slight breeze
a boat separates
from the dock
naked by the window
she is draped in street light
and rain
a walk in the rain
body prints in the bed
back home
since I moved
to California the birds
sing of Texas
the sound of a bell
crawls over the hills
evening twilight
the moon presses down
on the wetlands
mist rises
David Watts’s publications include seven books of poetry, three collections of short stories, two mystery novels, seven western novels, a Christmas memoir, and several essays. He is a physician, musician and past Radio/TV personality. His haiku have appeared in Hedgerow, Modern Haiku, Creatrix, The Bamboo Hut and Akitsu Quarterly among others.
Eight dollars an hour
Can you feed your kids with that?
Can they live on dust?
Earth is fine. It’s us,
We’re the sick ones. Greed chops up
our veins like carrots.
When I fell in love,
it was forever. Blessing?
Curse? Rug and ceiling.
I like being a
homosexual. I like
the sun. And darkness.
Issa and I on a train.
No depot, no arrival,
many opening buds.
That’s me, tied to the
train track screaming—until I
see the train is clouds.
David Bowie died.
His songs visit me. We have
iced tea on the porch.
Spring in a coffin
looks fresh, yet dead. I touch
the corpse and wait.
Kenneth Pobo also has a new chapbook coming out called Lavender fire, Lavender Rose.
The Chickens
Because
baking blackberry muffins
on a fall afternoon
depends so much
upon thoughts
of your neighbor’s bantam rooster
Hamlet
& his tawny sister
Nugget
oh tiny dinosaurs
with blue feet!
how they strut alongside
the quiet road
uncrossed
& sleekening
in the low sun’s
gold
Stephanie L. Harper is a recently transplanted Oregonian living in Indianapolis, IN. Harper is the author of the chapbooks This Being Done and The Death’s-Head’s Testament. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Slippery Elm Literary Journal, Panoply, Whale Road Review, Moonchild Magazine, North Dakota Quarterly, and elsewhere.
I see only sky
the geese
a flight path
sheltering in place +
parking tickets fluttering
on windshields
a blizzard swirls
around the redbird tree
snowglobe
throwing away
the colored tinsel
I rethink old ideas
walking home
the sound of pickets
white xylophone
after the divorce
she speaks
in singular mode
power outage
this silence
should have a name
David Watts (again) arrived to poetry mid-life, expanded into short stories, NPR commentary, novels and now haiku. Formally trained as a musician and medical doctor. Lecturer in poetry and in the humanistic values of medicine.
how lonely it is to be feared
by cheerful birds—
hawk atop fencepost
early spring—
oak trees budding
yellow as the sun
a brown finch call…
from the opposing cedar hill
a return greeting
fading world—
shadows of the hills
during sunset
house finch
calm as the wind-swept cedar
splashes water on its wings
in a dark place
a bluebonnet rises
from dead leaves
in the shape of a scythe
the day moon waits
for nightfall
Luke Levi graduated from Texas State University with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance. His haiku can be found in Humana Obscura’s spring/summer 2021 issue. You can often find him sitting outside, listening to birds singing in the Texas Hill Country.
my morning coffee
I sketch the eyes of god
through empty cups
this itch to slither
pith of stars,
slung like a sling-
shot from the cosmos
Pamela Gemme is a poet, political activist, and and the art editor of the forthcoming Essential Voices Anthology Borderless Books WVU. She lives in Boston Massachusetts., Recent or forthcoming publications include The American Journal of Poetry, Haiku Journal, The Chicago Quarterly Review, Heliotrope Anthology, J Journal, Eclipse Literary Journal, The Ghazal Page and many others.
Sunburn
Center piece, middle
Brother, you left an
Incomplete poem
Or should I say my
Memory is partial,
The heart of it gone
Invisible ink
Turning it to red
Miami Youth Fair
Blue ribbon winner,
High school haiku, just
Seven syllables –
Reader, I tried, I
Cannot finish it
Bill Hollands holds degrees from Williams College, Cambridge University, and the University of Michigan. He is a teacher and poet in Seattle, where he lives with his husband and their son. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Rattle, Hawai`i Pacific Review, The Summerset Review, 3Elements, PageBoy, and elsewhere.
Tongues & Tributaries
Number
Rust and rage like stars
And they say this life is hard
A bright tangled space
Strewn
Cut and recycle
A kinetic parity
Like a homonym
Index
What it looks to me
Tallow sharp and diminished
Ardor blue index
Epithet
Genus and species:
A transitive politic
No-name epithet
Pandemic
Downright existent
Big business behind closed doors
Pandemic discourse
NYC
Jazz, New York City:
The rot iron beat glaring
Like autumn in swing
Affect
Bright as the noon sun
On-kilter and somatic
Pretense, strike me down
Tim Russow earned a B.A. in English from Boise State University. His poetry is published in the BSU English Department’s newsletter Wit’s End, The Cabin Literary Center’s WITA: Nerve, Military Experience and the Art, and Narrative Northeast.
Fall-purpled bracts— sunned
dew prays up, prismatic: dark
green understory.
Autumn hydrangea—
blooms browned, dried in clusters: song
a bright dead chorus.
Streets gingko golden—
October-heady light: loss
seems impossible.
Violeta Garcia-Mendoza is a Spanish-American poet, writer, and photographer. She is a member of Carlow University’s Madwomen in the Attic Writing Workshops and a reader for Split Rock Review/Press. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Peatsmoke, The Dewdrop, and Saint Katherine Review. Violeta lives with her family in Western Pennsylvania.
