VOICEMAIL POEMS

"Thirty-Some Years Frozen" by Nix Carlson

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

frostbitten hands snatch at the cigarette dangling from your lips and you stoop to meet my gaze with a hangdog expression. i want to be angry (god...

"They Send Me to the City to Stay with my Auntie" by Bill Ratner

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

I hang my jacket in the hallway her apartment is old made from shoestring potatoes it smells like a jelly factory. Against the wall a man’s face...

"Orchard Grafts" by Tian Sanchez-Ballado

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A fig in an orange grove— I pruned myself from the rotting branch, sawed through the only bark I knew. Now I stand among the citrus on the longes...

"Nooduitgang" by Cole Pragides

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Once I visited my old roommate at a film festival on Scheveningen beach where the winning movie was something avant garde and vaguely religious we did...

"Motion, or Teaching My Best Friend My Favorite Songs At the Top of Our Lungs" by Ariana Brown

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

for Hamze we are as dark inside as the night is, meaning, we are so beautiful most people choose not to see us, for fear of overwhelming themselves—...

"Lukewarm Iced Tea" by Erick Flores Diaz

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Our eyes meet on the rear-view mirror Scorched earth passes by Stretched by the mile, rolled windows for letting the poem breathe. ...

"Grieving with Bob Ross" by Trystan Popish

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The afternoon of my grandmother’s funeral, my sisters, mom, nephew, and I decide to paint with a Bob Ross episode, hoping to dull our grief with ...

"God's Alternative Response to Job (2025 Version)" by Jonathan Fletcher

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Where were you when Jeff Hiller won his first Emmy? Or when Taylor got engaged to Travis? Tell me, why hasn’t Ralph Fiennes won an Oscar? Why did ...

"God Made Me a Fag" by Oisín Rowe

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Rolled in gold leaf, cocooned in shreddings of ancient text. His words, a pathetic stream slurring out between pulls, Prophets lust but I beg y...

"Fuccboi" by Tim Lynch

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

BATEMAN God... I guess... I was probably returning videotapes. American Psycho (2000), Mary Harron & Guinevere Turner and Bret Easton Ellis i never...

"Do You Know?" by Carmen Barefield

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The human brain generates 20 watts of electricity. Or so the AI Overview tells me unprompted when I search how much a thought costs me, how much ener...

"Christmas Day at a Dive Bar" by Mikey Franz

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Christmas Day at a dive bar & God has blessed us all with holy days & spirits poured over this small glimpse at eternity blurring bright against th...

"At the Holiday Party" by Joshua Lillie

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

my wife’s coworkers ask about my poetry and I tell them oh, it’s slice-of-life kind of stuff. Bird on a wire kind of stuff. They ask but what a...

"A Tooth of Mary Magdalene" by Rose DeMaris

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

"A Tooth of Mary Magdalene" suspended in rock crystal. So much we didn’t see, the last time. Some say she crossed the ocean to France in 33 AD and ...

"When I Try to Verify Why They Carpet Driveways After the Rain..." by Callie Jennings

07 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When I Try to Verify Why They Carpet Driveways After the Rain, Google Keeps Feeding Me Distressingly Hot Factoids About Hermaphroditic Earthworm Sex U...

"Untitled" by Muhammad Rabih

07 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

we did not hold hands often we clenched legs under the table hands were too public for two who did not know how feelings socailize we sat on a bench...

"Unassigned" by Fiona Martinez

07 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

after Ocean Vuong and why this want for permanence surround sound my life with backups sound out my name and it’s...

"[Tonight you lay on your own couch...]" by JeFF Stumpo

07 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Tonight you lay on your own couch, trying to head off fixation. Your cigar is just a. You hold it oscillating between Cuban and. You are not. You tell...

"The Way to Keep Going in Your Twenties" by Charlotte Alexander

07 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

do not be afraid of your own heart beating there must be chocolate maybe even daily I would recommend buying the better cheese drink orange juice in t...

"Sugar Bloom & Smudge" by C. Rivera

07 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What bloomed from grief came instinct, came wrath. The aftermath of my longing will show on your back like Lichtenberg figures after the subtle...

"Potato" by C. Late

07 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

three soldiers in tinfoil jackets roasting on the bottom oven rack she’d cut the ends off one too long for its own good hacked chunks from the pudg...

"Progressively Ambitious Poem for the Future" by Dylan Emmons

07 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

I want to write about eternity too just like the cats probing at their breakfasts or your two week old hands Isadora brushing my beard like sleepwa...

"New York Summer" by Jenna Cardinale

07 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Storms– Wave action– Sand crash– A kite coming close– Wobbling moon– Desire work– These optimisms– There’s your thunder– Your dow...

