(watering)

.

watering the garden
as if yesterday
never happened

.

den Garten gießen
als wäre gestern
nie gewesen

.

Chrysanthemum 11
.

.

(roses)

.

roses used to think I could pry them open

.

Acorn 28

.

Mayday

.

I started this blog two years ago today. Thank you all, you wild flowers.

.

I’d say more, but I might start bawling and get salt water in my keyboard.

.

 

(through the lens)

.

through the lens
only some
of the blossoms

.

durch die Linse
nur einige
der Blüten

.

Chrysanthemum 11, April 2012

.

(at the heart)

.

at the heart
of the garden maze
a staked lily

.

HaigaOnline 12.2

.

(every spring)

.

every spring
a little more alone
wild violets

.

haiku: Acorn 27

.

(fall pruning)

.

fall pruning
learning what not
to say

.

haiku: Frogpond 34.3

.

(seed holes)

.

seed holes
I say hello to the neighbor
I quarreled with

.

a handful of stones 10/15/2011

.

(leaf fall)

.

.

leaf
fall
i
keep
saying
no

.

haiku first published in Modern Haiku 42:3

.

(the iris)

Photo by jo-h

.

spring rain
the lips and throat
of the iris

.

DailyHaiku 8/23/11

.

(nothing I didn’t know)

(Photo: William Warby)

.

nothing
I didn’t know
before
maple
after
maple

.

Notes from the Gean 3:2, September 2011

.

This haiku was also here before, in a slightly different version.

Maple trees are not as ubiquitous here in the Midwest, but in New England, in the fall, it can sometimes feel like the entire world is made of maples. This is not a bad thing. They are blazing and glorious. All summer you hardly notice them, they just blend in with the other trees, but then suddenly, in late September, there they are… maple after maple.

.

.

(twilight)

.

.

Haiku first published in Modern Haiku 42.3

.

(violets)

(white crocuses)

(photo: Jay Otto)

.

white crocuses the first exposed skin

.

DailyHaiku 7/16/11

.

(particles)

.

particles decaying at the speed of lilac

.

Roadrunner 11.2

.

(purple loosestrife)

(Photo: Christian Fischer)

.

purple loosestrife
all the things
I can’t get rid of

.

DailyHaiku 7/13/2011

.

(sap rising)

(Artwork by Rick Daddario, 19 Planets)

.

sap rising
three or four gumballs
in my pockets

.

DailyHaiku, 7/10/11

Chasing Dragonflies

Dear readers,

I know you’re probably sick of me by now after my interminable rambling about HNA, but here’s your chance to get your revenge by making me read your writing for a change.

Remember back last month when we all went crazy for mushrooms? Mushroom haiku. Mushroom tanka. Mushroom haiga. Mushroom photos. Mushroom drawings. It was so much fun I feel like doing it again. No, not with mushrooms. I think we’ve played out mushrooms. Wonderful as they are.

So how about … dragonflies?

Yes, I do have a vested interest in dragonflies. And I always feel like I don’t see enough dragonfly haiku. Issa wrote a lot of them, which makes me happy, but more recently I feel like their currency has fallen off. And you guys always surprise me. In a good way. I’d love to see what you have to say about dragonflies.

Not to mention, I have a large collection of dragonfly photos and artwork all ready to accompany your brilliant words. It’ll be awesome.

Once again, I’m taking haiku, tanka, and haiga. Published or unpublished. You can send them to reddragonflyhaiku AT gmail DOT com.

Deadline: Sunday August 14. (They’ll be posted next week sometime.)

The fine print:

1. If I post poems on my blog, they count as published for the purposes of most journals’ editorial policies, so don’t send me anything you are hoping to publish in an edited journal.

2. You will retain all rights to your work after it has appeared here. I will not publish it anywhere else or post it here more than once unless we make other arrangements to do so.

3. Make sure you send me whatever name you want your poem signed with and any link(s) you want me to include — to a blog, website, Twitter feed, whatever.

4. If your poem has been published, make sure to send me the publishing credits because publishers like it when you credit them.

5. Also, I can’t guarantee to post everything people send me, sorry. (What if I get 500 of these things? I won’t, but what if?)

6. Once again: Deadline: Sunday, August 14, 2011. Midnight, wherever you are. (Nobody in the world is more than seven or eight hours behind me, so whatever I see in my inbox when I get up on Monday morning is it.)

7. Feel free to spread the word about this request to your friends and enemies.

8. Any other questions or comments? That’s what the comments box is for. Or the email address above.

.

Thanks in advance for the wings,

Melissa

(fence slats)

.

fence slats
the missing names
of flowers

.

DailyHaiku, 6/4/2011

.

.

.

.

.

(Artwork by Rick Daddario, 19 Planets)

Mushroom Harvest

Wow. You people are amazing. I say “Mushroom haiku,” you say “How many?” A lot, that’s how many. My mushroom craving has now been completely satisfied. I’m not gonna go on a whole lot more than that because … wow. You speak for yourself, I think. Thank you.

