A Tanka by Anne Fox

 

five senses
answer to one brain
the sixth is me
tethered to the moon
dancing

~

Anne Fox, considered a witch-child from birth, is an off-planet soul doing psychopomp work for our dying civilization.

"Pickle Ball" by Jerome Berglund

 

Pickle Ball

shopping hungry

by the tributary

a car parked

So, I've been reading some emails, you may know the ones, and mayhap I owe my aunt an apology. Let me explain, and please bear with me as this all gets rather peculiar—as of late, isn't that just par for the course though? Now this aunt is not technically that, rather my father's cousin, his paternal aunt's daughter on his dad's side, the branch who reputedly fled Sweden precisely around the time following the March Unrest when antisemitic riots were occurring all across Stockholm, converted from Judaism (these are purely inferences extrapolated from family lore and exhaustive ancestry research, thus far not formally verified, Berg surnames are prevalent in Scandinavian and Yiddish both languages being Germanic in character) and settled in Hastings, Minnesota where they established a popular dairy, the remnants of which exist in some fashions still today. Now none of that is precisely here or anywhere, but besides my grandfather who beyond becoming a renowned folk bard went on to enthusiastically bomb the fascists to kingdom come during the second world war their issue included a daughter. She married a notoriously unfriendly gent who was not a particularly involved parent to my aunt (let's stick with the nomenclature for convenience as I always have) after having sired her, but his parent, my aunt's grandfather was a different story altogether, caring, attentive and ambitious, charming, industrious and gregarious by her description, he did everything he could to improve himself and their family's station in life, which in his day (no less than ours I imagine) amounted to devoting a vast amount of time and energy to his pursuit of masonry.

hot night

to his ears the eventide

sounds of bones

That is not purely rumor or legend either, for among the heirlooms she imparted to me in her last year before ascending as some describe it (I'm more familiar with Rosicrucianism, both traditions often overlapping and bearing a great many parallels, most germanely a monotheistic conception of the universe—the final revelation of those oft-cited mysteries of Eleusis—and a belief in reincarnation, meticulously reconciled with the gospels of Christianity in fascinating ways) were some highly enviable accessories including a fifty-year California member pin and a matching blue tie clip denoting Master status (blue for the mother lodge of all freemasonry, where neophytes are initiated and educated, a process which at minimum fourteen American presidents including Washington and FDR completed, LBJ notably not having mettle to reach any further than the first degree) both emblazoned with iconic square, compass, a G representing the aforementioned presiding higher power, allegedly also denoting geometry, gnosis or knowledge, and the Grand Architect. A lifetime membership card confirmed that title, exemplified as 'perfect ashlar' having elevated two levels up from rough beginnings over the course of a lifetime, there being no higher to go if other rites may be pursued, and an elected Grand officer (a brand ambassador of sorts who assists in public outreach and charitable activities) officiates over a grouping of lodges, a Worshipful one managing individual bodies.

scorcher

chainsaw into

the afternoon

But I digress. Returning to the injustice I appear to have committed against my aunt, let me cite a series of unrelated facts or minutiae and see if you also observe a similar pattern emerging. My aunt always described the secret society galas and get-togethers her grandfather hosted or attended which she was often adjacent to as being riveting affairs, peopled with prominent judges, politicos, businessmen, educators, technologists, high-ranking service members, luminaries of influence in the culture and industries of arts and letters. Later in life she would become a renowned psychiatrist and minister to violent offenders in the prison system. This made her a great many enemies and was a truly hazardous occupation and anxiety-inducing career as she was always getting threatened by inmates and believed on at least one occasion her car was tampered with in a failed plot to cause her demise. Among my aunt's incredible war stories being briefly involved in the internal investigation of Dahmer's suspicious death at her facility (she removed herself posthaste from the inquiry, fearing retaliation for any findings documented, being clearly a job in which staff had been involved with and liable for permitting or committing) was a memorable highlight, also working during captivity of that infamous serial killer the television series Black Bird was based around, and a relatable shrink character depicted may genuinely have borrowed from her experiences when screenwriters or the source material's author crafted the composite persona.

a patch of dirt

in the shade

past the clovers

Additionally, early in her education (either for an assignment, or perhaps even as formal thesis) she meticulously investigated the government UFO analysis Project Blue Book, which she long regretted, attributing fears for her safety and recurring observations of what she described and interpreted as the 'crowd stalking' phenomenon. Our family and her peers always assumed she was a little batty, eccentric, touched, whatever the ameliorative euphemistic terms her day used to describe neurodivergence or mood disorders. Given a proclivity for drama, coupled with outlandish stories of her ex-husband being a murderer and made man, reports of what sounded like hallucinations, a carefully executed schedule of malingering to satisfy addictions to pain medication, she was by most considered a hypochondriac and blend (psychotic episodes and subsequent commitments being well-documented) of paranoid and disorganized schizophrenic. Which brings us to the salient part of this story, and those abominable missives' details. Okay, the Unabomber, she frequently with a kind of mischievous pride would regale us with the assertion that she had met that Ted Kaczynski, and that he'd reminded her of my other (actual) uncle Chuck, my dad's brother, who certainly has born more than a passing wildman physical resemblance to over the years, and today I learned he should not necessarily take that as anything but a compliment. You see, it just so happens that at least two of his targets were pederast associates deeply connected to and in personal contact with Epstein, one of whom was researching the health benefits and potential values of cannibalism, conducting primitive research through study and experimentation on worms. This reminded me of those stories, and also how whenever they came up I never could get her to provide the specifics of how and why she came into contact with such an unusual and notorious personage. I believe the vague brush-off explanation was that they met through something to do with her education. (That other deviant was a professor at Yale, incidentally.) Now, let's start putting all this together.

who all

saw in the closet

form an orderly line

If you observe appearances in myths and culture (say, War and Peace, the Dark and White Lodges, bookhouse boys and owl of Twin Peaks—more on the latter Moloch later, but not too much I promise, also can be located several stories tall in oft-parodied Bohemian Grove, where oligarchs dress up in robes and pick who will win the next election, or Superbowl, or the New Mexico Powerball lottery:  spoiler send 100 million to the Epstein trust, it helps when the state governor is a longtime buddy and professed predator client, or are paying for the private school and college tuitions of the first family of your unincorporated territory) one will frequently hear cited a struggle between two competing fraternal ideologies and their subscribers in a dialectic of sorts, good and evil yins and yangs personified in the organizations of Freemasonry and the Illuminati respectively. So you have Epstein lunatics being hunted by a self-styled agent of justice (not a pretend provocateur shooting hard drives or staging campaign theatrics), quite tellingly never described as such by our wholly compromised and deceptive corporate state media, and my Masonic heir aunt somehow is proximate. You also have symptoms, behaviors, responses which one hears a lot about getting observed and evinced by those involved in cults, where memories are suppressed intentionally through mind control the likes of which have been perfected and deployed formally in public and private sectors and are frequently observed in, reported by abused and brainwashed survivors. Jeffrey and his ilk were very interested in that part of the grooming and cleanup process, too. It's also been a popular topic at the global economic forum and in the vestiges of Nazi experimentation their scientists' imported philosophies and practices to the states which continued, expanded and thrived under the largess of MK Ultra.

clearly

a memory has been implanted—

electroshock!

