Welcome to TINYWORDS 23.2
Welcome to tinywords issue 23.2. Congratulations to Ana Drobot and Alan Summers, who open the new issue with their winning poems inspired by our prompt image.
Category: Issue 23.2
equinox
the leaves release
their light
a willow weeping
into the stream
moan of a shofar
history
in present tense
starlight
brooding
over world events
cicadas
(Won First Place in the Gerald Brady Senryu Contest (2021), Haiku Society of America)
blue moon
the scratch and skip
of vinyl records
tattered wings
the slow fade
of a monarch’s reign
float parade
the Apple Queen’s
flushed cheeks
flies coming back
to his palm wine
the new yam festival
clementines
a ring from the rim
of the crystal bowl
a sack
of windfall apples
Sabbath
prairie restoration
a hundred miles
of lark song
autumn morning
my granddaughter and I
shake out the poppies
no gender
to the tulips
their soft touch
expanding universe
feeling at home
in my own skin
early dusk
the song of a lark
becomes rain
needling the cat
from the pine tree
mockingbird
rusted
and abandoned
summer pine
finding time
on a broken parking meter . . .
the autumn rain
whale-road
a rusted anchor stains
the beach sand
monitoring the dead zone blue crabbers
within the stillness rat’s ripples
( Originally published in Poetry Super Highway, December 2022)
runaway kite
tip of the string
soiled with blood
(Originally published in Heliosparrow)
foster care interview
a fledgling catches
an updraft
seeds blown from her yard
the son no one
talks about
fallen hickory nuts
another home run
off his makeshift bat
dusklight
the wake of a black swan
w i d e n i n g
Victorian showcase
the silence
of songbirds
funeral procession—
a classic Harley
with an empty sidecar
country drive
I reorient
to landscape
finding a place to rest the scent of autumn (haiga)
thrift store
in a coat pocket
to-do list
spindrift…
another wave
of election ads
Hiroshima dome
cracked eggshell
of a new world
fallow field
a young man planting
mines
poppies at dusk
in my dream, he says yes
the boy lost to war
(Originally published in the UHTS Songbirds Online Anthology, 2022)
Gettysburg
catbirds at a distance
from the cannon line
drifting snow
each of the war dead
has their story
waking yet not waking …
this silent heart-to-heart
with my late father
chrysalis––
how little I know
of my father’s life
eaves dripping
what do I know
after all
wilting peony
resting in its featherfall
of petals
putting the wild
back in wildflower—
skunk cabbage
moving in
a patch of mint
by the backdoor
grandmother’s house
the ringing of
a landline phone
evening walk—
empty street
but for the sun
(haiga)
book club
a lengthy discussion
about the refreshments
autumn leaves
everyone has a book
inside them
yellow-leafed forest
beneath granite cliffs the creak
of saddles
autumn the panic room inside the oak
wild violet
making a home
where I am
lamplit barn
the calf inside
stops kicking
foreclosed farm
dinner bell ringing
in the dusty wind
crane
by crane
autumn
moves on
burning leaves
a stranger at Auschwitz
asks me where I’m from
one hiker
out of millions
a pebble loosens
(haiku by Agnes Eva Savich, art by Linda Miles)
appointment time
handicap spaces filled
with geese
granting me
an audience . . .
hermit thrush
from the balcony
a lorikeet
whistles me up
a hummingbird
inside my rib cage
this fool in love
small talk
we exchange
candy hearts
a handful of stars
in the garden pail
fingers dripping
I offer them
to you
wildflowers
when one word
is more than enough
making the most
of an old tin roof . . .
drumming flicker
solstice
on its tilted axis
the weathered nest box
Sunday church service
holding my attention
the sun through stained glass
Advent Calendar
the final window
a refugee mother
(Originally published in NOON, 2023)
children’s worship
one thankful for mice
another for cheese
tourist town
the ka-whop of flipflops
through the cathedral
new voice
in the choir—
migrant warbler
shelling peas—
each passing year
like the one before
New Year’s Day
a roseate spoonbill
lifts into dawn
creeping fog
the distant thrum
of a harbor tug
drifting snow
dropping a stitch
in the shadows
nuthatches
inching closer
thick snow
tired
of being tired
winter crows
patina
on dancing Shiva
the guardian
of a ruined temple
another
birdsong
summer
afternoon
adagio
berries so ripe
they fall to my hand
summer love
he whispers into my deaf ear
i read his eyes
midnight rain gathering the jigsaw’s misfits
storm recovery
still no power
in the darkest neighborhoods
white moon at dawn the substation’s hum
a pinwheel
barely turning
midsummer sun
thunder moon
air holes in the lid of
a jar of lightning
summer lightning the wait of my thoughts
bridal mannequin
the price tag
around its neck
the things
she never celebrated
Mother’s Day
birthday cake
this reluctance to cut
through happy
retirement day
re-homing
my desk plant
understanding night
almost the last
firefly
a cattle egret
plucks a gecko from the grass
vacation’s end
holiday park
in every cottage
a different summer
the blue hour
you slipped away
without a sound
(haiga)
lottery call expressions at the midnight cafe
smooth jazz
the bar stools
stashed away