Dedicated to the memory of Cor van den Heuvel
answering the intercom —
only birdsong
from the street
at the market
the spot on the melon
where it lay in the mud
after the grand slam
the umpire busy
with his whisk broom
above the workbench
an Indian paddles his canoe
into a quiet pond
late at night
wringing out the dish rag
smell of the sea
We are privileged to be able to present these five seldom-seen haiku by Cor, first published in annual chapbooks produced by the Spring Street Haiku Group during its earliest years.
Featured Poet – Annie Bachini
after the spring clean
wishing I’d played the music box
one last time
bits of poster
and station mould
map out unknown regions
on the bus
snagged by something
her hijab tightens
vibrating
with the pneumatic drill
arm tattoo
learning about
quantitative easing
the cat and the fiddle
Annie Bachini’s haiku and senryū have appeared in a number of international journals and anthologies. She is also a published writer of tanka and renga. While a member of the British Haiku Society she took on various roles, including being president. Currently, she writes reviews for Presence journal. Her recent collection Two Haiku Poets with Helen Buckingham received an Honourable Mention in the 2024 HSA Merit Book Awards.
moon shadows
a branch of lunaria
in my hands
– Daniela Misso
turning down the sheets —
outside Perseids fall
without a sound
– kei andersen
abandoned in snow
the unfinished path
back to home
– Joanna Ashwell
shooting star
my son touches the ocean
with a finger
– Carmela Marino
white moth
a flutter of moonlight
on jasmine
– Betsy Hearne
long night
playing the old blues
on shuffle
– Keiko Izawa
autumn rain …
a chorus of crickets
deepens our silence
– Neena Singh
deep water
the sorrow end
of the pool
– Lorraine A Padden
waning summer
unsold annuals bloom
in the trash bin
– Bryan Rickert
nightly routine
same wish
different star
– John H. Dromey
soft rain
moving across the pond
the shy boy asks for a dance
– Ann Sullivan
the sparkle
in her eyes
wolf spider
– Jeff Hoagland
wind gusts everywhere my skirt
– Rowan Beckett Minor
flirting
with the shadow’s edge
a roe deer
– Erica Ison
snowflakes
a love letter
just opened
– Nazarena Rampini
ancestral field …
fairy forts
ringing the silence
– Ann Sullivan
climbing the hill
the old road and I
autumn stars
– John Pappas
still still
under a row of bare oaks
a black-robed monk
– Chen-ou Liu
photographing
the wind
bent pines
– Al Williams
the day
with little left to give
dragonfly
– a p hywel
morning kiss
the song inside
a music box
– Meik Blöttenberger
homecoming
through my fingers the pull
of the river
– Gavin Austin
autumn rain
the moon slips
from a pine needle
– Paula Sears
morning feed …
hummingbirds hover
on my newborn’s wall
– Jo McInerney
Bodh Gaya
the taste of silence
in the air
– Lakshmi Iyer
autumn evening
remembering the words
to an old song
– Robert Witmer
summer school
360 degrees
of blue sky
– Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
awash in sunlight
her sandcastle
smile
– Pat Davis
second date
we run up the hill to watch
sunset again
– Bob Stewart
sidewalk sizzle
fire ants marching
along the cracks
– Ruth Holzer
high summer
her dress the color
of corn
– Brad Bennett
monsoon season
a continent away
a vet remembers
– John H. Dromey
silence
between them
no peace
– Mike Gallagher
clouds gather
over the corn field —
news of war
– Mariangela Canzi
iced tea
for the afternoon visit —
the silence between us
– Nicoletta Ignatti
monsoon clouds
a peacock’s cry
needs no translation
– Neena Singh
shelling the pomegranate —
my mother’s lies
one after the other
– Nicoletta Ignatti
cloudburst
hoping my father’s mood
passes over
– Douglas J. Lanzo
forever war
deep in the hedgerow
a forgotten toy soldier
– John Pappas
teepee lay
dad still setting fires
with microaggressions
– Adele Evershed
the husband tells his wife
“you haven’t done it right”
winter clouds
– Thomas Landgraf
at the sausage factory
no one wants to work
in the Small Package Dept.