We also have an empowered, capable mind and mandated reporter with knowledge of (then heavily concealed and contained, now shockingly transparent and discussed openly on Senate floors and televised hearing, indeed not unlike discounting and gaslighting regularly divulged and reported incidences of prevalent ritual abuse so long scoffed at as Satanic Panic, also worth noting recent revealing of the clever minds behind claiming traumatic memories recovered during hypnosis being invented through suggestion have been exposed as Epstein associated convicted degenerates trying to discredit and introduce shadows of doubt) unidentified anomalous crafts and associated remains, on an institutional murder or governmentally ordered hit, taking out a serial killer who may have been a liability (the unique skillset and class's involvement in compromising blackmail schemes is demonstrably crucial throughout the history, from Gacy's being an asset working with the government through the Jaycees in different capacities to entrap or dispose, Crowley doing something very similar to honey pot, expose and control elites, and let's not forget that farm in Indiana where over ten thousand humans' unidentified remains were acknowledged to have resided yet receives zero coverage in the headlines, all the way back to the Pope staging and well-documenting infractions of an orgy to hold over and compel participants in that mythic chestnut banquet), also someone of deteriorated health reliant on medication (so those messages, describing weaponizing the diseases like Parkinson's and Lewy Body—was just watching a video of Ventura ranting to reporters about building seven's collapse being reported long before it occurred by a BBC correspondent right in front of the structure—also suggesting Epstein may have been involved in the genesis of COVID, Bill Gates was exploring depopulating large segments of the planet) furthermore addiction being the most prominent, first and very effective strategy operatives use to disrupt movements and individuals, but if my aunt really was a person privy to shocking information and a loose end regarding secrets, all her accusations about being followed and psychological tortures, warfare which are not the slightest far-fetched then, you should read what they do to prisoners in custody during conflicts, highly reminiscent to the island crowd's horrid sadist activities, continuing no less disgustingly at black sites under administrations of the sham left elected who keep funding genocide abroad and supporting, thanking and empowering gestapo at home.

trepanning

the ice eats

their troops

So, yeah, the one silver lining to this year's cloud of baby intestines and rain of stem cell rich young blood is a better, more holistic understanding of my family, figures who'd long been interchanged when painted as villain and victim (does that Malcolm X quote come to your mind, too? again curious what all Chris Dorner was aware of, and other martyrs), and also a realization that the bought puppet media, deceptive search engines and shifty a.i., scrubbed internet archives and hacked Wikipedia are willfully lying to us through every channel each day. Most recently Gemini is picking up where Snopes left off debunking true things with strawmen rephrasing or saying they are false because a clear cut smoking gun is still unavailable. Like so many, it's a joy to see my aunt vindicated, just as all the noble researchers and sleuths following satanic pedo breadcrumbs unearthed troves of facts and examples of trafficking code speak and receipts for rented kids, (Anthony Weiner's laptop, which reportedly those who viewed *committed suicide* wink wink shorty thereafter, the FBI report lists as belonging to "PRODUCERS OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY", again explain to me any context in which a sane Hillary would then send the following language in an email:  "I will be sacrificing a chicken in the backyard to Moloch . . ."

The Context:  The comment was not about a genuine ritualistic sacrifice but was a satirical or sarcastic way of expressing hope for a positive outcome to a difficult political situation.

Oh, silly me, that totally makes logical sense, thank you for clearing everything up so convincingly, and to do so taking the time away from your valuable droning of civilians!) the media flippantly ignored and dismissed, only to be definitely established this week at long horrifying last.

spirit of the law

I find my teacher eating

an infant

So I beg of you, friends, please listen when that family member, pal or colleague is aware of some ongoing disgrace with politicians or celebrities or craptains of industry, say that horrifying snuff films involving august bigwigs performing heinous acts have been circulating the dark web, Mamdani is tied to Epstein and endorsing genocides, Rothschilds by their own admissions supported Hitler in their Holocaust and apparently these days are hunting dark-skinned humans . . . (all in those emails, along with allegations of trump committing infanticide, elsewhere the most disturbing accounts of what happened to the island poodles and how our president got that colostomy bag), naked people are escaping from Buckingham Palace, there are giant pyramids in the far north, they've intentionally used crises in Haiti and Ukraine and collapsing Soviet Union to procure children for trafficking, these insane and unbelievable apparent truths are there for you to verify on the fourth Reich's .gov website as we speak, and if you can stand reading graphic accounts of minors being strangled to death by recognizable television personalities, a lot of goy bombs, and that actual cannibalism the affluent are so gaga about, you'll find more insight into everything you couldn't prove or didn't know and everyone (The Dali Lama? Hugh Jackman? Christopher Nolan? Val Kilmer? Noam Chomsky? Deepak Chopra? The black-eyed, red-shoed Pope/s? Stephen 'child molester' Hawking? Bill 'tried to slip wife antibiotics since he gave her an abuse-contracted STD' Gates?) you should never have trusted than in anything else I've encountered in all my life . . . The totality is formally alleged in government documents and testimony, protecting attackers and exposing victims, charging or punishing no one. But you can know and act accordingly, and also grasp the people sucking up all the airtime complaining about scripted distractions while in the same breath defending their supposed liberal enabler chums and bacchanal co-conspirators are every bit as complicit or actively participating in these nightmares. If you wonder why justice is so blind a supreme court justice is in those records accused of abusing a toddler. These patterns couldn't go deeper and be more systemic or insidious, I implore you all to acquaint yourself with their gist before it's too late.

jive turkey

baal has gotten

mainstream

~

Jerome Berglund has had a lifelong interest in angels, demons, hoodoo, voodoo, saints, sinners, spiritual ritual, occult practices, and supernatural phenomenon. His lineage includes victims of the Salem witch hunts. Many haiku, haiga and haibun he's written have been exhibited or are forthcoming online and in print, most recently in bottle rockets, Frogpond, and Presence. His first full-length collections of poetry were released by Setu, Meat for Tea, Mōtus Audāx Press, and a mixed media chapbook showcasing his fine art photography is available now from Fevers of the Mind.

An Esoteriku by Hifsa Ashraf

 

kufiya hanging
from the border fence—
the swarm of crows

~

Fueled by a healthy dose of caffeine, Hifsa Ashraf from Rawalpindi, Pakistan, has been writing poetry since her teenage years. She is the author of six individual and four collaborative micropoetry collections. Lately, she enjoys cawing while tracing the contours of shadows.

An Esoteriku by Kelly Sargent

 

morning mantra
softening the shell
of the seed

~

Kelly Sargent is a poet, editor, and devoted tea drinker residing in Vermont. Though she writes about autumn foliage and fallen acorns, she most enjoys penning poems that reflect the multiple facets of being human. She is an assistant editor for #FemkuMag and served this year as co-judge for the HSA Harold G. Henderson Haiku Contest. The author of a haiku/senryu collection entitled Bookmarks (Red Moon Press, 2023), she writes because when a reader gives a little nod or slight smile, she no longer bears the weight of living, alone.

A Tanka by Shloka Shankar

 

they say
no man is an island . . .
I've drifted ashore
one too many times
to know the difference

~

Shloka Shankar is a disabled poet, editor, and visual artist from Bangalore, India.  A Best of the Net nominee and widely published poet, Shloka is the Founding Editor of Sonic Boom and its imprint Yavanika Press. She is the author of the haiku collections The Field of Why and within our somehows, and co-author of the haiga anthology, living in the pause. Website:  www.shlokashankar.com | Instagram:  @shloks23

An Esoteriku by Charles Trumbull

 

the manifest
the mountain
the beyond

~

Dr. Charles Trumbull is retired from research, writing, editorial, and publishing positions at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Encyclopedia Britannica. He is past president of the Haiku Society of America and retired editor of Modern Haiku. His chapbook Between the Chimes was published in 2011, and A Five-Balloon Morning, a book of New Mexico haiku, appeared in June 2013, and A History of Modern Haiku came out in 2019. These days he divides his time between his Haiku Database and Haikupedia, the online encyclopedia of haiku.

A Haiga by John Hawkhead

 

~

John Hawkhead has been writing short-form poetry for over 30 years, publishing three books of haiku & senryu in that time. He lives in the South West of England.

An Esoteriku by David McKee

 

after party after the end of nature

~

David McKee is a haiku poet and retired psychotherapist living in Madison, WI. David's haiku have been published in various journals, including Modern Haiku, Frogpond, Acorn, Kingfisher, Bones, Presence, and password. His work has been anthologized in The Red Moon Anthology, Haiku 2021, Haiku 2022, Haiku 2023, Haiku 2024, the Whiptail 2023 Anthology, and the Haiku 21.2 Anthology. He was also invited to join a group of 17 haiku poets in sharing large selections of their haiku in the New Resonance series published by Red Moon Press. He is an oblate of Holy Wisdom Monastery and serves as lead shepherd for the oblate formation program. He is also a member of The Stray Dog Sangha, a small Zen Buddhist group in Madison.

