Featured Poet – Marilyn Ashbaugh
frost flower
how vulnerable I feel
when asked to explain
without a bed …
a river wanders
city streets
thin ice
on the birdbath
Election Day
fingernail moon
picking the scab
off survivor guilt
firefly
the little light
we share
Marilyn Ashbaugh’s haiku and short-form poems appear in numerous journals and anthologies. Two of her haiku of were shortlisted for the Haiku Foundation’s Touchstone Award for Individual Poems in 2021 and 2023. She resides in Edwardsburg, Michigan, and Gulf Stream, Florida.
empty terrace …
autumn moon
in the kintsugi bowl
– Keiko Izawa
forest walk
the rhythm
of falling chestnuts
– Meera Rehm
beauty decomposing
into dead wood
reishi
– Ann Sullivan
old church yard
fallen pine needles
soften the silence
– Gavin Austin
autumn patchwork
the time it takes
to alter my patterns
– Michele Harvey
falling snow
the waitress pours me
a cup of 3 a.m.
– Lee Hudspeth
old family home
dusk slips in
through the crevices
– Erica Ison
snow in the air —
my grandma’s tablecloth
freshly starched
– Daniela Misso
mothballs
sweaters folded
in quiet corners
– Jiel Narvekar
old school road
flakes landing
on tongues
– Audrey Quinn
dipping my paintbrush️
in the teacup of shiraz —
tipsy moon
– kei andersen
ceasefire sunset
the cicada’s
deepening red
– Sara Tropper
speckled alpenglow
the dart and dash
dragonflies
– Richard L. Matta
ambered fruit fly
the hazy glow
of last call
– Lorraine A Padden
Easter morning . . .
the color of her voice
in E major
– Ivan Gaćina
fresh tamarind
he peels back
her shyness
– Colleen Farrelly
first skydive
falling within
blue on blue
– Marilyn Humbert
filling a basket
with Golden Delicious
newlyweds
– Ruth Holzer
night swimming
beads of moonlight
trace her figure
– Jeff Hoagland
blue butterfly …
my wife and I conjure
a new language
– Nicholas Klacsanzky
Mobius strip
he only sees
his side
– Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
divorce papers
instead of love notes
paper anniversary
– susan burch
the great
silence between us —
chestnuts cream
– Françoise Maurice
he’s my best friend
I’m no longer his
lipstick collar
– Amber Winter
aroma rises
from the French press —
what’s left undone
– Tim Dwyer
in search of Cupid’s arrow
swiping screenshot
after screenshot
– Kelly Sargent
damsel or dragon
picking just the right fly
for this trout
– Bryan Rickert
fairy house
snow settling
on the mushrooms
– Joanna Ashwell
lawn party at twilight …
Tinker Bell swoops
through a wicket
– Scott Mason
autumn dusk
Nessie transforms
into an otter
– Kimberly Kuchar
a troubling of koi…
circling
every wish
– Katherine E Winnick
miscarriage
the creek runs cloudy
after a rain
– Bob Stewart
storm sirens
an AI defines
acts of God
– Edward Cody Huddleston
a torrent of grief
some floodwaters
never recede
– Bonnie J Scherer
raindrops
on the clothesline
how long can I hold on
– Ravi Kiran
the name
is reason enough —
devil ninebark
– Laurie D. Morrissey
whetstone
a raven sharpens
its voice
– Debbie Strange
spring ikebana
my daughter the age
girls get raped
– Meera Rehm
wary jackdaw
the scarecrow’s gaze
frozen in snow
– Leon Tefft
nautical twilight
the black and purple hue
of her bruise
– Sue Courtney
sailing off
with the seagull —
my candy wrapper haiku
– kei andersen
lip-synching
Rigoletto
fishbowl fish
– Scott Mason
constellation prize
our bodies at home
in a moonlit field
– Peter Jastermsky
surfer:
out of the barrel
out of himself
– Katie Montagna
the mow must go on
landscapers riding
in the rain
– Sharon Martina
the scent
of the matsutake rice
autumn without her
