Afternoon on May 15, 2023

 

space opera

the rise and fall

of our diaphragms

~Jenn Ryan-Jauregui

fear of falling - once more

i cross that wooden bridge

of my childhood

~Wanda Amos

I won't

have

been

in my present

future

back then…

~Richard Magahiz

Gen X Birthday Haiku

Let this feeble poem

mark the day I should have died

thirty years ago.

~Chad Parenteau

hospice bed —

I check to see

if ma is still breathing

~Debarati Sen

full moon

mixing more white

into the indigo

~Wai Mei Wong

progress bar — the stormfront must rebuild

~Richard Magahiz

sleeping pills —

for her dreams were

a safer place

~Debarati Sen

slicing through

glass-slick dark

schools of bananafish

~Richard Magahiz

tapping

on my kindle

a grasshopper

~Daipayan Nair

Death Dressed up in a Mardi Gras Mask

 

Death seems to lurk around every dark hidden corner this week,

like a thief in black wearing a creepy mardi gras mask,

waiting for his chance to steal the last breath of my stepfather,

and wave his trophy of Oscar gold,

having already proved his swiping prowess,

by taking the last breath of Philip Hoffman,

with his poison needle.

~Deby Cedars

scratching his mosquito bites

my neighbor tells me about

last night's meteor shower

~John J. Dunphy

office party —

she identifies with the

corner plant

~Debarati Sen

Morning of May 12, 2023

 

at least   two years

of my      formal education

spent      watching

a gray     squirrel

going      up and down

a beige   sycamore tree

~Patrick Sweeney

expanding my vocabulary

through osmosis

I nap

while resting my head resting on

a dictionary

~John J. Dunphy

over a calcined stream

a ruined bridge —

nuclear umbrella

~Robert Witmer

a sudden rain

hissing over the desert

snake eggs

~Robert Witmer

egg moon —

a wart on my foot

starts to itch

~Mona Bedi

in the May rains two worms flex their elbows

~Patrick Sweeney

spring wind this wish to be a cloud

~Mona Bedi

the train that left without you separation moon

~Mona Bedi

radioactive waste where the poet ate the flesh of sei whale

~Patrick Sweeney

mice

wheeling halos

gold man sacks

~Robert Witmer

the do re mi

of an orange tree

reggae sundown

~Robert Witmer

the poet's garret

filling with shadows

a fly in a pickle jar

~Robert Witmer

squeezing a tomato he considers a friend

~Joseph P. Wechselberger

 

 

exploring alternatives to the real world dreams

~Joseph P. Wechselberger

a moth

sees itself

dancing on the wall

she snuffs the candle

and cries

~Robert Witmer

AI

She fingers her phone,

Flummoxed,

App-lessly disconnected,

Phonemes phoning home,

Hopelessly phony,

Pigments

In figments

Of our minds.

~Robert Witmer

Yoga

Your center

a round hole,

square body

jammed in.

~Chad Parenteau

deepening autumn

I rewrite

my death poem

~Mona Bedi

hazy moon

the blank space

on the Mother’s Day card

~Wai Mei Wong

Afternoon of May 7, 2023

 

~Brian Konopasek

 

their son

died 20 mass shootings ago

22 . . . 23

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

Mindscape

 

From my weeping springs a river

that flows past mountains razed

 

into a valley where the sun

rises and sets on mourning                   

 

and the road not taken, which snakes

around the dark side of my mind

 

forming nightmares sharpened

by starlight and crystal tears

             

slicing holes through a memory,   

half-forgotten, filled with weeping.

~Lauren McBride

I procrastinate

by doing

the wrong work.

~Noah Berlatsky

By the inkwell

Plunge thy drop

      Listen

~gc gould