ATLAS POETICA A Journal of World Tanka

Number 33

M. Kei, editor Grunge, editorial assistant

2018 Keibooks, Perryville, Maryland, USA KEIBOOKS P O Box 346 Perryville, Maryland, USA 21903 AtlasPoetica.org

Atlas Poetica A Journal of World Tanka

Copyright © 2018 by Keibooks

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers and scholars who may quote brief passages. See our EDUCATIONAL USE NOTICE.

Atlas Poetica : A Journal of World Tanka, an organic print and e-journal published at least three times a year. Atlas Poetica is dedicated to publishing and promoting world tanka literature, including tanka, kyoka, gogyoshi, tanka prose, tanka sequences, shaped tanka, sedoka, mondo, cherita, zuihitsu, ryuka, and other variations and innovations in the field of tanka. We do not publish haiku, except as incidental to a tanka collage or other mixed form work.

Atlas Poetica is interested in all verse of high quality, but our preference is for tanka literature that is authentic to the environment and experience of the poet. While we will consider tanka in the classical Japanese style, our preference is for fresh, forward-looking tanka that engages with the world as it is. We are willing to consider experiments and explorations as well as traditional approaches.

In addition to verse, Atlas Poetica publishes articles, essays, reviews, interviews, letters to the editor, etc., related to tanka literature. Tanka in translation from around the world are welcome in the journal.

Published by Keibooks

ISBN-13: 978-1722315320 ISBN-10: 1722315326

Also available for Kindle

AtlasPoetica.org TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editorial Liz Lanigan ...... 42 Educational Use Notice ...... 92 Lorne Henry ...... 42, 44 Trends in Tanka Literature, M. Kei ...... 5 M. Kei ...... 5, 44 Marilyn Morgan ...... 55, 56 Poetry Mark Hurtubise ...... 48 ai li ...... 7, 8, 9, 10 Mark Jun Poulos ...... 49, 50, 51, 52 Alegria Imperial ...... 11 Martin McKellar ...... 57 Alex Jankiewicz ...... 11 Maryalicia Post ...... 59 Alexis Rotella ...... 11 Matthew Caretti ...... 60 Amelia Fielden ...... 12 Matsukaze ...... 60, 61, 62, 71 Autumn Noelle Hall ...... 12 Michael H. Lester ...... 63, 64, 66, 69 Bill Albert ...... 13 Murasame ...... 62, 71 Billy Simms ...... 13, 57 Pat Geyer ...... 72 Bruce England ...... 14 Patricia Prime ...... 72, 73, 74 Carol Raisfeld ...... 18 Paul Mercken ...... 75, 76, 77, 79 Chen-ou Liu ...... 15, 16 Peter Fiore ...... 80 Cynthia Rowe ...... 16 Richard Grahn ...... 81 Dave Read ...... 17 Richard St. Clair ...... 82 Dean Brink ...... 17 Samantha Sirimanne Hyde ...... 84 Debbie Strange ...... 18 Sanford Goldstein ...... 69, 85 Denis M. Garrison ...... 18 Shernaz Wadia ...... 85 Don Miller ...... 20 Thomas Martin ...... 86 Don Wentworth ...... 36 Vijay Joshi ...... 87 Elizabeth Howard ...... 20, 21 Frieda Gheysens ...... 77,79 Articles Gerry Jacobson ...... 22 Review: Only in Silence by Beverley George, Gregory Longenecker ...... 22 reviewed by Patricia Prime ...... 87 Jackie Chou ...... 23 A Temple Bell Sounds, tanka selected by Beverley Jeffrey Woodward ...... 24 George, reviewed by Patricia Prime ...... 89 Jenny Ward Angyal ...... 24 Jim Doss ...... 25 Announcements ...... 90 Joanna Ashwell ...... 27 John Gilbertson ...... 28 Jon Baldwin ...... 28, 29 Jonathan Day ...... 30 Joy McCall ...... 30, 31, 33, 35, 36, 37 Joyce Futa ...... 38 Judi Diggs ...... 37 Kat Lehmann ...... 38, 39 Kath Abela Wilson ...... 38 Keitha Keyes ...... 40 Kira Lily ...... 40 Larry Kimmel ...... 37 Lavana Kray ...... 41

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 3

the United States as we confront the daily horrors Trends in Tanka Literature of our politics. Racial discrimination, sexual assault, and insults to civilized life wear on us all. In this, our thirty-third issue of Atlas Poetica, For our brothers and sisters of color, this is not we bring you tanka, kyoka, gogyoshi, ryuka, news, but it pervades the public life of the United cherita, sedoka, tanka sequences, tanka prose, States in a way it has not done for decades. Poets and non-fiction by sixty-two contributors respond to these problems as they always do: by representing fourteen countries, five continents, bearing witness. and four languages. So much so, that although you will see some A new form in this issue is a cinquain of these topics addressed in this issue, our next sequence by Denis M. Garrison and Carol issue will focus on it. The theme for ATPO 34 Raisfeld. Invented nearly a hundred years ago by will be inhumanity: genocide, ethnic cleansing, Adelaide Crapsey, the cinquain and its variants, racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, ableism, such as the lanterne, are the first variants of sexual harassment, fascism, war, violence — the tanka to be created in English. About eighty mass misery that groups of human beings choose years later they were followed by the cherita, to inflict on each other. invented by ai li. Cinquains have had their Some poets have demurred, preferring a occasional fans over that time period; enough so tanka that allows them to set aside their own that they have established themselves as English personal suffering to escape into beauty. But natives, but have never seen the widespread everything is tanka. Even this. Especially this. We acceptance of their parental tanka. Garrison and must protest while we can. The murder of Raisfeld with their text-message-like sequence journalists shows just how far the forces of evil give a very modern twist that stays true to the will go to blot out the light. form. They avoid enjambment and fit the As terrible as the burden of human malignity content and the form to each other to strengthen is, our situation is not hopeless. I have already both. received submissions of consummate grace that By contrast, cherita has been very well kindle the light more strongly than the darkness received by tanka poets and has appeared can extinguish. For some people, the trials of the frequently within these pages. Not only has soul illuminate a power within that they didn’t cherita shown itself to have staying power over know they had. Tanka poets have a special way of the last twenty years, it continues to grow. seeing more deeply into the heart of humanity Although standard cherita is a story-telling poem, than ordinary people. Let us now use our gift to like a tiny flash fiction, written in a fixed pattern stare unblinking into the abyss and fill it with of one line, two lines, three lines, poets have light. experimented with different arrangement of the Please help me to expose and illuminate the lines. Ai li has given the experiments her blessing darkness in ATPO 34. and a new name: cherita terbalik. Cherita can be written not just in the standard 1-2-3 lines, but ~K~ 3-2-1, 2-3-1, or any other variation. ‘Terbalik’ means ‘upside-down’ in Malay. M. Kei Kyoka, never truly mainstream in English, Editor, Atlas Poetica continues to be tanka’s irreverent stepsister. Wordplay, humor, and parody are the antidote to Winter in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, Canada. too much self-importance. Shortly after this issue comes out you will see a special feature of Cover Image courtesy of Earth Observatory, NASA. Rhyming Kyoka online, edited by Michael H. Still, while all seems well in Tanka Town, recent submissions reflect the flood of anxiety in

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 5

this afterlife ai li he believed in it my lights flicker whenever i think sandalwood fan of him the memory of being in a confined space where you go to with you i promised i will follow looking up at the big sky i want to i sigh and love you break my word and kiss you again but you still smell of her space was and is wandering the final frontier through life will we hear sinatra she finds him on a star? hanging from every tree the chance i now live alone of meeting you again i count in the snow every grain my lips of rice red before cooking my imaginary friend is back amber nights after all these years too close she wants to play to you and asks why and i am so slow the sap burns wait for me i cry out the afternoon light and try to catch up of my childhood but you have both is long gone become headstones i’m in the garden becoming shadow a lake with blue lotus wild peacocks, butterflies and a Brahminy kite prayer shawl owning the sky i leave mine this must be heaven where you last sat healing all ~heritance kandalama, dry zone, sri lanka, 2016 your memories to come

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 7 it is nearly dusk cherita the first star will be ai li on time just for you

is life a dream? origami bird i take you to the forest i’m quieter and leave you after supper under the tallest tree you are home you will fly wondering who cooked tonight the kitchen dark the train going into a tunnel i feel the brush of a small wing he died and i know it is white in a plane crash young just enough coins to buy you a the sky holds the moment sandwich and and we felt its impact a hot drink anniversary rain my inner child you play the piano footsteps well into the afternoon i arrive and there is on fallen leaves no one here the familiarity the keys still warm of the sound i turn i lived through borrowed rain and it is dusk while you grew belladonna who will haunt us when the goblets are emptied? i am restless

~Singapore and London, UK on a wet night someone’s radio

playing bacharach’s a house is not a home

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 8 memorial prayers it’s lonely no one here knew you at the top as well as i did but the view our hearts from beating your penthouse as one is breathtaking

~London, England from your highrise hearing the late night train i could sleepwalk ghost tanka onto the terrace and follow the wind ai li

passing the old wharf i am now asleep you wave to the night watchman you should leave me now who hasn’t been there to my dreams in years two wine glasses ~London, England runneth over with memories

packing up our old sheets and moving on the shadow of our bed is all that’s left

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 9 mad about life aging my hair grey ai li until the salon appointment i got out of the car on the wrong side of the road every table i’m surprised has a red rose that i’m still here for the ladies who do not my shadow come in anymore wants to have sex and i’m too weak may you be at one to argue with your breath think zen thoughts the controlled growth of bonsai paint i start loosening my belt an inkstone moon then unbuttoning my top i will breathe ~London, England for both of us you hurt me ai li is a Straits Chinese short form poet from London and Singapore after dinner who writes about Life, Love and Loss bringing healing and prayer to her poems. The creator of cherita, editor and publisher of the cherita, you had founding editor and publisher of still, moving into breath and dew-on- the last slice line, she is also an evidential spiritualist medium, an urban of cake photographer, and a surrealist collage painter. Find her essence in the quiet of her inner rooms at: https://www.amazon.com/ai-li/e/ B0080X6ROC/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1469884842&sr=1-2-ent. later much later i find the old photograph of you dancing nude night is falling i try to catch one of its stars sanctuary i build a convent in my mind and make it an oasis with singing fountains

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 10 Alegria Imperial Chicago

Alex Jankiewicz unconcerned clouds such indignity the way winter ends I hear the echoes of distant motherlands so unlike its blinding sheen through the sweet, polluted air of a restless on our stained spirits summer night. I witness the sounds that bind like veins to the heartbeat of urban experience. on the pond Streets and alleyways penetrate my eyes and a sparrow’s shadow embrace . . . aloft . . . and mine among willows under a street light hiding with the moon hookers sing a capella on a corner a butcher hangs a world map somehow in the window of his shop the softened dryness of your words ~Wisconsin, USA fade with the call of a mourning dove at dusk Alex is an ESL instructor currently residing in Wisconsin. as a skylark begins another song i scoop sparkle from the stars and pour it into my heart Alexis Rotella from its perch the hummingbird sweeps Dreamer into my emptiness at the Dollar Store finding a window embroidered to infinity on her jacket wings of silver ~Canada ~Maryland, USA

As Alegria Imperial continues her journey of self-discovery in writing Japanese short form poetry, of which a number have been published and Alexis Rotella is a well regarded mobile artist and poet. She curated a awarded, she has been experimenting on ways of better expressing MeToo anthology called UnSealing Our Secrets available on Kindle herself. In tanka, she has found an apt form for the lyricism quite along with many of her other books. inherent in her nature as a Pilipino, yet set against Canada, her new country, she has discovered her own uniqueness out of which she writes.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 11 Not All Roses and Chocolates When Andromeda Meets the Milky Way Amelia Fielden Autumn Noelle Hall Valentine’s Day birthday of my best friend — the wink of a star wartime baby, recycling itself what would her future be to reside under Japanese rule in the corner of your eye as twinkle, twinkle ‘we’ won; she grew and drew scarlet love hearts never could on the card get these two left feet for a rock ’n’ roll boy, to trip-the-light . . . dreaming love me tender but my eyebrows? Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire white wedding to honour and obey cosmic sneak-up dance young bridegroom light behaving as wave as nervous as she as particle — on their island honeymoon this look at me look at me that both might exist they multiply: one daughter, two grandsons last night working, playing in the space of a gaze happy families we were timeless in a seaside city kissing the lip of that black hole poised to swallow us “two to five months” collapses the house of cards — Hubble Hubble her funeral Arp 256 — on November fourteenth two galaxies locked palely pink with gerberas in a 4-billion-year collide — shall we make it a date? ~Australia ~the now-known Universe Amelia Fielden is an Australian and her work is based on her life and experiences in Australia. At the same time her tanka are strongly influenced by her work as a translator of Japanese literature and the Autumn Noelle Hall watches the world from a small cedar cabin on the large amount of time she has spent in Japan. slopes of Pikes Peak, attempting to make sense of life’s senselessness through her writing. She is grateful to the sun for rising each day, to her husband and the mountain’s wild creatures for keeping her company, and to all those who so generously read and publish her work. She sincerely hopes it is possible to save the Earth one tanka at a time.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 12 Bill Albert Billy Simms woke up today breathing life’s sweetness traveling to take care but thought death of my grandfather’s estate as old, dystrophied it’s the first time my broken body fails my father rides in a car while I drive in my garden barren apple trees hearing the will violated limbs and what my grandfather oozing black cankers leaves to his children disfigured angels smile I finally agree for joy mccall he was a nasty old bastard silver-haired sculpture exhibit mistress of quiet residing in modernism and still winds a spider I bow to your art has spun its web rippling deep waters in a Nevelson assemblage

