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

 

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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.