– Keiko Izawa
a stone angel
missing her wings
snow clouds
– Shawn Blair
nameless
without leaves
winter trees
– Shruti Patel
tourist stop
a concrete wall
with a man’s shadow
– Frank Higgins
beale street dusk
ghost of the colored
drinking fountain
– Deborah A. Bennett
the slow breath
of a child patient
spring evening
– Joseph Chiang
no longer worrying
about stepping on cracks
— Mother’s Day
– Nancy Brady
agreeing to go
to the care home
mountain snow
– Timothy Daly
last round
an old man on a ferris wheel
says it’s enough
– Srinivasa Rao Sambangi
bone density
my childhood wish
to be a bird
– Marilyn Ashbaugh
sipping white wine
I’m naked
as the moon
– Max Breedlove
monastery bread —
a skylark´s chirp
instead of butter
– Matúš Nižňanský
burning
the seeds of karma
distant stars
– Jacob D. Salzer
firefly …
just outside
my thoughts
– Christopher Patchel
a skein of yarn
unravels
the end
– Al Williams
silence
what is left of
what was once right
– Rituparna Maji
Tesla model SS
– Nathanael Tico
for melon thieves
and the senate
new moon
– Dan Schwerin
summer in los angeles ice everywhere
– Lisa Espenmiller
holding cell
breath in
breath out
– Mike Fainzilber
riptide
pulling me into
your darkness
– Wendy Cobourne
second thoughts
a sudden flutter
of bats
– Cynthia Anderson
pestle and mortar the way he grinds the truth
– Mona Bedi
chest binding
under my button-up
a lily tattoo
– Rowan Beckett Minor
tidal pull
this longing
to belong
– Bhawana Rathore
the egg
inside
a p0em
– Julie Schwerin
pond math
near perpendicular
on the rope swing
– David Green
no stone
left unturned
zen garden
– thomas david
a line of seniors
the geometry
of aging
– Pat Davis
a tadpole
in a pickle jar
plans for a book
– Robert Witmer
controlled burns
clearing the land
of first nations
– John Hawkhead
border fence
two flags tearing
in the same wind
– Sandip Chauhan
no process for this
use of force
autumn wind
– Dan Schwerin
prison farm
guards practice baton use
on the scarecrows
– William Cullen Jr.
ceasefire
in the balance
fall equinox
– Archie G. Carlos
HIV test
he tells me to think
positively
– Alvin B. Cruz
robots
I almost want to
say goodbye
– Owen Bullock
old age
the warning on a paper cup
of cold coffee
– Gary Hotham
department store entrance
tear-gassed
by a thousand perfumes
– Jay Friedenberg
autumn leaves
the wind and I sweep the path
in opposite ways
– Padma Thampatty
aged dandy
a gnarled turnip’s
pale mauve cloak
– Mark Valentine
monotone lecture
her necklace becomes
a moving meditation
– Christine Wenk-Harrison
parade day
dressing up
to beat the band
– Marilyn Ashbaugh
last year’s shoes
at the bus stop
the jay’s jeers
– John Pappas
recycled jacket
a lighter feel
this autumn
– Xenia Tran
forbidden fruit
in great aunt’s dresser
sugar cubes
– Meg Arnot
colouring me red
the nude
of her lip gloss
– Vandana Parashar
growing old —
stiff in all
the wrong places
– Curt Pawlisch
the potter’s wet hands
she makes a man
out of me
– Jon Petruschke
night skinny-dip
chased out of the water
by someone’s flashlight
– Violet Avery Hall
mapping out
a five-year plan
the future tense
– Rick Jackofsky
thinking
outside the box …
another box
– Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
rising fog
what we forget
to forget
– Maya Daneva
feng shui —
rearranging
my thoughts
– thomas david
reincarnation
been there
done that
– susan burch
waiting for the treecreeper
to come round
and round
– Tony Williams
new moon tide
the depths beneath the seals
beneath the sea cliff
– Kristen Lindquist
downwind
tickseed sunflowers
swarm my senses
– Jeff Hoagland
autumn dusk
