hedgerow #21

Posted on March 20, 2015 by Caroline Skanne

welcome to #21 of hedgerow, dedicated more or less, to the arrival of spring! for those of you in the southern hemisphere, wishing you a happy autumn equinox. always grateful for all of your support, contributors & readers alike, you make this a beautiful place.

with love & kindness…

crossroads —
a cloud
covers Polaris

Julie Warther lives in Dover, Ohio and serves as Midwest Regional Coordinator for the Haiku Society of America. (www.hsa-haiku.org)

Barbara Kaufmann can be found (or lost) wandering in the woods, beaches and gardens of New York, her camera and notebook in hand, hunting for poems.http://wabisabipoet.wordpress.com/

celebrating
seven inches of melting snow …
the frog choir

midday snooze …
the old dog stretches
toward a patch of sun

Julie Bloss Kelsey’s favorite thing about spring is the emergence of frogs, especially the spring peepers that frequent her back yard. @MamaJoules on Twitter

For Luck

The scarf she gave me is rather shocking. Orange, red, light blue, dark blue, shades of green. But not a smidgen of brown and the absence of purple is nearly palpable. More to the point: where is the black? Nothing I own, or have ever owned, has been this colorful. It’s alarming. But also, strangely magnetic.

I wear the scarf when I’m alone in the apartment, waiting for water to boil, or squinting over a book in the fading afternoon light. I don’t have the courage or the humor to wear it in front of anyone else. It wraps twice around my neck, is soft against my cheeks, and when I inhale I’m brought right back to that childhood bedroom at the end of the long, dark hallway. Did I have a baby blanket that felt like this?

for luck —
a red thread
hangs from the crib

Zee Zahava lives in Ithaca, New York, where she leads weekly Writing Circles in her downtown studio. She is the editor of brass bell, an online haiku journal:http://brassbellhaiku.blogspot.com

Robin White is an artisan, gardener & beekeeper living in Deerfield, New Hampshire, USA. She is the face behind Wild Graces and a co-founding editor of Akitsu Quarterly, a haiku journal.

winter wind …
letting go of myself
in the sand

at the cliff’s edge
I wait
for the cold moon

Chen-ou Liu is currently the editor and translator of NeverEnding Story, http://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.ca/, and the author of five books, including Following the Moon to the Maple Land (First Prize, 2011 Haiku Pix Chapbook Contest) and A Life in Transition and Translation (Honorable Mention, 2014Turtle Light Press Biennial Haiku Chapbook Competition).

last leaf
goldfinch alights
the stripped branch

Lizz Murphy was born in Ireland but has lived in rural Australia for a long time. She has published twelve books and is currently fixated on small poems.

Joann Grisetti lived up in Sasebo Japan and eighteen other places. She now lives in Florida with her husband and two sons. Her poetry, photos and stories have appeared in a number of print and online journals. She is still waiting to grow up.

Process

every morning before a mirror
you make-up like you were building
the world all over again on your face

do you not know that time
is a metaphor— for something that moves
deep and fast like fire on the mound of a wax

don’t you know that time is the same as death
even if it’s just a profusion of the process of dying
and living again

Saddiq Dzukogi is a Nigerian poet. He writes from the Capital city of Minna

hedgerow #20

Posted on March 13, 2015 by Caroline Skanne

welcome to #20 of hedgerow, bringing you nine different poets & artists. this will be the last winter issue, next week we’ll celebrate the spring equinox! send in your work in time. thanks for all your support, every effort is appreciated. happy friday everyone.

with love & kindness…

Snow / No Hummingbirds

Finally, the refrigerator motor shuts off and the loudest sound is one I make myself by circling my thumbs around each other. I don’t realize I’m doing this until I try to identify the sound and, by the process of elimination — since there are no hummingbirds in the apartment, no rustling leaves — I figure it out.

It’s been snowing all day. The last car went by hours ago and the tire tracks are filled in. Only two people pass, a man and a woman, walking down the middle of the street instead of on the sidewalk. I watch from the window: the woman, in a pale trench coat and high leather boots, holds a black umbrella over her head; the man wears a hooded jacket and lumbers beside her. They pass my house, then the fire station’s parking lot, the pretty house with the stained glass windows, the health club, and the abandoned storefront. They don’t appear to be talking to each other but I can’t be sure.