"Naked in Manhattan" by Micaela Camacho-Tenreiro

07 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

after Chappell Roan The cold knows me in ways you never will. Darkness clamps her hand over the city’s mouth. Still, light. Music rises like smoke....

"May 10th" by Jamie Hood

07 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

May 10th Perseverance is terminal, Every day dully getting up. The end times keep edging us But I’m a Taurus— I prefer to come And to go another ...

"Letter to the Editor of the Old Farmer's Almanac, Robert Bailey Thomas" by Lauren Mills

07 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

I have been made aware of the fact that you died in 1846, but am hoping this will reach you regardless. I have heard you are the foremost expert on ...

"Lawful Good" by Alexa Vallejo

07 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Solidarity is pissing in adjacent stalls. A godly marriage is a throuple with Christ. Dude was a real trove of sword lore. We cheered for the b...

"The Evolution of Missing You" by Juniper Danger

07 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

April 2024 Wish you were here is no synonym for I miss you, though of course I do. Wish you were here Like I know you would love this LIke I want to ...

"Beholden" by John Muro

07 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“There can be but one teacher – nature. She must always be consulted.” - Camille Pissarro I’m wondering how best to preserve this day...

"4-tongue poem" by Chiara Crisafulli

07 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

"4-tongue poem" by Chiara Crisafulli by VOICEMAIL POEMS

"Work Ghazal" by Jarrett Moseley

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The last night we spoke, you said we could make this work. I sold the bed we used to sleep on, to forget, hoping it would work. I left the pink book...

"We Promise to Protect Each Other" by Lauren Dotson

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We promise to protect each other After Willie Perdomo which means we ...

"Things I'd Still Do" by Dré Pontbriand

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Get in vans with strangers: a Palo-Santo heavy Chevy G20 with a sonnet-spilling prophet; a red 70’s Volkswagen shaggin' wagon with three long-hair...

"these days, everybody wants to hear the prophecies of yore..." by Aparna Paul

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

"these days, everybody wants to hear the prophecies of yore at a mcdonald’s drive through, and i just don’t think that that’s what i’m after" ...

"The Goose: A Diptych" by Devan Murphy

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

I dreamed of a canoe, and of the two of us: I was new on the lake. Streaming through the murk, the cellar scent of blue and brown water, and you, my n...

"The Dawn Raids" by Cindy Kurukaanga

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Chocolate Polynesian brown was beckoned to the land of the long white cloud to work in factories, freezing works, docks, was beckoned to work hard, s...

"Sunday Tea" by Derrick Austin

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

I studied Italian painters, Giorgione, Titian. At one job, I’m a glorified secretary. I answer the phone in my professional voice and sell gaudy u...

"sometimes at 10:37pm you need to change your life" by Sarena Brown

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

so you do the next best thing and you cut your hair you follow a youtube video and a confident-man-hair-stylist-type shows you how using a mannequ...

"Poem Written in iPhone Note via Voice to Text While Driving" by Jill McLaughlin

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

People fell in love during the fall of the Roman Empire and people were falling in love in 1930s Germany, the Nazis were coming into power and regul...

"My Last Summer with Dad, 2023" by Annie Powell Stone

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Dad was on the couch, mostly starving to death in front of us cancer, stage IV (for this type, many don’t catch the earlier stages, and of course ...

"Let's Be Monsters" by Maia Brown-Jackson

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Let’s be monsters. Let’s be witches and bitches and crones and just hideous. Let’s be powerful. Let’s take and take and take and grab the wor...

"Keep your Popcorn on Fridays, We Want a Living Wage" by Jaime Jacques

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Three weeks to Christmas. We bide our time on the line by conjuring posties of the past— side-burned and handcuffed, the ones in ‘81 who dared to...

"guide to melancholy (ft. jar of olives) by Annabelle Chen

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

if you are sad: sit, silent, and bathe in the brine of an olive jar. let the salt consume you till you are preserved in acidity rather than memory, an...

"First Cumbia" by Tatiana Chaterji

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Lake Berryessa, azure at our backs the man from Toluca slips me lozenges from under his tongue Spanish alive in my mouth...

"decline mantra (aldi at 46th and market)" by Diandra Williams

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

"There is a look one sees, the mouth somehow desperate– … the fear of death, taking as its form dedication to hunger…" - Louise Glück b/c one...

"Bench Clearing" by Marissa DeSantis

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

My dad died and sports came back. We wore masks at his funeral to avoid being next, I guess. The night before Joe Kelly fired at Carlos Correa’s he...

"Can't Do Without You" by Scarlett Hume

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You’re like a paragraph in a book, he says, folding a dollar bill into an origami ring at the bar, and I’m not sure if it’s an insult. He slips ...