An Esoteriku by Anne Fox

 

bones in the roots
of a wind-felled tree
birth mother

~

Anne Fox, considered a witch-child from birth, is an off-planet soul doing psychopomp work behind the scenes for our dying civilization.

An Esoteriku by Kala Ramesh

on waking up
the Buddha nature falls away . . .
I am all me

~

Kala Ramesh, a renowned pioneer of haikai literature in India, was shortlisted for the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize in 2019 for her book, Beyond the Horizon Beyond. Founder of Triveni Haikai India and haikuKATHA Journal, Kala conceptualised and curated Triveni Utsav 2025, the ninth festival she has organised since 2006. HAIKUcharades: imaging haiku through dance and music, and haibunSLAM are her contributions to the haikai world. Her book of tanka, tanka prose and tanka doha 'the forest i know' was published by HarperCollins India in July 2021. Kala co-edited amber i pause, Triveni Volunteer Dhanyavaad Anthology, published by Hawakal. From 2024 Kala has initiated Triveni on Wheels, where she organises Triveni members' haikai reading in various cities, literary festivals and organisations.

A Haiga by Robin Smith

 

~

They co-founded the Visual Poetry Mail Art Club (snail mail vispo art cards) with Shloka Shankar: www.shlokashankar.com/mailart. If you have any questions, DM them on IG @komadorihaiku. [https://www.instagram.com/komadorihaiku]

An Esoteriku by Chad Lee Robinson

 

hunger moon
dirt on the latch
of the graveyard gate

~

Chad Lee Robinson has been writing haiku and related poetry for more than twenty years. He is the author of four haiku collections, most recently The White Buffalo (Backbone Press, 2023). Much of his haiku is about the prairie, but he also enjoys writing horrorku and Halloween-related haiku and senryu, which have appeared in a wide variety of haiku journals, including horror senryu journal, Haikuniverse and Otoroshi Journal. He lives in Pierre, South Dakota.

An Esoteriku by Vishal Prabhu

deep winter
keeping a step ahead
departing crows

~

A lover of all things deep and dark, Vishal Prabhu is forever walking over the edge of a forest. 

A Haiga by Vidya Premkumar and Arvinder Kaur

 

Monoku:  Vidya Premkumar

Image:  Arvinder Kaur

~

Vidya Premkumar is a poet, visual artist, entrepreneur, and educator known for her three poetry collections:  Musing while Living, Living in an Indian Laputa, and The Silent Project, as well as a chapbook frame story. Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals, including CHO, Failed Haiku, and #FemkuMag. She lives in Kerala, India.

Arvinder Kaur believes in a superpower that lives within each one of us, whose presence she feels in all forms of creation. She has released four collections of haiku and is working on her fifth one. Totally in love with her mother tongue, she also has three translated works to her credit. Her haiku/senryu often appear in major international journals. A retired educationist, she lives in Chandigarh, India with her family.

An Esoteriku by Laila Brahmbhatt

 

the self blurs
in pink tea
on tazkiyah's path

~

Laila is a devoted workaholic who can be found either working wholeheartedly or writing poems with equal passion. Some days, she honestly can't decide whether she loves poetry more because it brings her closest to being a Sufi herself. Her ancestors are from Kashmir, and she feels a profound pull toward Sufi practices as she lovingly traces her ancestral roots.

An Esoteriku by Vidya Premkumar

 

autocorrect dream green lighting my grief

~

Vidya Premkumar is a poet, visual artist, entrepreneur, and educator known for her three poetry collections:  Musing while Living, Living in an Indian Laputa, and The Silent Project, as well as a chapbook frame story. Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals, including CHO, Failed Haiku, and #FemkuMag. She lives in Kerala, India.

An Esoteriku by Kelly Sargent

 

wondering if this is
as good as it gets—
winter cherries

~

Kelly Sargent is a poet, editor, and devoted tea drinker residing in Vermont. Though she writes about autumn foliage and fallen acorns, she most enjoys penning poems that reflect the multiple facets of being human. She is an assistant editor for #FemkuMag and served last year as co-judge for the HSA Harold G. Henderson Haiku Contest. The author of a haiku/senryu collection entitled Bookmarks (Red Moon Press, 2023), she writes because when a reader gives a little nod or slight smile, she no longer bears the weight of living, alone.

An Esoteriku by Charles Trumbull

 

restless night
not the hero
in his own dream

~

Dr. Charles Trumbull is retired from research, writing, editorial, and publishing positions at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Encyclopedia Britannica. He is past president of the Haiku Society of America and retired editor of Modern Haiku. His chapbook Between the Chimes was published in 2011, and A Five-Balloon Morning, a book of New Mexico haiku, appeared in June 2013, and A History of Modern Haiku came out in 2019. These days he divides his time between his Haiku Database and Haikupedia, the online encyclopedia of haiku.

A Haiga by Aishwarya Vedula

 

~

Aishwarya is a research scholar, poet, and visual artist from India. Her work engages cinema and culture through close observation and experience. Shaped by engagement with spiritual inquiry and social realities, her practice moves creative writing. She is the author of four books and co-author of several others, with work published in established literary journals. Attentive to sound, rhythm, and the textures of found language, she continues to work at the meeting point of thought and form.

An Esoteriku by Goran Gatalica

 

her chakras
caressed in amber hues
of amethyst

~

Goran Gatalica was born in Virovitica, Croatia, in 1982 and currently resides in Zagreb, Croatia. He finished both physics and chemistry degrees from the University of Zagreb and proceeded directly to a PhD program after graduation. He has published poetry, haiku, and prose in literary journals and anthologies. Gatalica has received many honors for his poetry and haiku, including Award Dragutin Tadijanović, the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts for the poetry book Kozmolom (2017), the honor "Haiku Master of the Month" (Rikugien Gardens and Biei, NHK WORLD TV, Japan 2016 and 2017), the Basho-an Award (Japan, 2018, 2019 and 2023), Karatnogahara Monogatari Award on 4th Star Haiku Contest (2023, Katano, Japan) and John Bird Dreaming Award on 3rd John Bird Dreaming Award Contest for Haiku (Australia, 2025). He is a member of the Croatian Writers' Association.

An Esoteriku by Sarah Mahina Calvello

 

upturned crescent of an offering

~

Sarah Mahina Calvello lives in San Francisco and writes mostly haiku. She loves nature and is addicted to coffee. https://heyyouhaiku.blogspot.com/?m=1

An Esoteriku by Partha Sarkar

 

breaks the moon the pride of metal

~

Partha Sarkar, a Bengali graduate, born in West Bengal, 1967, writes poems to protest against human's oddities and its cruelties to nature.

A Tanka by Kimberly Kuchar

 

among the flowers
a unicorn rests
in its cage
for 30 silver coins
you'd sell out anyone

~

Kimberly Kuchar often writes while her pet cockatiel is relaxing on her shoulder. In 2025, she was a Rhysling Award Finalist and was in the Dwarf Stars Anthology. She also had a haiku displayed in Washington, DC, in the Golden Haiku Poetry Competition and received an Honorable Mention in the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Haiku Invitational. Kimberly lives near Austin with her husband and son (when he's home from college).

An Esoteriku by David McKee

 

phantom neurons haunted by an unlived life

~

David McKee is a haiku poet and retired psychotherapist living in Madison, WI. David's haiku have been published in various journals, including Modern Haiku, Frogpond, Acorn, Kingfisher, Bones, Presence, and password. His work has been anthologized in The Red Moon Anthology, Haiku 2021, Haiku 2022, Haiku 2023, Haiku 2024, the Whiptail 2023 Anthology, and the Haiku 21.2 Anthology. He was also invited to join a group of 17 haiku poets in sharing large selections of their haiku in the New Resonance series published by Red Moon Press. He is an oblate of Holy Wisdom Monastery and serves as lead shepherd for the oblate formation program. He is also a member of The Stray Dog Sangha, a small Zen Buddhist group in Madison.

