The shadows of birds

all around the sleeping cat

the shadows of birds

fluttering

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Published in Acorn: A Journal of Contemporary Haiku, spring 2018.

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Poem-in-Your-Pocket Day 2018

To celebrate Poem-in-Your-Pocket day this year, the local branch of my county library had a reading of short poems. The featured readers were members of The Cool Women Poets critique and performance group and a local middle school student. The Cool Women totally lived up to their name, and the student did a wonderful job reading one poem and then singing another — a born performer!

Members of the audience were also invited to participate. I read Ted Kooser’s “Skater” and, since it was a local crowd, some haiku I penned on Haiku Poetry Day the week before at a well-known nearby environmental preserve.

It was a creatively stimulating event and a very pleasant way to pass an hour among lovers of poetry.  :- )

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Video poem 5

CLICK THIS LINK to play “Video Poem No. 5”.

Video Poem No. 5.

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Video poem 4

CLICK THIS LINK to play “Video Poem No. 4”.

Video Poem No. 4.

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Pond at dusk

pond at dusk —

frogs and blackbirds

in conversation

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Published in the Asahi Shimbun‘s Asahi Haikuist Network section (http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201804200004.html), 4/20/18, and featured at My Haiku Pond (https://twitter.com/MyHaikuPond/status/987335572409765888) for 4/20/18.

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Haiku poetry day 2018 (part 2)

This past Sunday, April 15th, I got a jump on International Haiku Poetry Day by attending a haiku get-together at the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed environmental preserve in Central New Jersey. The time flew by — too fast, too fast! — as we jumped from topic to topic about haiku-related things.  :- )

The weather was cold, overcast, and a bit drizzly, but our spirits weren’t dampened as we walked a woodland trail in search of haiku moments to capture. The effects of wind were much in evidence in my poems:

littered
with deadfalls:
the path of the wind

heartwood exposed
to the wind and rain . . .
shattered shagbark hickory

windy woods —
the clack and squeak
of branches

Oh, and mud, too. LOL!

surrounded by nature
I watch
my step

Many thanks to Education Director and haiku poet Jeff Hoagland for making this event possible!  _/|\_

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Haiku poetry day 2018 (part 1)

Today is International Haiku Poetry Day, which means it’s time once again for The Haiku Foundation‘s EarthRise Rolling Haiku Collaboration!

Welcome to the largest collaborative poem on the internet. The Audubon Society has designated 2018 as the Year of the Bird (does this come as a surprise to anyone?). Plan to share one poem or many in the world’s largest collaborative poem — bird poems are welcome!

Here is the poem I submitted:

shrub bed —
scratching out a living
the sparrow

Will you be doing anything to mark the day, like attending the annual haiku parade? (Oops! Clearly I’m confusing this with Thanksgiving. LOL!- ) But seriously, why not take a moment to look closely at what’s around you? That’s the heart of haiku: being present in the now — poem optional.

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Books w/o Bindings

Two years ago, Container‘s Jenni B. Baker expressed her interest in what she calls poetry intersections:

I like to take things . . . and ask myself not “How can I make a poem about that?” but “How can I make that a poem?” What would it look like if pill bottles were poems? What about subway tickets? What if I turned my Outlook meeting calendar into a poem?

The concept of poetry intersections has stuck in my mind, and recently I wondered if a collection of diner guest checks or a medical file could be a book of poems, so to speak. The result? My “Books w/o Bindings” series. :- )

Suggestions for future “books” are welcome!

 

Order Up!, assembled.

 

Order Up!, poems only.

 

Appendicitis (assembled).

 

Appendicitis (poems only).

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Rainbow

A Rengay by Bill Waters & Michael Dylan Welch

“one small step” . . .
up there on the moon
old glory

the union jack
limp at the cenotaph

Olympic rings
snapping in the wind . . .
doping allegations

summer swelter —
a tattered jolly roger
on the Disney ride

beneath the French tricolor
riot police in black and white

gallery opening —
a change of weather
ripples the rainbow flag

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Published in Presence, issue 60, March 2018.

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Through my eyelids

CLICK THIS LINK to play “through my eyelids”.

Video Poem No. 1a (“through my eyelids”).

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Published in Gnarled Oak (http://gnarledoak.org/issue-15/through-my-eyelids/), 4/6/18.

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