Pancake Moon

By Anju KishoreBengaluru, India pancake moonstories the beggar feedsher toddler Published in THF Haiku Dialogue 3/23

Taylor Swift Changes Controversial Lyrics

by Neal WhitmanPacific Grove, CA, USA In a poem the Soviets pre-dated 1916Akhmatova wrote no one would wantto listen to songs now thatthe bitter days foretold had arrived.Fifty years later in 1966 Frank Sinatra quippedthat the world would be a dreary placewithout a song. He mused thatit gives you something to think about.Actually, the Russian poet penned her poemin 1917 after the Bolshevik revolution.That gives you something to think about, yes?

Noon on the Ohio

By Tish DavisConcord Township, Ohio, USA The Ohio is the most beautiful river on earth. Its current gentle, waters clear, and bosom smooth and unbroken by rocks and rapids, a single instance only excepted. 1 the muted river—a towboat nudging a coal bargeupstream  the passenger in the backof a company van jackhammerson the driver’s side   cracking concrete— the road crew boss signals with his hands In a gravel lot not far from the road, workers change into noontime poses. Some have removed their shirts. One rubs his biceps; another twists the cloth to wring out the sweat.  Some of the younger men gather around a…

El Pueblo Unido 

By Peggy BilbroAlabama, USA mixedinto the chilijalapeños the special flavorthat gives spice to life Our favorite Mexican restaurant. The best flautas and quesadillas, not to mention the sizzling fresh fajitas. Their margaritas weren’t the best, but the food and the servers over-rode that deficit. They were the sweetest employees who always recognized us, and loved to speak Spanish with me, as a retired Spanish teacher. Then we noticed that one by one they started disappearing. Our favorite server was no longer there to greet us. The young fellow at the cash register had disappeared. The motherly lady who always sat in…

Tanka – our sins

By Peggy Hale BilbroAlabama, USA our sinsunto the seventh generationwe watchthe rivers run dryand do nothing

Haiga – Time Bomb

By Richard GrahnEvanston, Illinois, USA Energy.gov lists the following resources as the primary sources of energy on Earth: Nuclear energy, fossil energy (oil, coal and natural gas), and renewable energy (wind, solar, geothermal and hydropower). The following are listed as clean energy (solar, wind, water, geothermal, biomass and nuclear). (I have to beg the difference where nuclear is concerned because spent fuel rods need to be stored somewhere and whenever a power plant has a disaster, the surrounding area becomes a toxic wasteland. It's also interesting that the fact that fossil fuels are "dirty" is conveniently omitted.

Haiga – Cosmic Waste

By Richard GrahnEvanston, Illinois, USA "I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity." Dwight D. Eisenhower. I will add that war is distracting humanity from solving the real problems we face on this planet as a species. It is the antithesis of collaboration, something we desperately need in order to be able to share this planet in a sustainable fashion.

Tankart – Future’s Child

By Richard GrahnEvanston, Illinois, USA As the world's superpowers flash their muscles, the following, chilling thought comes to mind . . ."The prospect for the human race is sombre beyond all precedent. Mankind are faced with a clear-cut alternative: either we shall all perish, or we shall have to acquire some slight degree of common sense. "Bertrand Russell, "The Bomb and Civilization" (1945) https://web.archive.org/web/20200807144106/http://www.personal.kent.edu/~rmuhamma/Philosophy/RBwritings/bombCivilization.htm

Haiga – “I have a dream”

By Richard GrahnEvanston, Illinois, USA Human Rainbow "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Martin Luther King Jr."I have a dream" speech, August 1963

Haiga – AI

By Richard GrahnEvanston, Illinois, USA According to the World Food Program, ~783 million people in the world are hungry. Of those, 333 million face severe hunger and 47 million are on the brink of famine or worse. We live on a planet with finite resources. As the world population swells to over 8 billion, now more than ever, the human trait of compassion is needed. Not something easily reproduced by a machine.

Haibun – Vantage Point

By Richard GrahnEvanston, Illinois, USA empty parking lot—a breath of foggy airfrosts my glasses Today marks the first of this year’s snow. It’s been frigid enough the past week for crystals to accumulate. But autumn blankets the snow with its trademark flare—leaves falling so fast, it’s hardly a fair contest.A child shakes her snow globe . . .  The where-I-stand-now erupts with a gale-force howl, snow and leaves rise from the pavement in painted pirouettes—here-to-there-to-here. I lean into the flurry—face frozen—this moving picture spinning me in a dance between the seasons . . . But, quickly as the howl arises,…

Haigabun – Stars

By Richard GrahnEvanston, Illinois, USA I know there are stars; I have seen them at night. I have floated among them my entire life. They seem far away in these city lights. But inspired, I am, by the way they gleam. The slightest star in the dimmest dream ignites my beacon for all to see. aurora sky . . .the flickering treetopsof my childhood

Haiga – Extinction

By Richard GrahnEvanston, Illinois, USA Per the National Museum of Natural History, recent studies estimate that there are about 8 million species on planet earth of which about 15,000 are currently threatened with extinction. Scientist generally agree that the rate of extinctions today is many times higher than the natural extinction rate. Pollution and habitat disruptions are just two factors in this reality.