Category: Issue 17.2

Welcome to the new issue, and read the haiku that won our writing prompt, by Sam Bateman.

summer’s end the sparkle of coins in the fountain  

cottonwood seed a wish from my childhood  

lavender even the old stems fragrant       (Shiki Monthly Kukai, 3rd place, April 2008)

a call to prayer by the sea the scent of wild roses

  her plastic pail waiting by the bed sand-dollar moon

the real world within the real world tide pools    

Muscle Beach the effortless lift of terns    

autumn boardwalk all that’s fallen through the cracks  

the librarian shakes sand out of my over due b o o k  

vacation’s end? finding my worry stone right where I left it  

weekday morning pulling my mood off a hanger

Tokyo metro the ebb and flow of frowns       (Originally published in Asahi Haikuist Network, 6/16/17)

Hiroshima Day hydrangeas bent low  

so many nightmares this tangle of cables next to my bed    

birth announcement the loneliness of social media  

  free Wi-Fi . . . each to their own device

birds drift over the meadow summer-deep the distant pulse of a tambourine    

bones decaying into data ? a withered field    

a breeze beyond rhetoric rippling meadowgrass  

bases loaded… the ice cream truck rounds the bend

mid-summer a goldfinch rests in a chain-link fence

fire hydrant barefooted boys drenched with laugher

morning glories tighten their grip? late summer  

  a murder of crows night comes to pieces

I inhale and my lungs fill up with bees though all hope is lost there is still this hum       (Originally published in Hedgerow Poems, December 2016)

hospice another deadline comes and goes

the mosquito mesh pixelating the night

full moon the wolf in my dog’s voice  

I am drawn to the darkness drifting through an arroyo the distant call of coyote

old ruin ? a roof of bougainvillea

ancient temple the face of Buddha hacked off

bullet points on gun control Orion’s belt  

winter weary war wounds ache again

arms wide I lean against the wind that blows across the atlantic how long before you let me go?    

“Getaways,” a haibun by Dru Philippou

November I turn myself over to the rain  

sunrise… a beggar’s arm stretching into day  

goodwill chained to the counter? charity box

caught again talking to myself bus stop heat  

yard sale ? the old rug pulled out just enough

Ancestors’ Day– sandals pile up in the entryway

siblings… the different narratives of our childhood  

dinner with my ex – wine turns to water      

war news my second helping of tea  

far thunder- how long without hearing a reproach

the edge of the unspoken … half a rainbow  

a horse’s eye on the merry-go-round fills with rain  

coming home to no new messages lingering rain

  wild mint all my should-haves gone to seed

cut flowers the short life of compliments

the importance of small details Queen Anne’s lace

leaves turning the yesterdays yet to come

rain on plums the honk of geese moving on  

all the wealth that he left golden leaves

bare winter tree shadows barcode the road

meditation class a stray thought follows me home

mountain trail … a bear crosses my mind    

filling me completely the singing bowl empties its om

first violin– the play of stage lights on frayed horsehair

first day of classes the heron a model of attention    

school windows filled with paper snowflakes no two the same

her scars deeper than bone . . . winter solstice

somewhere a waterfall I can’t see the sound

snow moon? the light from without the light from within

slow rain … by a roadside cross a spray of silk roses

dry stone wall Paddington Bear out in the rain       (Originally appeared in Presence #58, July 2017)  

closing the picture book as if by magic sleep    

cold light another empty bottle promise  

codependent a flaw deep in the diamond  

February rain . . . yet still the sparrows playing beneath a parked car    

the soft knocking of my pulse on his pillow . . . valentine?s eve    

moonrise a bullfrog greets the dog star

stillness the kayak breaks the river’s glassy skin

one cast after another measuring the brook

  sunset fishing the flood tide catching the light  

solar eclipse I fill my wheelbarrow with sunflowers

autumn equinox the truck driver clicks his tongue at a passing dray       (1st Prize, The Martin Lucas Award, 2016)

twining the tendrils of peas through the trellis the sweep of the sun  

high-plains hut the swirl of the milky way  

our small fire through a hole in the clouds the only star    

the high meadow a cicada’s whine sharpens into silence