Nine Haiku & One Haibun - Poems by Joanna Ashwell

 

Nine Haiku & One Haibun - Poems

 

 

a redwing

returning again

snowberry dreams

 

assorted mittens

frozen to the line

snow inbound

 

yearly promises

January hail

pummelling the list

 

snowballing

another dream

an armlength away

 

sparkly journal

pretending I know

where to begin

 

out of the fog

first a door

then a forest

 

who knew

so many browns

autumn sky

 

so many puddles

even the dog

turns for home

 

rain semaphore

a porch light

the pumice of darkness

 

 

Soliloquy

 

There is just me whispering through the hours.  A dream half-resolved, the incompletion of time.  I am neither fully awake or in slumber.  Just diving in the liquidity of rainfall.  I imagine a sky of shifting clouds, a sunken moon with no beam.  There is no anchor between the shadows as I curl deeper in to the duvet.

 

 

all of the unknown

reshuffling the world

ravens in flight

Joanna Ashwell a short form poetry writer from the UK.  Published widely in many print and online journals.  She has been shortlisted for the Touchstone Award, has won awards and serves on the selection team for the Canadian tanka journal GUSTS.  Some of her poetry collections are available on Amazon.  River Lanterns, won the honorary Cherita award.  Moonset Song, Love’s Scriptures and Every Star are also available on Amazon. 

Long Day - Flash Fiction Story by J.S. O'Keefe

 

Long Day

Flash Fiction Story

by J.S. O'Keefe

Bill motions me to an imaginary telescope. “Look, the fields, the rivers, every human settlement, they’re broken. Time’s meandering and all’s random. People set out to do something, go somewhere, but there’s no finish line.”

I picture Bill back home twenty years ago, sipping yerba mate, theorizing about life, relationships. Emotional man, for him every goodbye was the final chapter, every return a resurrection. 

Three hours delay; finally we get on the train, crowded like a can of sardines.

Old and young on the train, derelicts in rags next to smartly dressed refined men, they’re all muttering. Self-talk, mainly, the usual rumors about raids by masked paramilitary men, terrorists bombing churches and retirement homes, bread lines in big cities, etc.

Arriving, a rush of anxiety hits me. Something’s amiss, people avoid eye contact, empty storefronts, no kids on the playgrounds. What if the rumors are true, even only one of them?

We shake hands and go separate ways. Bill’s body language indicates we’ll never see each other again. Now, for the first time, I believe it. 

I trek to the community center. The hallway is filled with people; they’re standing still, all tense. I imagine them scurrying for cover. 

I duck into the entertainment room. It’s got a widescreen TV, probably the only widescreen in town. 

Bill’s words echo through me till the game comes on. Offense is the best defense, says the announcer. It doesn’t mean anything.

I can tell, the frozen crowd outside is right.

J.S. O’Keefe has published several short stories, creative essays and poems in print and online literary magazines. More at his website: https://www.szjohnny.net

Four Poems by Jackie Chou

Leaves

Today

when I take my usual walk

and see the trees 

stripping naked

I will admit 

that you have left me

to be in the wind 

like the leaves

tumbling on the streets 

Everywhere you go

you are followed 

by a procession 

I am not one of you

but a different species 

many-angled

like a maple leaf

in your world

of pretty red hearts

Nothingness in November

 

Today I will write a poem 

that is uninspired 

From no loaded heart 

shall the words be fired

No terracotta scene 

will the verses describe 

Black ink on paper

is all I shall scribe

If I mention the trees

goldening in autumn

I would want to elaborate 

on the whole arboretum 

So I jot down these lines

for the sake of writing 

in a world that's obsessed 

with thing after thing

Discarded Packaging of Earbuds at the Bus Stop

The parts of the packaging 

have gone to the wind

the plastic tray

the white box torn open

No delicate fingernails

dug at the clear tape 

to peel it off

as if its proprietor 

was so desperate 

to listen to something

a song, a video

that they couldn't care less

about the earbuds’ casing

perhaps to drown out 

the cacophony of noises 

inside the bus

the languages spoken

if only for a ride

or maybe a lifetime

The Beauty

She walks in beauty*

though she's nothing 

like the night

Her eyes don't twinkle like stars

but glint like earthly flint

Her hair is more like straw

than the silken curtains

of the sky

Her skin 

is no smooth ivory 

of the moon

When she speaks 

her words 

are lackluster 

Her voice sounds 

more like a raven's croak

than heaven's lullaby 

She walks in beauty

under the lamplight 

of a lover's room

His gaze turns her into 

a runway model

*a line from Lord Byron's poem "She Walks in Beauty"

Jackie Chou has published two collections of poems, Finding My Heart in Love and Loss and The Sorceress. Her work has also appeared recently in The Ekphrastic Review and Synchronized Chaos.