"When You Don't Feel Like Yourself" by Kenny Mitchell

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Double-check you have not morphed into wax. Are the appendages protruding from the trunk of your body still soft skin, or have you hardened your armor...

"WHEN THE BLUES COME (ALWAYS GO FOR THE CATS)" by David J. Schast

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When the blues find where I’ve been hiding, They pile on like puppies— so damn excited to see me. These days, I’m into cats, brother. You kn...

"Uncle Loser The Knight of Swords" by RJ Equality Ingram

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

My mother’s half brother wore a blue herringbone tweed jacket with padded elbows to her funeral / The kind worn by a caricature of a substitute teac...

"The Laughing Cinder Block" by Marlanda Dekine

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

They call one bulldagger. I heard them say she spreads women’s legs that's all she does, but I know her. She builds entire worlds where their mou...

"The First Time a Man Fucked me Like a Man" by Mary Violet

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

I want to be: a good boy, your domesticated coyote. My tongue’s handwriting is the shape of your body unshaved and without a shower. They need us...

"Tabitha" by Meghan Malachi

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

I’m on the floor again, and that isn’t a metaphor for rock bottom. My new therapist asked me how I did it. How I managed to keep myself safe all t...

"Survivor Audition Video #3" by Isaiah Newman

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We open with a stationary shot of me in my office, a pride flag on the wall behind me. An offscreen bonfire flickers in my eyes, and the savvy viewer ...

"Psychography" by Birch Wiley

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In August it’s hard not to want – everything heavy with it – ginkgo fruit rots on sidewalks, sweat falls down spines, the whole beast city brea...

"Monter Drive" by Colette Love Hilliard

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We learned to love the birds. The backyard bird with her black cap and white cheeks. The flicker so flirty in his polka dot dress and red scarf. ...

"Lamb's Ear and Lavender" by Tonee Mae Moll

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We failed, you & I, to care for plants we potted at the start of summer—lamb’s ear & lavender, one for each pocket. You told me you loved to strok...

"Knowledge" by Sandra Marchetti

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

They say it can’t be, but it is, perfect. What they don’t know is that clocks circle the drain like pasta water, unasked questions we both k...

"It's Not About That" by Maureen Martinez

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It’s not about who made the mistake with the wrong address in the GPS getting us to Brooklyn an hour late, is it? It’s about your retirement an...

"i'm overdue for a dream in which my teeth fall out" by nat raum

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

that's a euphemism—yes, i have cavities, but it means i am bullet train, bound for collision. i am jar of marbles broken across a concrete floor. i ...

"I Tell You I Grew From Dawn" by Oisín Rowe

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Here we are among snow and ash. Cracked from saw or harsh November winds. We are wood always moving. Bit of flesh from birch, oak, cedar. Stacked...

"Even Though I Hate the Movie" by Mattie K. Lagan

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On PCH somewhere Malibu— going north not quite yet at Point Dume, two biker boys, not quite men, stopped at a red light. Underneath hiero- glyphi...

"Bluster" by Ola Faleti

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Talking shit, like you know about cracked knuckles and flamin hots with pickle juice. Or the broken heat lamps on the El, or getting high off a lakefr...

Tabitha - Meghan Malachi

03 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Tabitha - Meghan Malachi by VOICEMAIL POEMS

Knowledge - Sandra Marchetti

03 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Knowledge - Sandra Marchetti by VOICEMAIL POEMS

Lambs Ear and Lavender - Tonee Mae Mol

03 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Lambs Ear and Lavender - Tonee Mae Mol by VOICEMAIL POEMS

Bluster - Ola Faleti

03 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Bluster - Ola Faleti by VOICEMAIL POEMS

The Laughing Cinder Block - Marlanda Dekine

03 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Laughing Cinder Block - Marlanda Dekine by VOICEMAIL POEMS

The First Time a Man Fucked me Like a Man - Mary Violet

03 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The First Time a Man Fucked me Like a Man - Mary Violet by VOICEMAIL POEMS

im overdue for a dream in which my teeth fall out - nat raum

03 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

im overdue for a dream in which my teeth fall out - nat raum by VOICEMAIL POEMS

Survivor Audition Video Number 3 - Isaiah Newman

03 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Survivor Audition Video Number 3 - Isaiah Newman by VOICEMAIL POEMS

I Tell You I Grew From Dawn - Oisin Rowe

03 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

I Tell You I Grew From Dawn - Oisin Rowe by VOICEMAIL POEMS

Uncle Loser The Knight of Swords - RJ Equality Ingram

03 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Uncle Loser The Knight of Swords - RJ Equality Ingram by VOICEMAIL POEMS

Even Though I Hate the Movie - Mattie Lagan

03 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Even Though I Hate the Movie - Mattie Lagan by VOICEMAIL POEMS

Its Not About That - Maureen Martinez

03 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Its Not About That - Maureen Martinez by VOICEMAIL POEMS

Monter Drive - Colette Love Hilliard

03 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Monter Drive - Colette Love Hilliard by VOICEMAIL POEMS

Psychography - Birch Wiley

03 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Psychography - Birch Wiley by VOICEMAIL POEMS

"I Rage about You, You Old Ghost" by Hannah Rubin

12 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Make me dim-witted. One of those days where I can’t bare it—the hum of madness. My belly wreaking havoc up and down my spine, intestines in a knot...

