Featured Poet – Tom Painting
spring plowing
a flock of blackbirds
turns inside out
his death
added to her litany
of complaints
detour
she returns my hand
to the wheel
family feud
the pallbearers
take sides
dawn
the oysterman
rakes in the fog
Tom Painting teaches junior high humanities at The Paideia School in Atlanta, GA.
His students have been recognized in The United Nations International School Haiku Competition and the Nicholas Virgilio Memorial Haiku Contest. Tom’s own haiku have appeared annually since 1998 in “The Red Moon Anthology of English Language Haiku” as well as in “Haiku in English: The first Hundred Years” (W.W. Norton & Company, 2013) and “Baseball Haiku: The Best Haiku Ever Written About the Game” (W.W. Norton & Company, 2007). He has recently joined the staff of The Heron’s Nest as associate editor.
sea kayaking
too close for comfort
the sea
– Peter Newton
the haunting
sound of my voice …
thunder moon
– Veronika Zora Novak
Crescent moon —
on my daughter’s body
first shoots
– Vincenzo Adamo
this new small pain —
a single cricket
fills the night
- Cynthia Anderson
a gutterful
of maple leaves
foreclosure
- Chen-ou Liu
rest home blues
another Sunday morning
again this afternoon
– Michael Henry Lee
summer grasses …
so deep the rustling
of memory
– Angela Terry
chrysalis
everything …
has to change
– Mona Bedi
more than stones
in the ruins
sea air
– Gary Hotham
discarded cocoon
tooth gaps in smiles
of first graders
– Deborah P Kolodji
nothing connecting
old telegraph poles
fireflies
– William Cullen Jr.
clouds fast
past a church steeple —
Pascal’s wager
– Jim Kacian
swatting flies
a long paintbrush tail
sweeps the landscape
– Kat Lehmann
a drift of quail
among the leaves …
woodsmoke
– Debbie Strange
rain shadow
scrap metal in the pocket
of my flannel shirt
– Cherie Hunter Day
on a hiking trail
the ringtones
no one responds to
– Maya Daneva
road trip
the many colours
on your sneakers
– Marcus Larsson
twisting trail …
I follow the zigs
in her zag
– Richard L. Matta
mesquite smoke
the journey an ant makes
through my shadow
– Joshua Gage
migrants
in the line of the setting sun
walking back nowhere
– Benedetta Cardone
Yosemite stars —
if only there were fireflies
to go with the view
– Michael Dylan Welch
a pulled cart
trots eastward
- Hay Moon
– Christina Chin
summer breeze
polishing my haiku
by the stream
– Humaira Sholihat
as close as I
can get to the answer —
kookaburras laughing
– Lorin Ford
jaggery toffee
sticking to my fingers
grandma’s love
– Minal Sarosh
twilight
the mountaintop and I
laid bare
– Pat Davis
unshared secrets
wildflowers bend
to the passing wind
– Polona Oblak
bittersweet vines
a bluebird
among the robins
– Kristen Lindquist
tiger lily
pausing my thoughts
ellipses
– Hifsa Ashraf
turning two pages instead of one
the way he should’ve
answered her
– Patrick Sweeney
pandemic summer
lying next to the trail
a thing with feathers
– Brad Bennett
she vanishes
into another bad day
riptide
– Agus Maulana Sunjaya
white daffodils
near the pedophile’s grave
daughter bulbs
– Lorraine A. Padden
old neighborhood
the color code
unbroken
– Pat Davis
nighttime reflections
the crime novel victim
shares my name
– Kristen Lindquist
the minor notes
in a half scale
slow rising moon
– Terri L. French
street beat
a queen of hearts
shines the bike spokes
– Marilyn Ashbaugh
still topping
the T. Rex hit list
birdsong
– Caroline Giles Banks
singing bowls
the sound of elsewhere
shimmers
– Pat Davis
moonbeam
through the window screen
sound of adhan
– Agus Maulana Sunjaya
new display —
the shoe box fate
of a dodo’s skin
– Richard Thomas
one more year
one less
Christmas card
– Ryland Shengzhi Li
helping the day pass
she piles up weeds
from the garden
– Gary Hotham
waning moon
75 years of living
is what it is
– Nika
moth scales
on his fingers
he lets it go
– Joan Chaput
text message a snake sheds its skin
– Victor Ortiz
withered vineyard
the bitterness of an insult
on my tongue
– Joshua Gage
heavy church bells ringing …
our conversation before
and after
– Maya Daneva
my half
of the conversation
autumn crow
– Sandi Pray
dried squid
wrapped individually
in another language
– Cherie Hunter Day
no lockdown
the sunflowers turn
towards the sun
– Minal Sarosh
learning to
speak Spanish
ripening tomatoes
– Jamie Wimberly
sharpening
her colored pencils
tulip blossoms
– Humaira Sholihat
still quarantined
the painted smile
on a pet rock
– paul m.
