Afternoon of October 26, 2022

late harvest

plucking resentments

straight from the vine

~Kelly Moyer



dusk shadows —

the lingering taste

of disappointments

~Amoolya Kamalnath



Ode to a Comet

No fixed star in heaven glows so bright.

Ice and dust, dirty snowball tracing elliptical

paths. Slow moving herald of doom or

delight, cloud tails flaring. Hard, crispy outside

and cold, soft inside, like fried iced cream.

Unpredictable as attraction. You hairy star,

you fiery space beast causing meteor showers,

causing trouble, leaving trails of

galactic debris. Strange, lovely sight.

~Beth Sherman



Sputter

The onshore breeze picked up the ash

& carried it to the mountains.

This new normal

will be the death of us who bleed & consume.

No big thing

children forget how to be silly

we forget the rest.

~Les Wicks



lingering thoughts —

between hair follicles

lice and nits

~Amoolya Kamalnath



early morning

sees a sleepy yawn

and whoosh

walking in

through an open mouth

an itchy mosquito

~Rupa Anand



Freddy Flea

Freddy Flea flounced on fresh fruit

landing face forward on a fork

Somehow he learned to fly away

and the frightened fruit was saved

~Madeleine Vinluan



bad poetry

i return as

a cave fish

~Terri L. French



semantics

taking her tisket

to task

~Kelly Moyer



a violin

made of polystyrene,

a flute

made of sugar.

~Richard Magahiz



the lamplight

serenades

a covey of moths

within its corona

~Rupa Anand



total eclipse of the moths

~Roberta Beach Jacobson



core values wrapped in rot

~Terri L. French



morning after . . .

the last

of the pork rinds

~Kelly Moyer



After the Storm

The Ferris wheel landed in the ocean like a toy hurled by an angry

god. Now carp glide through the spokes, its cars rocking blindly.

Gawkers still peer at the ruins of mangled houses: splintered

frames, a toilet on its side, someone’s sagging bed frame. Where the bay

ravished the ocean, a carpet of sand. You think I’m exaggerating? Look at

the pictures. I made a scrapbook: Before and after. What doesn’t kill you etcetera 

. . .

When the next hurricane comes, I’ll name it after you. No sea wall will be high

enough to withstand the waves. Try re-building the boardwalk with fake wood.

Try mending my heart with duct tape. At night, wild dune grass rustles and

the moon kisses the highest chair on our wheel.

~Beth Sherman



recognizing that the feet we're given are wrong for the task

~Richard Magahiz


Afternoon of October 22, 2022

Wherefore Art Thou, Earth?

What is the temperature

of Mercury? What cars do they drive

On Mars? Are they stupider

On Jupiter? More taciturn

Where Saturn turns? More in tune

In the heart of June

With the fourteen moons

Of Neptune? And is Pluto no more

than a dark Venus

in Uranus?


~Robert Witmer



space sickness

my vomit comes over

to say hello


~Mark Gilbert



cascading our way

a swarm of deadheaded

satellites

~Roberta Beach Jacobson



Oh Human Hubris.

You’ve changed the clocks

not the world’s wobble

or rotation,

still you claim this

is daylight saving.

~Allen Ashley



What Rites?


Can the leopard change its spots,

star-lust actors leave lime lights,

flea trails cease, wheals, red like pox,

itches cause less scratchy sites?

Potshots, finger-thumb round blots,

fumble digits so large for mites,

lots of dots evade broad swats -

night clots worse, when frights wait bites.

~Stephen Kingsnorth



Hair Dryer

My ex-girlfriend

never returned

the Conair 1600

hair dryer

she borrowed

the day she

broke up with me.

~Michael Haller



a note on Stupid

you

you

YOU

you

you

thing

you

~Caroline Reid



her red toenails . . .

the polish dries

on his Lamborghini

~Robert Witmer



Bad News


Death is unpleasant,

like the evening news.

Tonight’s top

story: “You’re dead.

Details later.”

~Michael Haller



doomsday

the world ends

with a preposition

~Kelly Moyer

Evening of October 21, 2022

alone at Dad’s grave

by the cemetery wall

six or seven cows

   they watch me write little poems

   but will they keep it secret?

