Three Poems by Richard David Houff

 

Rebound

 

There will be occasional slips,

faltering steps within a dream

 

Backward and forward

we go into the odd

 

An unknown someone

is leading us forward,

tripping into the blue

 

We follow along in what

could be a real cliff-hanger

 

And as always,

we wake up just in time

to grapple with coffeepots

 

Passing Through

 

1.

 

in a mist

rising off the left bank

we flounder over

half-eaten thoughts

 

i press your back

against wet tree bark

leaving a soft mould of shoulder

 

the tree accepts your shadow

 

it is filled with our breath

 

2.

 

we stop to look

at rotten screen and broken trim

from a side door

 

a torn curtain waves

 

blatant poems run and hide

 

later

i reach for you under rumpled sheets

but your side of the bed remains unblemished

 

an indented memory

pattering footsteps

a bell

car doors

the faint sound of a distant engine

 

3.

 

on the sidewalk

there are ancient worlds

of cracks and lost tongues 

 

escapees breaks for change

but the rain is relentless

atoms split and diffuse

across the intersection

 

with buried hands

i step into a momentary pause

 

4.

 

floating above surface

i fall into night dream

 

shrouded in uncertainty

i stumble over misplaced lives

along the avenue

 

where we stand together

waiting to be gone

Sandpit Fastball

 

I feel the need to say something

before closing another chapter

but it seems almost futile

 

The distance of childhood

is fading from memory

and my steps are much too slow

 

It would be nice to wake up again

but it’s all so damn tiring

 

Richard David Houff is an award wining author from Austin, Minnesota. He currently lives and writes out of St. Paul, Minnesota, where he edited Heeltap Magazine and Tap Book Publishing from 1986 to 2010. His poetry and prose have been published in Aldebaran, Brooklyn Review, Chiron Review, Conduit, Louisiana Review, Midwest Quarterly, North American Review, Osiris, Rattle, and many other fine magazines. His most recent collections are Night Watch and Other Hometown Favorites, The Wonderful Farm and Other Gone Poems, and Shaking Hands With The Dead.

 

 

 

 

Eight Tanka Poems by Hifsa Ashraf

Eight Tanka Poems

temporary shelter

the little smiles 

come and go

the little smiles 

in temporary shelter

 

back home

out of the haze

mom's smile—

at the threshold

a crescent moon

 

midnight solitude
the candle and I
in silence—
whirling around
like a dervish

fading stars

in the foreign sky—

a lone mother

sings a lullaby

to her missing child

 

summer heat

on the balcony 

my silk dupatta

folding in

the lost birdsong

two mynas hop
across the mowed lawn
spring breeze
swaying my thoughts
back to younger years

spring drizzle

leaves behind

petrichor—

this sense of being

beyond being

 

winter twilight

on the park bench

falling leaves

a void that deepens

my silence

Hifsa Ashraf is an award-winning multilingual poet, author, editor, and social activist based in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. She is a pioneer in Pakistan for writing Japanese-form English micropoetry and is internationally recognized with publications in over 200 literary venues worldwide and numerous prestigious international awards. She is the author of six individual and four collaborative micropoetry collections. She received the Touchstone Award for Individual Poems (2021) from The Haiku Foundation (USA) and was shortlisted again in 2022. Her poetry collection Her Fading Henna Tattoo received Honourable Mentions in the Touchstone Distinguished Books Award (2020) and the Haiku Society of America Merit Book Award (2021). Her latest collaborative mystical haiku collection, Beyond Emptiness, is co-authored with Jacob D. Salzer and Nicholas Klacsanzky.

Blog: hifsays.blogspot.com 

One Poem by J.S. O’Keefe

 

Sunflower

I don't understand, he says,

we’ve known each other since childhood,

you’re beautiful, brilliant, kind;

it just does not make sense.

That’s the cruelest thing, she whispers, 

that anybody ever said to me.

Already clear: 

solitude has chosen her,

a sunflower turned from the sun 

that’s forgotten her. 

Time is slow river, relentless; 

she, small and trembling, 

walks in the world, 

a dream she cannot touch.

Alone, 

wilting in silence 

that refuses to answer.

J.S. O’Keefe's work spans short stories, essays, and poems. They have been featured in a variety of publications, including AntipodeanSF, Roi Faineant, 101 Words, Everyday Fiction,  Spillwords, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, 50 Word Stories, ScribesMicro, Satire (C&K Publishing), etc.

Three Untitled Poems by Merritt Waldon

 

Three Untitled Poems

#1

The gray smoke rolling off

Cigarette streams in to these 

Lines a poem waiting with a

Permanent marker on the inside

Of her panties 

Reciting John Donne 

While writing roses

In the bush

#2

Considering the ants 

I consider them immensely 

As they don't turn the sweet tea
In to a jug of strange perfume

Or try to pack jug off somewhere

In the darkness

Thank you dow chemicals for

Raid

#3 one for Damien Rucci

Orange high-up in sky

& Lowering every second

Leaves fresh bloomed

Wave ecstatic helloes 

In evening breeze

& No one's seen the moon 

Since Damian Rucci

Came to town

Merritt Waldon born 1974. Lives in Southern Indiana USA.

He has been in many print and online anthologies and journals. He has five books published. Oracles From A Strange Fire by Merritt Waldon & Ron Whitehead published by Cajun Mutt Press. Pistol City Blues published by Dead man's Press Ink. Madison Street Screams & Smoke Break Poems published by Dead man's Press Ink. Recovering Roar: Haiku and other small poems published by Dumpster Fire Press.Poems by Sourav Sarkar and Merritt Waldon published by Cooch Behar. He is a regular in American and others anthologies. A permanent member of Whisky City Press..he is also a regular of Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts.