Featured Poet – Gary Hotham
distant thunder —
the dog’s toenails click
against the linoleum
one mirror for everyone
the rest stop
rest room
the library book
overdue —
slow falling snow
hospice walls
a print of the famous
still life
year’s end —
eyes inside
a party mask
Gary Hotham has been writing and publishing haiku since 1967. More than twenty collections of his haiku have been published since 1976. Recently his Mannequins Dressed for the Window: Haiku Secrets received the 2022 Marianne Bluger Chapbook Award Honorable Mention. He is very grateful for the favor the Japanese poets did for the world of poetry with their work creating the haiku genre.
ice cream cart —
a street child and I
share a smile
– Neena Singh
paua eyes gleam
in the fading light —
Uncle’s tokotoko
– Anne Curran
tiny hands
full of joy
earthworms
– Tuyet Van Do
fieldmouse
in the house
first spring day
– Carolyn Hall
outdoor bar —
a Guinness mustache
with light jazz
– Jo Balistreri
just two leaves
of an orchid …
women’s rights
– Kristen Lindquist
unseen scars
gathered over the years
her sabi smile
– Ravi Kiran
mother tongues —
in other words
other worlds
– Steve Bahr
the cold road
to the bride’s new home —
arranged marriage
– Milan Rajkumar
girl with a shiner
on her chain
the peace sign
– Caroline Giles Banks
election day
yellow leaves visible
through fresh snow
– Kristen Lindquist
the scent
of a prescribed burn
trust in science
– Christine Wenk-Harrison
july assassination
gazing at a sky
without stars
– Keiko Izawa
evangelizing
his handshake
hardens
– Laurence Stacey
queer dawn
rainbow butterfly
finding her wings
– C.X. Turner
thunderclap
my kids call me
bro
– Vandana Parashar
wild honeysuckle
does it matter
if it’s a bee or a wasp
– Meera Rehm
pub clamor
embers from the pipe
light his eyes
– Evan Vandermeer
accidentally
kicking the beggar’s cup —
winter stars
– Stephen Toft
a love supreme
the dawn chorus
in Coltrane
– Jeff Hoagland
roots and twigs
on the forest floor
this longing to belong
– Brad Bennett
fall bonfire
we become
what’s left
– Jamie Wimberly
a barn gone to seed
the autumn sunlight
falling in
– Dan Schwerin
all that’s left
of summer dreams
a paper moon
– Angela Terry
on the phone pole
a missing person photo
fading
– Frank Higgins
listening
at my friend’s grave
for his stutter
– Robert Hirschfield
not so lonely
my shadow walks with me
all the way home
– Arvinder Kaur
sharing my walk
with no one —
purple harebells
– Laurie D. Morrissey
ab(alone) just a shell of who I was
– Susan Burch
l o n e l i n e s s …
through the night, the ci… ci… ci…
of a cicada
– Joe Sebastian
old library new dreams
– Roberta Beach Jacobson
slowly
returning to normal
peony blossoms
– Jamie Wimberly
over Dad’s grave
though they did not move
the clouds are gone
– Sean O’Connor
forest bathing
I strip away
all my concerns
– Nika
around the bend
the fish i have yet
to catch
– Kevin Valentine
oolong darkening news of your death
– Laurence Stacey
eviction notice
house sparrows take over
the nest
– Deborah P Kolodji
the hawk flapping
near circling vultures —
arrhythmia
– Laurie Wilcox-Meyer
dark night —
all the weight of the unseen plastic
in the fisher’s net
– Mark Miller
thunderstorm
the art teacher wields
his palette knife
– Lorin Ford
new year’s eve —
brooding over the poem’s
last line
– Deborah A. Bennett
finger tapping
the hollow spots
on his desk
– Robert Kingston
pale autumn sun
briefly the old cat plays
with a fallen leaf
– Stephen Toft
crescent moon
curling in my hand
fortune teller fish
– petro c. k.