"Breast Feeding" by Anne Fox

 

Breast Feeding

with my bones
beat your drum
while dancing with joy
entwine them in the hair
of your children's children
as the dearest of amulets
toss them to the ground
to divine our future
blend them with yours
into a fine fine soup
to feed those after
with stories
of who we are

~

Anne Fox, considered a witch-child from birth, is an off-planet soul doing psychopomp work behind the scenes for our dying civilization.

An Esoteriku by Kala Ramesh

 

I fail
to force open a bud . . .
daybreak magic

~

Kala Ramesh, a renowned pioneer of  haikai literature in India, was shortlisted for the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize in 2019 for her book, Beyond the Horizon Beyond. Founder of Triveni Haikai India and haikuKATHA Journal, Kala conceptualised and curated Triveni Utsav 2025, the ninth festival she has organized since 2006. HAIKUcharades: imaging haiku through dance and music and haibunSLAM are her contributions to the haikai world. Her book of tanka, tanka prose and tanka doha 'the forest i know' was published by HarperCollins India in July 2021. Kala co-edited amber i pause, Triveni Volunteer Dhanyavaad Anthology, published by Hawakal. From 2024 Kala has initiated Triveni on Wheels, where she organises Triveni members' haikai reading in various cities, literary festivals and organisations.

A Haiga by Aishwarya Vedula

 

~

Aishwarya is a research scholar, poet, and visual artist from India. Her work engages cinema and culture through close observation and experience. Shaped by engagement with spiritual inquiry and social realities, her practice moves creative writing. She is the author of four books and co-author of several others, with work published in established literary journals. Attentive to sound, rhythm, and the textures of found language, she continues to work at the meeting point of thought and form.

An Esoteriku by Vandana Parashar

 

i raised to the power of euthanasia

~

Vandana Parashar is an associate editor of haikuKATHA and one of the editors of Poetry Pea and #FemkuMag. Her debut e-chapbook, "I Am," was published by Title IX Press (now Moth Orchid Press) in 2019 and her second chapbook, "Alone, I Am Not," was published by Velvet Dusk Publishing in April 2022. She won the 2025 HIGH/COO Chapbook Award, and her third chapbook was published by Brooks Books. She is a Lord Shiva devotee but believes in goodness of thoughts, words and deeds rather than following elaborate rituals to appease God. She likes to spend time with nature and herself.  

An Esoteriku by Charles Trumbull

 

broken daydream
a phase shift
in my reality

~

Dr. Charles Trumbull is retired from research, writing, editorial, and publishing positions at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Encyclopedia Britannica. He is past president of the Haiku Society of America and retired editor of Modern Haiku. His chapbook Between the Chimes was published in 2011, and A Five-Balloon Morning, a book of New Mexico haiku, appeared in June 2013, and A History of Modern Haiku came out in 2019. These days he divides his time between his Haiku Database and Haikupedia, the online encyclopedia of haiku.

A Haiga by Robin Smith

 

An Esoteriku by Roberta Beach Jacobson

 

calling to us
in ancient languages
distant stars

~

Roberta Beach Jacobson is an American writer in love with words—flash fiction, poetry, song lyrics, puzzles, and stand-up comedy. Her two poetry journals are smols and Five Fleas Itchy Poetry. Roberta's latest book is Demitasse Fiction:  One-Minute Reads for Busy People (Alien Buddha, 2023). 

An Esoteriku by Sarah Mahina Calvello

 

a draft stirs the last
of the sage ash
sparseness of winter

~

Sarah Mahina Calvello lives in San Francisco and writes mostly haiku. She loves nature and is addicted to coffee. https://heyyouhaiku.blogspot.com/?m=1

A Tanka by Kimberly Kuchar

 

1, 2, 3
steps inside
the fairy ring;
I'll take my chances
in another realm

~

Kimberly Kuchar often writes while her pet cockatiel is relaxing on her shoulder. In 2025, she was a Rhysling Award Finalist and was in the Dwarf Stars Anthology. She also had a haiku displayed in Washington, DC, in the Golden Haiku Poetry Competition and received an Honorable Mention in the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Haiku Invitational. Kimberly lives near Austin with her husband and son (when he's home from college).

An Esoteriku by Neena Singh

 

grandson's palm—
the blue marble
warmer

~

Neena Singh is a Touchstone-shortlisted haiku poet from Chandigarh, India and an editor for The Wise Owl, Triveni & Rhyvers. Author of three poetry books, she has won numerous awards. Neena runs a non-profit for underprivileged children and also spreads awareness about haiku in the educational and professional fora of the city.

An Esoteriku by Kelly Sargent

 

patronus spell
my name ending with an i
instead of a why

~

Kelly Sargent is a poet, editor, and devoted tea drinker residing in Vermont. Though she writes about autumn foliage and fallen acorns, she most enjoys penning poems that reflect the multiple facets of being human. She is an assistant editor for #FemkuMag and served last year as a co-judge for the HSA Harold G. Henderson Haiku Contest. The author of a haiku/senryu collection entitled Bookmarks (Red Moon Press, 2023), she writes because when a reader gives a little nod or slight smile, she no longer bears the weight of living, alone.

An Esoteriku by Anne Fox

 

returning swans
this endless wait
for new wings

~

Anne Fox, considered a witch-child from birth, is an off-planet soul doing psychopomp work behind the scenes for our dying civilization.

A Haiga by Aishwarya Vedula

 

~

Aishwarya is a research scholar, poet, and visual artist from India. Her work engages cinema and culture through close observation and experience. Shaped by engagements with spiritual inquiry and social realities, her practice moves creative writing. She is the author of four books and co-author of several others with work published in established literary journals. Attentive to sound, rhythm, and the textures of found language, she continues to work at the meeting point of thought and form.

An Esoteriku by Laila Brahmbhatt

 

two black apples
eyes behind a white veil
caught by a priest

~

Laila Brahmbhatt is a devoted workaholic who can be found either working wholeheartedly or writing poems with equal passion. Some days she honestly can't decide whether she loves poetry more because it brings her closest to being a Sufi herself. Her ancestors are from Kashmir, and she feels a profound pull toward Sufi practices as she lovingly traces her ancestral roots.

An Esoteriku by Sarah Mahina Calvello

 

feeling it
in the marrow
wolf moon

~

Sarah Mahina Calvello lives in San Francisco and writes mostly haiku. She loves nature and is addicted to coffee. https://heyyouhaiku.blogspot.com/?m=1

An Esoteriku by Chad Lee Robinson

 

in my cough three crows at dawn

~

Chad Lee Robinson has been writing haiku and related poetry for more than twenty years. He is the author of four haiku collections, most recently The White Buffalo (Backbone Press, 2023). Much of his haiku is about the prairie, but he also enjoys writing horrorku and Halloween-related haiku and senryu, which have appeared in a wide variety of haiku journals, including horror senryu journal, Haikuniverse and Otoroshi Journal. He lives in Pierre, South Dakota.

An Esoteriku by Jerome Berglund

 

trumpet solo
I'm more experienced
at working with demons

~

Jerome Berglund has had a lifelong interest in angels, demons, hoodoo, voodoo, saints, sinners, spiritual ritual, occult practices, and supernatural phenomena. His lineage includes victims of the Salem witch hunts. Many haiku, haiga and haibun he's written have been exhibited or are forthcoming online and in print, most recently in bottle rockets, Frogpond, and Presence. His first full-length collections of poetry were released by Setu, Meat for Tea, Mōtus Audāx Press, and a mixed media chapbook showcasing his fine art photography is available now from Fevers of the Mind.

