Maura Monaghan, Spring Air January Inside the diner, fluorescent lightsglare down on us,their faulty buzzing audiblesince the jukeboxes are fake.The patched up vinyl boothaches under every movement. Before I can wonderwhy it looks so familiar, you askif I’m going to get the pancakes againbecause…

Chrissy Banks, SAD SAD Like wet fog creeping in, like a foghorn’sexpiring wail, repeating repeating, like skydeprived of a single chink of light, wide sweepof solitary grey. Sad like furniture left out foranyone to take away, an old sofa covered instretchy tan crepe soaked to its spongey…

Donna Pucciani, Missing Father Missing Father This morning being too wintryfor a walk, I think of my father,trudging to the bus stop at dawn in allweathers, to juggle numbers on paperacross the George Washington Bridge. My twin sister and Iwould toddle to the front door,our pajamas hanging on…

Jason Schwartz, Elsa Peretti Cuff Elsa Peretti Cuff This isn’t a gift but a bribe, An inducement to—please— Keep out of my head (At least while I sleep) So instead of contriving to trick My hippocampus Into finding your lips In my slack cotton sheets I can just close my eyes, Impervious to Time’s…

Susan Shea, Be Done Be Done I have never learned to knit, so trying to get the stitches of my will and Thy will all lined up in neat rows to form my life jacket has been my greatest blundering making it apparent for anyone who looks at me to see I have no opening to let out the fullness of my…

Mayzie Sattler, stripped of our wholeness, we feel no grief stripped of our wholeness, we feel no grief You brought yourself in handfulsto me. Your pieces splayed across our bedlike scraps of cloth. I marveled at the aggregatescattered there, all of you offered upin soft, folded stars. I gathered…

PH Coleman, Wintergone Wintergone Wind & spitting rain washed away the last of this week’s winter. I am twisted up into white sheets feeling emptied under drifts, homeless, discarded face down, curled up in an oak’s last snow. There’s shame having clean, full, warm, safe, but no voice speaking.…

Joanne Dominique Dwyer, The Etymology of Loneliness The Etymology of Loneliness Snow is falling sideways. Given the title, one might assume I’m in crisis, identifying with the weather as a cry for help. That I have a disorder of loneliness and I’m spiraling downward like the snow. But the snow is…

Mykyta Ryzhykh, Christmas Tree Scarring Christmas Tree Scarring the neighbors’ son wanted to hang himself but couldn’t no one taught him how so only a bulbless lamp swings every evening from the ceiling death’s afraid to enter the apartment christmas tree scars sprouting in shadow Mykyta Ryzhykh…

Diane G Martin, Dead Letter Dead Letter So, that’s done, dusted for another year. Another snowless, so-called holy day devoid of joy, festivity, or light, packed away, without ceremony. Like yours, my high-arched foot arthritic, cramps, and I resent the stamps I can’t afford, bemoan the hats I’ve…

Faye Boland, Our Christmas Turkey Our Christmas Turkey was a nine-pounderfrom Grandad Mick in Longford,whose right leg was severedin a motorcycle crash. Plucked from the backof the green post van,its box wrapped in a skinof brown paper tied with string—his yearly gift heralded Christmas. Propped…

John Grey, This is the place This is the place We stopped, somewhere in time, looked around, the country bizarre, the landscape mutating, the muted people making signs in our direction. Night came and even the gestures receded, the voices hid behind doors; our senses, we saved for our own use,…

Great concise advice from @dodgingtherain.bsky.social 's Neil Slevin dodgingtherain.com/2016/12/01/_...

Nigel Currie, Nothing Compares to a Real Holiday Nothing Compares to a Real Holiday (After TUI’s ‘Nothing compares to a real holiday,’ 2020) The snow has lain three days the street is frozen roofs luminous in a pre-dawn light sky already faded from deep, star-sprinkled black to this stern…

Sam Kerbel, Sonnet for Jack Spicer Sonnet for Jack Spicer Your head looks like a half-eaten bowl Of chili, warm and soothing to eat. How it must feel to be picked apart By a life that left you for dead. Your nudity may be a hymn Should the rhinestones and geese Get their act together. Dead or not…

