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 

Ten Tanka Poems by Joshua St. Claire

 

Ten Tanka Poems

the weight
of stone
on stone
on stone
Zubenelhakrabi





grocery shopping
for New Years
I thought I saw you
but you wore your hair straight
and were still alive





frozen waves
of the Iapetus Ocean
the rise
and fall
of the Appalachians





high-rise office
the virga and I
take all day
for our feet to touch
long mountain





first monarch
her head
in his lap
as he reads
Baudelaire





the sound of sand
rolls onto the strand
as it leaves the land
the repetons
of a villanelle





the greenwhites
of the last hydrangea
the many worlds
that bloom and die
in my hands





rereading One Art
the mist’s whiteness
up and over
the Appalachians
over and over





deeper
into the scent
of chestnut blossoms
an old dirt road
into the what’s gone





white wings
flitting in and out
of white pines
the rise and fall
of Pissarro’s green

Joshua St. Claire is an accountant from a small town in Pennsylvania who works as a financial director for a non-profit. His haiku and related poetry have been published broadly including in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Modern Haiku, The Heron’s Nest, and Mayfly. He has received recognition in the following international contests/awards for his work in these forms: the Gerald Brady Memorial Senryu Award, the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational, the San Francisco International Award for Senryu, the Robert Speiss Memorial Award, the Touchstone Award for Individual Haiku, the British Haiku Society Award for Haiku, and the Trailblazer Award.

Five Fantasy-Themed Tanka Poems by Wendy Van Camp

Five Fantasy-Themed Tanka Poems

near the battlefield
she weaves rent in his armor
holding back the tears
he stills her hand and whispers
words of promise and farewell

wise woman comes to the
forest camp where wounded rest
potion glows faint blue
eyes meet hers over the rim
his gratitude turns to love

road to citadel
the storm clouds soaking them both
fishes in the stream
they walk shoulder to shoulder
constant toward their great quest

in ruined temple
her magic hums through his skin
knight’s arm glows with runes
healing all that it touches
allowing the warrior sleep

winding forest path
he lifts princess to the horse
their quest will go on
she grips knight’s arms around her
feeling his breath at her ear

Wendy Van Camp writes science fiction, historical regency, and non-fiction essays, along with poetry. Her work has appeared in Indie Author Magazine, Star*Line, Planetside, and Worlds of IF among others. She was editor for Eccentric Orbits, an annual speculative poetry anthology, a guest editor of Eye to the Telescope, and the inaugural editor of Anaheim Poetry Review. Wendy was named Anaheim Poet Laureate during (2022-2024) where she served as a community organizer, mentor, and public speaker for the Anaheim poetry community. Currently, she is the owner of Indigoskye Press, an editorial and writing coach business. Find her at wendyvancamp.com. 

Two Poems & Ten Tanka Poems by Ram Krishna Singh

 

Search My Own Music

Dull notes of life

await re-ordering--

rhythm and pitch

behind closed walls humming

to search my own music

 

shake the silent soul

before the final beat

create symphony

merging truth and dream on

lips and eyes that’re alive

Body's No Picnic

Not too many issues

yet enough to upset

the mind of men and women

in postlapsarian world:

 

she blames me for changing size

shifting shape and cracking bones

aching joints and sleeplessness

menopausal ups and downs

 

she kicks me out of bed

saying my body’s no picnic

 

I know it’s difficult

to be a woman and wife

working and making home

 

I may be no saint

in your eyes but I never

tried to remake you

in my own or God’s image

 

I can’t give birth like you

nor can I stop the changes in you

I’ve no miracle pill

 

your body, your anger

I love you as you are

let’s carry no useless weight

 

Ten Tanka

Sealed vial

a product of time

I am

cut open and see

how life spends me

***

 

Anal bleeding

overweening reliance

on faith healing

leshies inside astray

limping hope and hairy age

 

***

Much before they script

new jihad for romance--

racist purity

in a cracked mirror each one

looks for share in the grabbed moon

***

 

Half-drunk women

on one side of the road

pimps on the other

ready to seize first-timers

to the tin box by street lamps

 

***

 

While I sit still

how my shadow moves

the little flame of candle

tossing against the wind

or wheedling passion nestles

in the grey of mound

 

***

 

Standing on a cloud

look through an open door way:

desires awakened

before I could step inside

the door closed, I missed my chance

 

***

 

Unquenched thirst

more and more indulgence

momentary pleasure

she says it’s enough now

rein the horse and seek the missed

 

***

 

Unemptied

the cup of remorse—

begging bowl

before the dumb deity

years of noisy silence

***

 

God has become

a habit in helplessness

faith a deception

when unable to enjoy

love, life and wonders of world

***

Stars on the earth

these glow-worms I want to clasp

into hands and

offer to God as flowers

of my first obeisance

 

 

Ram Krishna Singh, also known as R.K.Singh, has been writing  for over four decades now. He has been professionally concerned with teaching and research in the areas of English language teaching, especially for Science and Technology, and Indian English Poetry practices. Till the end of 2015,  Professor of English  at IIT-ISM in Dhanbad, Dr Singh has published 60 books, including  poetry collections  Growing Within/Desăvârşire lăuntrică  (English/Romanian, 2017), There’s No Paradise and Other Selected Poems Tanka & Haiku (2019), Tainted With Prayers/Contaminado con oraciones (English/Spanish, 2019), Silencio: Blanca desconfianza: Silence: White distrust (Spanish edition, Kindle, Spanish/English, 2021), A Lone Sparrow (English/Arabic, 2021), Against the Waves: Selected Poems (2021) and  Knocking Vistas And Other Poems (2024).  

His haiku and tanka have been internationally read, appreciated and translated into several languages. His awards and honours include Ritsumeikan University Peace Museum Award, Kyoto, 1999, Certificate of Honour and Nyuusen Prize, Kumamoto, 2000 and 2008, Life time Achievement Award of the International Poets Academy, Chennai, 2009,  Aichi Prefecture Board of Education Award, Japan, 2015, Naji Naaman’s Literary Prize, Lebanon, 2015, nomination for Pushcart Prize, 2013, 2014, and Citation of Brightest Honour, International Sufi Centre: Sufi World, Bangalore, September 2020. Find him on X (Twitter) @profrksingh  and  on Facebook  www.facebook.com/profrksingh .