Starless Night
Neena Singh
Chandigarh, India
starless night
the abused child’s
blank look
haiku Dialogue, facial expressions- sadness 1.11.23
Sturgeon Moon
Neena Singh
Chandigarh, India
sturgeon moon—
a tramp rummages
for his livelihood
HaikuNetra 1.1, 10 September 2023
Vultures
Kala Ramesh
Chennai/Pune, India
vultures
around a dead elephant –
tusks missing
Modern Haiku: issue 52.1, February 2021
Trampled
Richard Grahn
Evanston, Illinois, USA
Scattered Grains
Sandip Chauhan
Great Falls, Virginia, USA
wooden rafts
petals drifting aimlessly
in the stream
A plea passed along by a friend catches my eye: an urgent request for women’s clothing donations for Afghan refugees. I quickly search through my wardrobe, gathering whatever items I can spare. Clothes that have long been neglected suddenly gain new purpose as I carefully fold and bundle them together.
Carrying the bundle, I approach the designated drop-off location. I lightly tap on the door and a woman with flour-dusted hands answers with a smile. I hand her the bundle and say, “If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to ask.”
As I exit, I notice four children, gathered together in a corner, eagerly exploring the donated toys. One child is busy building a tower with colorful blocks, while another is engrossed in a game of make-believe with a doll. A third child giggles uncontrollably as they spin a toy top, while the fourth sits quietly, meticulously piecing together a puzzle.
burgundy rose
submerged in mire
spring fen
Quo Vadis
By Rupa Anand
New Delhi, India
a dahlia in full bloom lifts its face to the sun
Whatever is born, dies. Over the years I’ve buried koels, squirrels, bulbuls and doves. I’ve lost beloved pets and nursed dying ones.
I’ve seen friends fall to covid, ill health and disease, relatives with Alzheimer’s, friends with dementia, and batch-mates dead. I’ve struggled with relationships and ended fruitless ones. It’s when Death comes riding close, that we realise our physical mortality.
Yet through it all, one thing sustains me, this sense of eternal Existence, of being truly alive through the ages. I’m alive and always will be and I bow to that.
rain on the river . . .
the many lives i live
mere ripples
For Breath
I thank you God.
For even one to disadvantage others,
please forgive me, God.
With every one I praise you immanent in all creation, God.
For all who wish to animate our planet well, i ask your help oh God,
And that includes myself.
flit of a bird
through morning prayers.
a sigh of wings
Diana Web – Leatherhead, Surrey, UK
THE LAST OF THE WYANDOTS
By Tish Davis
Concord Township, Ohio
A local artist sketches him in full Indian headdress. At the entrance to the trail, two painters read the short biography about Bill Moose before setting up their easels along the north rim. A viewing platform overlooks the ravine where brown leaves ferment along the bank of a stream. Glacial erratics are scattered along the bottom— fallen warriors on flat limestone. Indian Run Falls, heard but not seen. Voices in the abandoned village.
I’m a few steps behind carrying my camera. The sunlight is filtered by Maple, Blue Ash, Shagbark Hickory. An occasional opening exposes roots, granules of dirt freshly creased. I slip off trail and follow the sounds to the secluded basin where Indian Bill once washed. I remember the biography that I‘ve read: He slept outdoors every night during the summer and once a month in the winter with only a blanket for cover.
Moss covered formations cling to the ledges. Flowering rockcress juts out into space. The camera, now wrapped, hidden under a giant sycamore; the light in the spray against my skin.
leaves in a shallow pool
paragraphs of fine print
tacked under glass
*First published in Frogpond, 32:1 (Winter)
Ref: https://uahistorytrail.upperarlingtonoh.gov/bill-moose-memorial/
That Day
By Reid Hepworth
Sidney, British Columbia, Canada
People sometimes mistake innocence with ignorance. It certainly isn’t that way with my brother.
Today, my brother got a bee in his bonnet and won’t let it rest. He keeps bringing it up. It doesn’t take long, what with his incessant harping and a healthy dose of reality checking, to motivate me to start listening.
