vicki’s haiku & tanka (prose) & haibun & split-sequence
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A Gathering of Afters
I’ve been reflecting on my catholic upbringing because the last member of my family recently died. Interesting how faith seems associated with death. For us, a part of ritual was made to be a gathering together of quiet, discipline, and wonder. I’m arguing with myself. Since my rebellious days, when my scattered logic questioned redemption, anointed sprinkles, and beads of cryptic memorizations. Reverence mixed with defiance all at the same time.
The oddity of original sin. I was terrified by what must be true. Confessed to lies I didn’t do. Coveting worship and commanding loyalty no one could explain. In our quiet unknowing, our stable Sunday best seemed to hold us together.
drawn to a sweet bud
the flight of a hoverfly—
by chance and will
I sit in the shallows
to look for agates
Drifting Sands Haibun
Anna Cates - Guest Editor
Issue #26 Spring 2024
quiet lunch
he tells me he likes
the lipstick print
on my coffee cup
we talk in riddles
*Sometimes it’s the surprising fun in the knowing or not knowing if the conversation between me and my husband will be a respite from happenings or a sweet unspoken sign to make love of it all.
Tanka Society of America
TSA Hangout, Theme Prompt: Relationships
Ken Slaughter, Tanka Hangout Editor
Spring/Summer Issue 2024
A Tarot Reading for Earth
Strength’s mastery
of its indomitable core where
Two Wands align with kairos
and the Page of Wands
kindles its source
the dogwoods, lichen, toads,
and the rose, the buzzards,
germs, the roach, and the buffalo,
have nature’s stubborn streak
over us all
do we know the entire world
is meant to be
lost and found
at the most
auspicious moment?
San Diego Poetry Annual Anthology 2024
Once in a Golden Valley
the tide comes back
the way it came
it never comes back the same
the current rushing
over my toes
a tumbling crawfish
string bean
aren’t you glad
you’re you, she’d say
I buff her ring
on my cheek
mother of pearl
Linked Verse
The Taste of Sunlight
Southern California Haiku Study Group
Anthology 2023
The Chair Beside the Road
The bald doll dressed in a running suit is tied to the handlebars of his bicycle. There’s a paper plate with three hard-boiled eggs and a bottle of something orange on top of his Igloo cooler. A bent sunbeam weaves down through the clapping cottonwoods.
the homeless man
sweeps skeleton leaves
from the edges
around his grocery cart
I envy his notable ease
cho Issue 19.3 Tanka Prose
Tish Davis, Tanka Prose Editor
December 2023
Honesty of Guilt
let the Devil happen
accept its blurry excessive vice
we cannot read
each other’s minds
and who would want to?
Not to complicate the confident beginning of the tarot reading but aren’t we all disgusting? If we keep our disgusting self to ourselves, who would know, who would care? Never fear the dregs in the bottle. Its concentrated excess becomes the most fruitful and nutritious feed for our curious forms. If we become aware of and accept the flaws in all of us: the compulsive, shameful, collective unconscious—will we applaud the reckoning?
imagining
you’re my lover
a medley of lucent hankering
the yellow primrose
shifts on my lap at twilight
Drifting Sands Haibun
Richard Grahn - Editor
Issue #24 December 2023
Uncle Lenny
My Uncle Lenny almost died next to the Out of Order vending machine at North Commons pier—my first trauma as a kid. It was the end of the season with few passersby. The way Uncle Lenny liked it, not one to get in the way, he’d say. The concession stand was Closed. Two crows on the gate cawed and bowed at Uncle Lenny’s slumpy body on the sticky cement. I started to cry. Mom squeezed my hand and pulled me close. Side by side we kneeled down next to him, she lifted his head to her lap, “Someone is coming, Lenny, we’ll get someone to help, we love you.” I squeezed his hand, he squeezed back, it was warm, “Don’t worry Uncle Lenny, don’t worry, please don’t worry.” Ants came, and they stung my ankles.
There was that man—standing there—his crooked accordion hanging on his sunken chest. A green ring flashed on his pinky when he shifted his weight, I heard a wheezy sound. He grinned like a painted clown with ugly teeth. He mumbled something, Mom held up some dollars, “Can you find someone for us, please, sir?” He pinched the dollars between his yellow fingernails and nodded. My head pounded thick. The quick people came and took Uncle Lenny away in a big white truck. Mom said he was going home. I wanted to go home.