spring meadow
the muted colors
of this cloudy day
– Janice Doppler
my taillight out
only black people
warn me
– David Oates
new crush
in my old heart —
Sakura
– Manoj Sharma
tea-dolls
the First Nation child carries
more than her share
– Marianne Paul
large white moon
the seasonal depression
she tries to explain
– Rp Verlaine
black snow
the air ambulance hovers
over cemetery junction
– Steve Black
backup singer
the girl without a penny
to her name
– Michael Henry Lee
second-hand book
I read the pressed
rose petals
– Mona Bedi
street painter
stretching the last stroke
beyond the twilight
– Roman Lyakhovetsky
church poor box
the clank
of a dime
– Bryan Rickert
spinning the bottle
hoping for a kiss
from anyone
– John Hawkhead
clearance price
a single
couples shirt
– Ryland Shengzhi Li
wishing
you could save the day —
supermoon
– Terri L. French
sound of one hand clapping
ceremonies open
at Tokyo Games
– Douglas J. Lanzo
poetry conference —
the organizer’s name badge
upside-down
– Michael Dylan Welch
surveying
book titles on shelves
Zoom meeting
– Roberta Beach Jacobson
Easter season
a leatherback hiding
all her eggs
– Bryan Rickert
scorched prairie
I have forgotten the sound
of rain
– Debbie Strange
witches’ brooms
in the treetops
gathering dusk
– Joanna Ashwell
thunderclap —
rolling over
on your side of the bed
– Hemapriya Chellappan
spring storm
her dupatta drifts from
her bosom
– Meera Rehm
father’s death
hometown a little less
home
– David Oates
dawn rain
machined stakes mark
a loggerhead nest
– paul m.
false diagnosis
recovering from the illness
I never had
– Marianne Paul
third lockdown
ten-year-old me and my dog
in the crawl space
– Chen-ou Liu
mom’s prim upbringing
after dad left she learned
to say ruckus
– Kath Abela Wilson
not knowing if there’ll be more
the rise and fall of goose honks
– Craig Kittner
new moon
walking a black dog
by sound
– Sandi Pray
fully vaccinated …
a bluebird rests
in my shadow
– Samo Kreutz
city snow
the black gums
of the teased dog
– Mike White
challenging
a serrated dawn
coxcomb
– Mike Gallagher
switchbacks
a black-capped vireo
by sound only
– Agnes Eva Savich
outback campfire —
a storyman throws light
on the stars
– Lorin Ford
rec league
the outfielder catches
a mosquito
– Alexander B. Joy
summer dress
seeing through the Queen Anne’s lace
to the silky green
– Diana Webb
looking for a bridge
the boys skipping
from stone to stone
– Joshua St. Claire
park playdate
a trellis
of climbing roses
– Deborah P Kolodji
gentle rain
the news
turned off
– Annie Bachini
Haiga – Vicki Miko