~Norwich UK returning student work papers crumpled, wadded up, and shot Bill Albert is a novelist, wheelchair user and disability rights activist at the garbage can living in Norwich. He grew up in California and has lived in the UK since 1964. teaching such a rewarding profession

“Will WoRk FoR FooD” declares the sign of the sleeping man sprawled across the sidewalk

Coltrane’s saxophone fades as her thighs slowly press against my ears

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 13 adult video store XXX rated Women and Famous Men sitting on the stoop a woman smokes Bruce England and chats on her cell phone

The famous man smirking married a younger woman at me he is relieved as she enters the room that his mother-in-law did she hear me is one year older than him fart? The famous man’s wife said Mrs. Obama asked how new glasses she puts up with him in the mirror she flashed her huge diamond ring the face “my hazardous duty prize” that stares at me looks old Woman divorced from a famous man outside her pre-nup election year the biggest asset the usual she retains: his last name rants, rhetoric, and recriminations looking at my bank statement Despite ex-wives it’s hard to give a shit and children with each, the famous man starts an affair with his ex-girlfriend twenty-something nanny we chat over dinner The famous man loves she gives me his ordinary mistress her knowing smile not his beautiful wife the mistress knows not of her beauty, while his wife staring into the bonfire does, and is not beautiful I think about my life past, present, future ~Santa Clara, California, USA as flames transform logs into ashes Bruce England lives in Santa Clara and works in San Jose, California ~Hamilton, Ohio, USA as a public librarian. Retirement is planned for late 2018. In some years after that, he will cash out of Silicon Valley for a place to be determined. Publication in tanka anthologies includes: Fire Pearls 2 (2013), Bright Stars (2014), Neon Graffiti (2016), and Earth: Our Billy Simms is an artist, poet, and educator. He lives in Hamilton, Common Ground (2017). Also publication in various anthologies edited OH, with his wife and four cats. by Robert Epstein with tanka includes: Now This (2013), The Sacred in Contemporary Haiku (2014), Beyond The Grave (2015), Every Chicken, Cow, Fish and Frog (2016), and They Gave Us Life (2017).

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 14 after posting Chen-ou Liu a #DeleteFacebook tweet I was relieved . . . my night now becomes darker on the edge and lonelier I spread out my arms and fly into a pool of stars the couple next door — first skinny dip married for thirty years stir my night with their moaning sounds mannequins penetrating the wall in the window display this sultry night the unexpected urge an alley dog to see my ex again howling in the night . . . I lie alone in my attic room the rush of waves among Monroe posters washing away my footprints . . . in ten years I’m single, married lightning and single again on the horizon . . . the years before me stuck in traffic stretch thin for almost one hour . . . my niece draws a flight of wild geese a stack on the car window of could-haves on my chest I feel the weight snowflakes swirl of her silence from the October sky our talk drifts from the weather my wife adds to minimum wage one more item to the list of what to do . . . with my eyes closed, I hear crowded lineup her laughter when we first met for Mega Millions at twilight old men before me eating alone, old women after one bowl of rice after another . . . ~Toronto, Ontario, Canada the fatter I get the less I am seen

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 15 on my way home from the night shift Cynthia Rowe the talk with my shadow fading light six beers deep mother’s heart pills neglected on the floor . . . her sherry sunlight slants decanter unstoppered through the attic window — two caged birds ~South Yarra, Victoria, Australia singing to each other, my shadow and me the sky drained of rain ~Ajax, Ontario, Canada a swim vest near the quarry edge . . . the curriculum vitae of an unknown child

~Preston, Victoria, Australia Confession

Chen-ou Liu wishing on a star the birthmarks of this baby orange the charged particles old bartender of a much-loved infant gone with the bar . . . on the way home ~Mt Eliza, Victoria, Australia thirsty for the things I’ve never had rhubarb pie a glass reminds me of you and a bottle of wine piquant, feisty in the dawn light and, before your chemo days, alone mother made it expressly with my demons ~South Yarra, Victoria, Australia ~Ajax, Ontario, Canada

Cynthia Rowe is Past President: Australian Haiku Society; Editor: Chen-ou Liu lives in Ajax, Ontario, Canada. He is the author of five Haiku Xpressions; Past President: Eastern Suburbs Branch (Bondi books, including Following the Moon to the Maple Land (First Prize, Writers) FAW NSW. She is a University of Melbourne graduate in 2011 Haiku Pix Chapbook Contest) and A Life in Transition and French and Philosophy and has taught tertiary French and English. She Translation (Honorable Mention, 2014 Turtle Light Press Biennial was awarded a Diplôme Approfondi de Langue Française by the French Haiku Chapbook Competition), His tanka and haiku have been Ministry of Education and is a Writing Fellow of FAW NSW. honored with many awards. Cynthia has published eight novels and three poetry books.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 16 Fifty Words Dean Brink

Dave Read Dean Brink, Japanese-English Translator the magnification the older we get of light through the closer the screens windows — held divine dreaming a darker world of chinooks of paths crossed without crossing another dump of snow 年を取るぐらい画⾯の⼩さくて世の暗くな this weekend — る道に出逢わぬ fences lean away from spring describing for Amiri Baraka winter in 4 letters — even now fifty words in that distant land for snow the color of a citizen’s shovelling spilled blood a tunnel into is one my driveway a dying streetlight 今もその常世の国に民の流す⾎の⾊みんな fades to white に⼀緒 winter ~Taiwan stretches on forever — sparrow feathers Dean Anthony Brink is associate professor of comparative literature at National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan. He is a member of crusted with snow the Taiwan Tanka Association (Taiwan Kadan) and recently completed a documentary about the group: Horizons of the Rising Sun: ~Calgary, Alberta, Canada Postcolonial Nostalgia and Politics in the Taiwan Tanka Association Today (2017). His poetry has appeared in journals including Atlas Poetica, Exquisite Corpse, Going Down Swinging, Cordite Poetry Review, New Writing, Nimrod, and Portland Review (online), and a Dave Read is a Canadian poet living in Calgary. He primarily writes book, Japanese Poetry and Its Publics: From Colonial Taiwan to short poems with an emphasis on the Japanese genres of haiku, senryu, Fukushima (Routledge 2018). tanka, and haibun. He was a recipient of the 2016 Touchstone Individual Poem Award for haiku, as granted by The Haiku Foundation. His work has been published in many journals (including Atlas Poetica, hedgerow, Akitsu Quarterly and Acorn), and anthologies (including dust devils: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, (2016).

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 17 Debbie Strange Hello?

Cinquain Sequence our canoe noses through mist . . . a new day Denis M. Garrison & Carol Raisfeld opens before us into possibility

~Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba, Canada Come home. I want you here — if you can love again. an old dory Whenever that may be, you’ll find grounded on a sandbar, I’m here. its faded flag the listless reminder Denis of my pirate dreams

~Point-No-Point, British Columbia, Canada Please call. I miss you so a yellow leaf and I need love again. lets go of the tree . . . This time I know I’ll find you there she held on for me. long past the time for surrender Carol

~Rosetown, Saskatchewan, Canada

Hello? ancient graves Yes, this is me. sink into marshland . . . I know it’s been too long . . . the long bones for me as well. Where should I start? of our ancestors Come home! wandering, still Denis ~Saskatchewan, Canada

Debbie Strange (Winnipeg, Canada) is a short form poet, photographer, Your voice! and haiga artist. She is a member of the Writers’ Collective of Like yesterday. Manitoba and is also affiliated with several haiku and tanka organizations. Her first collection, Warp and Weft: Tanka Threads The magic still so strong . . . was published by Keibooks in 2015, and the sequel, Three-Part Tell me how you’ve been, I’m so far Harmony: Tanka Verses published in 2018. Please visit her publication from home. archive at http://www.debbiemstrange.blogspot.ca. Carol

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 18 Try to see tomorrow; Oh, yes! the past can’t hurt us now. Just as before But I can’t start to live ‘til you when you held me so close return. and took my breath away, oh yes . . . Hello! Denis Carol

~Baltimore, Maryland, USA / Atlantic Beach, New The past York, USA has haunted me. Tell me how we begin to live . . . before our tomorrow Denis M. Garrison lives by the Chesapeake Bay in Baltimore, is gone? Maryland. Although born in Iowa, he spent most of his childhood in Japan and his youth in Europe, North Africa, and the western Pacific. His poetry is widely published in journals and anthologies. Garrison’s Carol books in print include First Winter Rain, Eight Shades of Blue, Hidden River, Sailor in the Rain and Other Poems, and Fire Blossoms: The Birth of Haiku Noir.

Carol Raisfeld lives in Atlantic Beach, New York, USA. Her poetry, art We have and photography appear worldwide in print, online journals and anthologies. Website: www.Haikubuds.com Twitter: @carol_red. today — that’s all. Tomorrow never comes. Trust me today; please, give us both a chance.

Denis

This is a beginning . . . If we can love again I’ll trust you today and give us that chance.

Carol

A knock at my front door; my heart swells in my throat. My lips trembling, I open with . . . Hello!

Denis

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 19 Will That be Patio Seating Elizabeth Howard

Don Miller long years I fussed scrubbing bat guano out for a quiet evening off the picnic table . . . ordering now white-nose bats dying the soup d’jour only dust on the table being served an unruly stew canned tomatoes hearing his demand settling to be reseated on the windowsill . . . from out of a staccato explosion the loud the kitchen raining red and obnoxious section as if my pencil poised in a restaurant for one I try to value requesting the waiter the hummingbird’s detail rubies and emeralds each dish as he sips sweet water dishing out his glare raptors riding the wind at the maitre d’ hang gliders sailing and staff across the valley . . . serving other tables I choose a hot air balloon float along easy as a feather the sparkle in the cook’s eye serving him wandering jew the Chef ’s Surprise the vine a gift from his hand to mine topped with a fly eons we have drifted separate ways now come together I’ll in this garden of eden never eat here again he declares to a dining room after a rainy week returning all smiles sunshine in Chile . . . we halt on a wooden bridge ~New Mexico, USA with herder and cows Don Miller lives in the Chihuahuan Desert of southern New Mexico, to view volcanoes with haloes USA. He has been writing tanka since the early 1980s, and has had his tanka, tanka sequences, tanka prose, and other short-form poetry published on a somewhat regular basis in various print and online journals since the early 2000s.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 20 grandmother’s hands plucking feathers A Desperate Journey the goose pinching flesh — my favorite pillow Elizabeth Howard bought with blood

we’re riding home in the wagon a storm booming and crackling when a fierce storm bears down we crouch in the cellar howling wind, thunder, lightning fearing creepy crawlies driving the mules wild with fear . . . in murky puddles with brute strength father reins them in more than lights streaking the sky Sis, take the girls home he says we jump off the dizzy wagon when the last bird sings and stumble up the road, what will we hear? rocks rolling under our feet one clear note an ocean rushing toward us echoing through time or infinite silence? winds pummel our bodies little sister screams in terror middle sister gasps for breath July drought I try to grasp her icy hand unplucked corn but she pulls away roasting in the shucks undug potatoes we are drowning, I fear baking in the earth hair and clothes cling gushers of mud scour our legs our shoes slog, without them in a foreign land our feet would be shreds roosters crow at midnight the crescent moon as bright mother meets us at the door as a moon in Tennessee eyes red from weeping — I fall asleep no longer homesick we wait, our prayers breathless till father comes home ~Tennessee, USA mules stumbling, wagon wobbly

mother calls us to supper in the middle of the table the ham she’s saved for a special occasion . . . the special occasion, she says

~Tennessee, USA

Elizabeth Howard lives in Arlington, Tennessee. Her tanka have been published in Eucalypt, red lights, Mariposa, Ribbons, Gusts, Atlas Poetica, Skylark, Moonbathing, and other journals.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 21 One Moment Gregory Longenecker

Gerry Jacobson tonkotsu she says and hands me a stone bowl on the path . . . the ground up a dozen pilgrims oracle bones of pigs simmered walking down and served in my soup into that dark tangled forest of the mind the old man overgrown track gathers up his dog and fallen trees . . . leash and hat this mind taking his thoughts that seeks all problems . . . for a walk climb over or duck under? whip birds midnight . . . and drizzling rain I hear him weary walkers in the kids’ room silent in a forest glade a hamster chasing nibble trail mix . . . thinking his dreams always thinking thoughts of the past a disturbance the future . . . at the top of the world of what is not fish gather or what might be to examine the skimmed stone seeking this present moment only this for a time one wandering I led the wandering life fleeting moment walking down backroads watching contrails ~Lamington National Park, Queensland, Australia going nowhere

Gerry Jacobson lives in a Canberra suburb. He has been writing tanka daily for ten years now, and enjoys the challenge of tanka sequences and since his stroke ‘tanka prose’. He loves how it enables him to write about his he’s wheeled through the park experiences, memories, and feelings. Gerry dotes on four young never looks up grandchildren and visits them in Sydney and in Stockholm. at the garden he loves

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 22 I hold a fossil in my hand Second Chance its grainy texture reminds me Jackie Chou of a forgotten dream we make up trying to mend it’s no longer broken egg shells just the distance I’ve always walked on between us around you the time has grown to decades except now the shells are more fragile than the first time she and I knew around there was nothing left cracking with every step between us . . . faded daylilies I try not to read after their season your every word every breath every silence on my own as condescension in winter I watch I try to smile the wild parrots only to burst into tears fly in flocks my thin skin no adequate armor ~Pasadena, California, USA against your sharp wit

~California, USA Gregory Longenecker is a Japanese short-form poet. He recently released his book, somewhere inside yesterday (Red Moon Press), whose title is taken from a haiku shortlisted for a 2018 Touchstone Award.

