Morning of February 16, 2024

Nostalgic POV

the multiverse

of a Train

Avenue

the trackless

waste of desires

yellow streetcars

ice-blue silence

of a lake

no longer freezing

~dan smith

deep winter all night long visiting ghosts

~John Pappas

tragedy to trivia the alchemy of history

~John Pappas

now it is for it isn’t an eep

~J. D. Nelson

mysterious plaidness a letter in box 1

~J. D. Nelson

daylight crown aperture extra now

~J. D. Nelson

late middle-age unable to enjoy the rule of thirds

~John Pappas

end of mission

a pattern of smoke

on repeat

~John Pappas

wildflowers the art and artifact of language

~John Pappas

writers' workshop

first-timer asks us to critique

his suicide note

~John J. Dunphy

bad dreams and nightmares

un-pleasantries as I sleep

unable to wake!

~Charles A. Perrone

a circle makes a polygon.

~Fhen M.

Saturn and hourglass

the end is the beginning.

~Fhen M.

Swan Lake

The Dance of the Cygnets

aka Tchaikovsky’s

Cygneture Tune.

~Tony Dawson

Eye 4 an Eye

i4ni + Human + ruthlessness = Humans+blindness+toothless

~David Mitchell

hooded crows

another dark tale

about priests

~John Hawkhead

rolling over

shoreline pebbles

an exclusion zone

~John Hawkhead

Prayer for peace

Sound of ‘arm men.’

Sound of ‘aim men’

~David Mitchell

 

Afternoon of February 12, 2024

We’re passengers

on the Orient Express

killing time.

~Nolcha Fox

night owl

at his regular perch

picking at a slice of pie

~Christopher Peys

mom's gratitude

for doing the dishes

and holding my tongue.

family politics

~Christopher Peys

I aired my thoughts

on the clothesline. Someone

stole them, how thoughtless.

~Nolcha Fox

Even your successes are failures.

Even your memory forgets.

It is down a long way to have nothing in your hands.

It is down a long way to be nowhere.

~Noah Berlatsky

Hey diddle diddle

Trump said he jumped over the moon

To his disgust

A black hole swallowed him whole

The end

~Philip Hornblow

Floh + Floh = zwei

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

bite

of brown recluse

scurry of legs

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

 

 

field trip

urban kids learn

where milk comes from

~John J. Dunphy

high school activist

her yearbook photo

her first mug shot

~John J. Dunphy

the felon's fingerprints

lifted from

a baby bottle

~John J. Dunphy

eddy poe, jr.

"dada, caw, caw…"

                                             he said

                     "Me a raven."

To which his father replied —

          "Nevermore, my little man,

                    go back to bed ... 

                                                                 forevermore."

~Christopher Peys

MoMA ...

an abstraction

of an abstraction

after the image

the afterimage …

still just dots

on a white wall

~Christopher Peys

feedback&distortiontheslowerosion

~Mark Gilbert

ellipsing around that which is not visible

~Mark Gilbert

the poet is a lamb drinking water

the wolf is a poem that eats us

poems drown with us in sugar water

the river of time moves towards uncertainty
 

~Mykyta Ryzhykh

(Originally published in Setu)

Morning of February 12, 2024

 

bot-to-bot transfer    my tea is cold

~Patrick Sweeney

at the end of the world is a bartender

all mortals must perish.

~Fhen M.

fulfilling my duties at the emergency exit

~Patrick Sweeney

strange tunnel

repeats my question

from a year ago

~Sharon Ferrante

plural marriage

in the name of god

and profit

~Jerome Berglund

she says if you quit poetry nobody will notice

~Patrick Sweeney

cross the waters of death

find the boatman on a mountain peak.

~Fhen M.

he held dear the tyranny of lineage & habit

~Patrick Sweeney

electoral politics

crawling under the house

to die

~Jerome Berglund

dark moon where bad dreams go

~Maria Quernel

howling moon my inner wolf

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

Noble Prow

 

My nose would make a good poem it’s punchy and pointed bumpy ride which offers a hero’s

journey worthy of Joseph Campbell fashionably nonlinear lots of twists and turns where it

sticks itself rarely fails to surprise.