what if he opened his eyes
I wished hard
the lemon Life Saver
dropped out of my mouth
and rolled under the bench
a man in a bowtie
smiled like that man
on the pier
he gave me a folded card
with a picture of Jesus in the sky
calm inside
the giant long jewelry box
he would have laughed
and said something funny
I’m cozy here
cho Issue 19.1 Tanka Prose
Tish Davis, Tanka Prose Editor
April 2023
Mama was a whistler
with one peculiar knack
her perfected medley
of “Sing, You Sinners”
and “Que Sera, Sera”
Tanka Society of America
TSA Hangout, Theme Prompt: Music
Ken Slaughter, Tanka Hangout Editor
Winter 2023
what’s to learn
from any bedeviled
misanthrope
those undernourished misfits
thriving in icy neverlands
Tanka Society of America
Tanka Studio, Visual Prompt
Autumn Noelle Hall, Tanka Studio Editor
Photo credit: Peggy Sue Zinn
Fall 2022
Write Letters to Silicon Valley Billionaires; Hire Kevin Mitnick; Or Else Join the Underground
—To all those who seek the truth
What the world needs now is more hackers. The good ones. It’s time to join the bad ones at their own games. Are you shocked? Hackers—the idea being, they’re all seedy and bloodshot-eyed. The disenfranchised ones who learn to drool over FIFO files and survive in Dirty Pipes where their egos become encased in masses of color-coded wires—
where the Sandworms
sniff out data
the Cyclops Blinks
the Voodoo Bears
pretend to sleep
It’s time for some honorable omnidirection. It’s time to stock up on 5 GHz antennas, long-range network adapters with the fittest chipsets, grids, and receivers—
to destroy the Industroyer
trick them
with unhackable watermarks
strangle them
with Hydra and Medusa
the whistleblowers
need leeway to override
the radio waves
to beat the bad ones
where malwares play
the future—
will humankind
self-destruct
before surviving
to see it?
—Footnote: Ethical hackers are needed everywhere. No one is immune to the consequences of misinformation.
Drifting Sands Haibun PDF
prompt: Activism? What can we do about the state
of our planet and the human species?
Richard Grahn, Editor, founding collaborative artist
Issue #15 May 2022
ambient roar
your voice lost
where I am too
near twilight we run
naked down the beach
Tanka Society of America Tanka Studio, Visual Prompt Autumn Noelle Hall, Tanka Studio Editor Photo credit: Jayalekshman SJ Spring/Summer 2022
the tide comes back
the way it came
it never comes back the same
frogpond Tom Sacramona, Editor
issue 45:2 Spring/Summer 2022
one man shouting
on the park bench
drifts of apple blossoms
Poetry Pea, Patricia McGuire, Managing Editor, Host Haiku Pea Podcast, May 16, 2022 Poetry Pea Journal 1:22, June 2022
downdraft
tin on the woodpile
steady tapping
her hickory cane
against the porch rail
rain stripes
a moat
around the outhouse
virginia creeper
hide the mouse
behind a tarot sign
the window shade
lifts then falls
failed haiku
split-sequence poem
A Journal of English Senryu, Mike Rehling, Editor
Volume 7, Issue 76 March 2022
Two of the Ten Brightest
The little girl made hand shadows on the wall. A degree symbol is not unlike the moon? You agree, then, that there is something somewhere? And little by little the medusa fades a little more? Your eyes are ricocheting again. Those damn wasps are making a nest in the eaves. So, what do we do now that the screws in my spine have settled in? You’re laughing! Yes, I believe we are all due to collide with escaping time.
over leftovers
we talk
about infinity
failed haiku
A Journal of English Senryu, Mike Rehling, Editor
Volume 7, Issue 76, March 2022
I Learned a Lot That Year
The double doors opened to the atrium, a spanse of hand-polished black slate. Quite impressive, abutting the front room with its white armchairs and canary yellow shag that ran—quite impractical I thought—up the massive stairway. The banister was made from the finest of something rare no doubt. No dust gathered there, or on his fine leather shoes.
my room opened to the pool
I taught his kids how to swim
he went to Rome
and brought me back
a crystal rosary
me, his novice au pair
I washed and ironed
all the underwear
we tap danced and played guitar
his kids were full of wonder
cho Issue 18.1 Tanka Prose
Tish Davis, Tanka Prose Editor
April 2022
plaid with paisley
the patchwork
of her
tsuri-dōrō
January/February 2022
First Day
Lily wakes up early already wearing her new daisy swimsuit. She sits long enough for Rice Krispies, half a cinnamon toastie, and a fresh orange smile. Her apple juice surreptitiously poured down the kitchen drain. She runs to grab her blue pail with four sandcastle molds: one yellow triangle, two green squares, and one red star. Hurry please!
on second thought . . .
she stops
for an inchworm
Coppertone squirts smell good on her warm skin. A sunburst wrinkles her brow. Her bangs, too long under her sunhat, poke her eyes that salt-water up like the tide.
a blowy curl
stuck to her cheek
kissed away
A hole dug bigger than a whale, Lily’s sandcastle grows five stories high. Her jumping-jack dance kicks up a moat for the finishing touch. In her last triumphant twirl, her little toe pinches a delirious bumblebee groping in the fluffed-up sand. Rightly defending itself, the bumblebee stings back. Lily cries and cries until a seagull comes for a dip in the rising swash.