A Senryu by Kelly Sargent

 

lotus in my palm
opening up
to my divinity

~

Kelly Sargent is a poet, editor, and devoted tea drinker residing in Vermont. Though she writes about autumn foliage and fallen acorns, she most enjoys penning poems that reflect the multiple facets of being human. She is an assistant editor for #FemkuMag and served last year as a co-judge for the HSA Harold G. Henderson Haiku Contest. The author of a haiku/senryu collection entitled Bookmarks (Red Moon Press, 2023), she writes because when a reader gives a little nod or slight smile, she no longer bears the weight of living, alone.

A Haiga by Shloka Shankar

 

~

Shloka Shankar is a disabled poet, editor, and visual artist from Bangalore, India. A Best of the Net nominee and widely published haiku poet, Shloka is the Founding Editor of Sonic Boom and its imprint Yavanika Press. She is the author of the haiku collections The Field of Why and within our somehows, and co-author of the haiga anthology, living in the pause. Website:  www.shlokashankar.com│Instagram:  @shloks23

A Haiga by Robin Smith

 

A Haiku by Sandip Chauhan

 

courtyard tulsi
someone's forgotten mantra
in every leaf

~

Sandip Chauhan, PhD, is a poet based in Northern Virginia, USA, where she works as a national bank regulator for the federal government. Her poetry encompasses haiku, haibun, and tanka, drawing on classical traditions while embracing a contemporary sensibility. She has edited three haiku anthologies and is the author of Sprouting Grass, a collection of haiku. Her work has appeared in various online journals. She writes in both English and her mother tongue, Punjabi.

"North Star" by Colleen M. Farrelly

 

North Star

yule log
my wandering paths
through a year

The smoldering log glows as twilight fades to a chorus of howls under the stars. Grandma says the wood brings luck and protections from wolves and fires and dark, cold winds seeping through my window panes.

a dreamworld
fills with fur and teeth
her yule log
lighting the exit sign
to a new storyline

~

Colleen M. Farrelly is a mathematician and haibun poet who's been exploring the universe through mathematics and physics since childhood. She's an amalgam of mystic Jewish/Catholic traditions and mathematician-philosophers like Blaise Pascal, with a deep appreciation for meditation and what she learned about public health and spiritual health from South African village shamans in the mid-2000s.

"The 11 Dazzling Verses" by Pawel Markiewicz

 

~

Pawel Markiewicz was born in 1983 in Siemiatycze in Poland. He is a poet who lives in Bielsk Podlaski and writes tender poems, haiku and long poems.

An Esoteriku by Charles Trumbull

 

waking from a dream
without a center
misty crescent moon

~

Dr. Charles Trumbull is retired from research, writing, editorial, and publishing positions at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Encyclopedia Britannica. He is past president of the Haiku Society of America and retired editor of Modern Haiku. His chapbook Between the Chimes was published in 2011, and A Five-Balloon Morning, a book of New Mexico haiku, appeared in June 2013, and A History of Modern Haiku came out in 2019. These days he divides his time between his Haiku Database and Haikupedia, the online encyclopedia of haiku.

A Haiga by Shloka Shankar

 

~

Shloka Shankar is a disabled poet, editor, and visual artist from Bangalore, India. A Best of the Net nominee and widely published haiku poet, Shloka is the Founding Editor of Sonic Boom and its imprint Yavanika Press. She is the author of the haiku collections The Field of Why and within our somehows, and co-author of the haiga anthology, living in the pause. Website:  www.shlokashankar.com│ Instagram:  @shloks23.

A Senryu by Chad Lee Robinson

 

Yuletide carols
from door to door:
hoof prints

~

Chad Lee Robinson has been writing haiku and related poetry for more than twenty years. He is the author of four haiku collections, most recently The White Buffalo (Backbone Press, 2023). Much of his haiku is about the prairie, but he also enjoys writing horrorku and Halloween-related haiku and senryu, which have appeared in a wide variety of haiku journals, including horror senryu journal, Haikuniverse and Otoroshi Journal. He lives in Pierre, South Dakota.

A Senryu by Randy Brooks

 

almost Christmas
a beady-eyed clown
stitched up by nuns

~

Randy Brooks is Professor of English Emeritus at Milliken University, where he teaches a haiku course. Randy and Shirley Brooks are publishers of Brooks Books and co-editors of Mayfly haiku magazine. His most recent books include Walking the Fence:  Selected Tanka and The Art of Reading and Writing Haiku.

"Twilight" by Colleen M. Farrelly

Twilight

Grandpa balances the platters and fends off hungry nephews pecking at the roast. Ale flows while uncles gamble at Gluckhaus. The last lights fade through the snowy window panes. An uncle pours a bit of ale on Grandma's shrine, and we settle around the table wreaths.

holly and oak
our hearth mingles
frost and flame

~

Colleen M. Farrelly is a mathematician and haibun poet who's been exploring the universe through mathematics and physics since childhood. She's an amalgam of mystic Jewish/Catholic traditions and mathematician-philosophers like Blaise Pascal, with a deep appreciation for meditation and what she learned about public health and spiritual health from South African village shamans in the mid-2000s.

"Two Persephones" by Mariya Gusev

 

Two Persephones

I have a statue of Persephone that a friend had gifted me

She is a Black Madonna really, and sits in her little box

Cushioned by dried flowers, some of which might still be alive

Like the sedum that my friend had mailed me as padding for another gift

Which I planted in a pot, next to a tree of unknown origin which we think might be a plum

Leafing out each spring in a surprised fountain of hopeful green

But then folding each fall, still without knowing its own name.

My Persephone, placeless, as my altar already holds

A likeness of her from Pompeii, when she was encased in skin and walked in the fields gathering flowers, wild herbs, into the fold of her dress

The cornucopia horn, which was painted in after, balanced in the crook of her left arm

Her feet bare, not yet knowing ash

And how the flowers fold under its weight

And how if you speak into the void, it eventually answers.

~

Mariya Gusev co-edits Haiku Pause, a formal haiku newsletter on Substack. Her work has won awards and appears regularly in local and international publications, most recently in The Sciku Project, FemkuMag, Wales Haiku Journal, Asahi Haikuist Network, LEAF, Failed Haiku, and Tricycle:  The Buddhist Review. Her daily haiku practice serves as both witnessing and prayer.

A Monoku by Vandana Parashar

 

in hours leading up to their release winter stars

~

Vandana Parashar is an associate editor of haikuKATHA and one of the editors of Poetry Pea and #FemkuMag. Her debut e-chapbook, "I Am," was published by Title IX Press (now Moth Orchid Press) in 2019 and her second chapbook, "Alone, I Am Not," was published by Velvet Dusk Publishing in April 2022. She won the 2025 HIGH/COO Chapbook Award and her third chapbook was published by Brooks Books. She is a Lord Shiva devotee, but believes in goodness of thoughts, words and deeds rather than following elaborate rituals to appease God. She likes to spend time with nature and herself.

A Haiga by Shloka Shankar

 

~

Shloka Shankar is a disabled poet, editor, and visual artist from Bangalore, India. She is the Founding Editor of Sonic Boom and its imprint Yavanika Press, and the author of the recent haiku collection within our somehows. Each day reminds her to let go of control and embrace the wilderness that is her body.

A Senryu by Randy Brooks

 

faculty Christmas party
whose baby is she
carrying now?

~

Randy Brooks is Professor of English Emeritus at Millikin University, where he teaches a haiku course. Randy and Shirley Brooks are publishers of Brooks Books and co-editors of Mayfly haiku magazine. His most recent books include Walking the Fence:  Selected Tanka and The Art of Reading and Writing Haiku.

A Monoku by Vijay Prasad

 

a mask argues with the face beneath

~

Vijay Prasad is a poet from Patna, India. By profession he is an MCA. J. Krishnamurti is his spiritual strength. His haiku move through philosophy, linguistics, psychology, etc. He draws from the Japanese haiku masters to modern haiku writers and also thinkers such as Sartre, Beckett, Deleuze, Chomsky, Rilke, Jung, Turgenev, Bohm, Heisenberg and many others. His haiku explore the porous borders of language, perception, and being.

