hedgerow #32

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Caroline Skanne

welcome to #32 of hedgerow, featuring eleven poets & artists. a massive thank you to readers & contributors alike. you all bring joy!

https://www.facebook.com/hedgerowpoems
https://www.facebook.com/wildflowerpoetrypress

with love & kindness…

moss spores . . .
my daughter picks a bouquet
for the fairy queen

my father calls
from across town —
a rainbow

watching boys skip stones . . .
she tosses maple seeds
into the air

Julie Warther (@JulieWarther) lives in Dover, Ohio and serves as Midwest Regional Coordinator for the Haiku Society of America. (www.hsa-haiku.org). Her haiku chapbook “What Was Here” is available through Folded Word Press. http://foldedword.bigcartel.com/product/what-was-here

sweeping forbidden!
a child with a banner
under cherry blossoms

a frog on the moon –
the stork deletes
the news

my broken biffacals-
I fall in love
at first sight

Lavana Kray is from Iasi – Romania. She is passionate about writing and photography. The nature and the events of her life are topics of inspiration. Her work has been published in: Haiku Canada Review, Asahi Shimbun, The Mainichi, World Haiku Association, Daily Haiga, Heron’s Nest, Frogpond, Eucalypt, Acorn, Ardea, Ginyu, Presence, Traversées and others. She was chosen for Haiku Euro Top 100-edition 2014.This is her blog: http://photohaikuforyou.blogspot.ro

yesterday – sunshine, friends, art, lunch, river
today – low cloud obscures all
pathetic fallacy

Jo Waterworth lives in Glastonbury, UK, where she has been writing poetry for many years. She blogs at jowaterworthwriter.Wordpress.com and has had a pamphlet of short poetry published by Poetry Space of Bristol.

Tom Slagle loves wilderness, wild rivers, good coffee, literature, travel, play, and kindness. A native of Colorado, he now lives and loves in the desert southwest, USA.

a long night
finally the colours
seep into the valley

low tide
sunlight ripples
over rippled sand

Simon Hanson lives in rural South Australia relishing the open spaces and distant horizons. He spent a number of years in the philosophy department of Flinders University which he thoroughly enjoyed though he did have a difficult time persuading others that Beauty is an objective feature of the universe and not just in the eye of the beholder.

zoo torpor
a flight of swallows
sweeps over the big cats

park scents
the dog-minder’s leads
criss-crossing

upside down
she waits
for gymnastics

David Serjeant lives in Derbyshire, UK. He is the current editor of Blithe Spirit, journal of the British Haiku Society. His interests include photography and pottering about (escaping everything) on his allotment. He publishes poetry and works in progress at http://distantlightning.blogspot.co.uk/ He also writes about his experiences with multiple sclerosis at https://davesmagicalbrain.wordpress.com/

nightjar
shadow of birdsong
evaporated dreams

the prerecorded blue
sounds of the morning
crow

Mike Andrelczyk is currently living in Strasburg, PA. Also lived in Los Angeles, Ca. and Lewes, De. He likes writing haiku about the ocean, potatoes, moons, plants – mostly little things except the ocean which is huge, and the moon which looks little but isn’t. Follow on Twitter @MikeAndrelczyk.

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

still pond–
holding my smile
in cupped hands

red river–
living in
a changing body

heavy rain–
blue sky
under our umbrellas

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

You swallow my soul
Lost rivers run quietly
Through the mouth of you

This is a wild song
Out of control and crazy
Still, you dance closer

Sarah Frances Moran is editor of Yellow Chair Review. She has work published in Boston Poetry Magazine, Blackheart Magazine, Crab Fat Magazine, The Bitchin Kitsch, Elephant Journal and more. She resides in Waco, Texas with her partner and two chihuahuas.

Silver Brick Road
for Aly

If optimism is floral, you
are flourishing blooms
exploding pollen that instead
of making eyes water and itch,
eyes are forced to sparkle
and mouths from their corners
turn upward. Flowers with glitter
pollen residue rubbing on your
cheeks and your shirt and
your shoes. He said you really are
as you seem, all forceful
optimism endless like fields
of red poppies across silver brick
roads. You sing a song to calm
the giants from their castle clouds,
they lay at your feet to hear
your lullaby. Love, love, love—
girl, you are as you seem.

