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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

turtle path she found her way home

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 #16

Posted on February 13, 2015 by Caroline Skanne

thrilled to bring you #16 of hedgerow featuring 13 different poets & artists. thanks everyone, contributors as well as readers, for turning up!

if you have a moment, please pass by our sister site wildflower poetry press (find links below) launching its first title this week. here you will also find a sneak peek of forthcoming titles, including the print version of hedgerow.

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

thanks again! with love & kindness…

Jennifer Thompson

pink sky
the perfection I failed
to reach…
I am cracked pavement
beside your painted lines

Jennifer Thompson, West Virginia, USA

Sandi Pray

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

Bob Brooks

UNOBJECTIONABLE

Oh to be
unobjectionable–

the very word
broad, flat,

rough-surfaced,
useful as a doormat.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MY PANTS

32 – 32

34 – 32

36 – 32

36 – 30

Bob Brooks’s poems have been published in many journals including The Beloit Poetry Journal, Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Prairie Schooner, and Rattle; in four chapbooks, most recently Companion Pieces (Finishing Line Press, 2012); and in the full-length collection Unguarded Crossing (Antrim House Books, 2011), short-listed for the 2012 Maine Literary Award in Poetry, and named first runner-up for the 2012 Eric Hoffer Poetry Book Award. He lives with his wife and dog in Concord, Massachusetts, and Stockton Springs, Maine.

Mike Keville

charity walk
the sound of gravel
in my hips

why! she asks…
how do I explain
to expectant eyes
granddad doesn’t
know everything…

morning mist
a peacock’s aha!
goes unanswered

Mike Keville from London AKA Mikeymike.

Anne Curran

at the art gallery
with an artist friend …
I am seduced
by her explanation
of light and dark

Anne Curran is a Japanese verse forms poet who lives with
her cat Ollie, and writes when time allows in Hamilton, New Zealand.

Michael Mark

Reflection
– for Sara

You are the perfect moon.
I am the still lake

to show how beautiful
you are in all your phases.

Come and go as you please.
Whenever you are thirsty,

drink
until you are full.

Michael Mark lives in California and is a hospice volunteer and long distance walker whose poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. @michaelgrow

Wendy Bourke

Bereft and adrift
– time stopped –
in a sea of grief,
for we could not imagine
how the lot of us
would make a go of it
without that calm,
beautiful man
captaining our little ship:

the passage of time
marked, one by one,
at the moment of resolve
to carry on
as best we could . . .
as he would have wished.

Julie Bloss Kelsey

first dance
all awkward elbows
and tight knees
he watches her feet
at every turn

checking the pockets
before I launder
her school clothes
I add another rock
to my collection

(written in response to a wonderful poem by Robyn Cairns @robbiepoet)

Julie Bloss Kelsey (@MamaJoules on Twitter) lives in suburban Maryland with her husband, three kids, one dog, one rat, and eight fish.

Carole Johnston

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

Lolly Williams

Clear for Takeoff

leaving home …
butterflies take flight
beyond the garden
the air turbulence tilts
all my baggage to one side

crash landing
in a sleepy hollow …
through the years
seeds of slumber have attached
themselves to all my dreams

wandering lost
through every scene
with broken wings
I remind myself
that I will fly again

buttons, papers
odd bits of everything
parts of the sum
I clip new wings
from a magazine

enchanted evening
the scent of white jasmine
in the warm wind
I sense a whole other life
still ahead of me

Lolly Williams, from California, is a little magpie who collects scraps of words, phrases, images and other shiny things for her short form poetry and mixed media art. Her work can be found in various print and online publications.

Mary Kendall

curls of steam
a pot of ginger tea
fragrant this night

Mary Kendall, a poet from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, is the author of a chapbook, Erasing the Doubt, and co-author of A Giving Garden. Her poems have appeared both online and in print, and her blog, A Poet in Time can be found at http://www.apoetintime.com.

Olivier Schopfer

Olivier Schopfer lives in Geneva, Switzerland, the city with the huge lake water fountain. He likes capturing the moment in haiku and photography. His work has appeared in The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2014 and in numerous online and print journals.

Stacey Murphy

At day’s end
All over the world,
We lather the cloths.
Time to remove the makeup
The armor
The magician’s blindfold
The leather
The ancient battle-mask
The gunk that might as well stay.
Scrub through the fake smile
The nervous twitch
The uncertain glance
The bruise
The pox
The shame
The un-yield
The unintended insult
The fully intended dig
The well-meant concern
The sloppy unwelcome kiss
The piercing glare.
Keep scrubbing. Try to get out
The control
The no way out
The making do
The not good enough
The slap
The no choice
The scars
The silence.
And now, sister of the world,
Sleep.
Tomorrow you start again.