Jackie Chou studied Creative Writing at USC. She entered the poetry scene a few years ago and has been writing and submitting ever since. Jackie Chou She writes both free verses and short form poetry. She has been published in Ribbons, Skylark, Atlas Poetica, Moonbathing, and the Cherita the older I get Journal. She is also a big fan of the quiz show Jeopardy. the less I trust my strength to love without breaking my own heart

spring rain crowded patio now empty voices swept away with winter leaves

~California, USA

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 23 Jeffrey Woodward The Grove

Jenny Ward Angyal a gray shadow here on the outskirts of town before first light out of the wind the loping gait, the shifting in a winter wood shape of the coyote I wait for the magic to commence — the slow chant of oak and holly I like it simple and primitive then I strip away I prefer it plain the muffler from eyes and ears a sparrow twittering and heart — in the January wind cold sings in my veins like mulled wine farther and farther sunlight playing out on Lake Erie’s ice on graybeard bark this foggy evening dances the shoreline first and then like a vagrant goddess . . . the house lights vanish the stream begins to flow

~North Carolina, United States living alone and at one with the color of dusk in autumn Jenny Ward Angyal lives with her husband and one Abyssinian cat on I listen to the reeds a small organic farm in Gibsonville, NC, USA. She has written poetry rattle in the wind since the age of five and tanka since 2008. She is Reviews and Features Editor of Skylark: A Tanka Journal. Her tanka and other poems have appeared widely in print and online journals and may also be found on her tanka blog, The Grass Minstrel http:// I want to ask grassminstrel.blogspot.com/. Her tanka collection, moonlight on water someone what (Skylark Publishing), appeared in 2016. it all means this bright confusion of color this spicy spring air

~United States

Jeffrey Woodward founded and formerly edited the journals Haibun Today and Modern Haibun & Tanka Prose. He served in 2010 and again in 2011 as adjudicator for the British Haiku Society’s Haiku Awards. His selected poems, under the title In Passing, were published in 2007 and he edited The Tanka Prose Anthology in 2008. In 2013, collections of his haibun and tanka writings were issued under the respective titles Evening in the Plaza and Another Garden.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 24 A Life rise at 5 am knead the dough Jim Doss collect the eggs slice the bacon for 150 people every day father and husband dead on the same calendar day nobody cared thirty years apart — about anything but the work my mother’s mission to keep us making a profit off the farm out of the orphanage of her youth the report cards left unopened silence the only encouragement what’s a normal childhood — the love of parents two dresses and grandparents almost the same color like a cold shower for alternating days of the week — on a winter morning the cutting comments of old-monied kids in the school hallways which of her father’s friends abused her and did he know — her father’s final letter answers I’ll never have written from Lynchburg General staring at their old clapboard house with its dirt tucked into a hidden pocket in her dress floor his last wishes always with her as it slouches a little more each year everywhere she went

Roosevelt’s voice on the radio the visits a handful of times each year promises a new deal her mother and whatever relative would drive yet little changes the small gifts they bought her one doll’s skin unravels like burlap stolen by bullies the more she plays with it before their car even turned onto the highway her father dead from Brights — happiness is security — the car taking her to the orphanage but can it be a boy churned up such clouds of dust who keeps showing up the white dogwood blossoms of home who wants to talk appeared to be bleeding whose lips taste like ice cream who paid the lapsed dues what is joy — at the Odd Fellows Lodge a large church wedding while her father lay on his deathbed a house in the suburbs what good samaritan two small kids saved her from abject poverty a faithful husband struggling to pay bills the girls dormitory Parris Island in August with its rows and rows of beds gives way to Miami in December lined up like headstones — the Korean war a place where childhoods revamping corsairs and panthers came to expire while weekends they tanned on the beaches

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 25 he built roads and bridges what she could have been out of steel, concrete and asphalt what she became he made friends with his humor the opportunities denied the glow of a smile forced upon her kids that shielded her darkness from others to make herself whole

Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome her hair now silver a term not even known in 1966 and thin as a bad wig red ambulance lights dotted the walls we find excuses as the doctors told her no explanation on our visits for what happened to her husband to dine out every meal a wife and two children depression-era thinking in front of the coffin a scarcity mentality — like the images of Jackie K. she hordes everything and family on TV we saluted clothes, shoes, toilet paper, tissues kept the eternal flame burning inside prepared for the next tragedy she kept books, balanced ledgers 20 years of living alone in the morning while we hear her whispering instructions we attended school — to herself in the kitchen the pennies stored in a tin can as a cricket chirps somewhere waiting for off-season sales in the house searching for a mate peanut butter and sardines confused by numbers and bills salmon cakes — the normal chatter of life culinary delights she tells me fit she’s ready to return to “the home” for the gods of poverty that demolished gothic building of her childhood no charity here — during the interview only homemade clothes with the assisted living coordinator always a little too long she gets all the questions right or too short she couldn’t answer or so wide they kept falling down just an hour ago how can one become two — morning of the first day both mother and father it is always morning now in a single person of the first day bearing the rod in this episode of The Twilight Zone and spoiling the child that has become her life her children gone her mother’s signature she sits at the dining room table on the letter alone — assigning away parental rights — the silence an ocean we found it next to the china that slowly sweeps her away her most precious possession

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 26 I see her in the chair The Zodiac Trail beside the nurses station Miss Havisham in her favorite outfit Joanna Ashwell waiting for her groom to load up the car for Virginia Beach apart, yet together the progression — running adjacent unable to dial the phone the two streams unable to answer the phone of Gemini spark unable to cut the TV on across the sky unable to bathe and dress an upturned pitcher I’ve faded into the third person catches the fall the abstract son of runaway splinters who isn’t present the bearer of Aquarius as I stand in front of her an overspill of constellations offering the sweater she requested headstrong and tight “we must be related somehow stars cluster together are you from Allen’s Creek the upturned triangle maybe one of my cousins herds the bull there’s no way you could be a Doss Taurus, blazing a trail you look nothing like my first husband” that forks her suitcase packed in many directions nowhere to go Virgo’s strands she pauses by the closet light up the sky lost offering justice half in this world half in the next where a tight stitch ~Sykesville, Maryland, USA of a star’s beam points to the ram’s golden fleece Jim Doss lives with his wife and three children in Sykesville, that unravels in darkness Maryland, and earns his living as a software engineer. He has previously published two books of poems: Learning to Talk Again, and What Remains. In partnership with Werner Schmitt, he also published to a triangular blaze a book of German translations entitled The Last Gold of Expired as Capricorn joins angles Stars: The Complete Poems of Georg Trakl 1908 - 1914. In his spare horns in the pitch black time, he is an editor for the Loch Raven Review. holding a mount high above

then Leo stalks proud pride scattered blinking stars behind cloud waiting to shine

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 27 a dense sprawl of Sagittarius mesh John Gilbertston the many stars of half man, half horse I love, do not love; arched between two murmured words fall to the floor as you pick each up, Libra spills above one has meaning in your hands an upturned vessel repeating loses others where stars split day and night ~Greenville, South Carolina, USA upon equal threads then Scorpio tangles a tail of comets where luminous stars drip continually mercurial light Jon Baldwin that splays to Pisces fish swimming across a plethora of stars late summer burnt scales dazzle all day the smell with the clarity of hope from the breakfast pan a varicose vein blooms where Cancer’s pincers like a question mark pinch the night sky firmly in darkness night’s weave irreconcilable indifference wrapped in earth’s orbit a wife smiles more confidently now that her husband reads less ~United Kingdom and has grown fat their child smells like a goat

Joanna Ashwell, a writer from the North East of England. Enjoys reading and writing tanka, haiku, cherita and other related forms. hilltop sheep Published in Atlas Poetica, Eucalpyt, Moonbathing, Skylark and others. Enjoys peace, quiet, good wine and chocolate. stand their ground slow cattle John Gilberston, living in Greenville, SC, traveled extensively in Japan come down to drink and written poetry over the last thirty years. A book poetry has been I have nothing left to offer published: Two Ends of a Loose String.

cows moan the morning through it’s early spring the colour of slugs and I’m frozen

~Horse Island, Lough Erne, Northern Ireland

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 28 he won’t dine The Lotus-Eater (from an with my eater friends episode in Homer’s The rather crawl inside his olive tree bed and finger acrochordons on her neck Odyssey) like he aimlessly traces these isles

Jon Baldwin here he comes seek a mirror not a sword he advised Achilles ten years of memories won’t weigh dig, dig, digging the heartbeat of a sparrow we dig spears into the chests of men dig spades burying our brothers I’d prefer not to dig oars into the sea I’ll hunker down with honey fruit to bring him home within hours of home there’d be another command why does he bother before our women’s wet thighs Penelope will be as full of pricks as her tapestry have embraced us we should have voyaged on Nestor’s ship been one of Ajax’s crew he lulls me or chartered with Menelaus from my lullaby once more into the wine-dark sea savvy Agamemnon that doesn’t taste of wine for him I’d have straightened the sail dig, dig, digging Clytemnestra would never be on show at the market ~Isle of Thanet, UK next to stale wine and slaves sod Zeus Jon Baldwin is from the UK and edited the Atlas Poetica special when you suck this fruit to the stone edition 25 Tanka Poets from Great Britain and Ireland. you see the chords he plays on Odysseus and the strings the gods themselves are hung up upon all for Helen’s cuckold they’ll sing that bird song but not our melody of galloping waves and ruddering reef while the skipper sleeps off a bellyful of wine for what? more wind battered bouncing midst islands with sea foam like the blood foam dying men spit inside their helmet

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 29 the ten thousand things October

Jonathan Day Joy McCall

In a classic Chinese work, when they wanted to talk about the stars or the flowers or anything that might be beyond counting they called it ‘the 1. ten thousand things’ and that is washing over me the first day — the different bird calls, the growing flowers, of the gentle month the stages things go through at this time of year; leaves and berries fall the places large and small — and the land begins to settle and sleep I get to a point in all of this . . . I bring myself 2. to a point they sat in the low coracle where I can’t talk at the water’s edge, and slowly the boat began turning, drifting I run through a garden past the rushes, downstream densely overgrown overcultivated with concepts 3. and words and language American eyes looking out if I follow over my green fields and gravestones, the path through, their feet walking Roman roads . . . it might lead me dancing with the Iceni to where the garden opens up to the space between things 4. and then . . . the shaman said it would open out again rabbits will come and I would run out of garden and sure enough and come into the open they ran in the wind where there’s nothing to say on Boudicca’s hill

~Alpine, Oregon, USA 5. Jonathan Day was born in Austria, and toured the continental bitter cold United States widely as an army brat, before settling with his family in Juneau, Alaska, at age six. He sees Alaska as the best possible place to the October wind grow up. He came to Oregon in 1972, and has lived there ever since, the ice-cream van working as janitor, short-order cook, welder, furniture factory hand, passes, playing baker, dishwasher, life-drawing model, chicken-shit shoveler, you are my sunshine construction worker, electrical engineer, solid-state physicist, and other jobs better left for conversation over beer. Always, always, he has drawn and painted. He lives now in the wilds of Oregon, and earns his living as artist and maker of fine hand-made books. http://jonathandayart.com https://www.etsy.com/shop/jonathanday https://www.etsy.com/shop/jonathandaybookart.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 30 6. 11. my wheelchair ramp in pain impassable all night I swore strewn with red berries at the gods . . . windblown from the hawthorn, no one heard and blackbirds feasting they were asleep

7. 12. how strange the cards fall — this new sleep med — Outsider, Trust I stay awake The Master all night long, bemused I lean, musing, by its magic against the wind

8. 13. awaiting I read a book the judge’s sentence of old sorrows for affray lost on the isle how gently he holds my hand poems . . . and yet when the pain hits hard a song of songs

9. 14. my daughter sends Ophelia comes closer now a little pot of balm screaming across the western coasts — to soothe the pain Ireland, North Wales, the Scottish isles I fall asleep but here, she whispers, low smelling of herbs . . . comfrey 15. St John’s wort chiff-chaff singing capsicum its strange song lavender, juniper, sage at dawn and dusk rosemary and ginger telling me its name — chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff

10. today’s work 16. is cut out for me a hedged field slow to start of barley and marigolds I thread the needle the quiet sounds and begin sewing of brown-faced shaggy sheep . . . and the night passes

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 31 17. 23. all night the special food while I slept I laid along the hedge and the wind blew for the field mice she spun and wove and caught gone in a flash — and stole my dreams a tribe of thieving magpies

18. 24. the doctor research says running out of options we should daydream says, try pot part of every day then I’m back in the sixties I take it to heart singing and dancing hour after hour . . .

19. 25. it’s her birthday, I see her name choosing words with my father’s, on the grey stone what to leave in it makes no sense, I still hear them what to leave out laughing, praying, singing the seesaw tips up and down

20. out of the blue 26. storm Brian hits my heart the wind howls behaving like a child the spirit of my first love on the way to school — comes knocking at the door running, ambling, skipping stopping to pat a dog

21. so long away from my island 27. I settled my boat on the shore the bell that hangs the tribe came running to meet me on my wheelchair the hermit lit the fire rings softly he is thinking of me the poet sat in the ruins in his own quiet way the crumbling tower was roofed and dry there were candles and quilts and hay I slept till break of day 28. the clocks go back the evenings grow dark 22. it is the time I said — the Bear’s old and rheumy for reading of books she stared at me — a Rumi bear? and stringing of beads and ever afterwards I see Shams, hand-in-hand with Pooh

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 32 29. in the night house more limpet than woman a scrabbling and scratching a creature I can’t see Joy McCall for when daylight breaks it hides . . . somewhere Limpet — from Old English lempedu — ‘to lick the stone’. the doctor says rest “Cheer up, as the limpet said to the weeping willow” — my table fills Edward Lear with post-it notes and unpaid bills while the waters of the great sea I watch instead wash over her the chestnut leaves the common limpet in sun and wind . . . clings to the rock I smile, and sleep When limpets are fully clamped down, it is impossible to remove them from the rock using — no, I don’t know how that got in brute force alone. The limpet will allow itself to be destroyed rather than stop clinging to its rock.