Sarah Thursday calls Long Beach, California, her home, where she advocates for local poets and poetry events. She runs a Long Beach-focused poetry website called CadenceCollective.net, co-hosts a monthly reading with one of her poetry heroes, G. Murray Thomas, and just started Sadie Girl Press as a way to help publish local and emerging poets. Her first full-length poetry collection, All the Tiny Anchors, is available now. Find and follow her on SarahThursday.com, Facebook, or Twitter.

hedgerow #29

Posted on May 15, 2015 by Caroline Skanne

welcome to #29 of hedgerow, featuring nine poets & artists. as mentioned last week, a new section of the journal called ‘poet / artist spotlight’ is about to be launched, followed by a ‘poetry / art book review’ page. it was scheduled for this week but has been moved forward to coincide with the celebration of the 30th issue of the journal! any updates will be posted at the link below. thanks everyone for your continued support in helping hedgerow grow into a thing of beauty!

with love & kindness…

https://www.facebook.com/hedgerowpoems

https://www.facebook.com/wildflowerpoetrypress

overcast-
she paints the sun
with sidewalk chalk

Gabriel Patterson lives in Las Vegas, Nevada (USA) with his family. He escapes the city’s fast pace by writing haiku.

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

swing… drive…
pick-axe into bare hillside
swing… drive… swing…
to dig a hole to put a tree
drive… swing… drive–

the air is nice
thoughts float light

Mark Kaplon’s short poems have recently appeared in Lilliput Review, the Aurorean, Right Hand Pointing, Frogpond, Ribbons and elsewhere. His chapbook Song of Rainswept Sand is available on Amazon and from Finishing Line Press. He lives in Hawaii, USA.

morning stillness
the warmth of tea
on my tongue

from the budding oak
a bird call
then an answer

the cat on my lap
cleans his shoulder
then my book cover

Ben Moeller-Gaa is the author of two haiku chapbooks, the Pushcart nominated Wasp Shadows (Folded Word Press 2014) and Blowing on a Hot Soup Spoon (poor metaphor design 2014). His work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Learn more about Ben at http://www.benmoellergaa.com.

slow afternoon
refilling the salt shaker
then the pepper one

palomino field
ripples in the wind,
shivers, shudders, foams,
moves like waves.
golden, flaxen, froth
on sea of grass;
ever-moving yet
forever at rest

Freya Pickard is a cancer survivor, trying to re-discover her creativity after bowel cancer, surgery and chemotherapy. She is the author of Dragonscale Leggings and is currently writing poetry in order to try and get her creative flow to return. Freya blogs at either http://purehaiku.wordpress.com or http://dragonscaleclippings.wordpress.com depending on how she is feeling…

unblinking
one fixed star outstares
the stargazer

Lisa Cherrett lives in north Wiltshire, England, and works as an editor in book publishing. She writes haiku and cinquains to force herself to pay proper attention to her surroundings. She blogs at ‘The poised moon’, lisannie44.wordpress.com.

lightning flash
just for a moment
the crow

sure as day
dawn slips into
the rooster’s yard

Simon Hanson lives in a small country town in rural South Australia. Being a bird lover he is alarmed by the cat recently smuggled into the house by the rest of the family who have agreed at his request to plant two trees for every bird it might catch. Much to his surprise he has grown attached to the cat but has decided to up the ransom to three trees.

Burlington, Vermont — June, 2013

out of the rain and into a tea shop
we lunge for the last available table
drop our wet things onto an empty chair
shake ourselves off

the menu is brought by a young man with an old face
he brings a small brass bell, too

we are instructed to ring the bell
after we’ve considered all the tea choices
which are mind-numbingly numerous

we are still dripping rain all over ourselves
not in the best of moods
the day got off to a rocky start
we don’t sleep well in hotels

