May 2010
1 post
Sunset
Earth gone flat as black
construction paper.
Sky above intense
as cranberries, bold
as lemons, shaded
as mangoes, subtly
nuanced as hunger.
— Inspired by this Momentile by FiberWoman15
March 2010
1 post
Seen from space the hurricane a gray storm-flower
Kris Lindbeck
February 2010
2 posts
Rain and I Both trying to write On the same page
Paiku
this is the way we send messages
i place the stones one by one upon the dusk-soaked sands to check at dawn for each small change for this is how we talk, the Sea and i
hoar frost! she sends a picture phone to phone
K. Brobeck
January 2010
7 posts
i. The silver cord, the golden bowl, the long home. The cord slips, the bowl cracks, the long home.
ii. The silver chord, the scratched CD that plays a snatch of song again, again. Where will death’s foreplay scratch me, scratch me?
iii. On what will I fix, what neuronal lifeline, my golden bowl at sea?
Slow Reads
Wisdom of a blue morning - the wind lifts; the day turns, returns.
The Middlewesterner
Is there a version of my life in which Mary is the martyr And is there a version of your life in which I traffic in holies
Which direction of existence is the road out of Jerusalem
Grant Hackett Falling off the Mountain, January 16th and 18th
midwinter - hard frosts soften the gardener’s hands
Mark Holloway
Dawn comes, pink and gray as a 1950s shirt. The full moon hangs in the west, no longer blue. I hang the new calendar on the kitchen wall.
Sherry Chandler
a dog in every sunlit yard, greeting the New Year
K. Brobeck
December 2009
6 posts
Everything’s unwrapped, and there’s one present no one can remember buying. Its cheap plastic suddenly acquires an aura of wonder.
12/25/09
remembering how she bent as the bathwater ran
K. Brobeck
"Humbug"
Bald dome and wrinklebrow He makes himself known, And limply by candlefrown Makes his way home.
blueheron:
All Thanksgiving day, Just begging for attention, Lone red mailbox flag.
1 tag
Between dream and metaphor: haiku of Yosa Buson →
My somewhat lighthearted approach to the haiku master.
The Cold Moon sets behind the bare-limbed ash. She takes her time. I shake my restless foot.
Sherry Chandler
November 2009
6 posts
Sometimes suicide is slow. A friend tries, fails; tries, fails. But the body holds our secrets and never forgets.
*
One day, years later, the body holds a bright, growing ball and says, “See? Look what I have done for you.”
Elizabeth Westmark
EU president's haiku
The EU’s new “president”, Herman Van Rompuy posts haiku on his blog. Because Kris asked, I translated and tweeted a few of them. This is the one I liked best:
Ik ruik de vrieslucht, en stap er dwars doorheen. Ik adem vrij.
I smell the frosty air and step right through it. Breathing freely.
__ Herman Van Rompuy (translated by aj3d)
falling leaves haiku
silent
leaves crushing rustling falling silently
dead
fallen dead leaves dead leaves falling down
aj3d
Questions
Whose birth is not the enigma one always hopes for
And isn’t my birth the good friend I go on missing
So, why is my sun limited to moonlight
And why isn’t there a hospital for faces cut from the moon
Why shouldn’t I write mysterious poems if I am not grief
Aren’t there fleet horses running along the top of my trees
Isn’t my true life a furrow through...
the sky a gray cat curled around horizon - one pearl moon eye open
morganabag
2 tags
Burial plots for frogs: a micropoetry exchange
Four months ago, over at Identica, Patricia F. Anderson and I traded poems based on recent news stories. I started off, and we alternated thereafter. I believe Patricia kept a list of links to the news stories we drew upon, if anyone’s curious. —Dave
The mayor of Kiev raffles off his kisses & sells burial plots for frogs. He greets protesters with a song, saying: only God sings...
October 2009
6 posts
Halloween decorations — removing cobwebs from the cobwebs
Kurt Brobeck
"Bright Umber Burning"
1. The tension of the lamplight Reflected in the lamplighter’s face The burnt umbers of a late night’s journey. 2. High Sienna is my name And these playful daystreaks astride the horizon My promise of a long and shimmering day to come. 3. Golds exhausted by the simmering day Melt lifeless into browns To dream of tomorrow’s sweet morningrise On Dawn’s bright crimson wings....
Making Visible, Part 3 (Momentile Monday)
Nature wastes nothing. Having unlearned this lesson, people fumble with fragments of the lost and leftover, rags woven into a kind of throne.
Making Visible: http://rosefirerising.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/making-visible-momentile-debscott/
Momentile: http://momentile.com/debscott/10-04-2009
1. rain cupped in a sycamore leaf the wind sips & flies
2. chimney swifts bunch in the curve then scatter to climb
3. grieving the loss of something I did not have crescent moon
4. the wind blows nowhere in particular and never comes back
J.S. Absher
Selected and arranged by Kris
dragonfly sails between spiderwebs
Kris
Autumn Breeze
One brown shoe on the side of the road
a foot still in it tapping
Howie Good (reproduced by permission of the author)
September 2009
10 posts
Wind comes racing back With news of Freshly turned soil
Brian Pike on Paiku
dark sky haiku
the sound of leaves between me and the dark sky
aj3d
Still hoping For one last swallow To draw a line under summer
Brian Pike
Before light can balance a pale robin
Deb Scott
Equinoctial
Summer ends abruptly.
Balance tips between confusion
& silence. Snow falls
but only in the mountains,
warning the lowlands & plains.
— by PF Anderson, September 22, 2009
1 tag
I just posted a few thoughts about haiku on my tumblr blog. It’s about my search for poets who write with real music that works to sharpen focus on the moment they describe.
- Kris
river swan rippling the white edge of a cloud
an ache in the shoulders the weight of grey clouds
in the long grass a football barnacled with snail shells
rapt in spider thread my autumn face
one white butterfly - and with it goes my train of thought
sun dazzle is she calling or singing Welcominig Mark Holloway … These are selections from August 5th to September 18th 2009 on his blog,...
We dance the fury of purple teeth roll the great grape streaming our veins we see the world the night kaleidoscope the street our home
DannyPoet
A meatloaf of cat in the open window, a jogtrot of robin on the grass, sectioned by the screen. Not a breath of air moving.
Sherry Chandler (bluegrasspoet)
At the stop light his tail pipe rattles with the bass beat
klindbeck
August 2009
13 posts
rain haiku
the sound of the rain falling straighter than tree trunks
Adriaan
1 tag
Micropoetry in the West: A Brief Survey →
This doesn’t pretend to be comprehensive, but includes a few things that people might not be aware of. I welcome suggestions of other precedents for micropoetry, either in comments here or at the post.
Birds mobbing a hawk: feathers on the pavement a small stain of blood When I return the rain has washed it clean
Kris
in the darkness sounds from the highway acorns falling
K. Brobeck
Isn’t the color of the first wine given a few years of my life
Grant
the crickets find their late summer night rhythym counting counting counting the stars one by one and will not cease until they are done Jack Loftis
The surface was smooth then as it is now and my thumb finds the hollow of the shell my grandfather saw the day I held it up to his window.
Danny Poet
dark clouds haiku
crows strolling dark clouds slide into the past
Adriaan Jacobsz
Crossing campus, I skim my arm along the pit-high hedge, just touching the new growth. “I do that sometimes,” says a man overtaking.
Sherry Chandler (bluegrasspoet)
I am so hungry, I am a bone gnawed by God. There is bread enough to feed the multitudes and seven baskets of broken promises left over.
tinydoctor
moon haiku
one moon on the dark water all alone
Adriaan Jacobsz