the chameleon turns
a darker green
– Neena Singh
the five note swing
at the end of a chickadee’s trill …
late morning coffee
– Joshua Gage
mother tongue
she follows me
everywhere
– C. K. Crawford
attacked by the cat
the tree bauble
springs back
– Annie Bachini
summer rain …
my parents’ unannounced
dorm visit
– Jefferson Limos
new shoes
breaking
me in
– Nathanael Tico
monsoon puddle
I splash the clouds
back to sky
– Ram Chandran
sirens the length of summer in the city
– Charlotte Digregorio
tiger begonia
down tenement steps
a one-leaf zombie
– Randy Brooks
old viaduct
a pigeon adds its tag
to the layers of graffiti
– Ben Oliver
on the other side
of the tracks
birdsong
– Kathryn P. Haydon
free jazz fest
the unhoused man
feels at home
– Stephanie Newbern
giving my daughter
her sign name —
dew-tipped rosebuds
– Kelly Sargent
recess bell
the tattletale
of leafswirl
– Roberta Beary
roasting marshmallows
the bright embers
of childhood songs
– Louise Hopewell
threat of rain
the runner on third
breaks for home
– Joseph P. Wechselberger
last rays of sunset
the curves of laughter
down a spiral slide
– Chen-ou Liu
village church
Supaloaf® serves
as the body
– Tom Zille
hedge clippers
making small talk
between neighbors
– Jaime Wimberly
giving the beans
a pole to climb
Independence Day
– Susan Yavaniski
autumn run
the glow of TVs across
empty gardens
– Jan Weck
algal bloom …
all the talk about growing
food on the moon
– Thomas Landgraf
moonshine
through a gap in the curtains
just one more drink
– Sarah Lawhorne
pulling soda cans
from a trash bin —
Harvest Moon
– Mike Taylor
thinking about everything
that could go south …
canada geese
– Sean Murphy
steep incline
the doctor becomes
my pusher
– Patricia Hawkhead
the postcard
lost in the mail
leaf eddies
– Joshua St. Claire
ash in my hair
I breathe in
a dying forest
– Stephen C. Curro
sea smoke
the whale clicks
of dad’s lung cancer
– Adele Evershed
I was fine
until I wasn’t
sudden rain
– petro c. k.
meteor shower
her wish for
dialysis
– Alexander Groth
ice fishing shack
the empty hole
between me and my dad
– Gordon Brown
one day
two memorials
that time of life
– Charles Harmon
a chopping block
too close to the chicken coop
feng shui
– Eric Sundquist
catching nothing
but sawdust
workshop spider
– Bryan Rickert
a village pond
should be close by
f(r)oggy day
– Dipankar Dasgupta
cathedral ceiling
the ascension
of a black fly
– Mark Forrester
gently crashing
backyard wedding photos
doe
– Roberta Beach Jacobson
another snowstorm
the sculptor watches his work
change in the park
– Urszula Marciniak
first workout in weeks
in the mirror
my ego
– Michael Lamb
clouds
never the same shape
his birthday
– Gary Hotham
New Year’s Eve —
i bleach everything
generously
– Nicoletta Ignatti
drought
wind churning the ground
into clouds
– Deborah Bowman
Remembrance Day —
the poppy petals fall
from a veteran’s diary
– Hifsa Ashraf
hosepipe ban letting go of the roses
– Tom Zille
hospital bed
the gentle touch
of a paw
– Kevin Valentine
exact equinox —
winter wind
now a spring breeze
– Brad Bennett
ceasefire —
crows settle
into silence
– Mariangela Canzi
nonbeliever —
fingers tracing the edges
of my father’s prayer card
– Nicholas Gentile
preparing preserves
the empty jar full
of sunlight
– Martina Matijević
indian summer
the drum circle
returns
– Peggy Hale Bilbro
waterfall vapor …
the eagle reaches
a second sky
– Nicholas Klacsanzky
wild roses
something inside
wants to run
– Patricia Hawkhead
the temple bell
when I almost give up
steep monsoon trek …
– Kala Ramesh
Endpiece – John Hawkhead