30. As hard times and high waves come, I too there are clouds across the half-moon hide in the shell and stick to the rock. a barn owl is hooting, swooping field mice hide in the fallen leaves — the limpet almost All Hallow’s Eve has but one leg to creep across the rocks 31. slowly, slowly I’m blowing the wolfbone whistle from the door of the holy room the limpet while overhead, swooping, shrieking — has a beating heart witches, riding the broom vesicles and veins its half-hidden eye ~Norwich, England sees light and dark

its scores of teeth like iron scrape the rock eating algae vegan, like me

when the seas were first parted from the land the limpet was there clinging, dreaming

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 33 somehow they know an’ it harm none, do what ye the time, the seasons will all the limpets letting go their gifts of egg and sperm (the witches’ creed)

I would gather Joy McCall the empty shells at the tideline and make a necklace hiding in hedgerows for myself is a wise thing to do for there are those I would pray who would cast onto the fire to the limpet gods every kind of witch help me cling to heartbeat and rock I have learned while the waves crash to borrow the shape of berries, I have one leg leaves and thorns and a hidden eye and the pale tangle of roots and I know the changing of the seasons I hold quiet the time for loving my breathing when men pass by — I am common their heavy sticks like the limpet are hawthorn and hazel * and I am stubborn . . . in the heaviness such sticks ache of time and tide I cling to beat the living hedges to drive out ~Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England those who harm none, but take the blame

the danger passes the lane grows quiet nuts and berries fall food and peace enough for one more day

* most Norfolk hedgerows are hawthorn and hazel, sometimes with blackberry brambles and beech.

~Norwich, England

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 34 Spring Leaf

Joy McCall Joy McCall

Is there a way After the strange English snows of the last to know the being weeks, suddenly there are signs of spring of a green leaf everywhere in the garden. I was watching the that clings to the branch birds beginning to gather twigs and moss for their fed by the rising sap? nests and thinking of my father who used to read a piece of the Bible to us at all kinds of occasions It’s the life I dream of after death: when we were kids, so much of it still plays in my head. I the leaf he the tree the voice and the white roots of my beloved spreading behold, he cometh holding fast to dreams leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills ~Norwich, England

my beloved spake and said unto me rise up, my love my fair one After the Accident and come away Joy McCall lo, the winter is past, the rain slowly, slowly is over and gone my soul begins the flowers to unfurl appear on the earth her emerald wings written with my daughter Kate the time tanka written shortly after my motorcycle accident of the singing of birds is come earthbound I lie the voice of the turtledove and dream a curious thing: is heard in our land a thousand butterflies dancing, whirling, stream the fig tree upwards toward the moon putteth forth her green figs then comes a distant tune and the vines my heart begins to sing their tender grapes . . . Song of Solomon Chapter 2 the ancient ancestral song fraying are the fragile strings ~Norwich, England I will not be here long

~Norwich, England

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 35 Joy McCall tan-renga

Joy McCall & Don Wentworth midnight I’m lost in deep thought out on the marshes a bent old pine tree a night owl is calling on a high desolate cliff my heart longs for wings a broken rope, hanging near a gathering of signs some sticks, leaves, feathers and skin watch out for them — the little darkish gremlins a heron so still treacherous, sly, among the rushes they will steal your magic bag prehistoric bird and run laughing into the night below, a fish’s fins flash wings quickly crossing the sky the old sanitarium even in winter casts shadows enough new grasses to bring on the meadow rabbits from their burrows where frail ghosts walk nibbling at brilliant green among the grazing sheep these songs of moss, songs of stone

noisy herring gulls how dark are these woods at the landfill site, pulling worms how the trees crowd in on me from the dead cats whispering bowing at the corpse’s feet strange arboreal words the origin of all worship I cannot understand there are low voices on the wind singing their rough bark evening vespers leaves tracks on my skin with each full note an echo I lean against them in an ever-changing key their falling leaves gather in my hair ~Norwich, England / Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA ~Norwich, England Don Wentworth is a Pittsburgh-based poet whose work reflects his interest in the revelatory nature of brief, haiku-like moments in everyday life. He is the author of three full-length collections: Past All Traps (2011), Yield to the Willow (2014) and With a Deepening Presence (2016). He is the long-time editor of the small press magazine, Lilliput Review.

Joy McCall lives in Norwich, England, where she was born, a place with a long dark history. She is growing older but not much wiser.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 36 easy touch Judi Diggs

Larry Kimmel & Joy McCall neighbor’s chimney sending smoke signals to the sky “Buster,” I said, secretly “the days of wine and roses among the clouds are over, you bite and love is conditional” the wind easy to see gives voice who’s the boss to the pines and it’s not you I hear you now that cat knows I understand you’re an easy touch

~Colrain, Massachusetts USA / Norwich, England standing outside alone in the darkened night Larry Kimmel lives quietly in the hills of western Massachusetts. His most recent books are “shards and dust,” “outer edges” and “thunder I wear a crown and apple blossoms.” of a thousand stars

Joy McCall suffers but her soul is full of love and dreams and poetry. as sunflowers begin to fade their golden torch is passed upward to hills of aspen Cherita I see warmth and love Judi Diggs and apple pie thru glowing winter windows no matter I am a leaf what’s going on inside twisting and turning ~Pennsylvania, USA in the wind

Judi Diggs is interracially married, with one son . . . and a vegetarian. traversing roads After retirement she began writing haiku for her own enjoyment. From and open fields there a passion for language art grew into more versatile forms of destination unknown expression to include tanka and cherita. She is published in Atlas Poetica 30. Nature has always been Judi’s sanctuary, often reflected in her poetry. ~Pennsylvania, USA

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 37 Swimmers Kat Lehmann

Joyce Futa & Kath Abela Wilson compassion no longer the policy I’m not a strong swimmer I remember when I’m in a pool the times we were us I imagine drowning the times we were them but out of water I swim like a fish jf having everything in my dream except what matters most I backfloat a rich man out to the blue with enormous power and wave to the whale watchers heartless and soulless as they go by kaw

~Pasadena, California, USA butterfly in my open hand Kath Abela Wilson hosts writing workshops three times a it is refuge or risk week with her husband Rick Wilson, who plays flutes of this momentary rest from flight the world for their inspiration. She recently published a this soft place to land chapbook “The Owl Still Asking, Tanka for Troubled Times,” and won 1st place in the Japanese Fujisan Grand Prix Contest 2017, English Language section. searching Joyce Futa is a Pasadena poet who writes free verse and the ageless atmosphere Asian forms. She recently published her first book of tanka prose and haibun called “Lit Windows”. adrift on a moonless night Kat Lehmann (New Haven, Connecticut, USA) is the author of Small I fall into fireflies Stones from the River (2017) and Moon Full of Moons (2015). More than 125 of her poems have been published in journals since 2014. In her “Ripples of Kindness” project, she leaves signed copies of Small Stones from the River in public spaces for strangers to find, shiny bubbles believing we all have the power to put good things into the world, just by popping doing it. one by one where do the days go when they are over?

morning coffee like a lover’s kiss I sip on the bitter-sweet of perfect love

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 38 white gull against the blue sky Becoming a black shadow below and behind Kat Lehmann trying to catch up Let the process be the process. Forget the notion that a defined path can be negotiated. Stumble through the trees if you must, but keep awakening the light in sight to guide you where you need to to the power of pink be. Perhaps the light leads somewhere you never I swoon expected, like home. for sleeping branches that brought me these blooms let us meet in the lush forest of our becoming I cannot count the wildflowers of us the raindrops in a cloud unfolding yet something in me dances ~Connecticut, USA to the rhythm of the rain

~Connecticut, USA

Reality Dynamic Kat Lehmann

Kat Lehmann We discuss whether the day sky or the night sky more accurately depicts what a sky is, as if we Gravity is sticky. Things are made to come were trying to explain an Earth sky to someone together to join in a new fullness, crowded as a who had never seen one. Does the reflected light reef. Eventually matter overflows, ruptures, and of the atmosphere in the day or the infinite cracks the coalescing until it spills of too much spectacle of the universe at night portray our unity and bursts forth like star fire, pieces experience more accurately? Are we sheltered? scattering, ants without a trail, firecracker worlds Are we a tiny spot in the vast eternal? Or can blown apart and blooming, waiting for an both be true, like a sheltered tiny spot among invisible syrup to ooze them back to joining, many. compact as atoms. The fluidity of matter holds change as its essence, with just enough time for let us leave me to plant a garden. the boat of words on the shore letting go its oar broken of a long winter by hard paddling the seeds of wildflowers ~Connecticut, USA opening to sunshine

~Connecticut, USA

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 39 Keitha Keyes Kira Lily on this island sunday has moved there are no streetlights faster than i to distract me but gentle falling rain from gazing at the stars quietly reconciles and thinking about you our differences

~Magnetic Island, Australia clay roof tiles neatly lined in golden sun Grandma’s secret — cherry steps under she sewed a pocket her crown of blossom in her bra and stashed her cash . . . a good safe idea, actually little red squirrel in a black shadow coat ~Stackpoole, Australia climbing up, up, up to greet the sun from a canopy of pine a butterfly conceals its beauty with folded wings . . . with swallows’ return your modesty tonight i rejoice in life — makes me want you more that we have lived from spring to spring — that they have made it home lost in the mists in a blossom bed of Google peach-pink glow who knows cupped in tiny hands where we’ll end up lighting her way to morning afraid to write the truth grey outside, and still in case air hung with droplets it gets published that have yet to fall and my ex will read it i long to join them in peaceful suspension ~Sydney, Australia ~France

Keitha Keyes lives in Sydney, Australia, in a small house decorated with Kira Lily is a writer/editor and artist, living gratefully under the stars ship models, antique irons and trivets. And a cocker spaniel. Her on the southwest coat of France. She finds joy in cups of tea with her retirement would be very empty without the lure of writing tanka, husband and cuddles with her cat, sometimes both at once. When the haiku, cherita and other poetry. water is warm enough, she surfs; the rest of the time she walks, and talks to trees. They usually reply.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 40 Lavana Kray black clouds chasing a muddled bird with no mate — Lavana Kray, Romanian-English if I turned around Translator / Traducătoră română- you might think I’m crying engleză s-au strâns nori hăituind o pasăre fără perecheh — white salon daca m-aș întoarce and the same pianist ai putea crede că plâng like back then — I have time for a waltz maybe you’ll come black oil slick washed up on the beach — salonul alb looking și același pianist in the dead dolphin’s eye ca atuncih — I see a part of me mai am timp pentru un vals, poate vii mareea neagră s-a întins lăbărțat pe plajăh — abandoned horse în ochiul delfinului mort in a snowy field — văd o parte din mine I hear the loneliness galloping ~Iași, Romania softly around

Lavana Kray is from Iași, Romania. She has won several awards, cal abandonat including WHA Master Haiga Artist 2015. Her work has been pe-un tăpșan cu zăpadă published in many print and online journals. She was chosen for Haiku împrejmuităh — Euro Top 100, 2016. In 2018 she joined the United Haiku and Tanka Society, as Haiga editor of its journal Cattails. This is her blog: aud însingurarea http://photohaikuforyou.blogspot.ro. galopând în surdină

Lavana Kray este din Iași, România. Ea a obținut diferite premii la concursuri de haiku și tanka. În 2015, World Haiku Association i-a boat facing the sky acordat titlul de Master Haiga Artist. Lucrările ei au apărut în diverse from the bottom of the sea — publicații printate și online. În 2016, a fost în Top 100 autori de your lost shadow haiku europeni. În 2018, este cooptată în echipa editorială a United Haiku and Tanka Society, ca Haiga Editor al revistei Cattails. and mine Acesta este blogul ei: http://photohaikuforyou.blogspot.ro. awaiting each other

în adâncul mării o barcă întoarsă cu fața spre cerh — două umbre se-așteaptă a ta de ieri, a mea de

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 41 Sunshine Lorne Henry

Liz Lanigan hospital a pregnant mum the first time walks by I saw portokali groves holding her baby in Lesbos . . . as she shuffles the distance navels travel to be in our fruit bowl uncovered mum taught me through years of weather how to peel tapuzim and cattle hooves from Jaffa under the black bean tree score the Arctic Circle the concrete floor of the outhouse six cuts to the South Pole when they’re cheap from a distance Seville naranja the sound of a train plopping carries under clouds in her copper pot I hear its toot for marmalade on toast as it passes three crossings juicing sweet valencias a man in summer of social standing I slice through the equator — flicked his fingers sunshine in a glass down my bottom how old must one be ~Australia