I go back to my chair, and the novel I don’t yet care about, and realize too late that I should have changed into warmer socks. I am too lazy to get up again. The refrigerator has started to hum again and the fire department’s generator just kicked in.

hour after hour
at the window —
yes it is still snowing

Zee Zahava lives in Ithaca, New York, where she leads weekly Writing Circles in her downtown studio. She is the editor of brass bell, an online haiku journal: http://brassbellhaiku.blogspot.com

trying to
clear a path from
the past
yesterday’s snow
heavy in his shovel

watching
for her return
another
snowflake melts
on my window

Dave Read is a Canadian poet whose work has appeared in many journals, including hedgerow. You can find his micropoetry on Twitter, @AsSlimAsImBeing.

lost behind
tree silhouettes
a fallen star

on the edge of
a snowdrop
rainbows

Vibeke Laier lives in Randers, Denmark, she has been writing and studying poetry since 2012, but her interest in the art of haiku stretches back to when she was a schoolgirl.

winter
a neon dream journey
nowhere zen road

Carole Johnston lives in Lexington, Kentucky USA where she drives around Bluegrass backroads with a notebook and camera in the front seat, capturing the haiku moment. Journeys: Getting Lost, Carole’s first chapbook of haiku and tanka, is now available for presale from Finishing Line Press. https://finishinglinepress.com/product_info.php?products_id=2211

Granddad in waiting

Directed at the nirvana
whoosh…
a single digit
climbs the clouds
beyond the reach of the streetlights
trailing off into silence

Flash— Bang,

Out of this disappearing point of light
Cascades golden rain
a murmur of a pop
adds silver splashes—
fracturing stars
slowly fading—
crackling to out.

Hello?

More glittering Fingers—
racing skyward,
music?
Tchaikovsky 1812.
woven in with

Hello?

Shrieks whistles
blues and Reds
greens and yellows
hissing, screaming
bangs and ka-booms
a climax of illumination and
reverberation.

On your marks!

HELLO are you still there?
Do what lov’—

Set!

sorry—
I didn’t hear you

Go…
my heart starts the race,

Callum and Blake are here
you know, the twins
hello!
Yeah! Yeah! I hear you,

Finding it hard going
my heart
hammering on
the final lap

are they all ok?
mother and babies doing fine

pressing the tape—
crossing the finish line,
winner

lovely what weight—
hello! hello! what,
she’s gone—
I also hang up

after a pounding race
warming down
relief and joy
overwhelmed
I weep.

My first born—
that poor girl
pregnant; huge and
uncomfortable
feeling ugly
for the last few weeks.

My eyes swim as
reality floods
ya-hooooooooo
I’m a granddad
whoosh…
cue music…

Mike Keville from London AKA Mikeymike.

BACKLIT

She treads the shoulder
Hesitates
Her silhouette
fine-lettering limbs
serif paws
Her glance to the sun’s blaze
her swivel on one hind leg
her felicitous leave
The saving of her own fox self

Lizz Murphy was born in Ireland but has lived in rural Australia for a long time. She has published twelve books and is currently fixated on small poems.

winter reaching the middle of the pond

geese overhead
the one that fills the spaces
between honks

Julie Warther lives in Dover, Ohio and serves as Midwest Regional Coordinator for the Haiku Society of America. (www.hsa-haiku.org)

subsiding gently into a hillside
a house I used to know

Molly Guy is Australian. She has had six books published, most of these contain collections of micro poetry and short stories.

Sandi Pray is a wild child who roams between mountain and marsh in North Carolina and Florida, http://ravencliffs.blogspot.com.

hedgerow #19

Posted on March 6, 2015 by Caroline Skanne

welcome to #19 hedgerow, bringing you ten different poets & artists, including for the first time some very short fiction! thank you all for turning up. it is a beautiful thing…

if you haven’t yet passed by our sister site wildflower poetry press — https://wildflowerpoetrypress.wordpress.com/

with love & kindness

The Journey Itself Is Home
for Matsuo Basho

I carry the dead weight
of cliched poetry
on the road
to the Interior
cherry blossoms drifting

Like the shadow in the morning, the workshop lecturer’s comment lingers in my mind, “There are two kinds of traveler-poets: those who look at the map and those who look in the mirror. The first are embarking on their journey, and the latter are returning home.”

