Haiku from Padrika Tarrant and Virginie Colline
*
My hat can keep out
evil and radio waves,
silver foil and wool.
Padrika Tarrant’s novel The Knife Drawer was shortlisted for the 2012 Author’s Club Best First Novel Award. Her second book of short stories The Fates of the Animals will be published by Salt this year.
Five Haiku
early spring
the wind plays alone
on the rocking horse
Venetian love
sparks and thrills
under the Bridge of Sighs
by the classroom window
dreaming of summer dress
and terracotta sun
harvest moon
under the eyelids of the night
a luna moth’s dream
drawing December straws
who will eat the last chocolate
in the Christmas box?
These haiku were originally published in The Asahi Haikuist Network.
Virginie Colline is a French translator living in Paris. Her poems have appeared in Notes from the Gean, Frostwriting, Prick of the Spindle, Mouse Tales Press, Pure Francis, Jack Move Magazine, The Orris and Bawka Magazine, among others.
Read MoreLeonid Storch
Haiku
The sun’s a God’s button.
Perhaps at some point
He’ll come back to pick it up.
* * *
March. Birds are singing.
I too would like to sit beside them and I’d sing
But I’m afraid the branch would break.
* * *
At midnight when I left, it rained.
Home is the place
Where no one cared.
* * *
A dark blue evening…
The moon nestles in the mimosa,
Listening to the birds.
* * *
Dawn. Outside the blossoms open.
But your eyes hold the night
And winter is in your smile.
Leonid Storch immigrated to the US from the Soviet Union in 1990 and presently teaches English in Thailand. He has an M.A. in Chinese Studies and a J.D. Degree. His publication list includes 3 books (all in Russian) and a number of essays, poems, and fiction that appeared in Russian-American magazines and European newspapers. He writes both in Russian and English.
Read MoreGreg Mackie
Haiku
*
A frenzy of flies
shimmer in the dying sun -
odour of apples
*
First light of spring -
he runs to his destiny
and slips on melting snow
Greg Mackie is a poet, a dreamer, and a self-confessed idiot. He is addicted to chocolate and crisps, and probably should not havecancelled his last two dental appointments. You are very welcome to follow him, especially if you know anything about toothaches, on twitter@FrenzyOfFlies
Read MoreStephen W. Leslie
Did You Drop Something?
In my twenties I worked at a food co-op bakery in Minneapolis. This was back during the peak of the hippy days. I had long curly hair and a beard. We were areal odd mixture of people. There were draft dodgers, people wanted by the IRS for tax evasion, people on the lam from creditors, young men and women newly divorced, people getting stoned every day on pot or hashish, ex-cons,political activists, anti-war protestors, young hippy women looking for a man,young hippy men looking for a woman, and a few who were mentally ill.
We made all the decisions in the bakery in a group meeting. Each of the twenty five workers got a vote. Every decision had to be made unanimous. Before the meeting started we would sit in a large circle and pass around some joints. The odd mixture of people plus the heady Panamanian pot made for interesting discussions. By the time the third joint got passed around we could not remember what we were talking about. By the fifth joint we no longer cared.
An elderly woman filed a complaint
Claimed someone dropped LSD in her bread
We all checked our pockets
Stephen W. Leslie is an award winning haiku poet and has published 33 essays and poems. His haibun, Elevator Music, was selected as one of the best haibun poems of 2011. He is a retired hospice chaplain and lives in upstate New York with his pet rock Fifi.
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Virginie Colline
Five Haiku
laundry day
raindrops drying
along the spider’s line
the cat under the bush
spying on a sparrow
a none-of-your-business glance
at a loss for words
a distant honk
ends my sentence
*****************
grey clouds
the ruins of a castle
built in the air
silent fountain
the church gargoyles
give voice to the rain
Virginie Colline is a French translator living in Paris. Her poems have appeared in The Electronic Monsoon Magazine, Prune Juice, Spinozablue, Indian Review and Inner Art Journal, among others.
These poems were originally published in Frostwriting, issue 8 and Fri Haiku, våren 2012.
Read MoreAli Znaidi
Five Haiku
Wind wipes out the soil.
Tiger sheds its skin—spotless
Tiger Lilies fade.
♦
summer fruits abound
two bunches of grapes protrude
her sassy earrings
♦
pebbles in the pond
scarring the face of water
a broken mirror
♦
rain rain rain rain rain
the earth feels nauseated
mouthwatering fruits
♦
black clouds whimpering
foul smell of pigs in the mud
tear gas in the eyes
Ali Znaidi lives in Redeyef, Tunisia. He graduated with a BA in Anglo-American Studies in 2002. He teaches English at Tunisian public secondary schools. His work has appeared in The Bamboo Forest, The Camel Saloon, phantom kangaroo, and in BoySlut. He also writes flash fiction for the Six Sentence Social Network—http://sixsentences.ning.com/profile/AliZnaidi.
Virginie Colline
Four Haiku
the bride bites into a rosebud
flight of white napkins
in the breeze
*
Arabian dream
a sandarac tear
captures the sun
*
moonlit Paris
the glimmering scales
of the sea monster
*
after the storm
she cracked her door
he held his breath
Virginie Colline is a French translator living in Paris. Her haiku have appeared in The Asahi Haikuist Network, The Mainichi Daily News, Boston Literary Magazine, Notes from the Gean, Haiku Journal and StepAway Magazine, among others.
These poems were originally published in Kitchen, issue 8
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