Category: Issue 15.1

We begin our 15th year with a fresh crop of daily poems that will take us from winter well into spring, weaving in all the seasons along the way. Thanks to everyone who

Before the words, both of us trembling. Falling snow.  

winter night? late in the Scrabble game I draw the Q

slowly falling snow little by little I learn to forget you       (originally appeared in White Lotus, Issue 6, 2008)

Bukowski in bed all that heartache and grit between the sheets the way words touch me the way they don?t

we make out of all this friction love         (originally appeared in Modern Haiku, 42:3, autumn 2011)

long night rolling over the same old troubles

existence a little four-note song  

year finally over I scrub a ring from the tub  

black coffee on New Year’s morning spangles of sunlight  

a dragon kite carries the sun in its mouth  

new dawn… outed in a tweet  

a slow day at the window watching an icicle repair its broken parts  

loneliness opening the window to let in the rain  

Mid-winter evening, alone at the sushi bar? just me and this eel.       (from his haiku collection She Was Just Seventeen, Modern Haiku Press, 2006)

Christmas eve wrapping a cold-stunned turtle in seaweed  

bonfire smoke we talk about our disappointments

brittle pink coral my underwater memory of you  

only so far onto the beach tracks of a wheelchair  

daylight savings what was never ours to keep

goldfish bowl my daughter asks if I’m going to die

inner city building a canvas of honeysuckle climbs the graffiti

the calendar in a frozen summer house August blooms

heavy snowfall my web traffic increases     (first appeared in Mainichi Daily News; March 4, 2013)

the third baseman strums my bicycle spoke spring breeze

spring rain the depth of a tulip     (Previously published in Daily Haiku; Cycle 16, October 2013.)

old palace– the guide speaks on behalf of the king

the slow reentry after a week’s vacation travel clothes still neatly folded inside our suitcases

wishing I knew their language night-calling migrants  

sheepskull ? the dead eyes of border patrol

news of a distant suicide? one leaf spirals downward toward glittering frost  

dark news the comfort of crows

sub-zero chill the ornithologist spends the day on Twitter  

interrupting my self-criticism ? a cardinal chirrups for her mate  

old snow slightly off white the state of my soul

withered vines? stringing winter into a rosary  

stone paths the making of a pilgrim

shuffling my steps to match the cadence of her cane  

chasing shadows we wait on news of her scan

game of life at the end everything goes back in the box

all-night diner ? scrying my future in a coffee cup  

parts unknown the sax player improvises a lullaby

busking — the rattle of coins off beat  

migrating red knots the return of my heart murmur

rain timpani against the downspout — a charm of finches  

the sound of water forgotten drought

a hundred miles out the glow of Los Angeles desert starlight  

perseid shower… someone mentions the have-nots  

exchanging money entropy at the heart of the universe

an echo of happier times her voice on the mixed tape  

decades later a journal she left my unknown mother  

blackbird song – the name of a daughter i’ll never know  

in the facets of a fly’s eye the spider multiplies

fresh line bait the look in the pelican’s eye

box of old letters … from a distance the owl still sounds close  

fox on the trail? your hand held up to my chest

in our new house unpacking the familiar

thanksgiving leftovers all the things we didn’t say

idling on the driveway my anger  

glowing embers the running argument with myself

in between your life and mine a wilderness of brambles

divorce court ? I park near the funeral home

jury duty inspecting his face in his leather shoes  

vet visit a couple leaves with a collar  

this vagabond life- symmetry in the wings of a butterfly

childrenamongtherowsofsoldierslaidtorest

daymoon peacekeepers march in riot gear

barbed wire spirals along the church wall  

how long can a robin hold its song in autumn my late father’s words stirring my soul

“In the Beginning”–a new haibun by Bob Lucky

disco band… swirling dust motes take the spotlight

lighting cigarettes from each other?s cigarettes the slow setting sun

daybreak with the curtains drawn my mind dark . . . then, the warble of a tui couple     (Previously published: Undertow Tanka Review;’ Issue 3, 2014)

her question answers itself moonlit sea     (slightly edited from what appeared in Mariposa 31, Fall 2014)  

my brother’s eulogy all the reasons I should have kept in touch

mudflats darkening the wind freezes avocet cries  

crew hand sweeping the workday back in the bay

deeper each time the summer well

cloudburst … my son adds his voice to the rumble

hovering dragonfly I too hesitate now and then

oranges on a table icicles in the sun  

end of story you peel your tangerine in one continuous piece

finally the graveyard, too, abandoned  

blackberry bramble, bearded rhododendron? forty years together

rose garden old friends suddenly old

desert sunrise smell of rain outlives the rain

Awake in the dark? so that is how rain sounds on a magnolia.     (Included in She Was Just Seventeen, Modern Haiku Press, 2006.)