Chen-ou Liu is currently the editor and translator of NeverEnding Story, http://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.ca/, and the author of five books, including Following the Moon to the Maple Land (First Prize, 2011 Haiku Pix Chapbook Contest) and A Life in Transition and Translation (Honorable Mention, 2014Turtle Light Press Biennial Haiku Chapbook Competition).

Debbie Strange is a published tanka and haiku poet and an avid photographer. She enjoys creating haiga and tanshi (small poem) art. You are invited to visit her on Twitter @Debbie_Strange.

out at sea
with no wind in my sails…
the hardest
place to be
is by your side

Sergio A. Ortiz, Editor http://undertowtankareview.blogspot.com/

reunion …
sailing in every puddle
thunder clouds

Archana Kapoor Nagpal is an internationally published author of four books and three anthologies. Presently, she resides in Bangalore, India. You can visit her Amazon Author Profile to know more about her books and literary contributions.

The 365th Day

This is the day we do that summing up.
Annoying, isn’t it, the way
we tally and sort the year’s days
into the things – or people – we like and those
that caused us pain? We inventory
and discard, if we’re smart, whatever
no longer works, or what
carries no joy. We have this need
to take stock, as though we
were running a giant store full of
stuff, boots and gloves, or jars
of face cream and scented soaps.

This year let’s
let it alone,
think instead of the faint yellow blush
on the forsythia. Soon we can snip
its branches, hammer the stems
against the stone walk, set it all
in warm water in an old jar.

The small blooms, and then
tender green leaves will unfold
in the corner window.
Forcing spring
in midwinter.

Lynne Viti teaches writing about law, technology and media at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She has written and published on such disparate topics as law, television, gardening, fashion, and growing up in Baltimore. See her links to publications on her blog: stillinschool.wordpress.com.

pencil pine–
letters you wrote
to the moon

Robyn Cairns is a Melbourne based poet who shares her poetry and photography on twitter @robbiepoet.

Steve Wilkinson, Co.Durham, England. Editor of the Bamboo Hut and currently exploring the avenue of TanshiArt.

Strangers

I sit on the front steps waiting for my ride. I have to be careful not to get into the wrong car. Strangers pull up in front of my house all the time and I jump up and greet them like long-lost friends. Sometimes this scares them and sometimes it scares me. I’m always having to explain about being nearsighted.

Familiar

Once in a restaurant I waved to myself in the mirror because I looked so familiar. I was critical of my haircut but other than that I looked like someone I might like to know. I gave myself a friendly smile, along with the wave. This could have been embarrassing but luckily nobody else noticed.

Excited

In the dream my friend tells me she is studying “Berlitz” and I get all excited, thinking she said “burlesque.”

Zee Zahava lives in Ithaca, New York, where she leads weekly Writing Circles in her downtown studio. She is the editor of brass bell, an online haiku journal: http://brassbellhaiku.blogspot.com

lemon gin
the sun sets
earlier today

winter winds
he still makes her
blush

Dave Read is a Canadian poet whose work has appeared in many journals, including hedgerow. You can find his micropoetry on Twitter @AsSlimAsImBeing.

Veronika Zora Novak is simply a daydreamer.

hedgerow #17

Posted on February 20, 2015 by Caroline Skanne

welcome to #17 of hedgerow, bringing you ten different poets & artists. as always grateful to readers & contributors alike. please keep sending in your work as well as spreading the word, every effort really counts! thanks also to all of you who had a peek at our sister site wildflower poetry press. if you haven’t already, simply follow the links below —

https://wildflowerpoetrypress.wordpress.com/

https://www.facebook.com/wildflowerpoetrypress

with love & kindness…

Michael Curtis Paul

Here at the Museum of Bad Ideas

We climb the spiral staircase
With boundless enthusiasm, searching
Tirelessly for the co-relation
Of spit and sandpaper, Jackdaw and superstition.
My wife is singing ‘Mary had a little lamb.’
My wife is reciting multiplication tables.
Once she quoted Tennyson:
“There lies the port, the vessel puffs her sail.”
I reached for a bottle of port, and downed it.
We are ailing from the same ailments, but approach
Remedies from different directions.
She prepares to ingest certain curative
Substances, while I make an appointment
With the headshrinker and wait patiently
For the vessel to puff her sail.