Liz Lanigan discovered tanka four years ago through her writing group, splashes of white Friday Writers, where members were already hooked. She has now across the paddocks joined Limestone Tanka Poets who meet monthly in Canberra. Born in crocuses England, she has lived in Australia most of her adult life. Her recent out of season retirement gives her more time to focus on writing, dancing and being a grandma. like everything else

even with the approaching storm kookaburras laugh announcing the time

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 42 she wondered the snake at the number of red lights a six-foot eastern brown in the suburbs no birds those were days when doctors at the bird bath showed them at their front gates they come every day too hot earlier bang in the night to put out the rubbish the rat is caught now there’s a storm next morning the road’s a long way off I place it on the fence I’ll wait another week a feast for butcher birds when I see the bullet holes in the flag I thought I fold it I had few friends back in the plastic bag but now among the gooseberries when I need them there are so many ~Czechoslovakia

a young boy yes pointing to my dog I kept my phone said ‘shih tzu’ by me all day his mother thought but it was not turned on he was swearing at her must read that booklet again ~Australia shadows on the cliff face create a crone eucalyptus trees her frizzled hair they park beside each other two men noticing their new cars are the same — new friends on the river fishing boats drop their traps at each step alighting on the water a flock of pelicans

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 43 Black Swans Home Is The Ship

Lorne Henry M. Kei two black swans the first salt wash so long since I’ve seen them of the season — my memories the tall ship take me back a long way drinking deep to the Maroochy River of her reason for being

Maroochydore white foam skirts home of the black swan of the great ship on the far side flourishing around her where seagrasses grew as she makes her way the water black with birds along the diamond road a large farm dam dolphins off where swans came annually the port bow to safely a grey dorsal fin moult their flight feathers breaks the surface out of reach of predators then gone again

~Australia sailor’s cradle — a wooden ship rocking in the swells, Lorne Henry started writing haiku in 1992 while living in warm winds and Czechoslovakia now Czech Republic, and tanka in 2005. She writes the occasional haibun and tanka prose. Lorne now lives in countryside a lullaby sea Australia. sitting on the sheet bitt timber, two crewmen writing poetry about the Delaware Bay

mid afternoon in the summer Atlantic the idle crew napping on deck cats included

old ladies are famous for their cats, but shantymen have their strays, too

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 44 doldrums — twenty-four sailors the roll gauge in a tall ship as still a whale and motionless the only company as the crew in the empty sea sparkling sea and no wind, evening watch so we send sailing into the youngest crewman the western sun to scratch the backstays the cradle-like rocking and whistle for the wind of a calm sea one knot — sweat drying at this speed, on my lavender skin Cape Cod Bay the evening breeze might as well carrying the sea be an ocean through my veins the sea cat tall sails sound asleep against a midnight sky in the shade the mast under the port drawing circles quarterdeck ladder on Heaven’s floor bored, fog the crewwoman moonlight rolls over a silent sea and starts we are doing pushups a ghost ship home sweet ship the sea the smell is a grey desert of baking bread without habitation wafting up or signspost — from below decks a single ship plowing her course partners in grime the mystery an old hand of night and a new split by washing dishes the wake in the galley sink of a tall ship foot of the mainmast — the silence the ship rolling easily of the empty sea heading south life was born on a spring day in a primeval fog with winter left behind like this

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 45 the coo a tall ship of pigeons sailing south towards in the dawn a hurricane, pink water all the way a crewman’s t-shirt says, to Cape Henlopen “Don’t Panic” migrating at sea horseshoe crabs the immensity ferries, tourists, of the sky and sailing ships — looms overhead always the urge to travel a storm about to strike at the helm bow watch the ship’s cat staring into the canyon sleeping, of the waves, unworried by bracing myself the novice steering for the inevitable fall a charleyhorse the white wings that won’t quit of sea gulls in my right calf blown off course all morning amid spindrift at the helm and boreal winds the sun the tall ship nothing but sends up spray a white glare from her bow, in the heavy fog for a moment, off Assateague Island our own personal rainbow no rain full and by but fog a great ship drenches the sails her sails and sprinkles belly full the deck below of wind windward rail — nine knots the cold white lace the tall ship of salt water, throws spray thunderhead building all the way on the horizon to the quarterdeck east of Bermuda nine knots a gale roils the seas bodychecking a thousand miles north the helm we rock and roll to make it mind through a rising swell and keep the course

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 46 topmen Cape Henry Light aloft in a gale at the mouth of the Chesapeake shoulders aching a stiltwalker as they battle with skinny black the mainsail and white striped trousers the dampness ten days of a summer evening at sea lightning a bell buoy still prowling rings us the horizon home flickers green trees of lightning and brown roofs above the York River a white steeple the current roaring past as seen from a ship with a storm spring set the bow of a tall ship the state flag freighters of Delaware at anchor a blue ghost in a long line in a stormy night outside at sea Norfolk harbor the ship murmurs the clatter of to water, wind, great steel ships and sky, the slow swing prayers full of spume of the crane for a safe anchorage warships under repair at the mouth a wedding cake of the Chesapeake Bay — tugboat water the color as deep below of green slate as above and looming wind the surface the distant red early morning, of a caisson lighthouse the yachties still coming into view sleeping once a man lived there while tugs and freights with no company but the sea go about their business the old lighthouse feeding the line solid, stolid, and to a starboard bower, faded red, slowly a wallflower behind the sailing ship the gaudy new light comes to her anchor

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 47 dock watch instructions: check mooring lines Mark Hurtubise check fenders don’t lose the ship’s cell phone searching distant stars and repel boarders breathless Sun and Moon embrace a solar eclipse tired, but finding later your eyes eternal myself singing reflect their kiss into me as I go about my duties ~Spokane, Washington, USA aboard ship dejected again in the valley an aspen grove the ship’s cat a solution for peace leashed one living organism to prevent him now to learn from jumping ship what aspens do ~Atlantic Coast, USA ~Leavenworth, Washington, USA

M. Kei is a tall ship sailor and award-winning poet who lives on Maryland’s Eastern shore. He is the editor of Atlas Poetica : A Mark Hurtubise lives in Spokane, Washington, USA. In the Journal of World Tanka and the forthcoming anthology, Stacking mid-1970’s, his poems and haiku were accepted for publication. Then Stones, An Anthology of Short Tanka Sequences. His most recent family, teaching, two college presidencies and CEO of Inland collection of poetry is January, A Tanka Diary. He is also the author of Northwest Community Foundation. Recapturing poetry’s euphoria and the award-winning gay Age of Sail adventure novels, Pirates of the appreciation for the authors he read four decades ago, he is attempting to Narrow Seas (blogspot.narrowseas.com). He can be followed on compose again by balancing on a twig like a pregnant bird. Twitter @kujakupoet, or visit AtlasPoetica.org.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 48 what is your mother’s last name? System Shock she asked me a middle-aged Japanese woman — Mark Jun Poulos Tsu n am i, I replied no, she said, that’s not Japanese it was a shock to my system what to make of mother’s pleasure when mother first told me when an old white man that both her parents were Okinawan — recognized her as Japanese — I who for decades she who had often been mistaken thought I was Japanese for being Chinese, even Philippina a blow to my heart feeling cut off to my pride of self from my own heritage to hear I was not truly Japanese ashamed at times but a descendant of people by my mother’s humble origins who were looked upon as subhuman how am I to reconstitute my identity? not regarded as Japanese self-knowledge by those of the main islands we all need my grandparents for our spiritual growth and development — migrated to Osaka yet how it sometimes in the wake of WWII deeply wounds the heart by my memory these trusting, docile people and mother’s testimony who have been mistreated they were humble, industrious exploited for centuries — an olive-skinned, small-built couple to know that I am one of their descendants who must have been looked down upon deeply humbles me how sad to hear Okinawan men that the house and factory I was told by mom her father built are handsome had burnt to the ground though swarthy and hairy — along with all our family photos now I share their blood almost treated as slaves my sweet mother by the Japanese army who regards herself who occupied their land as wholly Japanese they spoke a language did not understand how such a disclosure incomprehensible to those of the main islands could leave such a wound in my heart

I read knowing that my mother that the daimyos of Kyushu along with her three sisters centuries before see themselves as Japanese had enslaved the natives I didn’t tell her to toil and sweat on their sugar plantations Okinawans were not viewed as such

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 49 from my mother’s own words sweaty, panting after a walk, I feel the weight of I know she harbors my body no shame regarding her ancestors that she does not carry a painful secret all around me the low hum of insects unseen in deep grass when I told this sweet woman from Kyushu that my grandparents were Okinawan eating a mango, hands wet, bright with cool a sneer showed on the lips sticky juice of her lovely face

~Albany, New York, USA startled by footsteps, a lizard skitters under the boards of a plank bridge

eating raw tuna with vinegared rice, my body feels nourished for the first time

mom’s face looks youthful in the sunlight off One-Line Tanka grandma’s headstone

Mark Jun Poulos from the window of a bathroom warm with steam, a view of misty trees wrinkled as crepe the last sad blooms on this apart from me, her son, for a year, mother looks orchid younger, calmer

~Albany, New York, USA hushed at the table, a family eats their fill of fried chicken, rice lonely, no one to share my life with, I buy some goldfish fast asleep, this little pooch’s butt is right in my face gazing at beautiful altar paintings, I forget I’m at a funeral

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 50 you’re as sensitive as a woman Sensitive mother told me in a tone of criticism — Mark Jun Poulos yet secretly I was pleased with myself for being so how I long you think sensitivity is beautiful to have slept with Anne Sexton mother continued — when I saw her picture detecting in my heart read her poem about bathing nude a sentiment I had striven with her lover off Capri to conceal from others, even myself my co-worker they were almost female at heart a lean, neurotic old woman Murasaki’s men — who has no peace in her heart — nobles moved to tears sometimes when I see her by the sight of a withered garden I think about the futility of being old lit up by the autumn moon just having one pretty face a male sensitive to a fault look my way I know I am is enough a type often the butt of mockery — to dispel all the gloom yet in the world of the Shining Prince that oppresses my heart today I might have fit in looking at the faces why should I be mocked of old women all day for being weak, unmanly I’m filled with gloom — by those who’ve done violence to, seeing how time blots out extirpated every last vestige the beauty that once flowered there of the feminine in themselves? young and attractive in my teens this woman though I did not lust after them somehow looks sad, pensive — I was drawn to gay men — I long to know her admiring their softness, sensitivity fathom the depths of her heart their unabashed femininity sensitive, delicate, introverted though I live in a world all these I am unfortunately — hard for men like me yet there are times I don’t regret being what I am — when I think these words describe attuned to the transient beauty, someone with a beautiful soul the mono no aware it abounds in my sensitivity ~Albany, New York, USA is a double-edged sword a curse and blessing — making me alive to the world’s beauty yet capable of the deepest suffering

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 51 ferried into hell My Own Time across the Styx were Dante’s shades Mark Jun Poulos no hope of turning back — these homeless too have nowhere else to go whoop your ass, house nigga! when I told a woman shouts an old, dark-skinned how much the homeless black woman affected me — seated in a wheelchair she looked at me like I was crazy at a young security guard someone from a different planet oh, he’s brown! these homeless says an old white woman I often try to avoid — sounding disappointed — seeing in them as she looks at an old painting the despair, the madness of John the Baptist that have scarred my own mind these Manyō tanka I used to pity so full of love and longing — the sufferings of the insane — they make me now I know that lucid minds sicker and sicker with desire reflective, self-aware for a woman I now barely see suffer the greater agony closing my book of Manyō poems hard-hearted I reflect on how my boss roared lovely, pure they are — do it on your own time! yet they have left a wound when I tried to comfort a vet only seeing her can heal who wandered into his store so many homeless this young vet live in this city who came into the flower shop you think you grow numb — face streaked with shrapnel scars — yet not a day passes when he crouched at my feet, the mere sight of them saddens me shaking from a flashback so many lost souls my wife and mom drive me nuts endlessly stream into this city — they say I spend some wandering the streets all my money away — gibbering like the tormented shades he said breathing heavy in Dante’s inferno hands clutched to his ears where do they come from I never had a father — all these broken, blighted souls? I don’t know if you know like Dante what it’s like I look on them to be raised by with mingled disgust and pity a single mother

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 52 unable to help he made a lot of money I called the cops — by spending a little of it who were at first skeptical as any businessman would — this Filipino man was a vet I toiled amid his flowers looking so youthful paid next-to-nothing in wages when the vet and cops left how my boss’s eyes my boss looked relieved — burned with hate toward that Latina business could resume as he gave her change — as normal she must have kindled now that the problem was removed memories of the L. A. riots how petty-minded, callous I want to move my store owing a business to the Pacific Palisades can make a man — where real white people live — my boss showed no love I’m sick of these Jews, Persians even to his wife and three sons he said wrathfully those lovely orchids owning your own store my boss offered for sale — can make you hate even they were stained in my memory the very people who keep you in business — by his single-minded it kills your peace of mind pursuit of profit, gain while fattening your pockets his eldest son those lovely orchids spoke angrily I worked amid against political correctness — I still see in my mind’s eye — did he think he could freely use words yet even they can be loved like fag and nigger? solely for the wealth they bring never a help-wanted sign despite my boss’s failings on the window — his stinginess, racism did they not want someone from the there are many people neighborhood who would regard him mostly black and Latino as a decent, honest man to work for them? I sometimes think too many business owners seem he was a decent man — to feel empathy only for their own kind — irascible as he was people who toil his heart was not void single-mindedly of affection towards me in pursuit of the American dream there were moments my boss when we bonded who owned a tourist agency when he treated me like a son — in L.A. in the 90’s his heart would open blamed Blacks, Latinos for ruining his business — when I spoke of tanka and haiku hatred toward them ran deep

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 53 this Japanese woman yes, she said my co-worker I really like dangerous men — loves rap and hip-hop maybe without detecting but doesn’t like black people — the irony who instilled in her such racist nonsense? of her preference most young Japanese women telling me that I’ve known her older daughter don’t harbor such hate — spoke fluent Spanish later I learned it was her she said, yeah she speaks that language Sicilian-American in-laws’ who corrupted her frowning contemptuously heart I know many Italians like my mom feel utter contempt for Greeks many of them even those of the South — came to America how sad to hear it looking for a new life, for romance echoed in the words of this Japanese woman naive, sweet, impressionable foolishly my co-worker no doubt I imitated Rocky was the same type to show her how painful hate is — of woman — she replied with venom without a heart “at least I’m not a Greek” yet misshapen by American racism even I her husband, in-laws a biracial liberal with whom she lived have been corrupted with racial hate — were Orange County Republicans — that no effort of will all day she heard them can completely expunge disparage blacks and Latinos one great difference a motorcycle racer between a liberal and conservative her young husband is that the former views racism tragically died in an accident — as a blemish on his heart leaving her alone while the latter does not with two small girls freedom, freedom a young Japanese woman I often hear uttered in America by conservatives — she must have desired to fit in but are they free as much as possible — in the moral, spiritual senses of that word? is that why she adopted her in-laws bigotry? how can a person did she hope that free of self-deception by adopting their hate debate with one prone to lying to himself ? she was somehow in such a case preserving, honoring no real exchange of ideas can occur the memory of her deceased husband?

