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2904: Announcement
Robert Lee Brewer announced the Writers’ Digest Poem-a-Day Challenge results today, and the winner was an amazing collection of poems by Anika Zaman called “The Monsters We Inherit”. (quoted in part on Writers’ Digest webpage) In addition to Anika’s winning manuscript, Robert selected three finalists that gave “The Monsters We Inherit” a run for its money:…
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2904: Journal of Thoughts
An Hour in April 19:20in the conservatory,we sit inside a bowl of blue. moon halfway risen,unhurried as breath. Peder reads the future aloud,electric, precise, kWh,while my little Renault restswith the memory of roads still warm. outside,apple trees hold the last birdsonglike a secret not yet spent. and the clouds, pink drawn sidewaysas if the sky…
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AprPAD — Day 28
Breakfast, and Other Small Violences the spoon snappinglike a jack russellat the bowl, metaltapping his teeth — a bright, unbearable code. Stop scraping. The chew,the crunch … do I sound like thisto the world? like a broomworrying the floorwith every breath? His phone leansagainst the salt shaker, thumb scrollingthrough other lives. Againthat scrape. I step…
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2804: Haibun Monday
No Facebook. No X. Less news — especially politics and war. It seems endless, a kind of tinnitus. I move through the day in relative silence, reclaiming space, attentive again to the small things around me, freed from the relentless alarms of a thousand strangers. Today, after lunch, I sat in the sun and drifted…
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AprPAD — Day 27
Afterward There Was the Afternoon a napin the afternoon sun, where poems wait birds arguingin hedges sunlighton warming soil breezesoscillating roots that resisted yesterdaybut not today the quiet satisfactionof looseningwhat does not belong weeding is good editorial practice, after all. keep what thrives.lift what crowds. make space for what wants light. and while I work,no…
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2704: A Different Six
Without Sense I am tired of men who grinwhile cities burn, of suitswho call it strategy, of flagsused as shrouds. I am tiredof the loud being mistakenfor strong, of crueltydressed as realism,of madnessgiven microphones while decent peoplecount coins,ration heat,and bury children. Do not ask mefor balance when the scale itselfis broken. Do not ask mefor…
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AprPAD — Day 26
Last Thing I’d Expect she says last Sundayshe woke with a rash. five days laterthe rash goestop to toe. all gone now — had a jab of somethingwith a long name. Giles has moved back home with his wife,and their dog. I comment on the carparkedin front of her house. she nods.that’s his. did I…
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AprPAD — Possible Intro
This one may become the opening poem for a Writers’ Digest Poem-a-Day Challenge chapbook. Domestic Constellations I look at my husband, smile as if this were stilla beginning. He has views.He is Danish. A Vikingin modern synthetics creased into the armchairwith his newspaper, dry as kindling,sparking onlywhen it suits him. We makean unlikely map: married…
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The Old Woman With No Cat (Part 2)
THE SEAGULL DEBACLE (Part 2)(A Lesson in Avian Betrayal & Feline Accounting) The seagull —whose name is Keithand whose morals are negotiable agrees to the terms: One dramatic dive,one defaced sign,one endless chip buffet. He swoops.He squawks.He… misses. The S in “FOR SALE” now bears a chalky, dubious streak.It reads: “FOR ALE.” The cat stares.“You…
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The Old Woman With No Cat (part 1)
The For Sale Sign (Part 1) (A Cat’s Crisis of Convenience) The cat sits on the Old Woman’s fence,tail twitching like rhythmic panic. “Do you see that?” he hisses, eyes wide as saucers.“A sign.A literal sign.Your neighbours are selling my secondary residence.” The Old Woman sips her tea.“It’s their house, cat.Not yours.” “Semantics!I have a…
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