Three Haiku Strings from Don Mager

Haiku String #38

(Prague in March)

March washed dry leaves

along the bridge curbs--flocks of

little birds gusting

against a big wind.

The wind swoops down like hawks to

follow the river's

brackish elbows.  It

laps the castle walls and the

shuttered shop windows

and children huddle

outside closed school yards.

Wind holds a cold claw.

One must live with false

beginnings that come knocking

and knocking again,

for when the solemn

vocation arrives at one's

doorstep, without them,

one would not know how

to let the door swing open.

One's terror would not

know how to grow vast.

Haiku String #41

(Petersburg in May)

The eastern Baltic

wind rides with the larger sun.

The oaks are bragging

in their new leaves while

pines backdrop themselves like a 

chorus of dancers

who sink into the

blue shadows as the prima

ballerina swirls

incessantly on

one toe.  Birds birds birds applaud

applaud applaud.  And

then, suddenly, you

notice, the fountains have been

turned on in the parks.

Water and light are

whispering their tireless

duet.  You cup it

in your palm--first light,

then water--and spill your lap

with it, palm after

palm, until through the

coarse fabric, chill tongues your thigh,

Baltic tongues your hair.

Haiku String #42

(Paris in May)

Gray rain falls in sheets

like slabs of slate onto black

umbrellas tipped to

brace against the wind.

The sheen on them glistens like

ravens' wings.  Beneath,

heads are bent like tucked

heads of birds.  Ash gray faces,

from which expression

has been wiped away,

as an academician

might wipe the slateboard

of chalk at the end

of a ponderous lecture,

stare down.  They look to

cobbles and puddles

which glisten like old scratched-up

mirrors from which the

silver backing has

become flaked.  The faces in

the puddles stare from

tucked heads and their eyes

are holes.  Day after day in

May, crowds in rain flow

corteges across

bridges.  None seem to have a

destination to

which it intends to

arrive.  Each umbrella's sheen

braces to the wind.

Don Mager's chapbooks and volumes are To Track The Wounded One, Glosses, That Which is Owed to Death, Borderings, Good Turns, The Elegance of the Ungraspable, Birth Daybook, Drive Time, and Russian Riffs.  He is retired and was Mott University Professor of English at Johnson C. Smith University where he also served as Dean of the College of Arts and Letters.  As well as a number of scholarly articles, he has published over 200 poems and translations from German, Czech and Russian.  In the 1970s he published articles and reviews on Gay Liberation.  He lives in Charlotte, NC, with his partner of 36 years.  They have three sons and two granddaughters.

A Poem by Richard L. Ratliff

Snow

Snow is both sides of the same page
It covers the grave and the tulip
It holds the heat in and reflects it back
While falling it hides your passage
When finished it documents your path



Richard L. Ratliff is a baby boomer, born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana.  His Mid-West ties have built the foundation and setting for his poetry.  He is a Purdue University graduate, with two years of engineering that turned into a degree in English Literature, along with being a two-year letterman in wrestling.  All of these eclectic combinations have given him a career as a boiler and combustion expert and poet.

A Poem by ayaz daryl nielsen

on retreat

lay aside those
lists of things
to worship
a nearby path
through the aspen
has daydreams of
wild orchids beside
emerald lakes and
beckons to bare
bone and heart

ayaz daryl nielsen, veteran, hospice nurse, ex-roughneck (as on oil rigs) lives in Longmont, Colorado, USA.  Editor of bear creek haiku (30+ years/140+ issues) with poetry published worldwide (and deeply appreciated), he is also online at https://bearcreekhaiku.blogspot.com

A Poem by David Subacchi

Nothing Sailing

A winter afternoon
At the best table
With sea views,
Starlings swirling
Around the pier,
Half-hearted joggers
In fading light
And gulls hovering
With little confindence
Of unguarded takeaways.

In the bay waves ripple
In a non-committal
Sort of way,
For nothing sails
In this greyness;
Even the lifeboat
Is locked away;
They are preparing it
For the next launch.