the young girl sits
in the spit-warm sea
the taste of wet salt up her nose
for the first time
she sees the earth’s curve
Drifting Sands Haibun
Adelaide B. Shaw, Guest Editor
Issue #13 January 2022
her boot catching
in a sinkhole
soured hay
The Heron's Nest, John Stevenson, Managing Editor
Volume XXIII, Issue 4: December 2021
my sand-drawn message
taken by the tide
before me
the panpsychism panoply
of a cosmic stone
Tanka Society of America
Self-Portrait
Michael H. Lester, Editor
TSA Member's Anthology 2021
night beachcomber
a sprinkling
of star pools
The Haiku Foundation
Ad Astra with Guest Editor Alex Fyffe
Theme: star clusters
November 17, 2021
a stellar tailwind
spinnin’ on the edge
of a blue star
The Haiku Foundation
Ad Astra with Guest Editor Alex Fyffe
Theme: the universe
November 10, 2021
reconnoitering naivete
why do I see
the meaning of being blue
far from sunless?
rather a shade of skylark
Tanka Society of America
Tanka Café Theme: The Inner Life
Autumn Noelle Hall, Tanka Studio Editor
Fall Issue 2021
Music Beneath the Solitude
Nurse Lonnie started to press gently on Edith’s prolapsed bowel. You’re doing really good, Edith, she said, really good. This tiny lady, Edith, lying prone—and so vulnerable with her frail limp bottom wilting over the edge of the bed. We need to adjust your pillow a bit, Edith, are you ready, Nurse Lonnie asked? She nodded. I reached to give her pillow a little tug. Is that okay, Edith, I asked? Her crimped finger flicked my Nurse’s Intern badge.
locked pinkies
the curve
of her smile
I patted Edith’s head and her arms and her back. I told her I had a pink chenille bathrobe just like hers. I kissed her pink-powdered cheek through my crinkled mask and whispered, you are very brave, Edith. My ear lowered close to her mouth, I could barely hear her. Thank you, dear, she whispered back, thank you . . . so are you.
out of tune piano
a collection
of tears
Drifting Sands Haibun
Diana Webb, Guest Editor
Issue #11 September 2021
My Moments of Silence
My husband was a Vietnam Veteran. He didn’t talk much about the war. Mostly in jokes. The time they made him eat a cigarette. The time he stole a jeep and got it stuck in the mud. The nighttimes in muddy foxholes. The time a snake bit him in the ass. “Capture the snake for identification, if possible,” they said. And other fragments. On one deployment he caught some kind of bronchial crud. His foxhole buddies piled on top of him—to quiet his cough. All smelling like old piss and shit—he’d laugh. The time he ate dog head. The time he smoked raw opium.
He was a machine gunner. On the left side of his back there was a crater-big scar with a hole. For that, they gave him his first Purple Heart. Shrapnel pits on his left bicep. Shrapnel pits on both shins. For that, they gave him his second Purple Heart. We were married for 22 years. He died in a car crash in 1990. It was a crashing time.
the times after he died
the times
I didn’t answer the phone
I was out for a run one rainy day and I started to cry. I stopped to look up at the clouds. The raindrops dripped off the edge of my visor and into my eyes. It stung. I could hardly see—probably the salty sweat or the dust mixing with rain. A moment of silence. A whoosh and a cry over the folded flag. After the last wave goodbye, I never went back. I don’t believe in visiting graves. I can always hug the wind.
sometimes I smell lilacs
when I see no lilacs
I think of him
Drifting Sands Haibun
Keith Polette, Editor
Issue #10 July 2021
a sniper adjusts his gun scope a baby’s cry
tsuri-dōrō
July/August 2021
his fatigue shirt hanging
from the doorframe
lengthening shadows
tsuri-dōrō
July/August 2021
moment of silence
the stinging rain drips
off the soldier’s visor
tsuri-dōrō
July/August 2021
wrapped inside
a box inside a box
his dog tags
tsuri-dōrō
July/August 2021
night shift
the sudden nuzzle
of a cat’s ninth life
bottle rockets press
Window Seats
A Contemporary Anthology of Cat Haiku & Senryu 2021
Human Marquee According to Crow
“Nothing is unreal as long as you can imagine a crow” ~ Munia Khan
Now playing on balconies above the alleyway in the mini-amphitheater: the card players, the pot gardener, the cat sitter, the hammock loller, the grizzly grillers, and the stationary biker lost in her mobius trance. Are they watching us watching them?