 

making

a stock the

other tusk

~Jerome Berglund

warm but itchy…

wearing your gift

I think of you

~David Josephsohn

first red:  palm-cutting sprocket from the chassis of Danny's toy truck

~Patrick Sweeney

lab-grown diamonds rescheduling fall harvest

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

dark circles

eyes sipping suns

the earth burnt

crisp

~Vishal Prabhu

shattering her every dream a single act

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

their loss

more pâté

to go around

~Jerome Berglund

not a bad way to go, mesmerized by the algebra of conic sections

~Patrick Sweeney

Morning of February 8, 2024

eliminating

violets with chemical weapons

suburbia

~Joshua St. Claire

late stage capitalism

advertising the sturdiness 

of disposable plastic cups

~Joshua St. Claire

touching every

aspect of my life

cat hair

~Amber Winter

sometimes

my last-dreamed dream

wakes me

~Jennifer Gurney

come to our rescue / oh flying maker of new / you winged magician

~Charles A. Perrone

Right hand replaced with a pig's foot

flesh torn from his stomach

a thief of taxpayer’s money.

~Fhen M.

have your faith

just don't expect me

to swallow it.

~linda m. crate 

A poem started from climbing a mountain

ended in a Greek garden.

~Fhen M.

Saturday wardrobe

built entirely

on comfort

~Jennifer Gurney

february dawn

a haze…

coffee and ink

piano notes—

spilling wildly

into spring

spring frost

writing poems…

again

~Grace Moon

She

      smiles, kisses, hugs, believes

         out of ashes roses grow;

         out of madness sanity and peace come;

         from dark times a glittering, priceless diamond 

             will brighten the world.  

 

Who?

Her.

~Suzanne Austin-Hill

beloved tradition

fake-mustache photo booth–

fourth grade valentines

~Jennifer Gurney

ripped-apart Valentine heart

its pieces placed within

the body's chalk outline

~John J. Dunphy

 

Evening of February 6, 2024

 

epics written and abandoned, finely chopping garlic

~Patrick Sweeney

I've drastically underestimated my own fanaticism

~Patrick Sweeney

sentience poking at the tender spot

~Kelly Moyer

the widowhood of spiders at lunch

~Patrick Sweeney

pellets of sleet on the balding ex-manager's clean scalp

~Patrick Sweeney

fake and yet the shimmer of her death

~Kelly Moyer

cutting

deeper than we should

rusty knife

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

my pal digs deep

knows I deserve the full

six feet

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

 

the sailor

returns unexpectedly

storm surge

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

Grief may come

for some in waves.

Mine comes with a

baseball bat.

It hits my head

out of the park,

then runs for

home plate.

~Nolcha Fox

Poetica

If a poem falls

onto a page


and no one reads it,

 
does it make

a sound?

~Steven Bruce

the principles

we champion

hotel breakfast

~Kelly Moyer

downsizing my wardrobe

a mini skirt reminds me

I have up sized

~Wanda Amos

 

still wind, this chaos in my

memory stirs

the moonlight

~Debarati Sen

 

shooting for the stars

child points his new .22 at

the night sky

~John J. Dunphy

 

 

Midnight Verse XXI



Why fret existential thunders

when all we are is a fleeting dream

between two slumbers.

~Steven Bruce

Morning of February 4, 2024

in this neat suburb

where residents conform

the sudden hubbub

when a ring of toadstools

bursts out of the lawn

~Keith Evetts

community sounds nice in theory

~Noah Berlatsky

A Creator’s Wish

Down on me the universe presses

into the microverse I release my stresses.

Planning new lands

with cerulean sands.

As I sit on a boulder,

my imagination a-smolder.

Would that I could create

something, which could luxuriate

and remain till the world’s bygone

like this boulder I sit upon.

~Bernardo Villela

this way daily passing on

~Keith Evetts

once it was real childhood

~Keith Evetts

kingfisher the useless words

~Keith Evetts

Shadowed

I don’t know why that dark reflection

likes to stick to my feet.

Maybe it was the gum I stepped in yesterday.

~Nolcha Fox

A circular copse

Of denuded trees engaged

In pagan rites

~Bernardo Villela

chipped nail paint —

mom’s guitar lessons

in full swing

~Debarati Sen

paradoxical insomnia

nursing

the misogynist's monkey

~Kelly Moyer

stone's throw

a roadtrip

to the afterlife

~Kelly Moyer