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 54 St. Augustine, Montaigne, Proust they implanted in me Marilyn Morgan a desire to probe my own heart — they opened the eyes of my soul dinner with old friends wine forming a circle and ailments . . . under the tree they fell from in the morning little blossoms playing tennis tinge pink a sidewalk glazed smooth with morning rain the next day . . . yet there were times entering your room when her words didn’t seem you were standing to reflect her true beliefs — behind me . . . as if she were merely parroting outside it was snowing what her in-laws said when I first came to L.A. Norma Winstone singing I was stunned to see a baby soulfully . . . half-black, half-Japanese — and I’m I made a face like this, she said dancing frowning with disdain with the dog ~California, USA and Japan heard the answer Half Okinawan-Japanese and Greek-American, Mark Jun Poulos has lived most of his life in Los Angeles. He loves reading haiku, classical in the surf Chinese poetry and Whitman as well as ancient and modern tanka, washing onto shore especially those of Saigyo, Shotetsu, Saito Mokichi and Goto Miyoko. and back out to sea He thinks the best advice given to a tanka poet was that given to Goto Miyoko by her teacher: “Be broad, deep and yourself.”

lopsided moon tonight why do I want to squeeze you round?

below zero bitter wind blowing . . . in the old graveyard tombstones sculpted in snow

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 55 still . . . and the fire Sequence in the hearth warms the loneliness Marilyn Morgan within

carry sometimes in the logs I reach out pour a glass to catch your sleeve of wine as you dissolve turn up the jazz into the shadows and drift away where your voice the sun is shining whispering wildflowers tremble on the wind . . . in the field come home to your unfinished story ~New York, USA snowbirds flocking south Marilyn Morgan is a retired English teacher. Marilyn’s poetry has blue skies and restless palms appeared in Atlas Poetica, Bright Stars, Skylark, Ribbons, American Tanka, A Hundred Gourds and others. Her prose has been published in a fool’s paradise Edge, Motif, Minerva Rising, Thrice Fiction, KYSO flash and others. offering drugs Marilyn lives in New Hartford, New York, USA. in God’s waiting room hot and humid a gaggle of old women cackle and stand flapping their arms in the heated pool

~New York, USA

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 56 the spruced up Sequence #1 packaging has the feel of nostalgia Martin McKellar & Billy Simms why does the past feel better than today?

The last oranges are ripe. I save my walnut I hold the scent in my hand Shells to recycle into And squeeze, listening Paper packaging, To juicy blues records While my chapped hands finger And forgetting there’s a world. Fall’s oily bitter taste.

the ripe tomatoes bleeding chapped hands lie ravaged by rabbits composted coffee grounds and eggshells those generous bunnies funny leave the ones on the vine someday I’ll end up for us composted as well.

Camellia blooms A bleeding red leaf, Cascading into my arms. Such an attention getter. Things people don’t need While in blue shadows Because they have no use, yet Butter colored leaves, aloof, I live on what others leave. Twist and turn with precision.

living safety orange with so much stuff ocean blue the clutter of first world life sunshine yellow if I threw it away the autumn colors would I miss it? of furnace repairs

Wasp nests. Persimmon Wet iron skies. Fruit. Pink snail egg clusters. She Wisps of mist from the compost’s Missed everything Weak inner furnace. In her excitement to show A warm teacup, held tightly, Us the flooded prairie. Coaxes my spirit onward.

videotapes my spirit dvds buoyed by holiday lights slides my mood flooded with excitement fills me exploring the library with warm memories

A videotape Colors of wet leaves With no machine to play me. Stuck together underfoot, Should I spruce up my Glistening veins of Package and hope people will Sweet fruit in the memories Feel curious to know more? Of a moist holiday cake.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 57 cats scurry a hot bath underfoot takes time holiday memories float to me to penetrate this winter’s biting cold on the scent I feel I’m sinking of a pine tree back into the womb

She fed the stray cat. My snowy body Now it waits for her return, Glowing like the maple’s leaves. Unwilling to eat. If you close your eyes, Birds squirm amidst berry-laden A hot bath can change many Branches, pinned by its stare. Things, reversing the seasons.

squirrels alarmed snowy street as my cat bolts black asphalt peeks from window to window through holes in the white blanket all this excitement like a cat’s eyes interferes with cooking dinner in the night

I see criss-crossed cold I tug the blanket Wet branches as I walk from Up to my chin, aware that Window to window, My fingers leave holes Or is each a mirror that In the lustrous peach-pink wool, Reflects my soul’s weariness? Worn thin from decades of use.

checking the temperature poking holes on my phone in the snow my plans change with numb fingers as the mercury drops the dry skin flaked and cracked weary of the weather like an autumn leaf

Icy gold palm trees. Carrots with black dirt, The pool’s water feels warmer. Radishes, rutabagas. I swim back and forth The winter root crops. Across dreams of Snow Country, I poke holes in the white toilet Weather wrapped in blue silence. Water with beet red piss.

claws ripping my skin sorting through slides I bathe my cat images of art’s history cleansing her lost night time did she dream takes its toll of foreign lands history is red

I run a hot bath, “Did the frost kill it?” Heat coffee and cook more food. Newcomers question us old I may lose power, Gardeners. We say But some part of this winter “Time will tell”, but we know they Storm will take my breath away. Always come back in the spring.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 58 grey skies icy cold Cherita moody winter blues my better mood Maryalicia Post always come back in the spring

Diffuse light from a awed by the moon Grey sky baths each object in Gentle clarity. the child I cradle my hand-made mug, wakes me Slowly turning it, looking. to look I see it again looking at for the first time Chinese art on plastic slides ancient objects surviving winter days on ancient technology of black Endlessly pulling and white Out the non-native plants, Am I the last one then spring’s To believe surviving means ambiguity “Keep everything the same”? sets in

sameness every ten miles heart flutters the same shopping center-stores why should everything bird trapped look so much alike in a chimney

The heirloom lilacs faces Are blooming. Why do I keep looking down My gardens static are you alright Yet champion immigrants With new palates and culture? we flew down

~Gainesville, Florida, USA / Hamilton, Ohio, USA through tumbled clouds landing safely

Martin McKellar tends a Zen-style dry garden, collects vintage men’s I believed Japanese kimono and photographs people responding to contemplative spaces. we’d never quarrel again Billy Simms is an artist, poet, and educator. He lives in Hamilton, OH, with his wife and four cats. ~Dublin, Ireland

Maryalicia’s long-form poem,’After You’, was published as a book by Souvenir Press UK. Her five line tanka and six line cherita have regularly appeared in online and print journals. Other work has been published by Ogham Stone and Poetry Quarterly. She is a travel writer based in Dublin, Ireland.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 59 Sesshin Kinhin is the Japanese term for walking meditation. Sesshin literally means “collecting the mind,” but is used in monastic communities and Zen centers to denote an extended period of meditation. Matthew Caretti Influenced in equal parts by his study of German language and literature, by the Beat writers, by his travels, and by his Zen monastic training, Matthew Caretti’s work has appeared in numerous journals, I have come to meet the Master. as well as several anthologies. After leaving the Seo-un Hermitage near Yangsan, Korea, in 2016, Matthew made a pilgrimage through India, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar before returning to Africa, sun where he served with the Peace Corps from 2003-2005. He remains on then shadow that continent, serving as principal at Amitofo Care Centre, an a late winter day orphanage and school of five hundred children, in Mapanga, Malawi. becomes what it is

Sitting alone with many. Like Raisins in a Pack wall gazing to unbind boundlessness Matsukaze the great journey into now to the man with the indulgent daddy eyes i surrender all of my adult-ness The mind leans this way and that. smoothing pineapple syrup lotion over my body a triple chime i meet your eyes in the mirror announces kinhin with each step of course he has somewhere to go he says the rise and fall bit of sun across his strong chest of everything off somewhere watching a river meander Half-lidded eyes settle. home — i curl up and read Zora Neale Hurston in a blink in this unorganized city — landing around 2 pm sweeping away down the stretch of highway a mule bone the collected dust so many lives washing clothes — another warm day between now and then watching you assaulted by monarch butterflies

The walls fall away. your hand on mine is definitely enough you feed me slices of ripe tomatoes in a teardrop the reflection of we could see all the city’s rooftops my True Self in that cloistered place where we first touched offering one last bow at sesshin’s end in this winter sun like raisins in a pack taking our children to the heated pool for fun ~Malawi ~Texas, USA

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 60 A Single Lantern Burning Behind My Eyes

Matsukaze Matsukaze a single lantern burning this cold cold night behind my eyes raw thoughts and red neon lights lying in bed i vacillate between Netflix and Hulu in this bed i dissolve into shadow we become close like golden apples in a pie crust fresh cicada shell on the wet ground spending my first night at your place no one says anything on this long bus ride on the phone — we piece together our pasts for downtown there’s another sale fun i reason there are many things i actually need in the distance a few sirens then silence windblown this cold cold morning we slept and slept and slept in his laughter a hint of summer and seduction where we lie only a bit of a left-behind shadow on the bedside table a corkscrew and wine bottle closing out the world — in a strange bed cork i touch you you touch me it is hot within the being black — under your gaze i sizzle earth intently turning in the corkscrew ~Texas, USA it really doesn’t matter if you smell like her

tree in the yard stained with blackish moss i talk nonsense into the dark — you’re there listening Soap Into Softer Places away from the shambles of family life i’ve forgotten to call mother today

Matsukaze ~Texas, USA thinking — putting two and two together i rub soap into softer places

“shut up” you shout then clear your throat the sadness captured in an overcast sky ignoring my wedding band he still flirts a car pile up outside is the future of this thing thinking — in a Sunkist soda there’s a lot of love no returned phone calls or text messages

~Texas, USA

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 61 In Waiting Room Sun temples and prisons

Matsukaze Matsukaze & Murasame immersed in waiting-room sun her words to me your departing train hasn’t been announced yet unearth some fountain of warm feeling — lost in thought i completely ignore the indolent are the candles still lit girl at Horyuji temple? “you don’t even care about me!” I hide passing a lonely dog moving down the street from ancient lightning ahead of me a large elm tree with knowing eyes and old fires in the hall of dreams too much soda in my daily consumption bidding farewell to winter only 36 years old but i feel stiffness in my joints prison industrial complex . . . passing your sacred gate there ‘arms’ open wide watching inmates i have no words for your return letter lose their very on a particularly chilly night listenin’ to 90’s rock minds remnants of chocolate stain my white tee is there 85th birthday comes before the coldness much of a difference how many things have your aged eyes seen? between madness and the levitation “Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. of monks? Our bodies are our gardens to the which our wills are gardeners.” in therapy thinking ― Othello, William Shakespeare will this floating world ever ~Texas, USA right itself ?

my gloves worn ragged with wear and tear like Ryokan’s sleeves are wet with tears

dose of reality i too desire to escape into Lady Shonagon’s world

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 62 rest easy on that pillow The Mitten brown man Langston said Michael H. Lester ‘hold fast to dreams’

~Dallas, Texas, USA / Norwich, England my car stuck in an ice rut at the curb Matsukaze is a classical vocalist/actor/poet living in Dallas, TX. He a child’s mitten has been writing short verse since early 2006. on the sidewalk Murasame (Joy McCall) lives in her birthplace, old Norwich in Norfolk, England. She too grows old and her mind is full of ghosts and the only color poetry. in an otherwise drab day red and white like my bloodshot eyes thick with morning tears

I decide to walk Untitled I have nowhere to go anyway Michael H. Lester I pick up the mitten stuff it in my pocket tanka poets somewhere perhaps fondling cherry blossom there is a little girl teacups hand in pocket in pink silk kimonos her footsteps crunching snow recycling tired old phrases looking for the mitten

I shall if I see her conquer the tanka how I will rejoice world at such good fortune from my desk as I slip the mitten in a bloodless ku on her cold little hand!