All of this. All of that. All of the above.
A sort of summing up. A remedial mathematics of memory.

Walking a high wire strung between the Urban Dictionary and the Oxford Unabridged, Michael Curtis Paul is a tight rope aerialist with an inner ear disease.

Paula Dawn Lietz

Paula Dawn Lietz ( Pd Lietz ) is an accomplished multi-genre artist, photographer and poet. http://www.pdlietzphotography.com

Debbie Strange

The Sacrament of Snow

the glow
of candled sea ice
at sundown
snowflakes melting
on our lashes

moonswept
the snowy foothills
u n d u l a t e
a night bird calls
my echo answers

a nimbus
around the frost moon
above us
the hushed wings
of a snowy owl

so many words
for rain and snow
in foreign tongues
yet the language of lovers
remains the same

Debbie Strange is a published tanka and haiku poet and an avid photographer. She enjoys creating haiga and tanshi (small poem) art. You are invited to visit her on Twitter @Debbie_Strange.

Natalia L. Rudychev

the phoenix of my heart
leaves fireflies behind
like fairy tale crumbs
so if i’m ever lost
there would be
living sparks
to guide
your
path
to
me

Natalia L. Rudychev is a philosopher, dancer, poet. She lives in New York, New York.

Caroline Skanne

Caroline Skanne, Rochester, UK is obsessed with anything wild and free. She is the founder of hedgerow: a journal of small poems. Her book ‘a hundred poems by caroline skanne’ is available from amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/hundred-small-poems-caroline-skanne/dp/1506022944

Barbara Kaufmann

How Is It Possible

on a morning when the clouds
curl back upon themselves,
and give up only momentary corridors of bare sky,
on a morning when those maddeningly small tokens of blue
taunt and tease a rain-weary, fog-weary heart,
how is it that the sighing wind,
bending toward the naked oak tree,
can carry a burst of bird song
through the myriad layers
of a morose winter morning,
piercing the frozen edges of a february nap
prodding and poking me out of my february nest?

By what miracle does a Carolina wren,
the tiniest of wintering birds,
on the gloomiest of winter days,
sing in the only voice
the universe gave it,
an April voice,
conjuring up a stunning moment of spring,
and bestowing a blessing
on the rain besotted morning,
anointing my eyes and ears
with the chrism of its winter anthem,
just in time to save my despairing soul
from the depths of this winter silence?

Barbara Kaufmann can be found (or lost) wandering in the woods, beaches and gardens of New York, her camera and notebook in hand, hunting for poems. http://wabisabipoet.wordpress.com/

Wendy Bourke

We walked by bushes in the rose garden
– happy – munching on kalamata olives and
spitting out pits, that landed, capriciously,
on the earth – like peace-loving bullets.

I rested my head upon his shoulder
and listened to the sound of our breathing . . .
as the minutes fell away.

Wendy Bourke lives in Vancouver, BC where – after a life loving words and scribbling poetry lines on pizza boxes and used envelopes – she finally got down to writing and publishing her poetry “in earnest” four years ago.

David J Kelly

David J Kelly lives and works in Dublin, Ireland, where he finds scientific and artistic inspiration in the natural world.

Ed Bremson

the unstained snowy
mountain-top . . .
the pine woods,
the eagle soaring
amidst the clouds

Ed Bremson lives in Raleigh, NC, USA where he writes poetry, watches movies, erases novels, and makes haiku song videos. ‘the unstained snowy’ appears in Ed Bremson’s book of found poems Frankenstein, available at amazon — http://www.amazon.com/Frankenstein-Ed-Bremson/dp/1503116794/ref=sr_1_1

Veronika Zora Novak

on bent knees . . .
our hair washed by
twilit river song

Veronika Zora Novak is simply a daydreamer.

hedgerow #14

Posted on January 30, 2015 by Caroline Skanne

welcome to #14 of hedgerow, it is so good to be back! the second issue of the year brings you 14 different poets & artists. as always, grateful to contributors & readers alike, please keep sending in your submissions as well as spreading the word, every effort really counts! if you haven’t yet found our facebook page, please follow the link below. exciting news about the print version will be posted here this coming week — https://www.facebook.com/hedgerowpoems

with love & kindness…

Alexis Rotella

Like me
the moon folded
in half.