Tracey Pearson, The Moon Before Yule The Moon Before Yule I rise, bringing the gift of natural light to the city. High above the chimney pots, department stores and roads, I turn my gaze upon them. I observe their preparations, despair that they name this ritual harm ‘festivities.’ My eyes smart…

PM Flynn, Silence Silence Evening sun folds shadows into frozen ground. Expressionless crowds remind me of my father, his silvered hair always ending in silence. There are words I remember with blood and water inside. In the silence under clouds there is winter and promised winds blowing through…

Victoria Nordlund, Relics Box Relics Box The day after my Grandma Sandra died in December 1985, I saw INXS at the Agora Ballroom with a few friends. (I don’t remember their names.) Mom told me to go & enjoy myself. Thank God I already put the Christmas tree up—this is the last one I will ever…

Marie Anne Arreola, I SWEAR, I WASN’T THAT SAD I SWEAR, I WASN’T THAT SAD The bee sting you got running barefoot one summer through a meadow so green it hummed, so wide it must have thought it was forever. That sting now rings the church bells, plays the organ softly before Sunday sermon. It trims…

William Manning, This isn’t a hotel responsible clinician i never say hello to anyone i have no time for politetudes as far as i can see that's all nonsense i just ignore patients who greet me on the wards if the nurses or godforbid someone’s lawyer emails me, i have a stock response it says,…

"How did we ever sleep with just a tender sliver of cloth between our warm sweet breathing and the jaws on the other side?" Hidden Leopard by Olga Dermott-Bond @olgapoet.bsky.social #microfiction #MicroMonday. Please click on the link and enjoy fictivedream.com/2025/11/10/m...

Kamakshi Lekshmanan, a falling leaf a falling leaf a leaf fallsin gold, dancesto the earth,crisp, clasps nothing.breeze tender,barbets singgoodbye. grateful to the lightwhich kept her alivethat she may nurture;crush her waythrough the mundane.to give, what a wayto die.   Kamakshi Lekshmanan holds…

Elisabeth Murawski, At the Party At the Party You come up to me and speak, lean in close, dark curls and eyes like theirs, the two big girls who stopped me, not to play. My little arms and legs a jumble. Drowning without the water. Some memories leave scars so pale and thin they’re almost…

Jamie Yung, Love arrived as a comma The Cartography of Leaving You learned to bleed in perfect strokes at fourteen—a spider-lily bloomed in the margins, sharpening her red pen."Too much heart," she warned, "ruins the form."(You folded your pulse into origami birds,let them nest in the hollow of…

TJ Matthews, Molly Molly In defence of Molly Malone Leave Molly alone. What's she ever done to you? What about those songs she sings for you? From the gentlest rippling finger-taps to those glories when there seems to be just one thunderous heartbeat that should be terrifying. And you're not sure…

You can now read two of my favorite poems from my time living in Colorado, 'PLENTY' and 'PYRE'! One is very grounded in daydreaming, and one is very unstable from nighttime dreaming. Thank you to Dodging the Rain for having me.

Mykki Rios, Plenty and Pyre PLENTY sometimes i gaze out west at the Rockiesi imagine myself going up in the mountainslearning to foragegoing out and finding flowers to brew into meadmushrooms jutting from bark and peeking from under wet leavesthere would be alliums growing just out of sight from…

Greg Wood, i sit with a serbian monk i sit with a serbian monk on my flight to amsterdam. he is wearing a black robe with a golden necklace of beads framing the manger scene. The bishop appears to be donning a hat from krispy kreme doughnuts, only it is black and stitched with cotton. we are both…

DS Maolalai, Oysters Oysters sun on the pavementkicks skin off a rainstorm.an eagle is doing a platter:six oysters for 22 quid.she shows me the angleto tip up and eat them.they are salty and fresh,like a better class of seawaterthan you get off the docksat clontarf. chrysty loves oysters.her teeth…

MK Zariel, Generate generate when your to-do list starts with enter a synaesthetic flow state and ends with send that email you've been putting off you start to wonder if undulating waves of desire & successful freelancing may be directly opposed if it's even possible to feel all desire as one…

DA Hosek, Parrotland Parrotland Apparently the man who first named America had second thoughts about his choice. If he had managed to succeed America might have been called Parrotland. Imagine the alternate universe where the United States are the United States of Parrotland— I’m sure it would be…

Joanne Dominique Dwyer, Bird to Bird Bird to Bird After Neruda Muhammed was pensive and withdrawn as a child, my brother’s scars elsewhere. Cocaine use can cause purpura of the face, ears, trunk and extremities. Why don’t they say bruising all over one’s body? The trunk of the car contained:…

Jean Ryan, Trip into Town Trip into Town Ancient oaks against a cloudless sky, each bright green leaf new to the world; no small dark deaths on the roadside, just rippled grass and yellow flowers, and then, lifting my heart, a bald eagle rides the wind with such easy grace that the alarm I live…

Ken Been, Complexities dodgingtherain.com/2025/08/01/k...

