Finches at the feeder

finches at the feeder

behind the back

of the sleeping cat . . .

what goes on

behind mine?

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Published in American Tanka (http://www.americantanka.com/june-2015-issue-25/bill-waters/), 6/26/15.

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Fortune cookie message for…writers?

Of all the bits of humor and wisdom I ever thought I’d get from a fortune cookie, I never expected a précis on writing that applies beautifully to Japanese-style micropoetry. LOL!

Fortune cookie message for writers!

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Summer downpour

summer downpour

next door

the kids keep playing

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Published in Tinywords: Haiku & Other Small Poems (http://tinywords.com/haiku/2005/06/23/), 6/23/05.

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Joso: faithful old scarecrow

Comic (c) Jessica Tremblay (http://bit.ly/1dus61c)

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Three on summer

into our lives

and then out again . . .

stray kitten

 

one firefly . . .

the rumble

of distant fireworks

 

after the rain

one cricket sings

in the stillness

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Published in Akitsu Quarterly: Summer 2015 (http://www.wildgraces.com/Akitsu-Quarterly.html), 6/4/15.

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This wooden spoon

some rice

some beans . . .

this wooden spoon

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Published in Frogpond: The Journal of the Haiku Society of America, March 2015.

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The Western Front, 2015

For nearly ten decades, French farmers have turned up bones when they till their fields — pieces of soldiers and animals blasted to bits by high explosives in the back-and-forth battles of World War I. Unexploded shells are unearthed as well, and the ubiquitous barbed wire.

gunmetal clouds
and the smell of wet earth
bitter black coffee

It’s said that war debris will continue to surface for centuries to come — centuries! So much hate pounded into such a long, narrow strip of land. Plowed deeply by explosives, the Western Front is still a battlefield; it’s mostly underground now, but it’s there.

is that a stone
or a bone?
sound of distant thunder

Only the farmers can understand; only those who work the land and physically reap the reminders of war’s cost really get it. To visit an ossuary — the final resting place of countless unidentified bones — is a grim experience, certainly, but to pick up a single finger bone, a shard of skull, a broken rib… It’s death on a human scale and a lesson not easily forgotten.

taking shelter
the rattle of rain
on corrugated steel

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Published in Haibun Today (http://haibuntoday.com/ht92/H_Waters_TheWestern.html), 5/29/15.

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