Alexis Rotella (Arnold, Maryland, USA) served as Haiku Society of America President in 1984, her famous poem Purple appears in Creative Writing: An Intro to Poetry and Fiction St. Martin’s Press, Teaching with Heart (Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2014).

Peter Wilkin

Galloping away from a murder of crows

Peter Wilkin is a writer, poet & iphoneographer who lives in West Yorkshire, England.

Rachel Sutcliffe

day of your death
flowers at the bedside
shedding petals

alone now
the chill in our room
at sunset

the first night
without you
star filled sky

Rachel Sutcliffe, from Yorkshire, UK, has suffered from a serious immune disorder for the past 14 years, throughout this time writing has been her therapy, it keeps her from going insane!

Janet Butler

crow wings
across the morning
his hard song
a scratch on tender skies
his shadow grazes your hand

Janet Butler recently dove into the wonderful world of tanka, and has yet to emerge from it.

Carole Johnston

first a wren
then two crows
hawks stand guard
over winding roads
one flies across my path
out of the fog

Carole Johnston lives in Lexington, Kentucky USA where she drives around Bluegrass backroads with a notebook and camera in the front seat, capturing the haiku moment. Journeys:Getting Lost, Carole’s first chapbook of haiku and tanka, is now available for presale from Finishing Line Press. The books will be delivered in February. https://finishinglinepress.com/product_info.php?products_id=2211

Paula Dawn Lietz

my lips cold
upon your white shoulder
a desolate touch

Paula Dawn Lietz ( Pd Lietz ) is an accomplished multi-genre artist, photographer and poet. http://www.pdlietzphotography.com

Janet Qually

caught up again
in your wave of emotion
two hearts pounding
I still enjoy
the escalation

Janet Qually (USA) has been published in several journals and enjoys writing all forms of poetry. She frequently creates computer graphics to illustrate her work.

Julie Bloss Kelsey

walking the labyrinth
with my never-born child
… the call of wildflowers

my daughter’s hug —
butterfly wings
around my heart

after the play date
glitter in the dust pan

Julie Bloss Kelsey (@MamaJoules on Twitter) just earned her certification as a Maryland Master Naturalist.

Robert Tremmel

INTERRUPTIONS

Legs up and straight
out in front

reading Red Pine’s
commentary on Heart
Sutra, page one-hundred
forty-nine, pondering
anuttara samyak
sambodhi, unexcelled
perfect mantra

siren
at the stop sign
beyond the trees

neither
can be put
into words.

Robert Tremmel lives and writes in Ankeny, Iowa.

Ed Bremson

Ed Bremson lives in Raleigh, NC, USA where he writes poetry, watches movies, erases novels, and makes haiku song videos.

Garima Behal

pistachio shells we split our ways

Garima Behal is a student-poet-writer pursuing her graduation in Commerce, in New Delhi, India. Seeking a great Perhaps, she runs her blog at : http://theseismicscribbler.blogspot.in/

Shloka Shankar

this numbness
begins to thaw
tonight
i undress wounds
of the past

Shloka Shankar is a freelance writer who resides in India. She is the editor of the literary & arts journal, Sonic Boom. (http://sonicboomjournal.wix.com/sonicboom)

Chen-ou Liu

Confession of a Photography Addict

Mary invites me over to her place for an interview. She has her strands dyed every color of the rainbow, and looks much younger than she is. On the wall facing the window, she tacks up a giant photo of herself, composed of many smaller pictures. After taking a sip of iced tea, she starts talking in an unusually deep, husky voice, “I’ve spent ten years on a shrink’s couch, but I still hear him through the wall whispering to me. Every day when I get up and look in the bedroom mirror, I see that man staring back at me. I want him carved off my face…”

