heartsease among the barley corn,
sweet face among the barley corn
these ripening days are fair and few

*

Anna Dickie
My (Elastic) Gap Year

a zephyr’s benediction
shells and bladder wrack
the sea, the sea

*

Maureen Jivani

Burn

In my head, Plath
slowly lights the cigarette, only
to burn herself.

*

Alishya Almeida

(insert your own small stone here)

In the summer heat the meadow fizzes with grasshoppers.

*

Brian Moffat
Petrophase

The last of the sun
And late in the day showers
Make dirty red brick gold

*

Andrew Stott
Fragments

summer rain

hypnotic drips sizzle
on a backyard grill;
squawking grackles
sulk through wet grass

*

Angie Werren
woman, ask the question

The tail of a garter snake slitters through the space between the step and the house. Wait. A black snake already lives there.

*

Beverly Robertson
murmuring trees

Rain runs down cracked bark.
Powder lichen transforms.
Outrageous luminescence.

*

Deborah Walker

always in a dream
waking beside you

*

Stephen Jarrell Williams

A hula hoop sleeps at the girl's feet. She nudges it awake with her bare toe.

*

Alice Pettway
Curiouser and Curiouser

finding the tune
his master lost
a busker's dog

*

Matt Morden
Morden Haiku

i like to take my cereal bowl
out on the back stoop and watch the sun
come up over mrs. sherman's house
its yellow face cut in half by the tv antenna

*

Regina C. Green
The Red Bird Chronicles

Grackles spill across the sky:
lap lanes leading to the sun.
I adjust my backstroke
and follow.

*

James Brush
Coyote Mercury

A pile of handkerchiefs taken from the washing line and folded. They smell of sunlight, moving air and smug domesticity.

*

Clare Grant
Three Beautiful Things

the crisp sting of sunburst kiwi on my lips

*

Isabela Oliveira
beautyisinthedark

the late light glows
on the Ochil's golden shoulders

*

Colin Will
Sunny Dunny

Poppies

on the side of the railtracks at Mitcham Eastfields;
bloody red dollops against green tangle
and a grey-brown crumbling wall.

*

Matthew Friday
Matthew Friday

Avocado

I’ll tear out my heart
and bury it in avocado
to soft boom-boom
in the yellow butter green.

*

Katherine May
Katherine May

Haiku II

honey bee
covets festered tomato
barrel belly pang

*

Lawrence Gladeview
Righteous Rightings

the arcade at the tropicana casino. I mail my winter coat home,
stand facing the electric blue swimming pool, mouth the words to a neon sign:
"swim-up blackjack bar."

*

Sean Patrick Conlon
The Vanishing Man

Noticing only withered flowers in the bouquet.
Talking of celebration.

*

Jeeves
Silence is Poetic

Lying side by side
we are a Rorschach
that won't give up its secrets

*

Dana Guthrie Martin
my gorgeous somewhere

From far higher than
aural trigonometry tells,
the ventriloquist lark
sings into space.

*

Greg Clare
The Breakneck Walks

Sunset and incoming tide,
the pink haze around the horizon
reflected right up in the shallows.

One man fishing.
Further on, one gull.

*

Rosemary Nissen-Wade
Life Magic

morning schoolbus
twelve blank stares

*

Ted Simkins
Coldspring

at dusk
the garden watered
by kitchen light

*

Mat Cross
Glass Onion

Left behind, one partially eaten piece of toast, one drop of blood.

*

Beryl Singleton Bissell
Finding Time for God

Canada day
the body releases
a shout of red

*

Pearl Pirie
Pesbo

(happy publication day to me)

Our projects are stalled.
Sit with me here on the porch
until the rain stops.

*

Tamra Hays
Laughing Dove Poetry

river swans
one surprised by oars
the other, not

*

Mark Holloway
Beachcombing for the Landlocked