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South Coast, Aqaba

Bob Lucky — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 19:03:59 +0000

We stand on the shore, a plastic bag of fins, masks and snorkels on the sand between us. A cold wind sends whitecaps scudding over the Red Sea. Without looking at one another, we slowly prepare to enter.

clear skies
the ripple of shadows
below the surface

Twilight

Donna Fleischer — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 21:35:45 +0000

and it gives off the kind of hot chill one can get at times of transition. fever in a meadow, when the sun hangs on while evening cools the tall grasses in which you stand and search for something that you have not lost, it is the deepest part of summer verdant, aloof

cool air
the wings of a fly
passing

September 11

Charles Easter — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 15:00:56 +0000

Living in New Jersey, it was noon before I turned on the TV and heard that the planes had hit the towers. My first thought was of my ex-girlfriend, who was still a friend. She worked temp jobs and I had no idea whether she was in the Trade Center or not. I called her cell phone, then her home phone, but all lines were jammed. On this ironically bright September day, it didn’t matter that I had thought of cutting off all contact with her. I wanted nothing more than to hear her voice.

I watched TV in despair and shock and tried to call other New York friends but the lines were still jammed. I grieved over all that had died and even over the loss of the towers themselves, which were the symbol to me of the international city, the portal to the entire world, just miles from where I had been raised and still lived.

Then, the ring.

thousands die
the voice of my friend
on her cell phone

Carnival Elephant

Charles Easter — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:14:34 +0000

I lifted a single peanut up to the great animal. His trunk, as thick as a fire hose, brushed past my small offering and went for what I held in my other hand—the whole bag of peanuts. Tears came to my eyes as he snatched it away.

I looked to Dad. A grin broke across his face.

“Smart old man,” he said of the elephant.

His voice stopped my tears. I looked back and saw the elephant, the rope around his foot.

“Come on, let’s go,” Dad said.

I looked over at the peanut man. Part of me wanted to ask for another bag so I could try again. But part of me did not.

I pocketed the peanut I had offered and we walked away.

humid evening
from a distant tent
an elephant trumpets

Oasis

Genie Nakano — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 20:50:36 +0000

We walk under a scorching sun next to the river. He is my guide. Decades younger than me. Yet every time he speaks, I blush. His voice is soft. I barely hear him above the river’s song. As I move in closer to hear his stories of this ancient Indian oasis, I see the delicacy of his fingers pointing to the flowers. As we climb the rocks, I watch the muscles of his calves flex. The heat has my head spinning and the rapid waters my heart racing.

                  fan palm
               fingers reach into the green
                  spring yearning

Previously published in ContemporaryhaibunOnline.com, Oct. 2010, vol. 6 no 3.

Float

Genie Nakano — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 23:18:13 +0000

Thousands, perhaps millions, are floating under the sea—jellyfish, and shaped like umbrellas. But she looks different. She reflects purple and silver light. “Float with me,” I say to her…

So we float. We contract our umbrellas then burst open—opening and closing—we float upwards to sea level. On top of the water, we spin around and around. The sun beams through her body so brightly that she is invisible.

the transparency
of light
floating on water

Previously published in Contemporary Haibun Online, vol. 6:2, July 2009, and in an island of egrets, the 2010 Southern California Haiku Study Group Anthology, edited by Billie Dee .

For Two Horses By the Fence at VCCA

Penny Harter — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 00:18:41 +0000

They stand there, side-by-side, seemingly unmoving, gazing off toward the mountains. Now and then the darker one slowly turns his head to look at me, one brown eye following my passage back and forth on the dirt and gravel road. I stop to talk to him, to pat his nose. He comes closer, bares long, sharp teeth, and I back off a bit.

They both stand silently for hours, doing nothing—not even grazing the brown grasses. Perhaps they are asleep. Horses sleep in snatches standing up. Some think a horse can sleep with only half a brain—and that while one half sleeps, the other is alert. One eye drooping shut, the other staying open. Alternating. What might half a horse brain dream while the other half stares at the horizon?

These horses slow me down to horse time. I would rest like that in some pasture, my legs relaxed and locked so I can’t fall, days drifting by behind my binocular eyes. Last night, walking back to the residence, I saw a shooting star. A second or two, and it was gone, though it turned gold as it died. Horse time, star time—our time a walk between the two—and gone.

total eclipse—
the sun’s corona streaming
through us

Faster and Faster

Rafal Zabratynski — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 16:09:08 +0000

20,000 years on average from the Sun’s core to its surface.
About 8 minutes and 18 seconds from the Sun to Moon.
One more second from the Moon to Earth.

crisp night
the shiver of moonlight
in her eyes

In a flash from her eyes to mine.

Black Dog

Bett Angel-Stawarz — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 19:02:41 +0000

“You know”, he confided, “I want to walk in front of a truck. My little girls would be much better off. I am the reject of the family. My wife tells lies. I tell lies to cover up my illness, to avoid the shame.”

Christmas day
gifts of all colours
and shapes

Winter Stars

Penny Harter — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 17:34:09 +0000

My neighbor fills her winter garden with oaktag cut-outs of red and yellow stars—hangs them from her bird feeder or glues them atop the planting sticks she’s left in the dirt between withered blooms. Yesterday, she knocked on my door, and I opened it to find her hands overflowing with stars—each hole-punched and threaded with yarn—a new constellation for these days of early dark.

“These are for you to hang places,” she said simply, knowing of my need for joy this Christmas season. As we smiled and hugged one another, I received them in my cupped hands. Now stars dangle from my doorknobs and brighten shadowed corners—an unexpected gift of light.

moon splinters
on the river—the glint
of ice floes