Father’s Day
blanked out on her calendar
morning chill

Chen-ou Liu is currently the editor and translator of NeverEnding Story, http://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.ca/, and the author of five books, including Following the Moon to the Maple Land (First Prize, 2011 Haiku Pix Chapbook Contest) and A Life in Transition and Translation ( Honorable Mention, 2014Turtle Light Press Biennial Haiku Chapbook Competition)

Chase Gagnon

through candle smoke
I write my poem
with the quill of a phoenix
while my fingers sink
into the gray ash of this life
for warmth

among
the dark prophecies
of withered
graffiti,
the cracks
in an empty sidewalk
full
of tiny
flowers

Chase Gagnon is a student from Detroit, who loves staying up all night drinking coffee and writing poetry. His poems have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies over the past two years.

hedgerow #13

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Caroline Skanne

welcome back to hedgerow! the first issue of 2015 brings you 16 different poets & artists. as always, grateful to contributors & readers alike, please keep sending in your work as well as spreading the word, every effort really counts!

with love & kindness…

Pamela A. Babusci

Pamela A. Babusci is an internationally award-winning haiku/tanka & haiga artist. She lives in Rochester, NY, USA.

Stacey Murphy

Shoveling

what if
while shoveling tonight,
I stop
just for a moment
cease the stooping, stabbing, groaning and lifting

turn my face skyward
close my eyes
hear the wind
as my shoulders relax
the handle slack in my unclenched hands

my ghost age 6
rides in on that wind
whispers, giggles
the gust of cold –
breathless
like the moment
at the end of a wicked sled run

flakes collecting
on my eyelids
like they did when
I finished making snow angels
just lying there, collecting them

like wishes
like potential
icy absolution
melting away
all flaws
all complaints
all guilts, real or imagined

we are clean in this frosty night
new in the world
once again.

Stacey Murphy is happiest when her thoughts are clear, short and haiku shaped, but living in Ithaca, NY helps too.

Chase Gagnon

safe inside a box
the christmas bulbs
from our shattered family

reaching for the wind…
in another life
I was a willow

perched on my lap
she tells me the owl
is her spirit animal

Chase Gagnon is a student from Detroit, who loves staying up all night drinking coffee and writing poetry. His poems have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies over the past two years.

Lizz Murphy

in my arms
a wounded eagle or
a half-waking moment

some are quiet about it
a wren barely bending the stem
a blackbird changing shadows

Lizz Murphy has published twelve books. Her seven poetry titles includePortraits: 54 Poems and Six Hundred Dollars (PressPress), Walk the Wildly(Picaro Press), Stop Your Cryin (Island Press) and Two Lips Went Shopping(Spinifex Press print and e-book). Her next title Shebird is forthcoming (PressPress). Lizz has been a featured poet in festivals and programs from the Illawarra to Darwin and Launceston. She is available for workshops and mentoring etc.

David J Kelly

David J Kelly lives and works in Dublin, Ireland, where he finds scientific and artistic inspiration in the natural world.

Zee Zahava

white butterflies at the window —
snowy morning —
my nearsightedness

another orchid blossom falls my grey hairs also shedding

I didn’t want to care so much but then I did — little ant

bowing to the setting sun my shadow walks into the sea

these long winter evenings
we listen to the moon
we listen to the stars
we listen to the beat
of our own hearts

Zee Zahava lives in Ithaca, N.Y. She writes most of her poems in a small notebook while taking her early morning walks. She is the editor of brass bell, an online haiku journal: http://brassbellhaiku.blogspot.com/

Archana Kapoor Nagpal

walking uphill …
one by one my steps
before my shadow

Mike Keville

bad temper
even my shadow and I
are not talking

family tree
the seed that fell
further away

Mike Keville from London AKA Mikeymike.

William C. Patterson

Leaf Smoke, Sun Streak

Not until this moment,
the sky impossibly coral streaked
& filled in by downy cloud,
did I accept the end of another year.

Some of what goes up does not come back the same:
the leaf that fell now rises as smoke,
its rustle now crackles,
its color now roasts,
& its rust smells of cherry, oak, & smoky peat.

soon, I know, the cold rains will come,
the leaves’ revenge, the end of fire,
the long sleep of seed & soil,
until the green fuse lit:
pop of bloom, crack of ice, hum of bird return.

but now, this evening that holds the cold away at a flames length,
a sky beholden not to art,
there is no sense in holding on to the past,
just being here now, just seeing & smelling
the end of another season is enough to settle this month’s doubts.