"breakthrough" by Thomas Zimmerman

 

breakthrough

the stars alive invisible disasters
in the sun     on nights like these i feel
a gnostic agency     //     strange angel whisks me
through the spruces' wombed interstices
my mental frame a portal     manuscript
my birth caul     //     angel rides the thermals like
a condor     tells me Jesus has a twin
named Thomas     as i nibble nipple     piercings
tingle     mountains zigzag backbone of
my past life ossified     hot rain my tears
of shame at sponging off the lesser angels
dangling like a Calder mobile     shadow
darkening the grassland river trees
the fingerpainted sea     a pasteboard mask this world
we break through to a freer realm

~

Thomas Zimmerman (he/him/his) teaches English and directs the Writing Center at Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. His poems have appeared recently in Cold Signal, TrashLight Press, and Trouvaille Review. His latest poetry book is My Night to Cook (Cyberwit, 2024).

"Ethereal" by Loralee Clark

 

Ethereal

Winter's crack shatters
empty mouthfuls;
lips cleave chest,
damp, cold light
sewn yesterday

placing constellations,
charting magnetic sunlight
as clouds become forest.
Storm speaks, recovers latitude
recovers names

defied through mesosphere,
through time, through
slipping fingers
against naked stars:

celestial me.

~

Loralee Clark has two chapbooks forthcoming:  A Harmony in the Key of Trees: A Healing Myth (Dancing Girl Press, 2025) and Neolithic Imaginings: Mythical Explorations of the Unknown (Kelsay Press, 2026). Her first chapbook is Solemnity Rites (Prolific Pulse Press, 2025) and her second is Delighting in "To Be": Poems for Writers (Bottlecap Press, 2025). Clark has been nominated for two 2026 Pushcart Prizes. She resides in Virginia; her website is sites.google.com/view/loraleeclark. Her Substack, which focuses on the process of creativity, is nosuchthingasfailure.substack.com.

A Senryu by Randy Brooks

 

guests gone home
now for some pillow talk
with the dead

~

Randy Brooks is Professor of English Emeritus at Millikin University, where he teaches a haiku course. Randy and Shirley Brooks are publishers of Brooks Books and co-editors of Mayfly haiku magazine. His most recent books include Walking the Fence:  Selected Tanka and The Art of Reading and Writing Haiku.

"Eyes" by Nolcha Fox

 

Eyes

If eyes are the window
to the soul,
my soul is filled with autumn.

~

A best-selling author, Nolcha's poetry books are available on Amazon and Dancing Girl Press. Nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize multiple times. Editor of Chewers by Masticadores and LatinosUSA.

A Tanka by Jackie Chou

 

be good tonight
the moon is watching
from on high
both a slice of light
and a mother

~

Jackie Chou is a writer from Southern California who has two collections of poetry, The Sorceress and Finding My Heart in Love and Loss, published by cyberwit. Her poem "Formosa" was a finalist in the Stephen A DiBiase Poetry Prize. She has recent work in The Ekphrastic Review and Synchronized Chaos.

A Senryu by Julie Bloss Kelsey

 

finally pain-free . . .
her first time
in dragon form

~

Julie Bloss Kelsey is the author of three poetry collections (mainly haiku and tanka) and writes a column for new haiku poets at The Haiku Foundation. One of her treasured memories is of encountering an angel when she was very young. She believes we have to store up the smallest of good in the world (butterflies, haiku, children's laughter) to offset the heaping (and easier to see) dumps of bad. Julie is fond of semicolons, parentheses, exclamation points, and the Oxford comma.

An Esoteriku by Kala Ramesh

 

L'Orangerie light
lilypads swirl around
my dream space

~

Kala Ramesh, a renowned pioneer of haikai literature in India, was shortlisted for the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize in 2019 for her book, Beyond the Horizon Beyond. Founder of Triveni Haikai India and haikuKATHA Journal, Kala conceptualised and curated Triveni Utsav 2025, the ninth festival she has organised since 2006. HAIKUcharades: imaging haiku through dance and music, and haibunSLAM are her contributions to the haikai world. Her book of tanka, tanka prose and tanka doha 'the forest i know' was published by HarperCollins India in July 2021. Kala co-edited amber i pause, Triveni Volunteer Dhanyavaad Anthology, published by Hawakal. From 2024 Kala has initiated Triveni on Wheels, where she organises Triveni members' haikai reading in various cities, literary festivals and organisations.

A Cut-Up/Remix Cherita Haiga by Shloka Shankar

 

Sources:  "The Angel of the Odd—An Extravaganza" and "The Assignation" by Edgar Allan Poe and Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

~

Shloka Shankar is a disabled poet, editor, and visual artist from Bangalore, India. She is the Founding Editor of Sonic Boom and its imprint Yavanika Press and the author of the recent haiku collection within our somehows. Each day reminds her to let go of control and embrace the wilderness that is her body.

A Haiku-Inspired Quatrain by Chad Lee Robinson

 

rising
moon
broken
buckles

~

Chad Lee Robinson has been writing haiku and related poetry for more than twenty years. He is the author of four haiku collections, most recently The White Buffalo (Backbone Press, 2023). Much of his haiku is about the prairie, but he also enjoys writing horrorku and Halloween-related haiku and senryu, which have appeared in a wide variety of haiku journals, including horror senryu journal, Haikuniverse and Otoroshi Journal. He lives in Pierre, South Dakota.

"As If" by Jack Hernon

 

~

Jack Hernon was born on a farm in Southern Wisconsin. He had a pony that he once got to ride to school.

A Senryu by Sarah Mahina Calvello

 

no olive branch . . .
I have just hemlock to give
before the candle flames out

~

Sarah Mahina Calvello lives in San Francisco and writes mostly haiku. She loves nature and is addicted to coffee. https://heyyouhaiku.blogspot.com/?m=1

"A Little Ditty" by Anne Fox

 

A Little Ditty

sometimes . . .
at night
I slip out the window
into my view
of the moon

and ride a feathered taxi
until morning

~

Anne Fox, considered a witch-child from birth, is an off-planet soul doing psychopomp work behind the scenes for our dying civilization.

"The Nightbirds" by Rose Mary Boehm

 

The Nightbirds

The nightbirds in the black-inked park,
tucked into pockets offered
by the rain-heavy, leafy hands
of the horse chestnuts,
once sung for me and my new love,
for the Jew from Haifa
and his goldene from Berlin,
for a beginning with an end,
designed by life's ironies,
fated by ancestral guilt,
portent of certainty,
song of lament
offered to indifferent gods.

~

Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru, and author of two novels, short stories, as well as eight poetry collections and one chapbook. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She is a Pushcart and a Best of the Net nominee. All her recent books are available on Amazon. The new chapbook, The Matter of Words, was published a few weeks ago. A new full-length collection has been accepted for publishing. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/

A Haiku by Neena Singh

 

willow at dusk
its shadow sways
the moon

~

Neena Singh is a Touchstone-shortlisted haiku poet from Chandigarh, India and an editor for The Wise Owl, Triveni & Rhyvers. Author of three poetry books, she has won numerous awards. Neena runs a non-profit for underprivileged children and also spreads awareness about haiku in the educational and professional fora of the city.

A Monoku by Jerome Berglund

 

next to godliness oh well

~

Jerome Berglund has had a lifelong interest in angels, demons, hoodoo, voodoo, saints, sinners, spiritual ritual, occult practices, and supernatural phenomena. His lineage includes victims of the Salem witch hunts. Many haiku, haiga and haibun he's written have been exhibited or are forthcoming online and in print, most recently in bottle rockets, Frogpond, and Presence. His first full-length collections of poetry were released by Setu, Meat for Tea, Mōtus Audāx press, and a mixed media chapbook showcasing his fine art photography is available now from Fevers of the Mind.

A Monoku by Hifsa Ashraf

 

in plumes of jasmine incense a wandering dervish

~

Fueled by a healthy dose of caffeine, Hifsa Ashraf from Rawalpindi, Pakistan has been writing poetry since her teenage years. She is the author of six individual and four collaborative micropoetry collections. Lately, she enjoys cawing while tracing the contours of shadows.

