Haiku 3, Vangaurd, August 2011

WHR August 2011

Haiku, Page 3, Vanguard Haiku

First Place

A lone survivor

asks what is greater sorrow

life or death

Surendra Munshi

Second Place

aftershock

the empty swing

swinging

Alan S. Bridges

Third Place

bamboo flute

behind the temple—

pebbles in the stream

Steve Addiss

(NOTE) For the record, the readers may be interested to know that it was brought to our attention, after the publication of the second place poem, that there was another poem similar to it:

aftershock

empty swings

swaying

This poem was written by Mr. Michael Dylan Welch and, according to him, was published in Frogpond 13:1, February 1990 and in the Haiku Poets of Northern California anthology After Shock, San Francisco: Two Autumns Press, 1990. It also appeared in this author's own chapbook, Tremors (Foster City, California: Press Here, 1990) as well as being on his website since December 2009: http://sites.google.com/site/graceguts/sequences/the-last-leaf Mr. Alan Bridges' poem, according to the author, was written independently, without any model or influence of any kind and also without seeing this haiku by Mr. Welch. Mr. Welch just wishes it be recorded that his poem appeared first.

Seven Honourable Mentions

(In no particular order)

of what use long life –

the blood of all my kinfolk

dried winters ago

Marie Shimane

as I slow down

the wings of time

keep speeding up

William Hart

unwritten history

seeds without paper

soil without words

Minal Sarosh

in so much loss

so much compassion found

tsunami mud

Marie Shimane

Zatsuei, or Haiku of Merit

(In no particular order)

no response

to her children’s tears

her still body

Sheila Bello

roux and stock steam like

mardi gras nights peppery

like haitian pickerise

Patricia Biela

banana infused

oil sizzles skin limbs look like

thanksgiving for bears

Patricia Biela

he whispers sweet nothings

and she hears

nothing

Bruce R. Boynton

too big for its self sunflower

Alan S. Bridges

Scifiku

by John W. Sexton

an echo of no

(a sequence of scifaiku)

infinite mind -

the fires of Auschwitz

still burn in Yahweh

speed of light –

in the glitter of snow

the moon scrapes the Earth

s/mother pulls the

sweater over my head -

Orion bursts from my hair

the drowned child's penny...

scraped verdigris an eye-shadow

for sea-nymphs

an echo of no ...

Anubis wears

a smoke of souls

a secret orrery ...

ants position larvae

for the queen

rerouting the Seine...

Magritte draws a line

up the sky with chalk

tunnelling loops through

the faerie bulb ... wireworms

snuggle a foetus

god-nap ... something

of significance sleeps

through the entire human race

the undoing

(a sequence of scifaiku)

Li Po drinks

the rivermoon whole ...

herons take the stars

mind cold as current ...

pondweed skirts holding her

forever undertow

tethered to outgoing

godlight ... angels ride

the undoing

the scales of never ...

Ahmet places the one true

grain of sand

in the hauled

lobster's blue ...

depths

the night is long ...

my heartbeat more significant

than the milky way

overdressed ...

my suit of brine hopelessly

fraying into the sea

teddy bear ...

only grief is the witness

of cot death

greater things

(a sequence of scifaiku)

greater things than sex ...

a clot of starlight

addresses the abbess

lives of star systems ...

mere moments in the feather-growth

of Seraphim

Time sleepwalks ...

creation acts out a mime

of being a moth

pale darlings

(a sequence of scifaiku)

bioluminescent Mars ...

krill groom young seas

through the combs of their feet

oh my pale darlings...

let whales drag moonlight

to our sea-depths for windows

one million NE ...

evolved seal cherubs

intuit the Lord

on the deserted shore

stiletto voices

shatter the void

Claire Gardien

Poesie e farfalle

Il lieve aleggiare

Dell'eternità

Poems and butterflies

A slight hovering

Of eternity

Felice Vinci

wave follows earthquake

Man, trees, swept away

before the cherry blossoms

Carolanne Reynolds

Dark clouds, darker thoughts,

Encircling mountains unknown,

Raw grass stings my feet.

Charanjeet Kaur

sea devil

diving under

my boat

Zoran Mimica

so many ways

to live in this world

nude beach

Marian Olson

magnitude nine rubble

still on so many corpses

with the sunshine

Anna Vakar

rain on windshields

mother in the back

changing diapers

Lois E. Harvey

deceptive wealth

(a sequence of scifaiku)

injected into the heart ...

the seahorses

incite paradise

Sirius glints blue

through the pines

spiders climb moonlight

telegrams

of starlight

no stop

moths have left their stain

all over her skin

she glitters into morning

we perhaps

the stuff of stars ... but the stars

will get their stuff back

the seams

of her granite dress

pure crystal

butterfly after butterfly ...

Alzheimers

roots in the sentient hill

the immortal wades

through the ocean floor

an urchin his living hat

platinum rainfall

the empty city glitters

with deceptive wealth

Hiroshima ...

in the combustion of stars: innocence;

in this, not

trees deepen with dusk ...

in the black blue of the damsons

a vacancy

let the dark

(a sequence of scifaiku)

the child draws

an angel ... Heaven is

lopsided and pure

godfactory product 5 ...

furry molecules

of atomic love

tortoise ran

with an idea ... deliver oneself

as a box

the snake speaks

in esses ... steam infiltrates

a dream

the chalk mountains

slowly slowly

draw an ocean

blackened bodies

of Hiroshima ... that day the deeps

of space widened

over the mountains

the flying lantern dims ...

let the dark break our fall

blue arteries

(a sequence of scifaiku)

a dry reign...

the since crystallized

mudkings of Valles Marineris

self-shellcraft

FTL turtloid spacemirls

eggsintransit

seas inside ... cray-maidens

click their songs

in the blue arteries of Mars

List of the Poets who Submitted Work for this Issue

Steve Addiss

Unni Krishnan Atiyodi

Ramesh Anand

Winona Baker

Patricia Biela

Gerd Boerner

Siddhartha Borkakati

Bruce R. Boynton

Alan S. Bridges

Dawn Bruce

Owen Bullock

Sharon Burrell

Stephen Colgan

Susan Constable

Gillena Cox

John Daleiden

Jim Davis

Raffael de Gruttola

Ioana Dinescu

Kai Falkman

Nana Fredua-Agyeman

Claire Gardien

Victor P. Gendrano

Kate Godsey

Sari Grandstaff

Lars Granström

Ken Graybill

John Hamley

William Hart

Lois E. Harvey

Peggy Heinrich

Anne Hills

Elizabeth Howard

Liette Janelle

Douglas F. Johnson

Hans Jongman

Charanjeet Kaur

Howard Lee Kilby

Natsumi kosuge

Anthony Kudryavitsky

Snehith Kumbla

David E. LeCount

Priscilla Lignori

CaroleAnn Lovin

Maya Lyubenova

Scott Mason

Patrick Mizelle

Bijay Mohanty

shanna moore

Aju Mukhopadhyay

Surendra Munshi

Gautam Nadkarni

Nika

Marian Olson

Jim Pollard

Andy Pomphrey

George Power

Patricia Prime

Purushotham Rao Ravela

Carolanne Reynolds

Bruce Ross

Riitta Rossilahti

Minal Sarosh

Ann K. Schwader

Guy Simser

Ram Krishna Singh

Richard Stevenson

Shalini Sunkuru

André Surridge

Felice Vinci

Carmel Lively Westerman

Tad I. Wojnicki

Anna Yin