 

I think she likes me,

that red

hippoceratops

~Richard Magahiz

letting go

and giving in…

best decision ever

~Jennifer Gurney

recollections

all of them true

to our own

~Mike Gallagher

separating

our albums was the hardest part

of moving out

~Jennifer Gurney

his bank account

so many zeros

never enough

~Mike Fainzilber

impulse (out of) control

~Lee Hudspeth

adapted neuroclaws twelve hours below crush depth

~Richard Magahiz

increased thirst for darkness all hallows' eve

~C.X. Turner

mindfulness and then the crosswalk

~Lee Hudspeth

Red Sky. The birds went south. People flew into the abyss

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

are you listening to me       crickets

~Lee Hudspeth

nettle tea...

misunderstood

again

~C.X. Turner

Coyote vs. Roadrunner

 

………………………….. ||||||||||

…….****_____*****

||

~Noah Berlatsky

the never-ending

legs of a spider

autumn ledge

~C.X. Turner

ashes on the wind

the new normal

book burnings

~Mike Fainzilber

Why a Big Heart

Everyone said she had a big heart,

with smile and hands to welcome.

She didn’t expect to need a big heart

cause he had big feet to stomp on it.

~Nolcha Fox

torn faces

litter

torn tracks

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

(Originally published in Dreginald)

caution

cemetery

ahead

~James Penha

(Found on a road sign in upstate New York)

sea bottom:

steel bathyscaphes

filled with salad oil

~Richard Magahiz