"You Won't Ever Again be in Love in a Foreign Country" by Ky Pacheco

12 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It's a bus stop in South America And crossing five lanes of traffic At ten in the morning. It's quiet, More than we were expecting. The taxi is late ...

"This is What You Are" by TC Tolbert

12 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This is what you are missing Melissa – dust turned to waves in the desert – okra coming up two months too late – a forward-breaking gate openi...

"This is Poetry Time" by Dan J. Kirk

12 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

There are few mornings like this – When the tumble day slows and the sweltering July heat subsides; when memories of last night’s fire show resona...

"The Kids Are So Back" by Morgan Tessier

12 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

barking up the right trees stuck on the double branch don’t climb if you can’t get down if you can’t get down better learn to jump the k...

"The Coldening" by Kelly Gray

12 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The leaving was such that each apple in the orchard glassed over into ghost-form on a single night. Centers rotted, dropped out, only translucent orb...

"Street Plums" by Ashira Morris

12 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

I’m waiting for the tram, picking plums but really what I’m doing is looking, longingly higher up where most of the fruit is sitting ripe. A man...

"Smoke Elder" by Allegra Wilson

12 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In front of the laundromat a cigarette grows out of stub and ash, smoke seeps from lungs back into sticky-dry tobacco, red hot cherry backs away...

"Revenge Fantasy" by Stephanie Valente

12 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Begins with texts to my best friend. Do you want to hear my revenge fantasy? Let’s get iced coffee and be brats. Learned helplessness is a crime. Su...

"POV - I sent you 317 reels on Instagram" by Kate Carey

12 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

I am not mentally okay. I thought of you, or more specifically, I thought this would be something you'd enjoy. This is some news you need to hear. ...

"Poem" by Tom Snarsky

12 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

I felt like masturbating I felt like crying It was the twenty-first century Already A quarter over There had been artistic movements & wars My ...

"Naturalization Test" by Aishvarya Arora

12 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Aishvarya Arora called us from Queens, NY. voicemailpoems.org/submit/ facebook.com/voicemailpoems twitter.com/voicemailpoems instagram.com/voicemailp...

"Mojave" by Candace Cavanaugh

12 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

He gave up looking for a town, gas station, or house off a road or driveway The desert unfolded further than his eyes could see. In the stillness, the...

"Lorde's Supercut is Film Theory" by Ankoor Patel

12 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

To hate yourself and have sex makes you a movie director on a street corner, seeing everything in slow motion, scouting for bodies. When it’s to...

"Lagoon" by Asha Berkes

12 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The cut on my ankle bleeds into the shape of an exclamation point You speak and it comes out ornate swirling, as if from an an ancient book I’m tr...

"Bloodgood Maple" by John Muro

12 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How their branches seem to extend without burden in the lengthening light, their star-shaped leaves of deepest burgundy, weightless, more form t...

"Bricks" by Kelsey L. Smoot

12 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

I hope all my books are banned books, like, so contraband they start trappin’ them out the bando— people fiendin’ for my words with such fervo...

"Moon" by Zach Goldberg

17 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

as silent and holy as an empty church. a polished row of pews. you, moon in the sky, how do you do it? your one-handed gravity holding still the ear...

"Whero" by Stacey Teague

17 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

remember bodies at night how they glow how they bend into us like refracted light the memory of where a body was after it has left its phosp...

"Manic Pixie POV" by Taylor Jaczin

17 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

yeah i’ve got a lighter. can fix your filter. give you honey stick secrets and light tight roll laughter when you call me blue dream like your favor...

"Never Trust A Snowglobe" by Caroljean Gavin

17 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In the palm of my hand I harbor Fault lines, one-way streets, A famous bridge half-crossed and Another I steered from the passenger’s seat While the...

"Reading Lines" by Mariah Bosch

17 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

A man in a powder blue suit offered to tell me my future on Olive Avenue. When I tried to say no, he said Baby, please, in a way that told me that he...

"On Sundays" by Sara Hutchinson

17 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

I stay in bed til 2 then get up and open all the windows. Make coffee and walk around the 5 x 10 space I call my living room. Turn my attention to ...