~Sean O’Connor



a ninja

wearing a cowbell

climate change

~Robert Witmer



midmorning

the good wife’s

muffin cups 


~Kelly Moyer




thin men

with frightened hair

cloves

~Robert Witmer



oh God –

do you –

what the –

I don’t –

are we –

would we –

it’s so –

going now –

and he was –

(found poem sourced from Kim Wozencraft, Wanted)

~Caroline Reid




The most beautiful thing about a blistering summer day is a swimming pool.

The most beautiful thing about a swimming pool is goosebumps.

The most beautiful thing about goosebumps is a blistering summer day.

~Nolcha Fox





cockroaches my crush on them

 ~Keith Evetts



self-preservation muting the barrel-aged bluebird

~Kelly Moyer



feet smaller than Buddha’s Grauman prints
 

~Stephen J. DeGuire



just as the sun explodes haiku

~Keith Evetts



moth-eaten poems the missing words

~Roberta Beach Jacobson



sigh a while after the expiration date

~Keith Evetts



Will she


go to church

in that red satin dress,

like her daddy wants?


Or smoke on the corner,

wait for the boys,

like her mommy does?

~Nolcha Fox

Evening of October 19, 2022

 

Not Made in Heaven

Every single town in the world

has at least one woman

I would have married.

But we lived in our town

and I married you.

My Love.

~Vern Fein



                this morning

           walking in the park

                     through

                 a spiderweb

                     my face

          entangled in threads 

~Rupa Anand



skipping school

for lack of sanitary napkin

an african girl-child

left in the dark

period of taboo

~Christina Chin / Uchechukwu Onyedikam



The Better Part

Lazy when cooking, housekeeping,

I’m diligent about writing poems.

Ignoring everything but old age,

I people watch patrons in local restaurants,

eavesdrop hushed conversations,

write poem fragments on scraps of paper.

On a walk from the library I look

for my name on discarded envelopes,

postcards, spray painted graffiti, unpaid bills.

~Frank C. Modica



moønsoon rains

weather i like it

or nut

~Lorelyn De la Cruz Arevalo



signing his death warrant

the clown uses

invisible ink

~Thomas Tilton



cemetery

lying under the wall

the magpie's shadow

~Françoise Maurice



My Wife an Owl

Once a sprite blue bird,

always flying through my thoughts

and desires, in and out,

flapping her wings, singing.

 

But now feathers graying

at our dinner table,

when my lowering voice speaks,

she is an owl, tilting her head

and cupping her ear in my direction.


Not whooo, but why?

~Vern Fein



mathematical perfection

a universe

spun from chewing gum

~Kelly Moyer



at night

they emerge

moonlit clowns

~Thomas Tilton



October moon —

my broomstick comes

out of the closet

~Bonnie J Scherer



Bull in a China Shop

and I am the china.

I know you ground-pawing beef,

always thinking you can win

by throwing your weight around,

snuffling your ugly head back and forth

drooling until you charge,

break innocence into a zillion pieces.

can’t save the precious,

too much ever to sweep up.


I better never let you in.

~Vern Fein



Branded

Lift your legs

the Hoover’s buzzing, carpet drone -

recall the ease, Linoleum -

brushing cushions, clouding dust,

like the Kleenezy man’s about.

Because bare ankles bear the marks,

those jumping critters, flailing bout;

why do they choose her blood, not mine?

Branded now, generic fleas.

~Stephen Kingsnorth



(b)each

(b)itch

~Roberta Beach Jacobson




autumn evening

cat on my lap

fleas in fur

and we all

under quilt

~Mirela Brăilean




moth

emperor

ate his clothes

~petro c.k.

Evening of October 17, 2022

reclaiming control-alt-delete

~Kelly Moyer



the caterpillar i follow down leaf holes

~Anette Chaney



brontosauruses resurrect at night but humans can’t see them

~Robert Fleming



shark pie in the bayou

~Roberta Beach Jacobson



You scrape


your shadow off the wall

with a spatula,

toss it in the frying pan

with butter and bacon

to fatten it up.

You eat it.


You cast a bigger shadow now.

~Nolcha Fox



a deeper shade of pale moonlight postmortem


~Rich Schilling



creeping up the wall slime molds of my thoughts

~Mona Bedi



second mortgage on your home page

~petro c.k.



a dark and stormy web

~Roberta Beach Jacobson