In no time, he has a bunch of us agreeing to give up our afterschool hours and weekends to help him. Armed with clipboards and a handmade petition, we knock on neighbourhood doors, and ask for signatures. Most of the adults we talk to just smile at us, or ask if our parents know what we’re doing, but some actually sign our petition. This motivates us to continue.
A few weeks later, my brother drafts a letter to Prime Minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, puts it in an envelope with the signatures, seals it and gives it to my parents to mail.
Much later, he receives a letter back.
locking hands
we sit silently in the middle
of our street
a small group of children
wanting to change the world
Black Hole
By Alan Peat
Biddulph, Staffordshire, United Kingdom
This morning I awoke with an ocean inside me. The faint cries of gulls gave the game away; that, and a gentle lapping at the back of my throat.
With every breath, salt air filled the room; shoals of fish swam in my belly; sharks slept; the calls of whales boomed deep within me; kelp waved behind my eyes.
All was well until lunch when the cramps began. By evening, I had no choice but to take a taxi to the hospital.
The doctors ummed and ahed; the nurses frowned. I guess they’d never seen a man with an ocean inside him before. The senior doctor buzzed for a surgeon who had once saved a mermaid. Immediately upon seeing me, he plunged his arm deep into my mouth and down until I felt his bony fingers clasping inside me.
He pulled out a child’s ball, rubbed by the sand until it was as white as an eye. He pulled out plastic bricks, a spoon, a hosepipe, credit cards, a beat-up bath duck. Then, quite suddenly, he raised his scalpel and sliced me open. A wave of water bottles spilled upon the floor. Puffins circled.
“Now,” he shouted, and with all the medical staff assisting, a net was hauled from the deepest part of me; a net so large that it stretched from my ocean to an ebbing time: before ice retreated back up mountains; before junk fell from the vacuum above; before we all ran headlong into waves.
day moon . . .
footprints still
in its dust
Frogpond 44:3 Autumn 2021
No Chirps
By Pravat Kumar Padhy
India
no chirps
in barren trees
I grieve
for the lost treasure
of mountain green
truth-be-told
By Roberta Beach Jacobson
Indianola, Iowa, USA
straying far
from the truth-be-told
cracks in democracy
Cracked Soil
Anju Kishore
Bengaluru, India
cracked soil
this thirst for more
high-rises
Pancake Moon
By Anju Kishore
Bengaluru, India
pancake moon
stories the beggar feeds
her toddler
Published in THF Haiku Dialogue 3/23
March 8
By Barbara Anna Gaiardoni
Verona, Italy
March 8 . . .
a timeless pink protest
forged in talented tears
Taylor Swift Changes Controversial Lyrics
by Neal Whitman
Pacific Grove, CA, USA
In a poem the Soviets pre-dated 1916
Akhmatova wrote no one would want
to listen to songs now that
the bitter days foretold had arrived.
Fifty years later in 1966 Frank Sinatra quipped
that the world would be a dreary place
without a song. He mused that
it gives you something to think about.
Actually, the Russian poet penned her poem
in 1917 after the Bolshevik revolution.
That gives you something to think about, yes?
Rings
Gary LeBel
Heralds
Gary LeBel
Incompressible
Gary LeBel
Noon on the Ohio
By Tish Davis
Concord 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 barge
upstream
the passenger in the back
of a company van
jackhammers
on 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 standpipe and splash water on their faces.
As the van starts the climb up and out of the valley, the passenger rehearses her presentation. Soon they will arrive at their plant in Ironton where one of the Vice Presidents will announce that it is closing. Remembering the train derailment in East Palestine, she reminds herself not to over wash her hands, and to politely pass, if offered coffee.
graffiti on rail cars
painted with a thick brush
locomotives
linked together
drawing a dark line
There’s no caboose. The train simply ends retracting the line that separates the road from the river.
Now the passenger fumbles for the switch that lowers the glass. There isn’t one that will tint the river blue . . ..
__
- Notes on the State of Virginia published in 1781–82, Thomas Jefferson
- The Colorado and Ohio Rivers are among the ‘most endangered in America. Here’s why. Climate hosted by Selma Bayram, NPR radio. April 20, 2023.