A Moment to Swim | Mónika Tóth
dedicated my sweet Romanian friend Vasile
a moment to swim
in your eyes
in your smile
the flavor of life
poetry sites
These Hard Worked Hours | Jenny Middleton
Office windows; squares of unflinching
yellow lit geometry.
From the train I watch them slide
their flickered familiarity to darkness
and watch the dizzying feet of countless
commuters dust the ruler line platform
with the news-papered security
of repeated journeys.
and inside minds lurch to life
with the jolt and halt of stations
hoping for a few hours of chosen chaos
to decorate
those hard worked hours.
More at https://www.jmiddletonpoems.com/.
Promise | Mehreen Ahmed
I am the promise that cannot be broken.
I am the love that cannot be severed.
I am the dream that will not be realised.
I am the desire that will burn forever.
Other Races Won | Christine Emmert
I failed to break the ribbon.
Panting and falling into alien arms.
What was won before
suddenly lost.
Fallen angels know the pain of earth
when they tried to outrun
the storms.
Ten Horror Haiku | Denny E. Marshall
fear engulfs
as shown new home
a pine box
locked inside coffin
escape only to find out
in bigger casket
new voice mail message
“dead & unavailable “
since grim reaper call
zombies
get
ahead
pointed at forehead
barrel just as terrifying
as the tank attached
spinning on a wheel
near death realize knife thrower
is an amateur
keep running down road
cornfields might be bad idea
as scarecrows chase you
zombie fast food place
list new item on menu
brain bowls with free drink
fear the corn farmer
as thrown into large grain bin
full of hungry rats
group escapes zombies
hide in large warm metal pond
cannibals add logs
More at http://www.dennymarshall.com/.
One’s Poem | Steven Fortune
Intellectual asylum would appear
to be the remedy for optimal
loquacity miscarried
When the appeal of one’s personality
is measured by the dexterity
of one’s decibels
there ulcerates a retrograde aspiration
to be a rock, to be an island
fortified by the poetry of the ostracized
Owners of the souls so branded
by body language
that an honorable mention
of cultured eccentricity
would be a conspiracy to euphemise
an incongruous presence
To be themselves
is to pry a fissure of contentment
into plains of compromised comportment
and no capacity of sheepish smiles
earns admission to the shelter of frivolity
The con in conversation
disrobes syllabic status like a Trojan Horse
unraveling a spoof of euphony
to decimate at its source
the confidence attained in one’s small talk
on the basis of its evidence in one’s own ear
The cajoling army of loquacity ignites
a brash battalion of belly laughs
like torches for the anarchistic culling
of the unassertive into their cathartic Bastilles
of libraries and coffee houses