the ivy now
turned to crimson —
first report card
– Michael Dylan Welch
braided bamboo
the adoption papers
are approved
– Debbie Strange
stamp collector
all grown up
before the book fills in
– Barrie Levine
family album
a younger self smiles
back at me
– Nika
the child
speaking its own language
understandably
– Mike Gallagher
spreading ripples
my father teaches me
to skip stones
– Deborah P Kolodji
Bach at nightfall
the steady counterpoint
of stars
– Jennifer Hambrick
wind bent song
on the other shore
a Gypsy camp
– David Watts
voices trickle
through the cave
water marks
– Annie Bachini
moonlit night —
the old Victrola spinning
memories
– Stephenie Story
clouds flow
on the tin roof
jazz&blues
– Mircea Moldovan
sometimes I forget
she’s gone
winter star
– Julie Schwerin
full moon
the tides
inside me
– Kerry J Heckman
night sky
our fit in a space
too big
– Gary Hotham
in place
of the fallen oak
tonight’s moon
– Ryland Shengzhi Li
grieving …
a Noble Fir
holds its winter
– Jennifer Hambrick
amish school
a tethered horse
clips the grass
– Jim Krotzman
if everything is
maya,
maya is maya too
– Ram Chandran
daylong drive through the sameness of mountains
– John Zheng
damp wallpaper
the cherry blossom
is falling down
– Christine Eales
Mississippi mud
catfish settle
in the bucket
– Bryan Rickert
the french tart
in my mouth
her tongue
– Ron Russell
fifth Sunday in Lent
a glutton savors
the labyrinth
– Dan Schwerin
walled garden
pulling me closer
to temptation
– Joanna Ashwell
red-light district
exchanging a smile
with a stranger
– Orrin PreJean
my lover at the window night-blooming jasmine
– Cynthia Anderson
waterfall
on the edge
of not falling in
– Tony Williams
butterfly effect
the breath
between us
– Marilyn Ashbaugh
first blossoms …
they are just friends
the mother says
– Deborah Karl-Brandt
late night
pillow talk
katydids
– Jeff Hoagland
first love the yellow fringes of dandelions
– Jo Balistreri
bathroom stall
picking my favorite
dirty limerick
– Gordon Brown
the sound
of one hand clapping
a mosquito
– Ron Russell
picture poems muse see’em
– Caroline Giles Banks
young chef behind the counter
the dish a customer wants
– petro c. k.
main drag —
the car tows
a pen full of sheep
– Anne Curran
deserted beach
staring down the wind
the raven’s eyes
– Mark Miller
winter months
the family album
in black and white
– Aishwarya Vedula
night shadows
an eviction notice
flaps in the wind
– Chen-ou Liu
shelter night …
settling into the fold
of her single blanket
– Barrie Levine
a story he’s told
a hundred times
the veteran shifts his weight
– Carolyn Hall
Armistice Day
stacking the limbs
of a fallen tree
– Bryan Rickert
mid spring —
on a soldier’s gravestone
an untimely leaf
– Milan Rajkumar
war news —
the small-batch bourbon
burns going down
– Joseph P. Wechselberger
cold snap
flip-flops to boots
overnight
– Christa Pandey
ancestral ground
summer grasses
touch the sky
– Kathryn Liebowitz
summer night
the stillness
of wind chimes
– Alvin B. Cruz
after the phone call
our soup cools the remaining
quiet
– Gary Hotham
bougainvillea
the quiet
of an aphid swarm
– Daipayan Nair
hospice
dad uploads
to a cloud
– Marilyn Ashbaugh
meditating …
among the peonies
a stone Buddha
– Christina Chin
plain green tea
her sweet grin before
bitter words
– Christopher Calvin
understory
removing
someone’s trash
– Agnes Eva Savich
thin ice
the deep cracks between
each word we speak.