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

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

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

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 #11

Posted on December 5, 2014 by Caroline Skanne

welcome to #11 of hedgerow, bringing you 13 different poets & artist. the next issue will be the last one for this year, the theme is ‘reasons to write’, feel free to interpret as you please. very excited about the print version scheduled for early 2015. it will feature work published throughout 2014; last chance this coming friday. more details to follow regarding this venture. as always, grateful to contributors & readers alike, please keep sending in your submissions as well as spreading the word, every effort really counts! with love & kindness…

Zee Zahava

red gloves give me strength walking into the wind

I knew you’d arrive today —
in my dream
the call of a bamboo flute

Diana Matisz

‘Some of my best stories, have been written with my eyes’… Diana Matisz, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA http://lifethrublueeyes.wordpress.com/ & http://about.me/diana_matisz

Kat Lehmann

morning bird
sings its song
It knows no other song
to sing
no other bird
sings it
the world is made
beautiful
in a new way

my birth place
a distant memory —
fireflies

Kat Lehmann lives in the United States by the river where she writes, under a clear view of the Moon. Her first book of poetry – Moon Full of Moons – will be published in January 2015. She writes on twitter as @SongsOfKat

Debbie Strange

Lovelorn Moon

one pair
of tundra swans
silhouetted
a pas des deux
across the moon

a loon’s
plangent tremolo
how eloquently
you plead your case
for going

in the pond
a great white egret
w r i n k l e s
on my face
and the moon’s

Debbie Strange is a published tanka and haiku poet, as well as an avid photographer. Her current passion is for creating haiga and tanshi (small poem) art.

Jon Wynne

This Morning’s Walk

This morning’s walk
Was quick – but not too quick
To stop and lend an ear,
Even the greyest skies
Have a tale to tell.

A billion raindrops
Beat time upon the trees and
Danced in circles on the puddled road.
Listen!
The streams on the tarmac
Are singing

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.’

Jane Dougherty

Washed winter white
the trees stand
bare branches in the darkness
full of night sounds
and the silent moonlight.

Jane Dougherty lives in Bordeaux by the river, where she writes poetry and poetic, mythological, lyrical fantasy.

Julie Warther & Meik Blottenberger

Robin Dawn Hudechek

Courtship

The boy sees the girl
from his place on the sidewalk in the rain.
Her curls are sun bright
and warm as a window pane.
He wants to throw a rock or climb a leafy hedge
anything for a smile or a sideways glance–
her lips on his cheek,
or in the small of his back.
Her breath steams the window;
her fingers leave delicate prints.
He thrusts his hands in his pockets.

Robin Dawn Hudechek lives in Laguna Beach, CA with her husband, Manny and two beautiful cats, Ashley and Misty. More of her poetry can be found at http://robindawnh.wordpress.com./

Clifton Redmond

Coping with Loss at Ten

‘The heavens are opening,’ you said
and I rushed to the window
pressed my face against the cold glass
looking for a glimpse,
but all I saw was disappointment.
There were no angel’s feet dangling,
no gentle strums of harps
sneaking through the muted clouds.
Nothing but rain, empty streets,
puddles, reflecting the locked door
that you had passed through
and forgot to tell me you were going.

Clifton Redmond is an Irish poet; a member of the Carlow Writers Co-operative, his poems have been published in various literary magazines and journals.

Caroline Skanne

Caroline Skanne, rochester, uk, obsessed with anything wild & free, she is the founder of hedgerow: a journal of small poems. https://www.facebook.com/caroline.skanne.9 & https://twitter.com/CarolineSkanne

Carole Johnston

we dream alone
and come together again
you used to
follow packs of dogs in woods
imagine battles with trees
I drew maps of fairyland

in my pocket
small tan river stones
smooth as memory

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 January. https://finishinglinepress.com/product_info.php?products_id=2211

Mathias Jansson

Mathias Jansson is a Swedish art critic and poet. He has contributed with visual poetry to magazines as Lex-ICON, Anatematiskpress, Quarter After #4 and Maintenant 8: A Journal of Contemporary Dada. He has also published a chapbook of visual poetry and contributed with erasure poetry to anthologies from Silver Birch Press. Homepage: http://wordshavenoeyes.blogspot.se/

Maurice Devitt

Spider/Man

How easy it must be
to forget
what never happened
and something found
may not have been lost.

The sky may darken
but the length of a minute
is still the same,
whether we rush in expectation
or sit and watch

as a spider walks on stilts
across a bedroom floor,
not sure
if he is coming or going.

‘I like short poems because they are easier to smuggle across borders…’ Maurice Devitt, Dublin, Ireland