Maureen Clark, Mermaids in the Basement dodgingtherain.com/2025/08/15/m...

Fast-Track your Submission dodgingtherain.com/2025/08/21/f...

Darren C Demaree, We have to make it dodgingtherain.com/2025/07/29/d...

Dan Sicoli, Broken Summer Night broken summer night when the day’s heat rose to night skywith moon, vain and aloof the tenant somehowknew no phone would ringno door would knock and so she gathered the folds of her long flounceand began dancing in her living roomto bone-crushing rhythmsspinning…

Dodging the Rain Open to Donations

Ella Walsworth-Bell, Maine 1997 Fighting the Easterly The women tell me about a loyal husbandor brother,​ or sonhe snuck under police taperushed up the back stepsto the sound of wavestimpani on granite blockswind a wild crescendosalt-spray crashing cymbals he reached upbig hands pianissimohefted…

#FF It’s National Donut Day 🍩! Give some ❤️ and a follow to these folks in the lit community beginning with the letter “D”: @deadmallpress.bsky.social @deixispress.bsky.social @delicatezine.bsky.social @dishsoapquart.bsky.social @divinationsmag.bsky.social @dodgingtherain.bsky.social Cont ⬇️

Julia Fausing, A thousand tiny threads of you Tablecloth we arrive early at the museum of your lifeand start in the book exhibitionwhere Vera Brittain and George Eliot sitin dust and well-thumbed covers we work mostly in silenceexcept for the occasional‘do you want this?' or ‘mind if I have…

Floating on air today, after being part of the Strokestown Festival and winning the International poetry competition judged by Jane Clarke! Congratulations to all shortlisted poets and thanks to organisers! 💚☘️ #poetry #Ireland #writingcommunity #competition

Mike Santora, Shovels Dophee finger No magician ever droppeda jaw quite like the timewe saw Richiemake his real thumbdisappearfrom the rest of his fistwith a reciprocatingsaw. For the next decade,he’d hold his hands outas if examining a manicureand say, slight of hand,indeed, then wink. During…

Victoria Nordlund, Departures Maggie Smith passed while I was in London last week I saw Lettice and Lovage on the West End in 1988. Maggie was 54. I was 18& I thought she was old. Had never read a Peter Schaffer play. More jazzed aboutPhantom with Sarah Brightman because it hadn’t opened in the US…

Terry Jones, Preservations Preservations How clear was the sky on the day we burned the old dictionaries, a batch of German-to-English ones. Dog-eared, mute and parched, they had lain for a closed decade's unused silence. Little tombs, sprachlos, we carried them like coals to a pit in the garden,…

Richard LeDue, Monday mornings and their mugs Monday mornings and their mugs wait for cracks to appear or brace themselves the best they can against being dropped onto a floor, flat as weeks with edges one fantasizes about falling off in the name of discovery, only to discover the same lies we…

Diana Newson, The Last Thylacine The Last Thylacine That day they’d killed a sheep. no refrigeration in Mawbanna, 1930, so Lily was in the kitchen all day, minding pies, stews and jellies. Exhausting, with would-be chitterlings left over. If she hadn’t stood outside to cool off, if the moon hadn’t…

Maeve O’Sullivan, True Love at Age Three True Love at Age Three (for Ava) In your book of fairytales with pictures, the handsome prince has impeccable timing, whether planting a kiss on the lips of the sleeping princess or rescuing her gold ball from the bottom of the royal pond (albeit in frog…

Happy Chinese New Year, everyone! Thank @dodgingtherain.bsky.social for publishing my poem about how to make tea in Chinese New Year. dodgingtherain.com/2025/01/29/9...