– Rp Verlaine
long married
their car doors slam
in unison
– Laurie D. Morrissey
forever promised
in the jeweller’s window
her third wedding ring
– Meg Arnot
uber frustration …
talking with bots
all afternoon
– Barbara A. Taylor
rain fills
the toppled birdbath …
another rejection letter
– Theresa A. Cancro
rehashing yesterday’s news
the back-up beep
of the garbage truck
– Helen Ogden
haggling …
the crabs crawling
out of the basket
– Minal Sarosh
a lid for every
piece of Tupperware
my need for closure
– Sharon Martina
red-eye
the live map
flickers in the dark
– Brad Bennett
first snow
in the exercise yard
men becoming boys
– John Pappas
All Souls Day —
the smoke detector
gives up the ghost
– Ruth Holzer
smashing expectations
until my racquet
breaks a string
– Douglas J. Lanzo
not just milkweed blowin’ in the wind
– Jo Balistreri
job interview —
too hazy to see
the distant mountain
– Michael Dylan Welch
on his youth
dad falls silent —
morning fog
– Kanchan Chatterjee
a white plover
so serene, and yet
my clouded mind
– Neena Singh
climbing kudzu
I forget my mother
tongue
– John Pappas
early morning fog
tripping over
the pronouns
– Lorraine A Padden
bleak prognosis
the dance of mayflies
at dusk
– Ravi Kiran
beach joggers
bits of seashells
becoming sand
– Pat Davis
scattering ashes
the winter wind takes
my friend’s secret
– Chen-ou Liu
temple ruins
a flock of pigeons
pecking leftover grains
– Manoj Sharma
cottonwood seeds
in their drift
the shapes of wind
– Richard Tice
dust motes
in the spotlight
saxophone solo
– Brad Bennett
Sunday morning
the café more crowded
than the church
– Alvin B. Cruz
summer night
looking for quolls
in a Scrabble dictionary
– Gordon Brown
wine and cheese
binge watching
the sunset
– Theresa A. Cancro
summer fan —
I skim the poem
the book reveals
– Lenard D. Moore
sunrise the path through the fields
– Mariangela Canzi
rope swing
across the dry creek bed
fraying memories
– Angela Terry
equal parts
soil and dirt
eulogy
– Mike White
dusk drive
not looking both ways
the coyote
– Nathanael Tico
drawing
a breath
charcoal pencil
– Jim Krotzman
Sunday chores …
the sun lengthens lengthens
and lengthens
– Manoj Sharma
grandpa’s best suit
fraying at the cuffs
another mate’s funeral
– Louise Hopewell
news of your death
I spy
the first blossom
– Owen Bullock
apricot petals on mom’s tomb
I tell the cemetery keeper
there is nothing to clean
– Maya Daneva
with the lambs gone
the field near the graveyard
it seems distant now
– Sean O’Connor
hospice garden …
the long shadow
of the sundial
– Theresa A. Cancro
the trout stream
where we spread his ashes
rainbows on the rise
– Richard Jordan
just a brushstroke:
all around
my imagination
– Cristina Povero
book with a broken spine
spellbound
until the stars disappear
– Ash Evan Lippert
morning walk
hanging on
through the monarch’s slipstream
– Lee Hudspeth
harvest time
the whirl of blackbirds
over rice fields
– John Zheng
wilted lily …
in the shop window
i check my posture
– Keiko Izawa
change oil light
letting myself
go
– Nathanael Tico
no more
a wild eyed little thing
shrinking violet
– Marilyn Fleming
first a human
and later an ant —
shapes of this cloud
– Samo Kreutz
college ring falls
off my next-to-longest finger
dandelion
– Lenard D. Moore
my point lost
mid sentence
driftwood
– Sharon Martina
becoming unsure
of her punctuation
a missed period
– John Hawkhead
the quick
pace of his walk —
winter’s chill
– Madhuri Pillai
secret cove
the sound of one halyard
clapping
– P. H. Fischer
antique mirror grandma in my reflection
– Pravat Kumar Padhy
sea rise record high school shootings
– Victor Ortiz
fuel shortages
a fight in the queue
to the bird feeder
– John Hawkhead
Likert scale:
from one to five
rattlesnakes
– Mark Forrester
one child’s hand
returns the blows of another
craters of the moon
– Joshua St. Claire
Paradise Valley
a sign on the farm gate says
trespassers will be shot
– Louise Hopewell
Endpiece – Dana Clark-Millar
