Featured Poet – Ferris Gilli
divorce papers
she carefully snips
a loose thread
heat wave
stillness of the catbird
stillness of the cat
cherry blossoms
the baby’s hair too fine
to hold a ribbon
a lifelong dream
that slipped away …
wild honeysuckle
corn tassels
her unborn child
changes position
Ferris Gilli served as an Associate Editor of The Heron’s Nest from December 2000 to August 2018. She currently serves as the journal’s Consulting Editor. Her haiku collection, Shaped by the Wind, was published in 2006 by Snapshot Press. Ferris’s award-winning work has appeared regularly in eminent haiku journals and anthologies since 1996.
just when darkness
seems unbearable
night-blooming jasmine
– Agnes Eva Savich
landing
in my bitter coffee
fragrant petals
– Roberta Beach Jacobson
restrained anger
I manage to find an iris
among the nettles
– Maya Daneva
temple ruins
someone claims to have
God’s ear
– Vandana Parashar
monsoon night
the small pond fills
with croaks
– Mallika Chari
broken compass
the baby news
nobody wants
– Maureen Kingston
blood moon
lying beside his body
… a red rose
– Lorelyn De la Cruz Arevalo
another missile attack
prayer flags to Amitabha
dripping rain
– Sonam Chhoki
bright winter moon
caught in barbed wire
family detention center
– John Pappas
gun thunder
the courting merganser
goes limp
– Janice Doppler
custody battle
all the blues
in the fingerpaint
– Lorraine A Padden
opening day
butterflies
take the field
– Bryan Rickert
bike bell
a girl’s giggling
through the alley
– John Zheng
what’s left
of the basketball net —
summer breeze
– Evan Vandermeer
apple petals
drifting in the breeze
warbler song
– Janice Doppler
summer afternoon —
making the four brushstrokes
of yawn
– Ruth Holzer
maple syrup
the sticky issue
we must not speak of
– John Hawkhead
wind chimes
leaving their arguments
incomplete
– Minal Sarosh
mansplainer —
the expletives
in my silence
– Polona Oblak
barn swallows
keeping my opinions
to myself
– Margaret Tau
all that we have
left to say
left inside
– Mark Forrester
migrating cranes
the line she speaks of
crossed long ago
– Ravi Kiran
waning moon …
the certainty gone
from her voice
– Angela Terry
frayed scarf
what to do
with the remains
– Annie Bachini
wave after wave
you and i
crash to shore
– Lorelyn De la Cruz Arevalo
discount roses
the vanishing spark
between us
– Mona Bedi
a child’s laughter …
a warm wind ripples
the ghost tree
– Kathryn Liebowitz
tuning fork
you’re giving me
good vibrations
– Susan Burch
around the house
in just my underwear
the teapot whistles
– Gordon Brown
busking
for love
tree frogs
– Jeff Hoagland
pink tulip blooming her first hijab
– Margaret Tau
raked sand —
the circular motion
of a second hand
– Angela Terry
what’s
left of my life
mayfly
– Marilyn Ashbaugh
evening shadows
whatever became
of childhood dreams
– Nika
bitter gourd
the way we adjust
to old age
– Mona Bedi
hummingbird
flying backwards
a pause in time
– Oche Akor
god’s country
a roadkill deer
returns to dust
– Bryan Rickert
shifting fog
the muted tones
of a winter garden
– Jay Friedenberg
rain drips from new leaves …
the indigo bunting’s
last brown feather
– Kristen Lindquist
the density
of a starless night
refugee camp
– Maria Concetta Conti
naked willows —
the homeless
sharing gloves
– Mariangela Canzi
coming home
someone cut down the tree
they hung grandfather from
– Gordon Brown
stars and stripes …
another bank holiday
for the war dead
– Jim Kacian
folding
the ballot paper —
shifting sands
– Juliet Wilson
Memorial Day
the graves blooming
in Purple Hearts
– Jo Balistreri
unbroken heat …
face to face with the neighbor
at his white fence
– Chen-ou Liu
mist muddled moon
he cannot remember
where he put the years
– John Hawkhead
the one
that got away
dollar bill haiku
– Marilyn Ashbaugh
Saturday night
father says he’s going
to Timbuktu
– Joshua St. Claire
gin flavor
my husband is into botanicals
too
– Elena Malec
bar light
more potent even
than moonlight
– William Hart
twilight butterfly
an old man boards the train
singing an aria
– Keiko Izawa
Apothecary’s Rose
mother instructs me
in the Sorrowful Mysteries
– Joshua St. Claire
sweet sage
perfumes the cemetery
your pinwheels in the breeze
– Jo Balistreri
day lily …
the lingering warmth
of mom’s touch
– Hifsa Ashraf
moonrise …
the monk listens
to an owl’s hoot
– David He
waxing moon
lost for words
on a ginko
– Manoj Sharma
chewed gum latches
to the bottom of my shoe
carpe diem
– Danny Daw
tobacco mosaic
all those
wrong turns
– Patrick Sweeney
armchair and settee oblique conversation
– petro c. k.
