A night heron
stalks its reflection

Crawfish scuttle
through rippling feathers

*

James Brush
Coyote Mercury

In a high-vis jacket he runs with his shoulders hunched so he resembles a question mark. I’ve seen him before on a bike. He looked like an apostrophe.

*

Clare Grant
Three Beautiful Things

crushed cellophane creak
bats at dawn
swarming

*

Tim Nees
Tim Nees

Listen to the lapwing
interrupt the fling of wind
cut across flint ground.

*

Greg Clare
The Breakneck Walks

Backstrokes give me a clear view of the sky and the circling vulture above.

*

Beryl Singleton Bissell
Finding Time for God

the soft lump
in the toe of my wellington
a dead shrew

*

Matt Morden
Morden Haiku

AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE

Bombs Kill 95
the headline says

beside the sunflowers
in a milk bottle

*

Howie Good
Apocalypse Mambo

the grinning cliché of a moon
and stars of course, always the stars

*

Maureen Jivani

I ate the apple
then picked out the seeds
and swallowed them one by one


*


Dana Guthrie Martin
my gorgeous somewhere

haa haa haa haa
I should have looked -
an old dog panting?

*

Mat Cross
Glass Onion

Autumn Music

Japanese maple
hunched like a pianist

fingers of flame
tap keys of earth

*

Jeff Klooger

My wife's explanation of my domestic tasks is so long that stray thoughts tumble in my head like socks in the washing machine.

*

Brian Moffat
Petrophase

a japanese man asks to share a cab to the airport
and I agree, he asks me where I'm from and I say,
Massachusetts. he doesn't understand. asks, "american?"
pulls out a map. I point to home, say, "massachusetts,
far away."

*

Sean Patrick Conlon
The Vanishing Man

Through the window, leaves.
On the window, shadows of leaves.
In the window, reflections
of lace curtains patterned with leaves.

*

Rosemary Nissen-Wade
Life Magic

light falling through blood -
the kitchen window is cracked
where the bird struck it

*

Ian Houston
Asleep On My Feet

Swoop

Thick brown clouds pregnant with rain swooped in slowly and decapitated the mountains.

*

Ajay Vishwanathan

there must be hostas:
their bloom stalks spike
above the deck edge

*

Danni Gaylord

The Pear Tree

Though the yard is ordinary, just mown,
sidewalk cracked and uneven,
porch in need of painting,
it blossoms regardless, white buds displayed
for a humble audience:
some chickens, a farmer, his kind wife.

*

Isaiah Vianese

- Pigeons -

Unfingered pigeons stagger home after Hen-Nights,
feather dresses torn.

*

Amy Blakemore

The Emperor in a State of Existential Crisis

Am I?

*

Greg Santos
Moondoggy's Pad

cat hairs from my trousers
on the cobblestones:
there is no breeze

*

Kelly Shepherd
Kelly Shepherd

warm day, jacket weather
for me. muscled backs
paint railings

*

Pearl Pirie
Pesbo

basketball moon;
midnight games
on asphalt.

*

Asmara Malik

The tablecloth is damp.
Rice crackers are all I have to eat.
No plates.

*

Jack Jones

brown--
a whiskey gleam
his skin on scarlet sheets

*

Nicole Krueger
Books and Bards

Haiku Sequence: Pampas Grass

pampas grass
marsh mud glistens
in the rowboat


marsh wren's cry
the sun ripples onto the mud


wetland chill
a patch of ripples disappears


marsh lightning
the tree's blossoms open
into egrets


wetland channel
the moon spreads onto the grass

*

martin gottlieb cohen

day break
half a pale blue
egg shell

*

Mark Holloway
Beachcombing for the Landlocked

through the leylandai hedge:
the flash of a turquoise shirt, the clicking of a child’s bicycle, birdsong

*

Lynne Rees
an open field

ten minutes standing by the back door
watching a goldfinch at the bottom of the garden
till the washing starts to hurt my arms

*

Geoff Sawers
Pioden

Above West Brompton Station
a muffled moon,
a smudged orange orb bleaching the fuzzy night.

*

Matthew Friday
Matthew Friday