I’m not wearing the right shoes
your eyes are burning from allergies

but here is the menu
a dense tome devoted to all things Tea
and also, the little bell
it is all so dear and pretentious and exactly what it should be

you order something chilled and milky and sweet
I order lavender tea

we ask the waiter to leave the bell right there
in the middle of the table
in case we just want to ring it again for no reason at all

we stay a long time

you order a second cup of chilled tea
I ask for something different
something that doesn’t taste like drinking a bubble bath

we watch as the candle
(not really a candle —
more like a blob of wax in a small glass dish
with a wick that seems like an afterthought)
burns out

after a while
you look out the window and say
it has stopped raining

later
looking back on everything
I think this was the best hour of our trip to Vermont

Zee Zahava lives in Ithaca, New York (USA) and is the editor of the online haiku journal “brass bell.”

hedgerow #23

Posted on April 3, 2015 by Caroline Skanne

welcome to #23 of hedgerow, featuring 13 different poets & artists. this first issue of April celebrates spring flowers! enjoy.

with love & kindness…

https://www.facebook.com/wildflowerpoetrypress

https://www.facebook.com/hedgerowpoems

pale and watery
in my bones
I need red flowers tonight

even here
atop the ferris wheel
honeysuckle

3 red flowers
in a teapot vase
keeping me company
when you are away

the untuned piano
flowers dying in the vase
even the mail is late —
when will you be home?

lilacs
thank you
for filling my empty spaces

first slow rain of summer
dear iris
there you are
reveling in your
luscious self
making the most of all
your moments

beside the monastery
a plastic chicken
guards baby tulips

Zee Zahava looks for flowers each morning as she walks around her neighborhood in Ithaca, New York

front step. . .
this snail delivering
a plum blossom

cherry blossom moon
my home becomes
a palace

graduation day
after the hands land
wondering what to do

Lauren Krauze writes short stories, short poems and long emails. She currently teaches and lives in New York, NY.

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).

Repairs of the Week

That week you didn’t call
I was quite busy
plastering myself together
Shoring up the beams
Repairing the glass of an ego
That didn’t withstand the storm.
I swept up the gravel from
A rock hard heart
that remained unflinching
until now.
How unfair to the structure
To shake its foundation so.
How unfair to upend me so.
How unfair…

10 tips on writing a poem

1. Mention things by genus (which crows do you hear screaming like fog horns; which tuber in your garden is making your nose smile?).
2. Describe something as something else (the sun stings like battery acid).
3. It is helpful to mention vast expanses of hilly land with some wind slapping your hair around. Or conversely, the grittiness of your street, the dirt under your nails.
4. Bring in a few details like sights and/or tastes, but remember to describe them as something else (your hair tastes like fury).
5. Stop… Hold time in your palm. Look at it with the precision of a second-hand. Notice your smallness in the world. Or contemplate the vastness of the Milky Way.
6. What do you feel (remember… feel it as something else [your hands, like autumn kisses])? Notice and recount the details.
7. Reveal something so secret it makes others uncomfortable, and so big your priest is repenting from association.
8. Rhyme sparingly and with care. Same with alliteration.
9. Juxtaposition works well at the end.
10. Place your heart on your sleeve and send it off, then wait and wait and wait. Repeat…

Jeri Thompson resides in Long Beach, CA where she spends much quality time with herself and her Trikke (Scarlett Birdie) riding along the beach bike/Trikke path. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2014, she is soon to appear in Pearl Magazine. Also find her in Silver, Green and Summer Anthologies from Silver Birch Press, and online at Cadence Collective, Bukowski on Wry, Cactifur and Carnival Literature Magazine (Vol. 4). CSULB grad, studied with professors G. Locklin, E. Fried, R. Lee and R. Zapeda. LBC resident since 1993.

the potato seeds begin to sprout space station

The Force

(After Dylan Thomas)

This tiny, nondescript, lavender flower,
growing in a crack in the sidewalk–

a divine explosion of cells–

has a power greater
than that of two spiral galaxies colliding
in space–

and you
share in that power.

George Young is a retired physician living in Boulder, Colorado, USA. He has published four books of poetry and has recently become engrossed in writing short, eight-lined poems.

her bookmark
divides The Art of Love —
living apart

moving day …
in her throwaway pile
my first chapbook

snow angel —
the touch of her lips
cold in my memory

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).

Joann Grisetti writes poetry and short stories. She lives in Florida with her husband and two sons. Joann loves travel and reading.

delicate
in her spring dress
of purple…
oh my, myrtle I say
where is this frock in winter?