I toss ~a suburb of Detroit, Michigan, USA, circa 1962 a kyoka in the garden rhyming, no less just to watch them scatter through the mess

~United States

Dedicated to Autumn Noelle Hall, hidden in a mountain hut somewhere in the remote forests of Pikes Peak where the idea for this sequence must surely have originated.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 63 since you left Even a Monk Like Me I have become mournful resentful Michael H. Lester even of this vivid moon moving always to the west

I will not on nights betray the teachings when I cannot see of Buddha the moon for a few your face vanishes from my thoughts meager crumbs like the colors of the mountain tread lightly I am confounded on these hallowed stones by those whose promises worn smooth remain unkept — over countless centuries the young persimmon tree by generations of holy men bears no fruit again this year the stone path ~a mountain hut in 18th Century Japan leading up to my hut obscured by snow we are lonely together the moon, the owl, and I it is time for me to leave Michael H. Lester the monastery the pampas grass turns brown in the dry wind of autumn I am heathen when I hear the name I watch of God the bees flit from flower spoken in reverence to flower my skin burns what else can a mournful monk do when there is no moon ~Emergency room, St. John’s Hospital, Santa Monica, California, the year of our Lord somewhere from the village below come mournful tunes I cannot stop from the strings of a lute these tears of joy I listen to the wind through the pines anymore than I can stop the rain naked me and why would I? watching you while you sleep unseen ~Hoag Memorial Hospital, Newport Beach, California even a mournful monk like me — cutting my newborn daughter’s umbilical cord, 1987 can imagine such things

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 64 all the things my first slow dance that happen to a boy in the middle school gym when a girl she smells of milk puts her hand skin as soft as corn silk on his thigh the song ends much too soon

~In my dreams, 1959 – 1963 ~in the trembling arms of Michelle W, Schulze Elementary School gymnasium, Detroit, Michigan, USA, circa 1958 left alone a boy in a parking lot I remember I’ll admit that feeling of emptiness I’ve always been afraid even the crows had flown of horses they are so big and strong ~a park in Rochester, New York, USA, circa 1950 but I’m petrified of spiders!

~Uncle Bill’s horse ranch in Toledo, Ohio, USA, circa that hot summer 1959 the sidewalks burned my feet a bee stung me my parents got divorced for sixty years I’ve never been the same I have been afraid to tell her how I feel ~a quiet residential street in northwest Detroit, Michigan, on the other hand USA, circa 1960 she never bothered to ask

~everywhere on earth — she’s always on my mind, but the sparkle presently Los Angeles, California, USA in an otherwise drab sidewalk little chips of mica before the girl coming my way I can ask her name she is gone ~a quiet residential street in northwest Detroit, Michigan, only now do I notice USA, circa 1960 how bare the trees are

~a camp in northern Michigan, USA, this vision on a a wicked storm brews horse, circa 1958 I am on my bicycle too far from home checking newspaper stands March hares for dropped pennies and nickels run in circles past the hedges thick with bud — ~entrepreneurship in the wind-whipped suburbs of these trips grow ever farther Detroit, Michigan, USA, circa 1956 I dream of returning home

~as I imagine Norwich, England, 2018

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 65 snow and sinkholes Guilt by Birth confine her to the holy room her humble abode my mother tells me surrounded by songbirds I was a difficult birth who show the way even then before I take my first breath ~as I imagine Joy McCall in Norwich, England, 2018 I carry the burden of guilt

she still suffers the past the pain of the stillborn inhabits the air and the light a heart defect it is with us claims my older brother as much as the present after one short inglorious day only the future we cannot touch to remember ~waxing philosophic in my office in Los Angeles, she gives me the stillborn’s California, USA, on a Saturday, March 10, 2018, when middle name I should be working the next child comes quickly he takes the stillborn’s first name

now we are three including my older sister The Whole Equals the Sum a dark-haired beauty of Its Parts she takes me to movies introduces me to paper

Michael H. Lester then comes another a little while later one more A series of tanka sequences inspired by Joy McCall conceived to save a marriage but failing miserably the nervous tinker finds a sleeping hedgewitch ~New Grace Hospital, Detroit, Michigan, USA, October they feed each other — 24, 1945 what strange new taste this is something pleasant on the tongue the whole The Devil Must Have His Due is the sum of its parts which is why father snores on this dark and rainy day on the living room chair I simply fall to pieces mother sleeps upstairs the unwashed children stumble I strip the bark from room to room unaware from the ancient pine to see it naked though I am rough of skin I bleed just like you

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 66 mother tells us we line up she is not coming home like the hundreds of crows anymore (echo) on the wires take care of each other above the mess hall I will see you when I can will they eat us before we get inside? as the eldest child — I learn about a dumbstruck fourteen years hominy grits, shit on a shingle it falls upon me and powdered eggs to feed the young ones you can get used to anything clean their soiled bottoms when you don’t know who you are father works two jobs ~Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas, USA, to make unreachable ends meet November 1965 in purgatory the devil must have his due — enter the psycho-nanny The Chapel she belches I don’t believe in God reads the horse racing forms not since I was a boy looks for hidden clues not even then the two-year-old crawls out what has God done? the second story window the universe is not his

~18481 Appoline, Detroit, Michigan, USA, circa 1959 On Sabbath morning we line up to go to chapel 34 airmen head east I head west alone, barking commands Basic Training column half left . . . march! they want to touch me I tell the rabbi they have never seen I don’t belong here, I’m homesick a Jew before can you help me? where are my horns? he hands me a glass of red wine do I drink baby’s blood? here, drink! the staff sergeant my friend and I tells the men on the upper bunks join the Air Force be careful on the buddy system do not jump on your bunkmate’s head I am an L, he is a W my bunkmate forgets I never see him again at 6 a.m. sharp they tell me reveille plays and wakes us up I am not so stupid I can’t be in 10 minutes a Russian linguist we’re dressed and out the door it’s a good thing, I think . . . ready to march to breakfast I am no good with a gun

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 67 ~Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas, USA, November 1965 he sniffs the dish from this angle and that finally giving up . . . The Bartender shoulders hunched, eyebrows lowered he buries the entire room I think women are drawn to scoundrels I wait him out and thieves when he gets hungry enough I want to steal something he’ll eat . . . make trouble somewhere after a few days he refuses to rub against my leg she looks past me to the wild-eyed boy I open with brown curly hair a fresh can of ten cent he smiles at all the girls Daily cat food . . . keeps his mug filled with beer did I just see him bare his teeth at me? one waitress dark and exotic tells me I’m not sure she is a sadist I can use my food stamps I want to go home with her for cat food . . . to see her whips and chains for nine times the price I buy the Friskies Deluxe they argue over the sandy-haired girl I eat 20% fat I like ground beef mixed with crackers she ignores me in favor for lunch and dinner . . . of those wild-eyed drunks Moses rubs against my leg and the world is right again a lesbian sits next to the gay man ~An apartment building in Detroit, Michigan, USA, at the bar circa 1972 she says I have nice eyebrows I wonder what she wants with me Originally from Detroit, Michigan, Michael H. Lester recalls all ~The Traffic Jam and Snug, a Campus Bar and manner of slights from all sorts of well-meaning creatures from all over the globe. It seems there is no respite for the star-crossed, breach-birthed Restaurant near Wayne State University, Detroit, blunderbusses among us. Michigan, USA, circa Winter 1971

Making Ends Meet

I know that look of rank perturbation and annoyance . . . I can’t afford the expensive cat food

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 68 To Spend a Day with Ryōkan Tanka Conversation

Michael H. Lester Michael H. Lester & Sanford Goldstein leave your sorrows with me in my mountain hut this weary day Gogo-an I wish to stay in bed in the dense forest even the sun of Mount Kugami tucked behind fluffy clouds seems to enjoy its pillow we are lucky someone brings us sake I wake we read with my usual Buddhist poems by moonlight back-pain, watch the ivy grow longer and still, I try to think about Michael for a few seconds of relief in the morning we listen for the song I too of the woodcutter wake with back pain this morning the woodcutter does not sing like a rowboat we walk to the village in rough waters I toss and turn hoping I will hear from Sanford the village children shout with joy when we arrive a lovely poem we play ball reading where the grass grows wild a friend’s poem the children laugh and sing once again, and I remember strangers come to ask why we are so foolish imagine we just smile and bow the two of us walking what do passing strangers know side by side of the life of a monk? stopping here and there to write down tanka this cold evening the lonely cuckoo calls reading before you left your poem only the sound of your voice put me found its way to my ears in a brave and new world nothing to eat but three-day-old rice listen to the hum in this fool’s hut of a bumblebee I hope I don’t crack a tooth in flight under tonight’s crescent moon this morning I am happy enough for a duet ~Los Angeles, California, USA

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 69 I wake up and again with my back dizzy, in pain, my eyes are blue thinking of you these days of makes me feel better spring my back pain as I inhale makes me think of you the fresh spring air as I try in Niigata to help my wife get dressed for a moment over her broken wrist I feel young again

guests came aware and stayed for of this aching hours back how clean our and still, still, home when they came Michael’s poems help me my father thinking comes to visit today of my new friend in spirit only I steal his grave is too far away two persimmons for my feet, not for my heart from the farmer’s tree

poem ~Los Angeles, California, USA / Niigata, Japan after poem on and on, my back aches Originally from Detroit, Michigan, Michael H. Lester now lives in Los and so it goes Angeles, California, where he practices business management and writes poetry. You can find his first book of poetry, Notes from a Commode, Volume I, on Amazon.com. terrible back pains worse and Sanford Goldstein is now 92 years old. He has been writing tanka for more than fifty years. He continues to live in Japan with his friend worse Kazuaki Wakui. and still life goes on

I wish I were Wong Tai Sin God of healing I would come to fix your aching back every day I hope my friend’s back pain will disappear like the morning fog

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 70 time and tide dense downpour along the freeway Murasame & Matsukaze patches of dead grass then there’s my life he was satan’s slave and now he plays some days the one string the tides of loss rocking in the chair overwhelm me ‘the wind that shakes the barley’ I let go of brick and tree and drift . . . and drift in between the pause of blues notes reading my hymn old Ryokan’s poetry unsung the temperature and deep continues to I was awake, and yet drop the nightmares came cutting sharp ~Norwich, England / Dallas, Texas, USA across the day spoiling, despoiling Matsukaze is a classical vocalist/actor/poet living in Dallas, TX. He has been writing short verse since early 2006. in dark dreams seeing the ancestors Murasame (Joy McCall) lives in her birthplace, old Norwich in in ships Norfolk, England. She too grows old and her mind is full of ghosts and poetry. jumping into thick foam all night, sitting on the rocks hearing voices I light a small fire the tide is coming in

against a bonfire listening to the priestess of Bastet chant — a cold moon

I am torn with a longing for sailors and the wild sea and the hearth, at home

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 71 Pat Geyer The Suspended Coffins of Bo

Patricia Prime as i look into the murky depths our eyes meet reptile and me . . . Our trip to China ends with a day’s trek at lots of bumps along the way sunrise up to a peak. By the time we are nearing still, i dream of kissing his snout our destination the sun makes the rocky trail easier to follow. Farmers and women with afternoon moon . . . bundles of firewood appear from nowhere, almost forgetting warning us of the hazards ahead. the time of day We have come to visit the remnants of the a sundial shadows twelve Bo culture. While the Bo flourished, tens of to help me remember thousands of their caskets were here, suspended in mid-air. Now, on the cliffs, only a few hundred remain in clusters above Crab Stream. Cut from beetle, your work a single piece of hardwood, each weighs several abstract hundred kilograms. While some are found in unframed . . . natural caves on rock crevices, others hang mid- drip painting way between heaven and earth by scarlet wooden in pale tea stakes fastened in holes bored into the cliff face, 20 to 100 metres above the ground. We ask our guide: Why are the coffins hung lasso my dreams from high cliffs? Do some of the Bo people still Orion’s belt, please, exist? Where might they be? His answer is a mere pull me tighter . . . shrug of his shoulders. knowing you’re there dreaming of being closer ancient times wooden coffins adrift we pass on the street . . . in the nests of trees as this meeting is foreign birds fly down to the rocks i look at your fez strolling on dilly-dally feet you notice my lamb poncho we turn to exchange smiles ~China our breakfast table . . . five Mongols, three Kurds, three Turks a Pole and me all women, all sharing stories accented by life

~New Jersey, USA

Pat Geyer lives in East Brunswick, NJ, USA. Her home is surrounded by the parks and lakes where she finds her inspiration in Nature. Published in several journals, she is an amateur photographer and poet.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 72 Black Crows Patricia Prime

Patricia Prime walking home bordering here are the trees and hills the driveway moving out of time to the cemetery towards the centre of town weeping angels and the line of the river wings outspread

We enter the iron gates and the cemetery drinking tea unfolds before us, uphill to a stand of pines and from a child’s two-handled cup downhill to a stream. The main drive leads the old lady straight to the chapel, an old garden, and a who once served tea memorial commemorating the soldiers who died in bone china cups in World War II. It’s a serene, leafy place. A young woman holds the hand of her partner. They are here to find the grave of her as I lift my bag father who died when she was ten. She hasn’t from the car trunk been back since the day of the funeral. They a porch light glows meet a pair of amiable gravediggers who point in its yellow basket them towards the Cemeteries Office where a to welcome me home map is produced, and they are directed to a path near the chapel. A flock of black crows flies out of the trees as they approach a shady corner of spring sunshine bathes the cemetery. There in front of them, not far off the Auckland veranda the path is the grave they seek. mottling its timbers The granite headstone bears his name in full as the scent of Irish coffee — we never knew his middle name — with the drifts up from my cup dates 1939 – 1980. Below the name and dates is a poem written by her mother, the words incised in five lines: the eels come to life beneath the Japanese bridge the rest is silence at Western Springs moon drifting closer heads swaying in unison a lovely wind as they curl about each other fragrant with blossom rocks you to gentle sleep at the lookout point Small, spiky succulents grow in the pebble above the Grey River mouth bed of the grave itself. There is a small vase at its we watch foot, which stands empty. She wishes she had as a fishing boat brought flowers. battles its way across the bar ~New Zealand