David Subacchi lives in Wales (UK) where he was born of Italian roots.  He studied at the University of Liverpool and writes in English, Welsh and Italian.  He has four published collections of his poetry in English and one in Welsh.  David's blog with more examples of his poetry can be found at:  http://www.writeoutloud.net/profiles/davidsubacchi

Four Poems by Don Thompson

October

It's not warm enough to ripen
The year's last, hoped-for figs,
Still green with leaves
Turning brown around them.


September

Mimosa sunlight in the nut groves
Early on opening day.
Champagne pop of .410 shotguns:
Tonight, drink to the fallen doves.


Equinox

Autumn's anthem:  Bees
Humming in the Chinese elms.
When there's no more honey to make,
They make music.


Noon

Contrarian ghosts haunt us
At noon, seething in the heat.
Malevolence like that
Will keep you awake all night.



Don Thompson has been writing about the San Joaquin Valley for over fifty years, including a dozen or so books and chapbooks.  For more info and links to publishers, visit his website at www.don-e-thopson.com

Three Poems by Dah

Cicadas Coyotes Future

Sounds from the day have died
but the meaning
is still here.  The future does not
reject this,
does not block the view

Birds have tied themselves
to perches, wings
tucked under, eyes inward,
songs put away

There's an endless drone
of cicadas,
their hard wings
are night-buzzers vibrating

Dew quells the desert dust.
The cicada's noise
is like a high-voltage storm
and with an old-world sound
coyotes voice their opinion


Forevermore

The light has eyes
the light has ears
we are eternally dead

The dark has teeth
the dark has blood
we are eternally dead

The sky has hands
the sky has voices
we are eternally dead

The wind has bellies
the wind has hunger
we are eternally dead

The earth has feet
the earth has lips
we are eternally dead

The rocks have breath
the rocks have shoulders
we are eternally dead

The rivers have lungs
the rivers have fingers
we are eternally dead

The sand has ears
the sand has toes
we are eternally dead

Silence has words
silence has hearing
we are eternally dead


Seeds

Seeds milk the sun's tit
ingesting heat,
seeking roots
moisture, depth,
splitting rocks
upon formation

If you hold a seed with roots
you'll become a grounding rod
There are no words for this:

lets call it, beginning.  No,
lets call it, in the beginning dark
composed us

therefore, Desire is a floral
intimacy:  a fruit
bursting forth, like a verb,
the tree shakes, an apple falls,
sparrows take the sky with wings
of evolution:  crawling

like a root, a legless reptile,
suggestive as the apple
and from this, the original bruise

Dah's sixth poetry collection is The Opening (CTU Publishing, 2018) and his poetry has been published by editors from the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, China, Singapore, Spain, Australia, Africa, Poland, Philippines and India.  His poems have recently appeared in Straylight Magazine, Otoliths, The Cape Rock, Acumen Journal, Sandy River Review, Indian River Review, and Junto Magazine.  Dah lives in Berkeley, California and is working on the manuscript for his ninth poetry book.  He is Pushcart Prize nominee and the lead editor of The Lounge, a poetry critique group.  Dah's seventh book is forthcoming in July 2018 from Transcendent Zero Press, with his eighth book forthcoming in November 2018 from Stillpoint Books.

A Poem by Christopher Kenneth Hanson

On A Bridge Near Trout Point Lodge
                                         [Nova Scotia, August 2017]

We stand on a shoddy wooden plank bridge
facing a setting sun- still- overlooking-
& underneath-a beautiful quick
flowing river,

there are rocks of various
sizes ribbed & jagged- sticking out
here and there in the current-

the rocks, scattered about the current
make spots & lines of the river appear

rust-iron red as the river streams bounce & hiccup
via the grooves of eroded rock & green moss
marked surfaces-

the deep dark blue water snakes past &
crisply shimmers off the protruding rocks-

various frayed stick-wood pieces sit awkwardly &
haphazardly- via way of the swift current-

milk-white foam bubbles whirl
in shallow parts of the river body now;

dusky currents rest via some
tepid pockets; the rays of sun

peek through bold green pine trees
which line the cobble stone paths-

Originally bringing us
to the bridge-

Christopher Kenneth Hanson is an interesting poet hailing from New Jersey, USA.  Christopher has had poems published in suave journals/magazines and has created visual art and fiction stories including composing alternative music as well.