(Just a quick link for those of you who like your mushrooms with more scholarship: The mushroom kigo page from Gabi Greve’s World Kigo Database)

– Terri L. French,  The Mulling Muse, first published Contemporary Haibun, Volume 12

6 AM moon –
out of the still dark grasses
one white mushroom

— sanjuktaa

Unlike the mushroom
A snail moves to the shadows
In a forest glade

— P. Allen

(Photo: Melissa Allen)

fog rising –
mushrooms push aside
a bed of pine needles

(The Heron’s Nest VI:11, 2004)

– Curtis Dunlap, The Tobacco Road Poet

(Artwork: Rick Daddario, 19 Planets)

a tree falls
only the wood ear
listens

– Angie Werren, feathers

dry season
the earth not breaking
for the mushroom

– Mike Montreuil

(Photo: Jay Otto)

boiling herbs—
the mushrooms we gathered
darkening

warm cabbage
mushrooms—only wind
at the door

– Penny Harter, Penny Harter homepage,  A Poet’s Alphabestiary, Etc.

sudden storm
the mushrooms’ umbrellas
overflowing on the grill

— Tzetzka Ilieva

moonshine
a fairy circle lights
the pine forest

— Margaret Dornaus, Haiku-Doodle

fairy rings
wishing for the rain
to stop

— Christina Nguyen, A wish for the sky…

(Photo: Jay Otto)

Sticking on the mushroom,
The leaf
Of some unknown tree.

— Basho, translated by R.H. Blyth

(Now that you have read this, it is very important that you watch this YouTube video of John Cage discussing this haiku.)

Mushroom-hunting;
Raising my head,–
The moon over the peak.

— Buson, translated by R.H. Blyth

one by one
ignored by people…
mushrooms

– Issa, translated by David G. Lanoue

My voice
Becomes the wind;
Mushroom-hunting.

— Shiki, translated by R.H. Blyth

pine mushrooms
live a thousand years
in one autumn

— Den Sutejo (1633-1698), translated by Makoto Ueda

(Artwork: Rick Daddario, 19 Planets)

mushroom garden-
in the damp,dark corner
full moon

magic mushrooms—
under the duvet I find
stars

dark cloud–
from the primordium
a billowing mushroom

— Stella Pierides, Stella Pierides

(Photo: Jay Otto)

a million puffball spores
dance across my map

– Norman Darlington
First published in Albatross (2007) as a verse of the Triparshva renku ‘A Bowl of Oranges’

garden in shade and fog
mushrooms grow
where something dies damp

— Jim (Sully) Sullivan, haiku and commentary and tales

to a mushroom:
wish i were
a toad

overnight rain–
and your head expands
into a mushroom

— Alegria Imperial, jornales

– Terri L. and Raymond French, The Mulling Muse, first published in Haiga Online Family Haiga Challenge, issue 11-2

asphalt and concrete
but I know a place near here
that smells like mushrooms

— @jmrowland

in this heat
hunting for mushrooms
with help

— Steve Mitchell, Heed Not Steve

high noon -
seeking shelter under the mushroom
its shadow

— Kat Creighton

 

(Photo: Jay Otto)

sunrise service;
blue meanies
at the potluck

– Johnny Baranski

Fearless mushroom
uppercuts
snarling hyena.

— Robert Mullen, Golden Giraffes Riding Scarlet Flamingos Through the Desert of Forever

roadside stand
the chanterelle seller’s
orange crocs

— Polona Oblak, Crows and Daisies

(Photo: Jay Otto)

The following three haiku are from Penny Harter’s chapbook The Monkey’s Face, published by From Here Press in 1987.

just missing
the mushrooms
among stones

– Penny Harter, from the sequence “After the Hike”

counting mushrooms
in my basket—
numb fingers

– Penny Harter, from the sequence “Snow Finished”

under the mushrooms
the bones of
a field mouse

– Penny Harter, from the sequence “Home Village”

Penny Harter homepage,  A Poet’s Alphabestiary, Etc.

(Artwork: Rick Daddario, 19 Planets)

winter cemetery:
careful to tread between
the headstones
& these small clusters
of white mushrooms

— Kirsten Cliff, Swimming in Lines of Haiku

in the shadows
the child stomping mushrooms
smiles

– Penny Harter, revised version of a haiku from The Monkey’s Face (cited above)

crushing the year’s
first mushroom…
the laughing child

– Issa, translated by David G. Lanoue

A word of explanation here: Penny wrote (or rewrote) her haiku above as a kind of experiment in response to my mushroom challenge — the original featured a child “squashing insects” rather than “stomping mushrooms.” She had no knowledge of the Issa haiku until I discovered it shortly after receiving her haiku and showed it to her. As Penny says, “It is both a fun coincidence—and a bit eerie, but then I’m used to eerie coincidences.”

(Photo: Jay Otto)

After the rain
they come out
parasol shrooms.

A circle of toadstools-
what’s left to do
but dance?

Eating his lunch
on a tombstone
mushroom hunter.

No mushrooms there
the hunter gives the log
another good kick.

– Alexis Rotella, Alexis Rotella’s Blog

(Photo: Melissa Allen. Artwork: Kimberly Sherrod.)

first mushrooms
the children steal
each other’s hats

after crashing into the rocks strange and beautiful mushrooms

mushrooms the flesh of rain

– Melissa Allen

(Photo: Jay Otto)

mushrooms
the door
ajar

– Terry O’Connor