At the graveyard gate,
a crow waits for me
to croak the password.
John Hawkhead is a writer from the South West of England. In 2021 he won the Porad Haiku Contest, the Setouchi-Matsuyama haiku Grand Prix and was a Finalist in the Trailblazer contest.
In college, she’s learning pepper spray.
Brianna McCadden, a name I’m learning.
At 3:30
in the A.M.,
I’m always
brilliant
as a torch
in a moonless
wood—a
brilliance
swallowed
by the light
of the sun.
Yvonne Zipter is the author of poetry collection Kissing the Long Face of the Greyhound, the novel Infraction, and countless insomnia-induced scraps of poetry.
The Jack-o-Lantern our neighbor threw
into the woods across the street,
caved in, gnawed by squirrels and possums —
I wish I had not seen that face at twilight,
under a half-moon’s faint-hearted gauze.
Fredric Koeppel has discovered that writing a one-sentence poem is harder than writing an epic.
As if a pipe burst inside, memory
a vast field, those warm strawberries
picked, fingers stained in a freshness
of all I’ve touched as I hold my breath
to stay in the blossoming
of what Rilke advised, Go into yourself,
your solitude will widen,
a whole life touchable—
the lemon tree in the backyard
and I am reaching for fruit,
like I own an orchard,
like I am an orchard.
Sarah Dickenson Snyder lives in Vermont, carves in stone, rides her bike, and has three poetry collections, The Human Contract, Notes from a Nomad, and With a Polaroid Camera.
Here I am again
at my own birthday party
where you’d spin
a blind-folded me,
the papery donkey tail
clutched in my hand
as I reach out for
what I can’t see.
Sarah Dickenson Snyder lives in Vermont, carves in stone, rides her bike, and has three poetry collections, The Human Contract, Notes from a Nomad, and With a Polaroid Camera.
My granddaughter
takes control of the day,
grabs it by its neck
and won’t let go,
swings it over her head,
lassos a runaway hour
to make sure it doesn’t escape.
Wayne Scheer has been nominated for five Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the Nets.
I have heard it is bad luck to wake up
a student who is asleep in class, and so
I don’t, even though now he may never
know that Picasso dressed like a pauper
or that Bulgarians burn old used clothes
for heat and fuel or that in years to come
he will resemble a blurry photo of himself.
I could advertise the network
of scars I bear from a neurotic
upbringing, or say I live mostly
in my head, or even joke that
I am a noted writer of blurbs
for other people’s books, and
I could do it, just as required
by your submission guidelines,
in “50 words or less,” but it wouldn’t
be nearly the whole truth, more
like an article of clothing snuffled
by a search dog to learn the scent
of the person who has gone missing.
Whatever it is, Howie Good is against it.