William C. Patterson lives, teaches, and writes in northeast Kansas. The poems come from his life with his family, his life teaching literature and composition, and the daily commute between these two lives.

Julie Warther & Meik Blottenberger

Julie Warther – Dover, Ohio (words)
Meik Blottenberger – Hanover, Pa (photograph)
Julie and Meik both came from other forms of writing to haiku. Now, they collaborate and support each other in their haiku habits.

Nells Wasilewski

five days of mourning
broken by
a cardinal’s song

Nells Wasilewski lives in the United States where she retired from the mortgage industry in 2011, and began pursing her lifelong dream of writing; she has had her work published in several Journals, magazines and books.

Janet Qually

foster children
start writing winter poems
will hearts be touched?
outside
wanting in

Janet Qually (USA) has been published in several journals and enjoys writing all forms of poetry. She frequently creates computer graphics to illustrate her work.

Alexis Rotella

I tuck in my dolls
tell them
not to be scared
Mom and Dad
at it again.

As close as I can get
to my dead mother
her friend
who misses her
every day.

Sleek black crow
like a drone
it glides over
a farmer’s
fallow field

Alexis Rotella (Arnold, Maryland, USA) served as Haiku Society of America President in 1984, her famous poem Purple appears in Creative Writing: An Intro to Poetry and Fiction St. Martin’s Press, Teaching with Heart (Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2014).

Paula Dawn Lietz

Tangled

tangled and sticky thick web drags
like a forgotten anchor pulling

me deep into murky depths
of shallow

forces of the current bend

the willow straining
I panic it will break
will I

break
I hold on
fearful in
my grasp
knowing
if I let go
I
will
d
   r
     o
       w
          n

Paula Dawn Lietz ( Pd Lietz ) is an accomplished multi-genre artist, photographer and poet. http://www.pdlietzphotography.com

Jon Wynne

Tears

Tears are just a way
To wash the dust from your dreams
Dry them carefully. Look!
See how they sparkle in the Sun

Jon Wynne lives in Hampshire and has been writing on & off for many years. People and places are the real poetry. ‘I just try to describe what I see and feel.’

Julie Bloss Kelsey

driving home
under the inquisitive gaze
of a spotted fawn

despite the clouds
I still believe …
rose moon

cirrus at sunset —
a line of fire rainbows
ignite the ocean

Julie Bloss Kelsey (@MamaJoules on Twitter) just earned her certification as a Maryland Master Naturalist.

hedgerow #1

Posted on September 26, 2014 by Caroline Skanne

thrilled to bring you work from 14 different poets in the very first issue of hedgerow! the journal will be published every friday. comments, shares & likes are warmly welcomed, as are your submissions for upcoming issues. thank you for stopping by! with love & kindness. please enjoy…

Carole Johnston

in my dreams
I find Merlin wandering
among the hedgerows
I should have been born
inside a druid oak

once I was
a tree silvered
by the moon

you might find her
sleeping inside the yew hedge
the wild woman with
her rosary berries
she’s the keeper in the green

Carole Johnston lives in Lexington, Kentucky USA where she drives around Bluegrass backroads with a notebook and camera in the front seat, capturing the haiku moment.

Robin White

my tomboyishness
before
i
discovered
pink

Robin White – artisan, gardener, beekeper at Wild Graces in Deerfield New Hampshire, founder and co-editor of Akitsu Quarterly.

Ronald Fischman

magical realism

drifting through breaking dawn a silken feathered
paintbrush dances its magic across ages
restoring color to rainbows, snow to mountaintops

parched soil opens a million mouths, in each a seed
the feathered wand spreads cool droplets
wildflowers of generations sing of their childhood

mountain lakes long since baked dry with sorrow
drink from clouds pregnant with seeded
raindrops. Weary farmers, I among them, splash, play

sadness dissolves into brilliant scales of species
long thought extinct. My own eyes glisten
in the rainbow, then dissolve into your own.

Ronald Fischman writes fiction, biography, and poetry in Philadelphia, PA. You can learn more about him at http://www.ronaldfischman.com.