life
in a bubble
spittlebug
– Jeff Hoagland
mother’s day
my old apron gift
worn all her life
– Keiko Izawa
first tweets
somewhere someone’s
praying for me
– Carmela Marino
piano duet —
fitting my fingers
on top of her fingers
– Adele Evershed
one bread roll for a dollar
makes breakfast for me
five sparrows and a starling
– Matt Edgeworth
hanging baskets
for mother’s day
the fallen fuchsias
– Tricia Knoll
Wide open tulip
no one really cares whether
it’s a boy or girl
– Shelli Jankowski-Smith
a skipper’s big eyes
the desire for more
than this
– Deborah P Kolodji
spring equinox
in the yard the prisoners parade
their new tattoos
– Mark Miller
date night —
the new language
we learn together
– Mark Forrester
a neighbor’s new baby
rain beads cradled
in cobweb slings
– Carolyn Hall
swan neck I write long forms too
– Brad Bennett
paperbark maple
the truth you never find
in books
– Tony Willliams
war narrative a distorted tree on the pond
– Meera Rehm
moon
i get out my dog-eared book
of platitudes
– Christine Eales
a pause
in the afternoon …
comma butterfly
– Theresa A. Cancro
cliff walk
from one end of my mood
to the other
– Laurie D. Morrissey
i sit all day
meeting no one —
cemetery birds
– Deborah A. Bennett
mountain trails …
I find a way
back to myself
– Srinivas S
the glimpse
of my inner child
attic moon
– Hifsa Ashraf
waking up the leaves sweep me away
– Herb Tate
Hotei offering
loaded
with expectations
– Nathanael Tico
lower stomach cramps
the scent of
a withered bud
– Padmini Krishnan
full moon in the morning —
my breakfast
with sparrows
– Vincenzo Adamo
hunger moon
raccoon silhouettes
steal across the lawn
– Carolyn Hall
lazy morning the warm flesh of a fig
– Kelly Moyer
prayer rugs
beside Doric columns
bending the same knee
– Caroline Giles Banks
another dose
of non-prescription medicine
forest walk
– Christine Wenk-Harrison
Black Mission figs
the late summer cakes
of my late wife
– Maya Daneva
hospice garden
blooming again
old memories
– Christopher Calvin
etch-a-sketch
wanting to redo
her ekg
– June Rose Dowis
singing with him
the nursery rhyme
Alzheimer’s
– Meera Rehm
pregnancy walk
before she can spot it
the goldfinch is gone
– Evan Vandermeer
fresh-faced rookies
I have now outlived
cobwebbed box of cards
– Mike White
praying
for every being
until mosquito bites
– Douglas J. Lanzo
war news —
my two nephews fight over
the plate of fries
– Hassane Zemmouri
late to class
a hint of chores
on her boots
– Pat Davis
always one more
to step on …
the law of legos
– Laurie D. Morrissey
on the doorstep
the drunk rehearses
one more time
– Mike Gallagher
I follow
a new recipe
¼ moon
– petro c. k.
Wash day afterthought —
a woman pulls her bra off
through her t-shirt sleeve
– M. R. Pelletier
senior dating …
spooning
grapefruit sections
– Theresa A. Cancro
in the confessional
almost all
my sins
– Pat Davis
vacuuming
the dust that was
once me
– Nika
a nihilist —
and yet, longleaf pines
bending in the breeze
– paul m.
memory care
I tell Mom
a secret
– Jim Krotzman
hospital room
only my shadow
reaches sunrise
– Carmela Marino
so many strangers
with the same nose as me
dad’s funeral
– Louise Hopewell
train horn
the ash
from uncle’s cigar
– Frank Hooven
family reunion
the ring master
raises his whip
– Robert Kingston
blended family
customizing each
pizza slice
– Richard L. Matta
merry-go-round —
a father’s answer
to his child’s simple question
– Meg Arnot
new scarecrow …
I choose an Arrow shirt
for him
– Kanchan Chatterjee
every day
the fan dancer’s sultry eyes
wall calendar
– Bob Carlton
morning haze
pine scent
from the toilet freshener
– Polona Oblak
climate change debate
I swear I’ll go net zero
on swearing
– Chen-ou Liu
beach sunset
resisting the pull
to pull out my phone
– Nathanael Tico
dusty
the dog’s water bowl now full
of our memories
– Gary Hotham
Mother’s Day
rain collecting
on the grave marker
– Joseph P. Wechselberger
greening
the greenhouse glass
summer rain
– Tony Willliams
raindrops
on the windshield …
my wandering thoughts
– Madhuri Pillai
redwood forest
a banana slug
inches along
– Deborah P Kolodji
high summer
a heron stands
on a power line
– Kristen Lindquist
we add a layer
to the compost heap …
downy woodpecker
– Debbie Strange
speed dating …
close together in the grass
Grove snails
– Deborah Karl-Brandt
stinkbugs
thudding against the screen
the longest day
– Ruth Holzer
winter blackbirds
a pair of gloves
left behind
– Brad Bennett
downhill
shadows of geese
outfly the geese
– David Kãwika Eyre
two iron fences
meeting unevenly
year’s end
– paul m.
weeds
on the sidewalk
this nameless beggar
– Arvinder Kaur
temple street …
no flower adorns
the flower girl’s hair
– Srinivas S
a stray dog’s stare
in the high-rise shadow
a street kid
– Chen-ou Liu
reflection pool —
visitors drown out
the silence
– Geoff Pope
offline from news
the redwing blackbird
won’t tell us anything
– Pearl Pirie
Mariupol —
deathly hush of the graveyard
alive with poppies
– Joe Sebastian
the sun bleeds into darkness war
– Mariangela Canzi
war funeral
the smoke
from a distant fire
– Jay Friedenberg
lingering war
drooping wings of
the origami cranes
– Keiko Izawa
sunset —
remembering
peace
– Juliet Wilson
Haiga – Mona Bedi
