tinywords will begin a new issue on Monday, June 27.
It’s taken more than the usual amount of time to get this issue together, due to some complications in my own
Category: Issue 11.2
shadows fold within shadows of the rose
again and again
a little girl makes it rain
cherry blossoms
black and white
the absolute truth
of her ultrasound
an old woman sweeps
the walk of cherry blossoms
children’s laughter
early spring hike—
brushing the winter dust
off her bones
fireworks at twilight forsythia
(Commended in the Haiku Foundation?s 2011 HaikuNow
Contest, Innovative Category)
July 5th—
ants darken the edge
of a dropped chip
phosphorescence
a firefly alights
on the periodic table
Oasis
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
summer breeze …
the wind generators
in unison
back at
the pawn shop—
the moon in the window
the curve
of her hips—
buttercups
waiting for the sheep to pass a skylark's song
each
butterfly
carrying
spring
Inspired by the poet Marlene Mountain’s haiku tear outs.
as she leaves again the scent of apricots
a swallowtail
touches my fingertips—
warrior pose
unboxed letters
what I missed
between the lines
this delicate rain
the petal makes a typo
of a gravestone date
teaching my sons
to skip river stones
ripples converge
days, weeks, months
her dressing gown still hanging
on our bedroom door
grandma’s well
the water tasted like iron
and cold—
that darkness
from which I’m made
in the curve of the piano a face disappears into itself
beer and wine
a summer night
with my sometime thing
cherry blossoms
I fold my resume
into a crane
The poem received recognition in the 2006 Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival haiku contest.
yoshino cherry tree—
it was never a question
of if
perched
at the tip
of summer
red-winged
blackbird
garden hose a silver arc reaches the last cabbage
box spring
new sheets
old lovers
in the park
pigeons peck in front of
empty benches
white water rafting
we spin around
our laughter
Previously published in Mayfly, Summer 2008
first recital
all the ballerinas out of step
zen garden
one rock
out of place
garden wall
behind the snail
its long noon shadow
ceiling mirror
between screams I see
my child being born
Shiki Monthly Kukai, February, 2011
sun-baked dust— the one thing moving is my neighbour's tongue
a crossword puzzle
side by side my parents
Carnival Elephant
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
flurries of willow fluff
seven ducklings scatter
among the reeds
wind through the pines
your hair
falling off my shoulder
alone tonight
the stillness
between stars
delta breeze
an old, old song
from the ice cream man
how casually
a brown bird
catches a butterfly
in its beak
and flies away
it happens every year
but still
the woods filled with birdsong
end of day
three snails devour
one blossom
long summer
the smell of rain
new again
September 11
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.
the window
overgrown with trumpet vine
my dream of flying
tornado siren,
even the stars take shelter
summer’s end—
I let the thimbleberry
rest on my tongue
liquid sky . . .
a steel bucket hits
the well water
mossy boulder
the softness and hardness
of life
the skip of a skipping stone alpine swifts
abbey ruins
through a window frame
a tuft of wild barley
pink moon
i am asked again
why i’m not a mother
how cleverly the word divides us
Twilight
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
Grey dawn
climbs the sky
bird over bird.
moving day—
untangling bookmarks
from the brass doorknobs
moving through
the summer moon
slow swell
attention
standing tall in a stiff breeze
ixias
today slips into the room ? hungry on tiny paws
thunderbolt---
eyes light up
in the pine tree
night paddling the land blacker than the sea
overnight
the leafing returns
to this dying oak
beneath my hand
such desire for spring
where creek willows weave the sunlight ducklings
falling rain
grandma goes upstairs
step-step
a new path—
little bones
around the fox’s den
frost on the furrows
up to the vanishing point—
sunrise