Paula Dawn Lietz

Yellow Flowers of Innocence

Exhausted I laid on wild grass,
prairie and I common in our cycles.
Both burnt in this century, this society
this era of humanity.
This mess.
Only in the meadow dotted
with yellow did I allow myself to breathe.
To forgive myself of decisions
which society placed upon
my charred shoulders,
decisions not mine to bear.
When one does not belong
in this clusterfuck
it’s hard to call any place home.

Subconsciously I cradled
yellow flowers of innocence
as the drones flew overhead.

Paula Dawn Lietz ( Pd Lietz ) is an accomplished multi-genre artist, photographer and poet. http://www.pdlietzphotography.com

Pat Geyer

blind man
smells a rose…
he stops

remaining heat
surrounds a field of green…
orange circles day

autumn wind…
blue flag still waves
around the pond

queen anne’s lace…
white doilies in summer
border the meadow

i walk through fields on
paths lined with wildflowers…
oxeye sees the way

Pat Geyer lives in East Brunswick, NJ, USA. She is a published poet and amateur photographer.

An Mayou

i collect flowers
along the way

An Mayou lives in Boulder Colorado USA, she trained in visual arts and has been writing poetry for three years.

Ed Bremson

Blossoming

Give a boy a stream
and watch him find himself
among the water, earth and sky,
as his childhood drifts slowly by.
He needs no help or guidance.
It happens naturally
as it has since time began, or
perhaps
since time
stood still.

Ed Bremson is an award-winning haiku poet who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, in the USA.

Bill Waters

almost winter
a flock of starlings
hedge-hopping

Bill Waters (U.S.A.) enthusiastically posts his haiku and more at twitter.com/bill312 and billwatershaiku.wordpress.com.

Alan Summers

wet prints
the sun takes the dog
elsewhere

Milky Way Train
I bring my inner child
down to earth

the hunched heron
these blue shadows
out of slow sunshine

falling clouds
the snow gathering
bits of moon

dandelions
gingerly pushing out…
micro civilisations

Alan Summers lives in Bradford on Avon, England, and is a Japan Times award-winning writer and a Pushcart Prize nominated poet, find more at: http://area17.blogspot.com

Pamela A. Babusci

deep autumn…
walking barefoot
on my mother’s grave

Pamela A. Babusci is an internationally award-winning haiku/tanka & haiga artist.
She lives in Rochester, NY, USA.

David Agnew

‘We Need To Talk About The Rain’

Not the soft gentle rain
which drifts in from the sea
carrying with it both
scent and taste of the ocean,

not the wind driven rain,
horizontal in your face,
pushing you forward
in one direction only

not the downpours of rain
which bounce from the ground,
soak you from the bottom up
and from the top down,

not the thunder filled rain
which is best watched
from behind glass
as lightning streaks across the sky,

not the low cloud sort of rain
which obscures your vision
in directions making you
uncertain of where you are,

but the rain we walked through
that September evening holding hands
when we promised that next year
we would do this again.

Born in Northern Ireland David Agnew considers his poetry to be a continuation of the Irish tradition of story telling, his latest book ‘There are no such things as seagulls’ was published by Valley Press in 2012

Kathy Bowman

the first fluff of cottonwood falls
at twilight: suddenly
the little black mare trots through stars and galaxies.

Kathy Bowman, Joseph, Oregon, lead volunteer on Haiku Highway poetry adventure trail in Deschutes National Forest.

Veronika Zora Novak

wood smoke…
with each stride, closer
to stillness

Veronika Zora Novak resides in Toronto, Canada, her haiku, tanka and photo haiga have been published in various journals and books, during her downtime Veronika enjoys film, photography, karaoke, nature, and simply daydreaming.

Mike McGuire

Frail floral beauty –
so ragged at the edges
it’s almost human

Mike McGuire is from Limerick City, Ireland but has spent half his life in Australia, he posts poetry regularly on his blog http://michaelmcguire.com.au/ and enjoys Tweeting micropoetry when time allows – @MikeMcGuire_

previously published work —

Pamela A. Babusci, the haiku ‘deep autumn’ previously published in: Winter Lotus 9 fall/winter 2009.