On the fourth-floor penthouse, the finale of the half-naked party boys with their half-dozen surfboards propped towards the sun gods; thank god they are gone, evicted from their playful sanctuary!
a preening crow
for a moment
headless
frogpond
vol. 44:2 Spring/Summer 2021
city fountain
the ragged man
steals a wish
tsuri-dōrō
January/February 2021
deadwood pine moaning across the riffle a rusted fender
tsuri-dōrō
January/February 2021
scent of a storm
the figeater’s
bumper harvest
Stardust Haiku - Poetry With a Little Sparkle
Presented by Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
Issue 45 - September 2020
four o’clocks in the bowl on the day she forgot my name
The Robert Spiess Memorial Haiku Award
Honorable Mention
Modern Haiku
Competition for 2020
the shape
of a young girl’s fingers
coiled sweetgrass
The Haiku Foundation Dialogue Theme: Opposites attract big/small August 26, 2020
triple-digit day
Mama’s frozen peaches
in the worm bin
The Haiku Foundation Dialogue Theme: Opposites attract hot/cold August 19, 2020
a bee swarm a cappella among the willow catkins
The Heron's Nest
Volume XXII, Number 2: June 2020
cottage for sale a birdhouse filled with seashells
The Heron's Nest
Volume XXII, Number 2: June 2020
my hands like hers
I fold and pat the wash rags
twice
The Heron's Nest
Volume XXI, Number 4: December 2019
the times I just sat and counted lightning between quick thunder
bottle rockets press
#42 February 2020
Who Wonders?
On my way down the parking ramp stairway, I noticed a snail on the bannister. I carefully plucked it off and placed it in the jasmine bush at the far end of the lot. How long did it take the little snail to slither along the dry sidewalk to reach that barren bannister in the exhaust-filled parking ramp stairway? I wondered.
the parade ends
am I the only one who
hears the hermit thrush
frogpond vol. 43:1 winter 2020
On the Road
summer retreat
takeout lunch and a cab tour
of central park
Don’t worry, your nose will acclimate to the dust. Just drift toward the peppercorn and sagebrush edge, due north. Watch out for snail shells, seafoam and horse drool. Notice your cadence will quicken past the skunk cabbage or an occasional sunning rattler. Whiptail lizards will accompany you for a stare then skitter-cross under the poison oak. Roadrunners will not catch and eat goldfish, although fire ants will. Step high because boulders and rocks won’t see you coming. Bring only water: one bottle for you and one to share just in case. Leave no trace. At the end, you’ll own the stump chair in the shade if you’re lucky. You’ll loosen your neon laces. Your calves will tighten in a good way, strong and new. The air on sweet sweat will feel refreshing when you take off your new cap. It won’t be new anymore.
heat rash
scratched your day
a missed deadline
Contemporary Haibun January 2020
cemetery with a view
for the living
or the dead
failed haiku
Volume 4, Issue 46, October 2019
muggy moon
the do-si-dos kick up
a little barn smell
The Heron's Nest
Volume XXI, Number 3: September 2019
The Santa Monica Stairs
Have you ever looked between the risers while climbing the steps to the upper level or going back down – depending? You may want to do that next time. Look first where the wooden faces align with the winter solstice. Look where the barnacles spit. Later in the night, if the light on the Ferris-wheel hits the grunions just right, their flickering silver skin will look like cat-eyes winking at you – guaranteed! Peruse the boardwalk. Smell the fishy roasted corn. Observe the decay under the totem. If you can avoid the sprinter crowd – do it. Keep to the right. When the parade ends, make sure you listen for the hermit thrush. Plus, the sideshow is fine on a fine day.
sundown a scrawny mutt curled on a boogie board
The north end stairs are upside down, you know. One way to Palisades Bluff, the other to Coast Highway. Depending on where you parked, don’t neglect the view at the top – it’ll shake you wild. On the way down, west wind prevailing, the weeping figs will shade you; their wavy branches will lash the horseflies off your bare shoulders. Or just wait. On the climb back up, the stunted windmill will fan the sweat you’ve probably worked up by that time. If it’s your last round-trip – did you forget where you parked?
coming storm
your name spray-painted
on the k-rail
Contemporary Haibun
Vol. 15 No. 3, October 2019
teeth marks
on a short yellow pencil —
steady rain
The Heron's Nest
Volume XXI, Number 1: March 2019
she bends to kiss
the newborn’s soft spot
wispy clouds
frogpond
vol. 42:2 spring/summer 2019
a clinking bottle
moon down
at the dump
The Haiku Foundation Dialogue
Theme: a glass bottle, June 6, 2019
cruise ship gala
a mylar ribbon snares
the mollymawk’s wing
Haiku Society of America
Anthology 2019
my blind leap
a broken shell
blushes in the sand
The Haiku Foundation Dialogue
Theme: a broken shell, June 19, 2019
a heart carved
on the cherry tree—
when do they cry
The Haiku Foundation
EarthRise Rolling Haiku 2019