Early Dusk
By John Pappas
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
early dusk
reaching into the warren
winter’s chill
New Allergies
By Elizabeth Crocket
Ontario, Canada
Fish out of Water
By Elizabeth Crocket
Ontario, Canada
Descendents of an Antiquated Paradigm
By Richard Grahn (Editor’s Contribution)
Evanston, Illinois, USA
the neverending TV screen
batters our brains with atrocities
conditions of pain and eternal strife
the knife of the tyrant’s bloody reign
we consume news without a fight
night after night in shock and awe
we sleep it off and return to the maw
of the daily grind
where we find ourselves miles
from the front
the battlelines drawn
so long ago
entrenched in our DNA
we cheer the forces of apocalypse
as if that could solve our complicity
from our State of Affairs
attention fixed
on the smoke and mirrors
we miss the fact
that we’re standing on a planet
our habits have battered and bruised
it doesn’t matter who wins the war
reset the board
move the pawns from dawn to dusk
we the pawns—sacrificed
on the altar of lust
lust for power and untold riches
do you see the hunger?
do you know the pain?
do you see the displaced?
feel the heat of the flames?
now comes the storm
the forest ablaze
the earth quakes
comes a tidal wave
dried up lakes
and melting glaciers
polluted streams
and rising seas
night has fallen on the carnage
of tomorrow
we’ve burned and hollowed
our legacy
does the world owe us
a second chance?
or maybe a third, or fourth, or fifth?
I lift my head from the mire
looking for answers
in the searching eyes
of a lost face
to share with them
this hallowed ground
to free us from this weight
this maelstrom
drowning hopes with hate
as the fog of war
surrounds us
hand-in-hand
let’s feel our way to the center of town
wake the neighbors
spread love around
what will break the despot’s will?
will it take a billion prayers?
how many faces to mend our wounds
projected on this earth?
when will this neglect end?
and when will we lay our weapons down
wrap our arms around each other
come together and defend the planet
share this tiny dot in space?
can the world ever become a welcome place
for every living creature?
it’s not a far-fetched notion
let’s stop this incomprehensible commotion
and pull the plug
on the idiot box rife with obnoxious news
choose a future solar bright
by changing the way we approach today
dawn always breaks the chains of night
light’s but a dream set free
in a world of possibility.
First Glance
By Florence Heyhoe
County Down, Northern Ireland
Looking at both cars, he doesn’t see any damage. His door barely touched the one alongside, but this was enough to awaken the roaring bull inside who—primed and looking for a fight—leaps to his feet shouting, ‘Go back to your own country. You’re not from here. You’re nothing but a f…ing paedophile.’
The situation heats up and becomes more threatening. He has the wherewithal to phone the police. While they wait, the antagonist draws blood by scoring his nose with his car keys.
‘‘Officer, this man here assaulted me.’’
october morning
a world so broken
the ground bleeds
Late October
By: Steve Van Allen
Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, Earth
global warming?
a beautiful spring day
late October
The Blue Dot
By Bryan D. Cook
Orleans, Ontario, Canada
Cloaked from earthling sight, two extraterrestrial fortune hunters gaze down at planet Earth.
“Which bit do you want?”
“I’d take the blue stuff but it’s so full of plastics that I’ll pass. How about you?”
“ I’d take the green-brown stuff but it’s overrun with pillaging apes. I’ll pass too.”
“ Let’s go find another trophy world and leave this one’s sun to evaporate away its atmosphere.”
“O.K., pity though, it looked like such a precious blue gem on the trajector screen!”
ocean highway
too fast and busy
for humpbacks
Crunch
By: Theresa Cancro
Wilmington, Delaware, USA
the crunch
of gravel underfoot
stop-and-frisk
Wild Violets
By Theresa Cancro
Wilmington, Delaware, USA
wild violets
brushing her cheek
the shadow of a bruise
Selected poem, 7th Sharpening the Green Pencil Haiku Contest, 2018
Allegory
By: Steve Van Allen
Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, Earth
I’ve lost so much: people, pets, keys, books. In the short time since settlers arrived, streams and rivers in the Alleghanies have lost too.
I am daily polluted by chemicals and plastics in my food and water. Streams are damaged by global warming, fertilizers, dammed rivers, and air pollution effects us all.
