7 Senryu & 1 Haiku Sequence by Dr. Randy Brooks

 

7 Senryu & 1 Haiku Sequence by Randy Brooks

 

 

barn doors shut

the milk cow warms up

my meditation

 

•

 

fallen white oak

honeysuckle worships

the open sky

 

•

 

detasseling crew 


goosebumps of coolness

before the storm

 

•

 

crawfish landing port

a high rise

mud pie

 

•

 

all clear

the roly-poly bug

legs back out

 

•

 

ghost town railroad tracks

            the weeds

at home

 

•

 

junk drawer of odds & ends

a World War II calendar girl

under it all

 

The Watch Tower

 

spring showers

a couple noses

through the ivy

 

nesting ground

two daddies joust

for the inlet

 

speaking in tongues

the urgency of flapping

back to the lake

 

home school

baby geese between

mom &&& dad

 

circle of stones

two goose feathers stand

as a watch tower

 

migrating pelicans

the geese no longer

big shots

 

autumn chill

the geese try another

flight alignment

 

longest night

sitting on the puffed up

downy butts

 

 

 

Dr. Randy Brooks is Professor of English Emeritus at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, where he teaches courses on haiku, tanka, and Japanese poetics. He and his wife, Shirley Brooks, are publishers of Brooks Books and co-editors of Mayfly haiku magazine. His most recent books include Walking the Fence: Selected Tanka and The Art of Reading and Writing Haiku: A Reader Response Approach.

One Poem by Joan Leotta

 

There is No Clear View of What’s Ahead

 

There is no crystal ball

clear enough for us

to peer ahead as if

watching the dance

of flowers and spring

breeze through a window.

Even the weatherman,

with all his science can

only forecast the next day

with words of probability.

So how can we chart

a future world with precision?

With an eye to the past

we can and do chart

predictions, trajectories from

today’s errors and successes.

However, using past experience

is an imperfect navigational system.

But of one thing we can be sure

as we go into the future,

as we do each night when

we go to bed whether we

awake to days that are

bright or dystopian

or a bit of both, we must

walk ahead with HOPE

that goodness and love

will be ours if we seek

them, all the days of

our lives and of the life

of planet earth.

Joan Leotta offers encouraging words on page and stage. Internationally published as essayist, poet, short story writer, novelist, she’s a multiple nominee for Pushcart and Best of Net. Publications include MacQueen’s Quinterly, One Art, Gargoyle, The Lake, Lothlorien, Ovunquesiamo, The Mackinaw, Ekphrastic Review, Yellow Mama, Impspired, and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. She also performs stories for youth and adult audiences with programs that highlight kindness, food, family, and strong women. Her one woman show as Louisa May Alcott” highlights Alcott’s development as a writer, activist, and time as a Civil War Nurse. Joan Leotta has also taught storytelling and writing, for the North Carolina Poetry Society, NC Writers Network, ND Humanities, and the London Arts-Based Research Center.

Joan Leotta
Author, Story Performer
“Encouraging words through Pen and Performance”

Folk, Fairy, and Personal Tales of friendship, kindness, food, family, and strong women.

Now also Presenting Author visits by Louisa May Alcott

As writer, Nominated for Pushcart, Best of Net, Best of Micro fiction, Western Peacemaker Award 

Awardee in Presswomen, Robert Frost, Silver Arts, Dancing Poetry

"Feathers on Stone" poetry chapbook available from me and at

https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/feathers-on-stone-joan-leotta/

Other Joan Leotta Books

Languid Lusciousness with Lemon, Finishing Line Press (Amazon)

Morning by Morning and Dancing Under the Moon, two free mini-chapbooks are at https://www.origamipoems.com/poets/257-joan-leotta 

 

 

 

One Poem by John Patrick Robbins

 

Stratosphere

We escaped for a moment, and that was apparently for a moment too long.

All my dreams were dispersed into a void of emptiness as you were a victim of choice.

I cannot fathom the end, but no matter my readiness, it is most certainly here.

Heartbreaks are fragments of bad choices and damn near fatal accidents.

