Magnapoets Japanese Form

sports bar

the barmaid

knows the score

(Published in Simply Haiku)

Smoke

It's pitch black out here as we stand on the porch at the back of my house.  The flare of light from his cigarette burns away a bit of the darkness, and I am compelled to ask him, "Why do you smoke so much? Aren't you worried that you're killing yourself?".  Laughing, he tells me that he smokes because he doesn't want anyone else to take credit for his death.

hellfire sermon —
catching the breeze
from a paper fan

previously published in Frogpond XXXI:1

into steaming tea
I release curls
of fresh ginger—
once in a while, my life
borders on exotic

Modern English Tanka, 2007
photo courtesy of Robert Curtis

after all these years
we run into each other
at the airport...
your disappointment
that I've cut my hair

     childhood cottage
     replaced
     by a mansion
     the beach of my dreams
     asleep beneath the lake

moon and wind
the way he calls
my name

tanka previously published in Simply Haiku
photo taken and copyrighted by anders salander

February wind

wanting to believe

the crocus

(First place, Shiki Kukai, April 2006)

heavy eyelids -

moon and street lights

playing hide-and-seek

***

paupières lourdes -

la lune et les réverbères

à cache - cache

church picnic —
a couple slips
into the cornfield

Frogpond Volume XXIX:3 Fall 2006

spring wind

teaching a child

to whistle

(Shiki Kuka, March 2007, and Dust of Summers: The Red Moon Anthology)

talk of sex —
a lime wedge slides
down the bottle's neck

Modern Haiku 39.1