80% of all hellbender salamanders are gone, and like me they want to hide all day, take care of their young, and not bother anyone.
eventide
lonely swim
searching for peace
Depression Era
By Debbie Strange
Canada
Honourable Mention, 2024 Sonic Boom Annual Vispo Contest
Artist’s Statement:
A paper collage embellished with frayed burlap and fabric symbolizing how women learned to “make do” during the Depression Era. The grains of wheat and ration ticket represent food insecurity and the lack of the most basic items after countless farmers lost their land. The staple stitching works to bring these two themes together.
Ghost Gun
By: Debbie Strange
Canada
First Published: Human/Kind Journal, November 2020
Sunflower Fields
By: Debbie Strange
Canada
First Published: Frameless Sky, Issue 16, June 2022
Childhood
By: Fatma Zohra Habis
Algiers, Algeria
childhood
between war and sun
dreams
Ongoing War
By: Fatma Zohra Habis
Algiers, Algeria
ongoing war
a stranger digs the grave
for a stranger
Oriental Plane
By Diana Webb
Leatherhead, Surrey, UK
It towers above the park this tree . An ancient haven with countless generations of birds to its name. It teems with wildlife down through its roots.
Painters have painted it, poets penned poems on it, children danced and sang round the girth of its trunk.
Now there are plans for this space with a landmark. High rise tower blocks. Multi-story car park. Big hotel. Lots and lots and lots of concrete which will always resound with the multi-wave echo of the crash of a tree.
layered picnic rug
with shade of myriad summers
we shake out the tears
Rip-Off
By Bryan D. Cook
Orleans, Ontario, Canada
It’s a taboo topic in polite society, but the ads don’t hold their punches when it comes to extolling the virtues of triple-ply, soft and scented toilet paper as tested by a family of teddy bears! My own testing shows that I have to fold many pieces to gain satisfaction; using many rolls and thus increasing the company’s profits.
That is until I discover its high tensile-strength brand, 100 percent recycled with a promise to plant one tree per carton. No plastic wrapping and a fair price.
I’m so happy with this product that I write the company, congratulating on its commitment to ecological sustainability. A thank-you email from the quality control division asks for my home address so that a token of appreciation may be sent. This wasn’t my motive but, nonetheless, it’s a nice gesture.
Friends speculate that a tractor trailer may off-load a year’s supply on my driveway for all the neighborhood to share, or I may be subscribed to a lifetime of toilet paper.
Finally, a letter arrives enclosing a $5 coupon off my next purchase. Heavens, labour and postage cost more than that! And this largess is coming from a corporate giant whose website boasts at being “unapologetically human.” I’m left wondering if miserliness is one of its human traits.
Marley’s ghost
converts Ebenezer Scrooge
an unlikely tale
Marley’s ghost
rattling the chains
of corporate greed
climate change
converts Ebenezer Scrooge
threadbare apartment
his inheritance
under the mattress
an unlikely tale
big pharma
caring for addicts
“Bah, humbug!”
Marley’s Ghost and Ebenezer Scrooge are characters from Charles Dickens’
A Christmas Carol, first published in 1843.
To Whom It May Concern
By: Joe McKeon
Available now at Red Moon Press -> To Whom It May Concern
In To Whom It May Concern, Joe McKeon brings the haiku form to bear on social issues in a format that both informs and engages. This work exemplifies the role poetry, particularly short forms such as haiku, tanka, and senryu, and more specifically, the voice of the poet, has to play in the future of this planet and the wellbeing of its inhabitants. I’ve had my copy for many months now and it is yet to make it onto the bookshelf. It keeps moving with me from room to room as I digest its contents on deeper and deeper levels. Every page, another eye-opener.
Richard Grahn
Founder, The Abstractaphy Initiative
Solar Eclipse
By Debbie Strange
Canada
Honourable Mention, 2024 H. Gene Murtha Memorial Senryū Contest
Walking Widdershins: An Ode to Joy
By Jenny Ward Angyal and Autumn Noelle Hall
Walking Widdershins is comprised of 108 sets of collaborative tanka, a genre of Japanese short-form poetry more ancient than haiku. Historically, tanka were often exchanged between two poets as a kind of poetic conversation. The tanka conversations in this volume were written over the course of a single year and reflect the poets’ rootedness in the places where they live, their love for the natural world, and their concern for the havoc the human species is wreaking upon it. In his ‘Afterword,’ David C. Rice, tanka poet & editor, asks “If the root problem of our planetary crisis is that we see ourselves as separate from the natural world, not just another part of it, couldn’t two poets writing together offer poems that would help connect us with the natural world in ways an individual poet could not accomplish?” Four original, full-color mandala illustrations allow readers to visually enter and interact with the poetry.
Available now on Amazon: Walking Widdershins: An Ode to Joy