Now all I am left with is this broken shell and a barely functioning memory.

The poison is within reach as it is inside of me.

I cannot fathom what lies ahead.

I just know that in my life I got it all wrong.

There's no turning back, as at the beginning of any story, the saddest truth comes with the

realization it must inevitably end.

As with that said, I am gone.

John Patrick Robbins, is a southern gothic writer who's work has been published.In A Thin Slice Of Anxiety, Fixator Press, Fearless Poetry Zine, Disturb The Universe, Piker Press, Punk Noir Magazine, Yellow Mama Magazine, S.A.V.A Press and here at Lothlorien Poetry Journal.

His work is often dark and always unfiltered.

Seven Poems by John Yamrus

 

he was afraid...

 

afraid

of dark things,

 

strange things,

 

dangerous things,

 

difficult

and deep things,

 

and

most of all

he was afraid of her,

 

and that

was the best thing ever.

if

 

he

or she

 

or

they

or them

 

or it

 

speaks

to your heart,

 

take

it home

and keep it.

 

everything else

is a great big waste of time.

the only thing

 

a

writer

really has

 

is

a usable past

 

and

the time

to put it to use.

my friend Bill James played the blues...kinda.

 

mostly,

he drank beer

and smoked weed,

 

but,

every

now and then

he played the blues.

 

it

was the 60s

and the old blues guys

were having a revival of sorts,

 

and

Bill played

songs by really

obscure guys like Yank Rachell

and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee.

 

when

i first met Bill

he was fresh in from New York,

 

where

he tried to

make a name

as a musician, but

the only thing he ever got

 

was

beat up,

and a real

love for the blues.

 

i remember the time

Bill got drunk,

 

and passed out in his car.

 

he

spilled a

quart of milk

on the seat, and

he slept all day in the sun

 

and

the milk

turned bad

and stank for a month.

 

and

Bill was

one of those

guys who came to mind

when you heard that old song

 

that

called someone

a walking contradiction,

partly truth and partly fiction...

 

except old Bill

(who was probably all of 26)

was all fiction, but he was a good guy,

 

right

up to the end,

when he locked his car

and took his guitar out into the park

 

and

hung himself

from a big old tree.

 

i wrote a poem

about him

once,

 

a

long

time ago.

i’m writing

another for him now.

 

he liked it

 

when

she said

(several times a week):

 

don’t

interrupt me now,

 

this

sorrow i’m feeling

is too good to ignore.

 

that

was cool,

and he respected that.

 

but then,

there were also

those days when she’d

sit back in her chair and mumble to herself:

 

don’t

let them

shit in your ice cream

and try to serve it to you cold.

 

almost

 

from

the day

they could walk,

the Kelly boys were

never called Walter and James...

 

they

were always

Fat and Fatter...and

 

even

though he was

the heavier of the two,

James was Fat and Walter was Fatter.

 

it

made

no sense,

but nothing

ever does when you’re 12

 

and

you got

no friends.

 

it

took

a lot of work

and a lot of years,

 

but, Fat

eventually

lost the weight,

changed his name to

Montana Todd and moved to Idaho,

 

where

he ran a

health food store,

until he got cancer and

on the day he died he weighed 87 pounds

 

and Fatter

never did leave town,

and just got

fatter

 

and that

was the end of that.

 

 

in a room

 

full of

other people

 

we

receive

from the woman we love

 

the answer

     

John Yamrus - One of the most prolific writers of poetry on the scene today, John Yamrus is widely considered to be a master of minimalism and the neo-noir in modern poetry. The relaxed style of his writing can be seen as a continuation of the oral tradition of literature associated with Allen Ginsberg and The Beats, and his poems are best appreciated when read aloud.

The unlikely pairing of often dark subjects, combined with humor and irreverence has become something of a trademark of his work.

His nearly 50 published books, which include not only poetry, but also novels, memoirs and a children’s book, are beginning to appear in translation, and he is a frequent guest on podcasts and television programs.

His acclaimed memoir, THE STREET, is a look back at his early years, growing up less than wealthy, in a Pennsylvania coal town in the late 1950s.