—
Debbie Strange is a widely published Canadian short form poet, haiga artist and photographer. Her first collection, Warp and Weft: Tanka Threads, is available through atlaspoetica.org. She invites you to visit her archive at debbiemstrange.blogspot.ca or on Twitter @Debbie_Strange.
Your big floppy hat that so overshadowed me –
The funky floral one that I couldn’t begin to wear –
Your Jackie shades and little pillbox –
all too sophisticated for my less confident style.
In the sun, the wide-brimmed straw hat protecting
your pale, exquisite skin
The hats you wore when
your hair thinned from the chemo
The berets when
it was finally all gone –
I couldn’t pull off any one of those looks,
and now your hat rests, accessorizing
the canister of ashes
as I take my time
gradually scattering
your body to the wind and waters
of the world where you belong
Hatless
—
Betsy Mars is a Connecticut-born, mostly Southern California raised, formerly lapsed poet. She has returned to the fold after too long of an absence. She is a mother, educator, and animal lover with a severe case of travel fever. Having spent part of her childhood abroad, she has always had an interest in language and its nuances. Her work has been published by Silver Birch Press and California Quarterly, as well as in several anthologies.
She doesn’t need to tell me
the cancer has returned.
Now on daily morphine
for the pain raking her bones,
she left the window open last night
as she tried to sleep, flat and still
on her back. She let the June breeze
pass right over her body.
Bad as I feel, she says,
if someone wants to come
and get me, let them.
Anyone could slice the screen
next to her bed and reach
to touch the gossamer hair
sprouting after last year’s chemo.
Who might take her away?
Instead of the thieves and gunshots
known to this neighborhood,
let it be some feathered creature
never before seen. Let its name
be whispered into her ear.
Let any other word
be stricken from this room
once she has been lifted
with unsinkable wings
over and above
our distant streets.
—
Micki Blenkush lives in St. Cloud MN and works as a social worker. She is a 2015 recipient of an emerging artist grant awarded by the Central MN Arts Board, funded by the McKnight Foundation. Her writing has also appeared in: Sequestrum, Naugatuck River Review, *82 Review, and elsewhere.
fistfuls of hair
fall from her head
hope so small
it slides through
a needle’s eye
—
Marilyn Fleming was raised on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. It was this small slice of life, living in nature, which often defines her work. Her poetry has been published in various international journals, and anthologies. She has a special interest in haiku and tanka, Japanese forms of poetry, and won her first prize in the Hildegarde Janzen Oriental Forms Award in 1988. She currently resides in Pewaukee, WI. Visit her online at marilynflemingpoet.wordpress.com.
I remember that party
the one where cats danced
in circles
and wolves sang
beneath a bloody moon.
The one where we all took
strange communion
and neon visions bloomed
rooted in our bodies,
electric petals opening
wide enough to swallow
our lame conventions.
I remember how my heart beat
in a hard stutter
with the flash
of strobe lights
hyphenating time
deranging vision
until I turned
spinning like a dizzy girl
in a game meant to break
through
to some bright new world
beyond the walls of reason.
—
Mary McCarthy has always been a writer, but spent most of her working life as a Registered Nurse. Her work has appeared in many online and print journals, including Earth’s Daughters, Gnarled Oak, Third Wednesday and Three Elements Review. She is grateful for the wonderful online communities of writers and poets sharing their work and passion for writing, providing a rich world of inspiration, appreciation, and delight.
The boy by the river told to await his father’s
return plays with pebbles, kicks at rocks
as the night rises through water,
drops from trees to fashion a statue
cast in grey then black when the last
spark of faith flickers, falters
and goes out, the night
rushing in, floating him upright,
stiff through the woods to lie in bed
listening to water spilling from
room to room, door to door,
the whole house shivering, shaking,
breaking down under water flashing,
flooding quietly down the stairs,
pooling, stopping, crawling
past the father unseen.
—
After a rather extended and varied second childhood in New Orleans, Matt Dennison’s work has appeared in Rattle, Bayou Magazine, Redivider, Natural Bridge, The Spoon River Poetry Review and Cider Press Review, among others. He has also made videos with poetry videographers Michael Dickes, Swoon, and Marie Craven.
a boy draws a bird
at an industrial station
bus window fog
—
Nicholas Klacsanzky is the editor of Haiku Commentary and has been published in the top haiku and tanka journals, like Modern Haiku, Ribbons, The Mainichi, and Mayfly. He lives in Ukraine.
at the farm of a girl my age.
We were maybe nine or ten.
The length of her hair
galloped like a mane
as she splashed ahead into the water.
Cows drank from shallow banks.
The current was fast from rain
and pulled at our legs as we moved
around branches and stones.
We swept and fell outside the hours.
I don’t remember hot or cold
or the wet afterward.
We laughed at weakness
as we climbed from the water.
Our steps sought buoyance
upon return.
—
Micki Blenkush lives in St. Cloud MN and works as a social worker. She is a 2015 recipient of an emerging artist grant awarded by the Central MN Arts Board, funded by the McKnight Foundation. Her writing has also appeared in: Sequestrum, Naugatuck River Review, *82 Review, and elsewhere.
kite festival –
my whole crayon set
up in the sky
—
Anthony Q. Rabang finished his BS Biology at the University of the Philippines – Baguio in 2015. He started writing haiku, senryu, and haibun while soul-searching in January 2016. He has poems published in the Asahi Haikuist Network, Failed Haiku, World Haiku Review, Contemporary Haibun Online, Cattails, Wildplum, Akitsu Quarterly, Akisame, Makoto, Presence and Under the Basho. Website: Short Pauses
out the porthole
a primordial sun
wears the colour it was born with
the stewardess keeps altering its flavor
sometimes it tastes like orange juice
other times, Chinese tea
I feel myself ascending
into the divine world
not far away, Zeus and the Jade Emperor
are comparing notes
about how to woo a lady
the gods’ lost chargers
hide in long sleeves of fairy maidens
night falls, moonless
stars are out
no other celebrations
in the firmament
except for a silent pair of wings
fashioned out of iron
///
Author’s note: The Jade Emperor in Chinese culture and traditional myth is one of the representations of the first god. In Taoist theology he is one of the three primordial emanations of the Tao.
—
Cui Yuwei is a bilingual poet and translator based in China. Her poems and translations are widely seen in Australia, the US, Canada, Vietnam and India. Her pocket poetry collection Fish Bones published by Flying Island Books is forthcoming soon in Macau. Currently, she works as an English lecturer in Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai Campus in China.