A Senryu by Martina Matijević

who I'm meant to be
but not
                   birth chart

~

Martina Matijević is a poet from Croatia whose work has appeared in Tsuri-doro, Under the Basho, Modern Haiku, Kokako, and other journals. She is currently exploring spiritual traditions and studying astrology, with a particular interest in astrological birth charts.

"Theory of Night" by Mark Meyer

 

~

Mark is a retired scientist and educator and has been a visual artist almost forever. He lives upstairs in his head in the middle of Lake Washington and loves dogs and cats, guitars, mysticism, the moon, Japan, ales, and sundry other diversions. His artwork is in numerous collections, both public and private. A neophyte writer, he's published two books and lots of short-form poetry hither, thither, and even yon. In order words, he's been around the block a few times.

An Esoteriku by Joanna Ashwell

 

stag prints
an elder branch
spotted in the snow

~

Joanna Ashwell is a poet and spiritual healer. Her recent collections of poetry published include Love's Scriptures and Moonset Song. She loves crystals, angels and dragons. She searches for the joy in life and loves to empower others to do the same with healing and Akashic Records clearing.

A Tanka by Kelly Sargent

 

retracing the steps
of the shadow self . . .
calculating the distance
she will go
to escape this darkness

~

Kelly Sargent is a poet, editor, and devoted tea drinker residing in Vermont. Though she writes about autumn foliage and fallen acorns, she most enjoys penning poems that reflect the multiple facets of being human. She is an assistant editor for #FemkuMag and served this year as co-judge for the HSA Harold G. Henderson Haiku Contest. The author of a haiku/senryu collection entitled Bookmarks (Red Moon Press, 2023), she writes because when a reader gives a little nod or slight smile, she no longer bears the weight of living, alone.

"Where the Drum Lingers" by Lisa Brodsky

 

Where the Drum Lingers

Zekher tzaddik livrakha—May the memory of the righteous

be a blessing.

Gidinaanigaanizimin endaaso-bimaadiziwin—We are all

connected in one life.

Boom-boom. Pause. Boom-boom. Pause. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Hey-ya hey-ya hey-yo hey-ya. The sound unfurled into the air like a living thing, a heartbeat loosening itself from the earth. Dum-dum-dum . . . The soft beat of the drum drifted off and hung in the air, half breath, half prayer. By the second beat, my tears betrayed me. I had thought I'd tamed them, trained them into submission, but I was wrong. The face mask helped hide the evidence, hot rivers of salt that spilled over and traced the outline of my cheeks, like they had been waiting for permission to return. Dum-dum-dum . . . cry, cry, cry.

#

"Momma! I can hear the drum!" I shrieked once with six-year-old joy. My mother, distracted by her running list of errands and obligations, barely looked up. "We don't have time to stop. We're in a hurry," she said, her voice clipped, practical. "Pleeeeease, Momma? They're calling me!" I begged, tugging her hand toward the circle of people I did not yet understand. Finally, she let me go, and I ran forward, the sound vibrating through my ribs like recognition. I stood in fascination, my feet planted securely on the ground. Finally my mother indicated my time with the drums was up. "Why are you crying?" she asked, her face pinched in confusion. "I don't know, Momma," I whispered. "The drums made me."

#

"The drum represents some of the first sounds. It is the sounds of our mothers from the womb, the heartbeat of our mothers. The drum is the heartbeat of the nation. Heartbeat of the people. Wherever the drum is, the people will gather. Listen to the beat of the drum. As it picks up it represents the sound of the Buffalo Nation."

The words of the elder settled into me like a second heartbeat, reminding me that the drum is not just an instrument, but a living echo of our mothers, our people, and the pulse that keeps spirit and memory alive.

Years later, Google would tell me what my body already knew, that the drumbeat awakens a deep, ancient memory hidden in the marrow, a pulse older than language. It connects the listener to something buried: lineage, grief, joy, and home. The sound of the drum can open a passage between the living and the dead, between the body and the unseen world. The drum, it said, has a spirit of its own, and when it calls, something in us answers.

#

In the 1990s, while working a temporary position at the Minnesota Department of Health, I met with a woman named Rose at the Minneapolis Indian Women's Resource Center. When our meeting ended, I stood to shake her hand. Her eyes softened, her fingers clasping mine tightly as she said, without hesitation, "You have an ancient soul." Had it been the first time I'd heard this, I might have been alarmed, but it wasn't. The first had been in Fargo, after a training session, when the host, a kind woman who had gifted me a small birch canoe and a pouch of wild rice, asked what Tribe I was from. When I told her I wasn't Native, she only nodded and smiled. The third time came from a stranger at a Pow Wow, who approached without preamble and said something like, "Not in this life." Rose went on to tell me about the sweat lodge, the Madoodiswan, how it could help me meet all the ancestors I carried inside me. I wanted to ask which ones, but she already seemed to know. And wait, there are more than three? "You should go," she said. "The drum will open the door." It would take me twenty-five years to find the courage to step through.

Even as a child, I sought rhythm like water seeks a hollow. Steel drums, bongos, taiko, snare, it didn't matter. I even watched Drumline, just for the drumming, certainly not for the plot. But none of them reached inside me the way the Native drum did. Growing up in Winnipeg, a city layered with cultures and strong Indigenous roots, I had plenty of chances to hear them. And every time I did, I cried. My mother assured me I'd grow out of it, but the older I became, the worse it got. I cried sooner, deeper, before the first few beats had even faded. Eventually, I learned to avoid them altogether. Until I couldn't.

#

At a flag exchange ceremony at work, the drums began again. I sat between a mayor and a county commissioner, pretending composure as the rhythm pounded through me. The tears came, hot, unrelenting. There was no stopping them. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. Cry. Cry. Cry.

It was time.

#

It was a cool Friday when I finally approached the sweat lodge at the American Indian Family Center in Afton. The night before, I had agonized over what to wear. The photos online showed young women in sports bras and short shorts, bodies smooth and unburdened by time. I, meanwhile, bore four children's worth of evidence and a constellation of no-see-um bites from a recent camping trip. The timing felt wrong, the body imperfect, but still, it was time. I whispered a prayer that the lodge would be dark enough to hide my self-consciousness, and I began my long-time-coming pilgrimage toward the drum that had been calling me since I was six years old. The one that had waited through my detours and distractions. The one that had always known I would return. A sound older than memory. Older even than tears.

The lodge sat low to the ground, a humble dome of bent willow covered in blankets and hides. Smoke whispered from a small fire nearby, where stones glowed red as open wounds. The air smelled of cedar and something older, something I couldn't name. I stood there for a long time, feeling the rhythm of my pulse trying to sync with the unseen beat in the earth. Someone called out softly in Anishinaabemowin, and I didn't understand the words, but I understood the intention: come closer, come clean.

We removed our shoes, our watches, our illusions of control. One by one, we crawled through the narrow opening: birth canal, grave mouth, both. Inside, it was already dark, the kind of dark that hums. I knelt on the packed earth, my knees pressing into its coolness. The women around me murmured prayers, words rising and falling like the tide. The leader sprinkled water onto the stones, and steam filled the space, thick and alive. The heat pressed against my skin, against my lungs, until breath became a choice.

Outside, the drum began again. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. Each beat landed like a hand on the back, like a reminder. You are here. You are not the first. The sound carried through the ground and into my spine, until I couldn't tell where my heartbeat ended and the drum began.

The heat climbed higher, and the air thickened with song. Women began to weep softly around me, some rocking, some whispering names. I pressed my palms into the dirt. It was cool, grounding, alive. The earth did not flinch beneath the weight of our grief. It took it all in.

When the last prayer faded, the flap opened and light flooded in, sharp, merciful, blinding. We crawled out one by one, slick with sweat, eyes raw, bodies trembling. The air outside was cool and sweet, the kind that feels like a second chance. Someone handed me a cup of water, and I drank it like communion.