– dan smith
great in bed the breakfast tray
– Scott Mason
thank goodness they’re not
anatomically correct
the gingerbread men
– Shelli Jankowski-Smith
trick or treat flasher happy halloweenie
– Susan Burch
her knees by her shoulders
she glares at me
from the old magazine
– Mykel Board
rip tide —
after the ice cream
his cool kiss
– kei andersen
monsoon morning
shedding another layer
of desires
– Govind Joshi
double rainbow
in her eyes nevertheless
rejection
– Tomislav Sjekloća
snowy prom night
goosebumps
on her sleeveless arms
– j rap
piano lessons the secrets we keep
– Roberta Beary
bottled fireflies
this reluctance to delete
your messages
– Ravi Kiran
returning the ring —
the sapphire
a deeper shade of blue
– Kelly Sargent
autumn
trees & leaves
this f
alling
apart
– Jenny Fraser
moonless night
keeping my thoughts
to myself
– Sharon Martina
she left me —
a lipstick smile
on the mirror
– Adi Assis
summer corn
deepening the dent
in the butter cube
– Helen Ogden
a frog
or its shadow —
moon dusk
– Ashish Narain
white space
on the paper …
the shape of the wind
– Angela Terry
morning light
seeping from each side
of the blackout curtains
– Annie Bachini
autumn equinox
the yeast dough
heaves a sigh
– Marilyn Ashbaugh
the fourth step . . .
tiny white violets pop up
amid deer droppings
– Kristen Lindquist
showing
me to me
the cracked mirror
– Ram Chandran
i should believe
in second chances
indian summer
– Meera Rehm
the story
of my life
past imperfect
– Nancy Orr
Google Earth
I find
myself
– Gordon Brown
harvest moon
inside the scarecrow
a cricket
– Françoise Maurice
cloudy day
so many
false sunflowers
– Jeff Hoagland
walled garden —
a paper puppet
capers in the wind
– Meg Arnot
terra cotta pot the contrivance of cultivars
– Kristen Lindquist
free to wander …
the fierce blue eyes
of a caged crane
– Ben Oliver
midnight skinny dipping
so many moons
in the water
– Jon Petruschke
sunflowers
reach for the sun
freshmen
– Marilyn Humbert
nip in the air
a pocketful
of whiskey
– Bonnie J Scherer
highchair shadow the fugitive blueberry
– Scott Mason
autumn wind
the dandelion shows me
how to let go
– Enrique Pablo Reyes
leaves in the wind —
the swirling influence
of social media
– Paul Callus
unripe corn
facing this rigidity
of thought
– C.X. Turner
sorting hat
another friend moved
to Slytherin
– Susan Burch
late thaw
snapping fingers
at a same sex blessing
– Adele Evershed
Juneteenth
the library closed to everyone
equally
– Mykel Board
winds of change
I’m taken under by the tide
of the sturgeon moon
– Amber Winter
candle march
all the street shadows
united as one
– Nitu Yumnam
see spot, run!
