New Tanka - and other short poems

A selection of short poems, tanka, and even a scifi limerick for you now from a mixture of new and regular Angel contributors: Gabriel Smithwilson, Christina Sng, Irving, Jessica Jo Horowitz, and John Reinhart.


The Open Door

Much to the surprise
Of those maybe
Passing through
All that lays beyond
Is the universe unchained
And pigeons
Wanting bread

by Gabriel Smithwilson – Gabriel says "I live in one of those cities that's close to being the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a lot of somewhere. I am an aspiring poet, player of various musical instruments, and big fan of Ray Bradbury, Marc Bolan, Gene Wilder and other random artistic geniuses."


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seconds before
the asteroid hits
he finally tells me
he loves me
eye roll


yellow bricks
on this road
she takes
the ruby express
instead

by Christina Sng – Christina is a poet, writer, and artist. She is the author of several collections, including A Constellation of Songs (Origami Poems Project, Allegra Press), Catku (Allegra Press), Astropoetry (Alban Lake Publishing), and A Collection of Nightmares (Raw Dog Screaming Press).


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Morning

Cold breakfast. 
Nearly silent hiss of air 
across immaculate filters. 
In the airlock, 
nothing.

by irving – irv is a web developer who writes in the spare time brought about from living in the tundra near Lake Ontario. His poetry has previously appeared in Dreams & Nightmares, From the Asylum, Niteblade, Paper Crow, Star*Line and other fine publications.


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Lullaby

in the darkness of the bridge
the computer sings in analog
and I tell it stories
to soothe us both to sleep

by Jessica Jo Horowitz – Jessica Jo is Korean born, living in New England and is probably cold right now. Previous publications include ChiZine, Star*Line and Eye to the Telescope. 


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engraved on the seats of the shuttle
when it was finally removed from the rubble
were rude cartoons
from far distant moons
of zero-g sex & its trouble

by John Reinhart – John is frequent contributor at the Songs of Eretz, Poetry Nook editor, and recipient of the 2016 Horror Writers Association Dark Poetry Scholarship.