In the distance, the drum still beat. Softer now, but steady. A pulse that belonged to no one and to everyone. I felt something unclench inside me, something that had been holding its breath for generations.

#

It wasn't lost on me that the sweat lodge fell near Sukkot, the Jewish season of temporary shelters. I hadn't planned it that way, hadn't checked the Hebrew calendar or traced any cosmic logic, but when I realized the overlap, it felt deliberate, as though something older had arranged the timing. Sukkot is the week when Jews leave their solid walls and step into the fragile dwelling of faith. We build the sukkah from what the earth gives us, branches, leaves, reeds, and eat our meals under its roof of stars and wind. It is a home that breathes, a shelter that remembers wandering. Each palm frond or cornstalk roof is a porous veil through which the heavens peer back. The stars that glimmer through its weave are the same ones our ancestors named and trusted to guide them.

The sukkah is more than a temporary shelter, it is a vessel for memory, a trembling reminder of how fragile the walls between the living and the departed truly are. To sit within it is to dwell in the in-between: beneath branches that breathe with wind and sky, beside the ghosts of our ancestors who once sought shelter in their own seasons of uncertainty. The stars that glimmer through its roof are the same ones our forebears trusted to guide them. The sukkah teaches that protection has never meant permanence; it has always meant presence.

Each meal taken within its soft walls becomes an invocation. The air feels thinner, more intimate, alive with the breath of those who came before us. Tradition teaches that the ushpizin, the ancestral guests, visit each night, but perhaps they never truly leave. They linger in the wood, in the scent of cedar and citrus, in the stories retold to keep the chill of forgetting away. The sukkah is not merely built; it is remembered into being, a fragile, holy dwelling that reminds us we, too, are shelters for memory, and that within our brief walls, their light still flickers.

#

The Madoodiswan is also a dwelling of impermanence, a dome of bent willow, covered in hides and blankets, rising from the ground like a heartbeat. Inside, darkness and heat collapse the distance between breath and prayer. In the Anishinaabe tradition, the Madoodiswan is a sacred purification lodge used for ceremony, prayer, and healing. It's a place to cleanse the body, mind, and spirit through heat and steam created by pouring water over heated stones. The ceremony connects participants to the spirits and ancestors. It is said to be the womb of Mother Earth, a place of purification and return to balance and humility before creation. The steam is the conductor of transformation; it pulls out the trapped issues or problems that the person is hanging onto and releases them so healing can happen. Like the sukkah, the sweat lodge is not meant to last. Its holiness lies in the temporary. Both dwellings call us back to what's elemental: to community, to humility, to the fragile beauty of being alive within something that will one day fall away. In the sukkah, families gather, sharing food and blessing, feeling the brush of branches above their heads. In the lodge, strangers become kin in the dark, their voices rising in prayer, their tears indistinguishable from sweat. Both traditions teach that to be purified is to be made vulnerable, to sit unshielded between the heavens and the earth and still trust the structure to hold.

As the drumbeat pulsed under the autumn sky and the air smelled of cedar and smoke, I felt the two rituals overlap like transparent layers. The sukkah and the sweat lodge spoke the same quiet language of impermanence and return. One remembered a desert, the other a forest, but both carried the same truth: that holiness is found not in the walls that endure, but in the ones that let the light through.

As I stepped out of the lodge, steam rising from my skin into the cool October air, I thought of the sukkah at the Rabbi's house in Winnipeg, a crooked little booth stitched together from scavenged wood and willow. I remembered sitting beneath its patchwork roof, watching the shadows move like ghosts across the linen walls. Maybe that was the first lodge I ever entered, the first time I learned that holiness could live in what is temporary. The wind that moved through the sukkah walls was the same breath that moved through the lodge, the same spirit that hums through the spaces our ancestors left behind.

The drum still echoes faintly in my chest, steady as a heartbeat, ancient as a prayer. It reminded me that the boundary between traditions, like the one between worlds, is thinner than we think. My Jewish ancestors wandered the desert in search of home; my spirit, it seemed, was still wandering, still circling the fire, still listening for the sound that calls the living and the dead to sit together. Maybe the sukkah and the sweat lodge were never about shelter at all, but about remembering that we are, each of us, both house and ghost, both flesh and echo.

#

That night, as I lay in bed, my hair still smelling faintly of cedar and smoke, I dreamt of both dwellings, the sukkah swaying under a canopy of stars, the lodge glowing like a heartbeat in the dark. And between them, a thin, trembling thread of light—the kind that lingers when the body remembers what the soul has always known.

#

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. You are here. You are not the first.

~

Lisa Brodsky is a writer and public health professional whose work bridges personal narrative, cultural memory, and social justice. She is currently working on a memoir, Linger: A Convergence of Family, Memory, and Superstition, that explores folk ritual, intergenerational memory, magical realism, and inherited superstition. Her writing is also shaped by her ongoing spiritual practice, which blends ancestral curiosity, contemplative ritual, and an exploration of the unseen. Her short stories and essays have appeared in Otherwise Engaged, Pictura Journal, Memoirist, and other journals. She lives in Minnesota, where she balances creative work with community health initiatives, and serves as a reader for Trio House Press. 

A Haiku by Rashmi Mohapatra

 

crossroads—
the crow
flies both ways

"phantom angst" by Thomas Zimmerman

 

phantom angst

i'm basking in a pool of light    a torrid
self exposure immolation of
the spirit    fire to wipe the planet clean
of blighted artifacts of greed    oh please
sterility of armageddon smoke
to choke the huffing gods    quintessence nonsense
//    cardinal in the evergreen out back
a living ember pretty sure it's Dad
but I won't spook him with a cellphone snap
//    this phantom angst you conjure warps your thought
oh angel i would die to hold your hand
here in this faded earthly palace    bashful
fingers interlaced two pale fat spiders
making love    connected & content

~

Thomas Zimmerman (he/him/his) teaches English and directs the Writing Center at Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. His poems have appeared recently in Cold Signal, TrashLight Press, and Trouvaille Review. His latest poetry book is My Night to Cook (Cyberwit, 2024).

A Haiga by John Hawkhead

 

~

John Hawkhead has been writing short-form poetry for over 30 years, publishing three books of haiku & senryu in that time. He lives in the South West of England.

A Monoku by Vijay Prasad

 

Dasein chews on the word until it dissolves

~

Vijay Prasad is a poet from Patna, India. By profession, he is an MCA. J. Krishnamurti is his spiritual strength. His haiku move through philosophy, linguistics, psychology, etc. He draws from the Japanese haiku masters to modern haiku writers and also thinkers such as Sartre, Beckett, Deleuze, Chomsky, Rilke, Jung, Turgenev, Bohm, Heisenberg and many others. His haiku explore the porous borders of language, perception and being.

A Senryu by Charles Trumbull

 

so hard these days
to avoid immanentizing
the eschaton

~

Dr. Charles Trumbull is retired from research, writing, editorial, and publishing positions at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Encyclopedia Britannica. He is past president of the Haiku Society of America and retired editor of Modern Haiku. His chapbook Between the Chimes was published in 2011, and A Five-Balloon Morning, a book of New Mexico haiku, appeared in June 2013, and A History of Modern Haiku came out in 2019. These days he divides his time between his Haiku Database and Haikupedia, the online encyclopedia of haiku.

"Monocarpic" by Colleen M. Farrelly

 

Monocarpic

He shares little in group but talks a bit over burnt eggs and strong coffee. Mirages are real. Metal burns in the desert sun. Sometimes, the wind is a ghost haunting you.

He calls me by his dead buddy's name and leaves on a Tuesday while the wind swirls around our narthex. I don't find an obituary and wonder if my mind conjured him like a child's imaginary friend.

corpse flower I mark an unmarked grave

~

Colleen M. Farrelly is a mathematician and haibun poet who's been exploring the universe through mathematics and physics since childhood. She's an amalgam of mystic Jewish/Catholic traditions and mathematician-philosophers like Blaise Pascal, with a deep appreciation for meditation and what she learned about public health and spiritual health from South African village shamans in the mid-2000s.