a robotic dog
toting a gun
– Seth Friedman
the dripping font
on each placard —
No means No
– daipayan nair
car wreck —
on a cracked window
a pro life sticker
– Adrian Bouter
march for peace
how quickly
the chant fades
– Sandra Simpson
bathroom break
suddenly a poem
awake with me
– Biswajit Mishra
Black Friday
Santa rides the escalator
to the toy department
– Joseph P. Wechselberger
barely able to make out the Tunnel of Love
– Scott Mason
in the fitting room
the shop girl takes
half off
– Jon Petruschke
Lakeshore Drive cemetery
I can’t afford
to rest here
– Randy Brooks
autumn leaves
I too feel at times like
letting go
– Ernest Wit
fireflies
brushing my face
remaining days
– Ruth Holzer
wavelets
we trade reflections
pond lily and I
– Sharon Ferrante
my everything
if only for a day
lily
– Julie Schwerin
late summer
I miss the person I hated
being
– Gordon Brown
cemetery dawn
my brother is full
of wildflowers
– Deborah A. Bennett
Dad traces the phone number
carved on his cane …
home again
– David He
sharpened by hands
that never held me
grandfather’s cobbler’s knife
– Eric Sundquist
sunset glow
on the hospice room wall
dad’s honeymoon photo
– Maya Daneva
making strawberry pie
the arthritis
in mom’s handwriting
– Suzanne Leaf-Brock
big enough
for what we can’t see
night sky
– Gary Hotham
a room
in a room …
mosquito net
– Devoshruti Mandal
not meaning
to answer the koan yet
Zen fool’s fart
– Randy Brooks
Magritte —
pipe dream
manifesto
– dan smith
screen-free day
just where I left it
reality
– Nathanael Tico
tenant farmers
the scarecrow wears
hand-me-down clothes
– Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
autumn begins —
more uncertainty
in the beggar’s voice
– Maurizio Brancaleoni
harvest moon
the migrant picker’s
bitter melons
– Archie G. Carlos
soup kitchen
the silence of the bowls
during the sermon
– Frank Higgins
the unfinished hems
on the new girl’s clothes
spring snow
– Joseph P. Wechselberger
prairie wind
mother remembers me
as someone else
– Mona Bedi
distant storm
the slowness of
the diagnosis
– Edward Cody Huddleston
pine cones clustered
on a low branch —
the weight of autumn
– Cynthia Anderson
after the diagnosis
no hesitation when she reaches
for the cigarette
– Alexander Groth
alphabetizing
poetry books: so many
dead friends
– Aaron Anstett
night walk
she chides me
for feeling safe
– Tom Zille
its life
in the theater
wardrobe moth
– Bryan Rickert
Senior Living
my fine china tea cup
somewhere
– Caroline Giles Banks
rarefied air
monarchs and queens mingle
over milkweed
– Christine Wenk-Harrison
falling leaves
sorry for the mess
I’ll leave behind
– petro c. k.
mountain peak
I cover my ears —
flocking crows
– Maya Daneva
snow in the forecast —
the in-laws
extend their visit
– Bonnie J Scherer
carpenter ants
putting all that work
into our porch
– P M F Johnson
driverless car —
trying not to
bite my nails
– Meik Blöttenberger
hurricane remnants
my sons’ muddy footprints
by the back door
– Joshua St. Claire
another year
more yawning holes
in the hostas
– Patricia Hawkhead
long meeting
my hand moves with the sun
on the table
– Tom Zille
parting earth from sky midnight train
– Kathryn Liebowitz
thread still criss-crossed
through the holes …
grandmother’s button tin
– Laurie Morrissey
cornfield
every crow
in place
– Mark Forrester
sweater weather
a plastic sheet blurs
the tomato vines
– Richard Tice
a water strider
and its shadow
not one, not two
– Deborah Bowman
corn moon
the white feet
of a stalking cat
– Frank Hooven
mahler nine
a nesting bird startles
from the rafters
– Kathryn Haydon
eulogy in ASL
the hearing privileged
learn to listen
– William Cullen Jr.
streetlights twinkle
in puddles
— neon moon
– n.b. smith
rush hour
a mother pushes a stroller
around trash bins
– Alan Yan
paper plates
letting go the weight
of winter
– Barrie Levine
a child still
in the reflection
toy shop pane
– Richard L. Matta
beach sunset lighting
the fir tree’s ornaments —
California Christmas
– Katie Montagna
sudden heat
a rose falls apart
by her own weight
– Lucia Fontana
night river
the city takes
a dip
– Vandana Parashar
dog days …
even the silence
heavy lifting
– Angela Terry
cold sips of coffee …
I catch him giving eyes
to the cute waitress
– Joana Figueiredo
our last get-together
the torrid heat
of the plain
– Maria Concetta Conti
long thin cloud
deleting if
from my past
– Keiko Izawa
moth holes
in the cashmere
long covid
– Marilyn Ashbaugh
döstädning
still a few things
worth living for
– Helen Ogden
tilted axis
dad crosses the date line
for the last time
– John Hawkhead
waning summer
a sliver of ocean
in the rearview
– Susan Yavaniski
Photography by Anna Jo, Haiku by Lucia Fontana
