Issue 13.2 – tinywords

Welcome to T I N Y W O R D S issue # 13.2.

We would like to thank all the poets who contributed their words to this issue’s writing prompt based on Ray Rasmussen’s

summer solstice—
the Shiraz
we’ve been waiting to open

fresh tear
in the screen door
summer arrives

windy picnic
a tree seasons
the guacamole

empty lawn chairs
all our serious talk
last night

cleaning both sides
of the sliding glass door–
bird song

magpie calls
the verses we exchange
by email

skywriting all the disappearing words between us

(Second Place, 17th International Kusamakura Haiku Competition)

my side of it—
wet potato peelings
land in the sink

river current I practice letting go

out of the ocean
the moon
lifts

between islands
a ferry dissolving
in the mist

a boat’s lone light rocks between sky and sea

no gears to shift
acclimating
to island time

fresh paint
on the water tower
tourist season

trash day–
a drum set
in the pouring rain

oats porridge—
between mouthfuls
the usual silence

tinted mirror
what I think
I believe

deep in debt
I answer the phone
as my son

hiding in everything plain sight

pre-op
the nurse writes yes
on my breast

spring hail …
the moment I chose
to live

(Previously published in Mu, 2012)

we live beyond us
lowering the weeping cherry
into moist soil

High Iron

–for E.A.

At a hundred fifty feet, I’m comfortable as in a living room chair. Then it gets harder—the world shrinking to a map gaped at from an

Wedgwood
tissued and boxed
for the auction
the chips and cracks
of my mother’s life

day moon
the tethered weight
of father’s watch

(Shiki Kukai, 2nd Place, June 2012)

after the funeral
the task of managing
her secrets

roses lost in weeds–
her teacup filling again
with cold rain

chrysanthemum garden
in this world too
bomb makers

a raven
    tumbling
across the sky
    my wild mind
in his beak

Haiga

dogwood petals
falling with the rain
my thoughts in pieces

my memory
good enough
to keep me up

evening birdsong
the storm clouds that came
to nothing

winter roses —
trying to remember
trying to forget

orion
my mind back at the source
of words

before mass
all heads bowed
to smart phones

day moon even here I’m somewhere else

with my child
on my shoulder, I walk
in the long rain
carrying the heaviness
of shattered dreams

inchworm
measuring
a child’s palm

childhood map
trees and hills
we gave names

the crawl
of the pool vacuum
dog days

dry wind
a saguaro catches
falling stars

midday heat still ticking abandoned bicycle

twice past
the same buoy
catfish in a pail

dry well
I haul up a bucket
filled with summer

joint checking —
our last casualty
of war

male gaze the female in me squares up her arms

arms race
how quickly can you fold
paper cranes

where the waterfall
becomes a river…
prayer at dawn

sunflower heart
the chiffchaff sings
its name

milkweed
a glimpse of her
without her disability

cowlick
some part of me
still wild

first night
in her bed
wild geese

I stop
in the zebra crossing
for the full moon

disused road roots resurfacing

clean the house
or read haiku. . .
the dust thickens

mackerel clouds
silver gulls squabble
over the bones

unweathered slats
in the old dune fence
plover trills

week fourteen
my wine glass
full of water

burning off the spirits the bright blue flame

zazen–
my knees
won’t stop talking

haiku panel
every speaker
goes overtime

listening to the game
on the riding mower
long drive to deep center

new neighbor
a stone buddha smiles back
at the garden gnome

unexpected heat
a mannequin
winks at me

lemon wedges
line the path —
summer’s end

moving forward
and staying in place
chrysalis

indian summer
the child still at home
already gone

(originally published in Acorn 29, Fall 2012)