tinywords 22.1 has now ended with Bryan Rickert’s haiku “departing summer”. The submission window for tinywords 22.2 will open on August 1st and remain open until the end of the month. Sending regular submissions to tinywords is a simple two-step process. Just check out our Guidelines and click on the Submissions Page from Aug. 1 through Aug. 31, 2022. Please send us your small poems, haiga, or brief haibun to be considered for our next issue: tinywords 22.2.
To keep things lively while we work on the next issue, we present a new writing prompt: Fishing boats at anchor as seen from Harborview Park in Cape May, New Jersey. We hope their peaceful reflections inspire you to write a tiny poem or two in response. Be sure to share them with us: Leave your best efforts in response to the photo prompt in the comment box below and the tinywords editorial team will share the best of the best in tinywords 22.2, due out in late September, 2022.
Thanks again for dropping by. We look forward to reading what you have to say.
Be well,
The editors
calm sea
mirror image
do i dive up or down?
at rest
the silence
of mastheads
sometimes
we look another way
two skies
Alan Summers
…And we don't see the obvious?
Sometimes we look the other way, or another way, sometimes perhaps we don't see what we are looking at, so there's a number of possibliities I guess.
kind regards,
Alan
I worry that the powers that be really do not see, or, more likely, don't want to see the obvious.
We see a beautiful photo, fishing boats at rest in a harbour, calm for now, but in readiness. There are allusions from a few poets responding to tinywords' photo prompt to fish being at peace, but not shouting out enough about how we are decimating the oceans with over-fishing and littering it with human junk.
It was this aspect to which I was referring.
It's true that both fishing ports and fishing industry have been decimated, as has the fish population. Politics feels like a disease and corporate greed as a virus.
Nothing is really ever silent, calm, or at peace is it? It's all pretty much smoke and mirrors, and maya. Something even more disastrous will be the only way we humans will wake up.
__Yours… your words painted such an image:
politics
disease of corporate greed
viral haze
tidal harbour
a fisherman rushes
to work
a harbor huddle
of old hands—
seafarers
into this ocean
each and every red drop
we kiss as if the last
Alan Summers
life reflections
docked at Cape May-
the vessel of Redemption
whispering hulls ripple the sky
bathroom mirror . . .
my twin brothers try to spot
the slightest difference
summer's end
something more
about him
Daniela Misso
Bouquet of boats
Reflects Ourselves
We all pick favorites
fishing trawlers reflect
in a still harbor's bay
fish stay out at sea
dock side
all the clouds gathered
in one spot
slack water
the motionless
reflections
of fishing boats
mast's reflection…
piercing an underwater
mystery
parallel water
world—rigging hangs upside down
mirror boats above
parallel water
world—rigging hangs upside down
mirror boats above
summer’s end
an unmoored boat
drifting out to sea
reflections
the silence above the water
the silence below
setting sail
on summer memories…
ship in a bottle
double vision
the eye plays tricks
summer flounder
between sea and sky
our usual afternoon
snooze
summer doldrums
fishing boats float
on their reflections
at sea level conjoined skies
boats . . .
sweet memories come back
to my mind
restrained nets
the scarlet sunset
left on the dockside
dust gathers
underneath the bed
through the years
Sorry the above should read
underneath the bed
dust gathers
through the years
harbour scene
danced
en pointe
open sea the key of our shanty
some confused gulls scan
choosing perfect shaped yard arms
such claw grasp splashes
__Oops! _m
boats moor
on glassy sea
summer respite
captain and crew
batten down the hatches…
storm warning
double hull…
dancing cheek to cheek
past the midnight stars
rusty hull
weathering these waves
of grief
glass bay
ten toes shatter
the sky
rowing
we are one
with our reflection
Rorschach test
reading the clouds
in the water
empty sky
the silent reflection
of fishing boats
reflection
fishing boats anchored
within themselves
a frogman
scraping barnacles
barely ripples
dead calm
on the harbor
sliced by a fin
dockside…
a fisherman scrapes
scales from his hand
out at sea
watching the climate
change
Roberta Beach Jacobson
rigging at rest sunlight stills the sea
ocean pier—
under the gull's dive
a blue silence
Barrie Levine
safe harbor
proper boat shoes
de rigueur
L3 should be italicized
Barrie Levine
mermaid
model sees
a mirrored blue whale
fishing village
Sunday’s sermon on
the loaves and fished
Get aboard this boat
We will navigate the sun
To find your own home.
origami…
my boat paper thin
and without oars
morning calm –
the voiceless reflection
of boats at anchor
negotiator
serene at its full fleet wharf
quiet terms afloat
_m
with changing tides
mooring lines bark and howl
the gulls jump
blues and greys
our mirrorverse
much the same
there's
a hole in our bucket
summer's end
fishing boat
pregnant with catch…
capsizes
Stephen J. DeGuire
depicting the scene
an artist
upends his canvas
wharfside . . .
through a puff of pipe smoke
he names his price
beyond the anchored boat
and its reflection
fading mackerel sky
a rorschach test
of my sea legs
I step into the sky
off-kilter storm warning
lull
that quiet time
we all take shelter
overcast
we go deeper
foraging sky
through the mirror
another world
moves below
before the journey
the stillness
of reflection
(submitted on behalf of Claudette Russell)
blue horizons …
my anchor to you
withdrawn
– submitted by j rap
clouds and boats sharing the sea
__ Nature's mirror, paints this nature of nature, nature's brush.
_m
between seasons
fishermen mend
nets with dreams
passing summer days
dreams dance to brightened colors
soon the fall of snow
__Nifty, Sam!
__My thoughrt here… as our season quickly changes toward the white of snow; steps onward. _m
harbor reflections—
fishermen mull over
the old superstitions
trees and silence
the angry cough
of the fisherman
not a breath silence of the gulls
somewhere
a walrus basks
in forever peace
ocean politics…
clouds start gathering
in the blue sky
passing birds
the blue catamaran
no longer ours
fishing to extinction catch-22
idle masts
the fished out seas
of generations
lockdown the stickiness of reflection
***
clear water
still no news of
the missing fishermen
I guess the site does not recognize the Turkish character in my name: It should be read as "Engin Gülez".
autumn equinox
wrapped in blue
our microcosmos
harbor reflections—
fishermen make up
new superstitions
(an updated version)
fisher-person's whip
flies at the end of that wind
fishing rods flash flair
Sam…
__ Your feelings as you had so well written over a week ago: "between seasons – fishermen mend their nets – with dreams"… . Then, we must all be in 'Lifes Lake'… as a fisher-person mending our own nets. _m
another fine catch
I fish discarded nets
from the water
scarred dock
masts carve our initials
into the water
fishing
for a living
catch-22
(director's cut)
fishing trip
the time the motor conked out
and daddy cursed
brains create the breeze
as dust hides such deeper thought
found ideas win
__ So often… thoughts are lost in their own dust… perhaps, the "brain's breeze" will re-discover them._m
rising net
the silence of these gasps
in the dusk
lit fish-stall
open mouths darken
the night
*Updated version as suggested by marlene mountain.
tinywords ISSUE 10.3 | 27 OCTOBER 2010