Pat Geyer lives in East Brunswick, NJ, USA. Her home is surrounded by the parks and lakes where she finds her inspiration in Nature. Published in several journals, she is an amateur photographer and poet.

they look like snowflakes…
pear tree blossoms falling
past my window

Ed Bremson is retired, but he hopes he never retires from being a poet, just as he hopes he never fails to enjoy the pleasures of Spring.

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/

each story
sparks to the surface
in spurts
most of the time
I’m just living

Kat Lehmann (@SongsOfKat) lives in Connecticut, USA by the river where she writes. Her first book of free verse poetry, Moon Full of Moons (Peaceful Daily, 2015), was published in February 2015 http://peacefuldaily.com/page/books.

hedgerow #22

Posted on March 27, 2015 by Caroline Skanne

welcome to hedgerow #22, featuring eleven different poets and artists. the next issue will be dedicated to spring flowers. send in your your work in time! and, if you haven’t done so already, please have peek at the links below.

with love & kindness…

https://www.facebook.com/wildflowerpoetrypress

https://www.facebook.com/hedgerowpoems

Cardinal and I
eat sour cherries off the backyard tree
at dusk.
“you’re molting”, I say.
and he tells me how he can change
become even brighter
while staying completely true
to his very
nature.

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

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

winter’s end
hearing the stream
sing again

back from the vets
opening the car boot
to silence

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!

“Fresh ink?”
“Yeah, the souvenir of my trip,” the youth said,
  with a shy smile.
“Very nice, truly cool.” I meant it
   (although tattoos are not my thing).
Yet both of us have been ritually marked
  –whether obvious or not,
  by experiences in
the land of the Maori.

A pharmacist by profession, a haiku poet by nature, Nancy Brady reads and writes, living on the coast of Lake Erie in Huron, Ohio.

mid-fight
our dog
sighs

in the steam
on the window
a freshly-drawn sun
drips

Lauren Krauze writes short stories, short poems and long emails. She currently teaches and lives in New York, NY. Discover more of Lauren’s writing at http://www.laurenkrauze.com.

insomnia —
trying to read
grandmother’s bible
in a foreign tongue

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

The Color of Night

Behind the closed doors of my childhood
I have lived my life.
In my room, a separate
Compartment of safety and solitude
From a stormy combination of chemicals,
A bubbling brew called “father.”
Struggling against the rip
Drowning in his tides of darkness,
I fought to stay afloat
Learning comfort comes from solitude.

I walk away too easily, tossing people in my wake,
“It is less trouble to be alone” I repeat.
I fill my days with events and errands,
My nights with marijuana and TV shows I’ve already seen
Attempting to fill an empty space, a birthing place,
A universe filled with my father’s indifference.
I crave what I have no roadmap for
And I search without knowing north.
Am I lost if I don’t know my terrain?

Loneliness is just a frame of mind
A filter to look through
A decision made unconsciously
A badge, a lost battle.
It doesn’t need to define my daylight,
Because it colors my night.

Exsanguination

When he said, “You shine so bright. I am lucky to know you.”
I believed him.
When he said, “You make me want to be a better man,”
I believed that, too.

Then he continued to date
Other women. He liked to talk about them… and
How much better, smarter, prettier, sexier I was,
(Soon I will be the chosen one, I thought).

While I have never received a fist in the face like her,
I am still my mother’s daughter.
I can take a squared off punch in the gut like a heavyweight,
Expecting it to be the last. It never is.

Then, the tipping point…
That place where I stand upright again, finally.
There is no rush of blood to my head.
Only the anemic dizziness of a woman
All bled out.

a sea of blue uniforms
under the New York sun
a black man
holding up a placard
that reads I can’t breathe

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).

Enlightenment

is not a state, it’s a winged thing.

Swimming in our ocean, gasping for breath,
battered by waves,

we do occasionally

look up,
see the blue sky, feel the sun on our faces,

glimpse it for a moment–
serene, flying.

George Young is a retired physician living in Boulder, Colorado, USA. He has published four books of poetry and has recently become engrossed in writing short, eight-lined poems.

turtle path she found her way home