Three Haibun Poems by Lynda Tavakoli

 

MINAB

there is a sickness

and it is in the knowing

that we look away

Here you are among a classroom of girls, your cupped hands a receptacle of words spilling like spring water from the well you visited yesterday with your grandfather. Words that also sing along walls of the school corridors in drawings that teacher pinned neatly into place after a project you did last week. One of them is yours; a snow-topped mountain, a river of trees and a sun of burnt ochre stretching its arms around the picture like a giant hug. There is an English word FRIENDSHIP inked into the foreground by your eight-year-old hand and today you will offer up a brief translation before the others in your class. You are happy knowing that grandfather told you words matter in any language, and even those that seep through the cracks of a cupped hand still have meaning. So, you will rise softly from your desk and in your child’s voice tell a tale of love and kindliness, and what it means when both become incinerated by hate.

  

KITE SONG

the toy of a child

keens its long lament

into endless sky

His child’s fingers roam across the treasures arranged at his feet: a fray of chorded nylon, some yellow plastic and a few small fragments of driftwood weathered by the sea. It would be enough, as long as his father could find some sticks and a longer piece of string for the flight.  He does not ask for help. He has watched the others carefully, absorbing the intricacies of touch, their attention to detail, and the love story of their imaginations. His might not be quite so remarkable, but what did that matter when the wind would weave a melody through the clef of the sky and sing a kite song all of its own? Today this is his only joy, and tomorrow the world will see the shredded aftermath of his short life beached on the sand: a fray of chorded nylon, some yellow plastic, a few small fragments of driftwood weathered by the sea, and the body of a small boy extinguished for simply - being.

    KEEPING THE SILENCE

in sealed cattle cars

      the livestock breathes unseen 

their breaths like ash

We did not live normally then. I understood this when I asked my mother what the trains were used for, and why it was that we could not see the inside of the carriages. Hush, she said, one day we may know, but not now, not today. Today we cannot question and we must not see. And because I was still a child, I did not ask again but only stared out past the tracks beyond the knowing, to rising smokestacks swathed in silence and something else I did not care to think of then.

what we do not see

will always be a reason

to cover our eyes

Lynda Tavakoli lives in County Down, Northern Ireland, and is a professional member of The Irish Writers Centre. She has won several international poetry and short story awards and been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Lynda’s recent poetry collection ‘A Unison of Breaths’ is published by Arlen House and her digital book with video ‘Unbroken/The Gaza Poems’ is published by Live Encounters Publishing.

Four Haiku Triptych Poems by Samo Kreutz

 

SHIFTING SILENCE (a haiku triptych)

 

what drifts is held

 

sand ridge ...

the breeze veils

a poet's voice

 

desert fox …

even our sighs

hold still

 

sahara dunes ...

her name slips from

mum’s memory 

 

 

THREADS OF LIGHT AND MIST (a haiku triptych)

 

where whispers weave the fabric of dreams

 

swaying reeds ...

the mist cloaks

faint sigh

 

mirroring lake ...

the breath slips

to dusk

 

ancient pines ...

moonlight weaves

a presence 

 

 

FRUITS OF STILLNESS (a haiku triptych)

 

between heartbeat and memory, silence ripens

 

sunlit orchard ...

a peach falls softly

into her silence

rising heat ...

between two heartbeats

the taste of mint

 

old veranda ...

he offers cherries

to her empty chair 

 

 

JASMINE IN THE SILENCE (a haiku triptych)

 

even distance holds a kind of closeness

 

closed window

yet the scent of jasmine

slips into our dispute

 

paused sparrow ...

between the curtains

words unsaid

 

night deepens ...

softer than moonlight

our silences

Samo Kreutz lives in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Besides poetry (which he has been writing since he was eight years old), he writes novels, short stories and haiku. He is the author of fourteen books in Slovene (six of them are poetry collections) and six in English (they are haiku books, the last two are titled Not Empty-Handed and Cat and a Dawn, all published by Cyberwit.net from India and are available at Amazon.com). His recent work has appeared on international websites (and journals), such as Ariel Chart: International Literary Journal, Better than Starbucks: Poetry and Fiction Journal, Eunoia Review, Green Ink Poetry, Ink Sweat & Tears: The poetry and prose webzine, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Seashores: Haiku Journal, Stardust Haiku Online Journal, The Bamboo Hut, The Heron's Nest and others.

Five Poems by Linda M. Crate

 

a sky in which we danced together

you were a painting

stepping into the magic

of life,

each step measured

and practiced;

woodland faerie

dancing in the wild world

of humanity—

you were the sunlight

lilting through the trees,

every pink sunrise

and sunset of my life

sang to me of you;

you were the princess

of the sun—

& i, your loyal vampire,

the princess of the moon 

hoped that there was some sky

in which we danced together.

immortal and ancient as we

 

eighteen

years i've loved you,

and i know this love

will not fade;

it is a forever flame i hold—

a candle that cannot 

be blown out,

i thought perhaps one day

that i would simply move on;

but you are unforgettable—

i am tethered to this wild

heart of mine who 

loves you no matter how many

oceans or moons part us,

perhaps one day we will dance

through the trees;

and love will blossom in the

wildflowers as well as

our hearts—

immortal and ancient as we.

not even by time

you are a rosefinch,

and i am a raven;

perhaps there is some

universe in which we fly

in the same sky—

but i'd be lying if i didn't

say i wish that we could find

a sky where the sun of you

and the moon of i could know

each other like we do in 

my dreams,

in a love that never dies;

remembered by both trees

and stars forever—

our hearts unique melodies

becoming the perfect song

when our love built itself alive,

creating new universes

and breathing new skies;

where water and sky and earth

and fire all knew a love so

powerful it could never be vanquished

not even by time.

centuries upon centuries

 

sunlit faerie of 

flame and earth,

lilting your song

among the trees;

long have i admired you—

i am a moonlight vampire

of water and wind,

but i think together our 

music may make a song so

pretty even the sun and moon

and stars would listen;

if you take my hand

and i take yours

perhaps we could find a way

to dance through life together?

i have pined for you 

for centuries,

and i'll pine for a thousand more;

but i want to dance in the

warmth of the dreams i've had

in which we were wives

for at least a thousand eternities more.

 

maybe one day we'll be of the same sky

 

i've seen the gold

of your brown eyes,

seen the sunlight of your soul

as it shimmers in this sea of life;

you woke in me the dreaming

when i thought it was dead and gone—

my moon mother may have

taught me i was beautiful in all of

my phases,

but you taught me there was beauty

even in my scars;

i was never brave enough

to confess my love to

you—

but i tire of being a coward:

i love you then and love you still

for i always have and i always will,

and if you cannot reciprocate

i do understand;

but i'll hold onto the hope that

we were wives in my dreams

in a different land and maybe that

will have to be enough—

but i pray one day we will have

adventures together you & i,

where we become entwined in the same sky.

Linda M. Crate (she/her) is a Pennsylvanian writer whose poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has eighteen published chapbooks the latest being: crescent moon (Fae Corps Publishing, July 2026).