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 73 the calendar says April, but the weather Cherita is stuck in winter so I prepare pumpkin soup Patricia Prime with lashings of pepper

crouched in the yard I feel nothing today except the loss of a friend the builders dead too soon remove the broken concrete I can’t forget those hours she spent in the hospice all day the roar of the slabs moths perch on the white walls tumbling into the truck tiny as fingernails or large as a daisy they take turns hovering around the outside light a gecko creeping down I throw flowers out a tree trunk wash the cloudy vase gather daffodils pokes out to replace the withered tulips his long curly with light and sunshine tongue in the autumn sunshine nasturtiums beside the fence I walk grow golden in an orchard their green leaves like palms under apple trees outstretched to receive warmth where the sky disappears beneath leaves a foggy morning . . . in the doctor’s waiting room the apples ready for picking his Chinese patients dressed in pink puffa jackets, gloves, hats and fur-lined boots sun flickers a parcel in the post — through the grass does it contain sweets or chocs? casting shadows no, it’s a painted rock of a Japanese lady on a sunny slope sent to me by a friend children ride bicycles

~New Zealand I walk a pebbly track

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 74 all week words have pestered me Beste Hans en Wim for a poem Paul Mercken like a locked-in mosquito Paul Mercken, Vertaler Nederlands-Engels

I escape to the computer Beste Hans en Wim,

Pallas Athena met uil, symbool van wijsheid I wade through water ’t jong een uilskuiken where a bittern’s laat de jeugd zelf uitvinden foghorn bill wat voor haar belangrijk is prods a muddy Ik heb goed nieuws en slecht nieuws en het is root of raupo hetzelfde. Het goed nieuws is dat mijn stok terecht is; before he flies off het slecht nieuws dat hij nooit weg is geweest.

het kraaienveld van Theo van Gogh voorspelt dood — autumn maar ‘t baby’ tje kraait mute swans niemand heeft eeuwig leven haunt the lake maar ‘t leven zelf kent geen eind descend from the sky Het slecht nieuws houdt tevens in dat mijn and skid across the water geheugen totaal onbe­trouw­baar is geworden. Ik stel namelijk vast dat hoe zekerder ik ergens van their beaks scarred by winds ben, hoe meer kans er is dat ik het verkeerd heb. Een soort koppigheid van niet te willen weten dat ~New Zealand ik het verkeerd heb. Neem nou die stok. Ik had er mijn hand voor in het vuur gestoken dat ik die mee had genomen en hem dus ergens in Huize ten Patricia is the editor of Kokako, reviews /interviews editor for Haibun Oosten had laten staan. Gelukkig dat ik die Today and selects tanka for Gusts. Her poetry, reviews, tanka, haibun and haiku have been published in many journals. She regularly writes wedding­schap niet ben aan­ge­gaan, want dan for Indian magaines and has work published in the World Poetry liep ik nu met dikke blaren op mijn hand. Almanac, Mongolia. Het is wel ironisch. Thuis gekomen keek ik toch voor alle zekerheid naar een van de twee Docent wijsbegeerte, taalkundige & mediëvist in rust, °Leuven, B, 1934, PhD Leuven (1959); Firenze IT; Cambridge & Oxford GB; hoeken naast mijn voor­deur waar ik hem pleeg USA; Utrecht NL. Lid van de Oxford and Cambridge Society of the te zetten en kreeg meteen de verzekering: zie je Netherlands. Bestuurslid van de Haiku Kring Nederland 2004-2016 wel, daar staat ie niet. (HKN – recentelijk versmolten met haiku.nl). Bunnikse haiku’s en ander dichtspul, 2012), 32 p., & Tanka of Place – ATLAS POETICA – Tanka’s van plaats, 2013, 20 p. (tweetalig). Tanka’s zonder wortel krijg &c. (tanbun/haibun incluis) in AHA Poetry, ATLAS POETICA, je geen ezel aan het werk — Schreef (Taalpodium Zeist/Utrecht NL). ezelsbruggetje naar Pythagoras’ stelling en Archimedes’ ηὕρηκα

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 75 Toen ik echter enkele uren later voor zeg Dear John and William maar een nachtelijke pitstop weer mijn slaapkamer uitkwam, stond ie mij in de andere Paul Mercken hoek uit te lachen. Ik buig diep in het stof voor de onnodige Paul Mercken, Dutch-English Translator trips die ik jullie dus heb doen lopen. De ironie wil echter dat ik aan deze en soortgelijke ervaringen niets heb. Dear John and William,

mijn wenkbrauw’s ‘on fleek’ * Pallas Athena dank zij teenager filmer with owl, symbol of wisdom Peaches Monroee, its young a nitwit niet voor ’t ding, dat is van mij — let youth itself discover voor ’t bedenken van de naam what they may find important

* Voor de uitdrukking ‘on fleek’ zie beneden I have good news and bad news and they are de Engelse versie. the same. The good news is that my walking stick is Ja, mijn geheugen laat me soms schrome­lijk back; the bad news that is has never been away. in de steek, maar dat wist ik al. Dat mijn subjectieve zekerheid een lachertje is, ook. Maar Theo Van Gogh’s field wanneer heb ik het dan verkeerd, en wanneer with crows forecasts death’s coming niet? De ironie wil dat ik dat niet weet en niet kan still our babies crow weten, en dus heb ik aan deze over­we­gin­gen nobody lives forever niets. though life itself knows no end Rest mij alleen me bij jullie te verontschuldigen, zoals ik hierboven al heb The bad news implies that my memory is no gedaan. more trustworthy. I notice that the more I’m sure En verder roeien met de riemen die ik heb, al of something, the more it’s likely I’m wrong. A is het vervelend dat ik nooit weet of ik een riem kind of stubbornness not to recognise I’m wrong. in de hand heb dan wel droom of de illusie heb Take now my walking stick. I’d put my hand in dat ik aan het roeien ben. Het zij zo. the fire that I’d taken it into Home The East, hence Gelukkig heb ik vrienden en twee toegewijde had left it there some­where. Fortunately I did dochters om mij ook in deze te ondersteunen, not make that bet, for then I would have a hand woon ik in een woon­groep, heb ik al voor with blisters. praktische zaken professionele hulp, en ga ik toch It is ironic though. Coming home I looked maar een geriater raadplegen. Misschien weet die for certainty’s sake in one corner next to my wel raad, zo niet om mijn geheugen te helpen, entrance door, where I usually put it and dan toch om te leren ermee om te gaan en immediately was assured: see, it’s not here. onnodige stress te vermijden. without a carrot ~Bunnik, Nederland you don’t make a donkey move — a memory aid for Pythagoras’ theorem and Archimedes’ ηὕρηκα

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 76 When I got out of bed a few hours later for practical matters, and am going to consult a let’s say a pit stop and came out of my bedroom geriatrician. Perhaps he/she can give advice, if again, there he was laughing at me in the other not for supporting my memory, at least for corner. teaching me how to deal with this and in order to I humble myself deeply before you for the avoid unnecessary stress. many trips I forced you to in order to find it where it was not. Thank you, Irony decides however that this and similar experience are of no use to me. Yes, my memory Paul fails me from time to time, but I knew that alrea­ dy. That my subjective certainty is a laugh, equally. But when am I wrong and when not? Paul Mercken is a retired Reader Philosophy, linguist & Irony decrees that I don’t know that nor can I medievalist, °Leuven, B, 1934, PhD Leuven (1959); Firenze IT; Cambridge & Oxford GB; USA; Utrecht NL. Member of the Oxford ever know that; hence these reflections are no use and Cambridge Society of the Netherlands. Committee member of the to me. Haiku Kring Nederland 2004-2016 (HKN – recently merged with haiku.nl). Bunnikse haiku’s en ander dichtspul, 2012 in Dutch), 32 p., & Tanka of Place – ATLAS POETICA – Tanka’s van plaats, my brow’s on fleek, thanks 2013, 20 p. (bilingual). Tanka’s &c. (including tanbun/haibun) in to teen film maker Peaches AHA Poetry, ATLAS POETICA, Schreef (Taalpodium Zeist/Utrecht Monroee, not for NL). the thing, that’s mine — but for its handle, which she invented Imachi “In June 2014, a sixteen-year-old teen named Peaches Monroee made a six-second video in Paul Mercken met Frieda Gheysens which she called her eyebrows ‘on fleek,’ meaning ‘good’ or ‘on point’. In November, just Paul Mercken, Vertaler Nederlands-Engels five months after Monroee posted her video, nearly 10 percent of all Google searches worldwide were for ‘on fleek’. 24-29 april 2018 My colleague Emily interviewed Monroee for a blog post and asked her where ‘on fleek’ came zeeschuim op de baaien from. Was it family slang, a play on ‘on point’ visserbootsilhouetten and ‘flick,’ some sort of blend of ‘fly’ and wiegen in haar droom ‘chick”? No: Monroe says she just made it up.” © 2017 Kory Stamper, Word by Word. T he nog voor mijn eerste koffie Secret Life of Dictionaries, New York: Pantheon luid geschreeuw van de meeuwen Books, p. 85. Therefore, it rests only to apologize to you, as als de koningin I did already above. van schoppen 6 onmogelijke And to row with the oars that I have, dingen gelooft although it is a nuisance that I never know whether I have a paddle in the hand or am in mijn insectenhotel dreaming, that is, have the illusion that I am verblijven enkel hommels rowing. Let that be so. in het licht van een Fortunately I have friends and two devoted volle maan danst in mijn tuin daughters to support me in this as in other things, een groep vuurvliegjes live in a community, get professional help in

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 77 ik loop alleen door de straat Docent wijsbegeerte, taalkundige & mediëvist in rust, °Leuven, B, maar voel nog steeds zijn ogen 1934, PhD Leuven (1959); Firenze IT; Cambridge & Oxford GB; USA; Utrecht NL. Lid van de Oxford and Cambridge Society of the Netherlands. Bestuurslid van de Haiku Kring Nederland 2004-2016 de ramen open (HKN – recentelijk versmolten met haiku.nl). Bunnikse haiku’s en in mijn haar en hoofdkussen ander dichtspul, 2012), 32 p., & Tanka of Place – ATLAS POETICA – Tanka’s van plaats, 2013, 20 p. (tweetalig). Tanka’s blijft zijn geur me zo nabij &c. (tanbun/haibun incluis) in AHA Poetry, ATLAS POETICA, Schreef (Taalpodium Zeist/Utrecht NL). Vrijdenker, vrijmetselaar en dat droeve verhaal van Pierre humanist. Geeft voorkeur aan democratische confrontatie door middel Abélard en Héloïse van dialoog. Frieda Gheysen is geboren in Kortrijk België in 1958 en studeerde af van in mijn ligstoel het vers als verpleegkundige. Omwille van de werkzaamheden van haar gemaaid gras ruiken echtgenoot verhuisde ze 15 keer in België en in het buitenland, de buurvrouw tuiniert waaronder Paraguay, de USA, Nederland and Frankrijk. Zij studeerde Boeddhisme en Oosterse religies aan de Universiteit van Kansas. Dit legde de grondslag voor haar belangstelling voor Oosterse poëzie, in het de beukennootjes bijzonder haiku. Ze schrijft haiku sedert 2010. Andere hobby’s zijn: kloppen zachtjes op het dak fotografie, korte verhalen en vertellingen voor kinderen. Haiku van haar hand verschenen in meerdere tijdschriften. donkere sporen mensen schuifelen voorbij in de verse sneeuw Paul Mercken is a retired philosophy professor and medievalist from Belgium (º 1934), Bunnik, NL. Research and teaching in GB, USA, wolken schuiven voor de zon Florence, IT, and Utrecht, NL. Committee Haiku Kring Nederland (HKN – Dutch Haiku Society) 2004-2017. Published Bunnikse de herdershond schiet wakker haiku’s en ander dichtspul, 2012 (Bunnik Haiku’s and Other Poetic Stuff, in Dutch) & Tanka of Place – ATLAS POETICA – Tanka’s in de wandeltuin van plaats, 2013 (bilingual). Voluntary work in the fields of nature, zoekt hij naar etensresten society, culture and spirituality. Humanist, promoting democratic confrontation by dialogue. in de vuilnisbak Frieda Gheysens is born in Kortrijk Belgium in 1958 and graduated as de regen valt met bakken a nurse. Through her husband’s profession, she moved 15 times in uit een reet-gore hemel Belgium and abroad, including Paraguay, the United States, the Netherlands and France. At Kansas State University she took courses in Buddhism and Eastern religions. There the foundation was laid for her het zijn er te veel interest in Eastern poetry, especially haiku. She is writing haiku since ik verstop ze niet langer 2010. Other interests are: photography, writing short stories and children’s stories. Haiku of her hand are published in several mijn grijze haren magazines. waarom schuiven de maan en de man gedwee naar de zee de koeien schuilen onder kalende bomen dicht tegen elkaar

Titia Bergsma, de eerste blanke vrouw op Decima

~Nederlands

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Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 78 Imachi clouds glide in front of the sun the shepherd’s dog wakes up Paul Mercken & Frieda Gheysens in the walking garden Paul Mercken, Dutch-English Translator he’s looking for food rests in the dustbin

April 24-29, 2018 it does not rain but pours from a heinous sky sea foam on the bays fishing boats’ silhouettes they become too many swaying in her dreams I no longer hide them my grey hairs soon before my first coffee loud crying of the seagulls why do the moon and the man slide meekly towards the sea when the queen of spades believes more than six cows take shelter impossible things under shedding trees close together in my insect hotel only bumble bees reside Titia Bergsma, the first Western woman in Decima in the full moonlight a bunch of fireflies dancing ~The Netherlands in my garden walking alone through the street I am still feeling his eyes the windows open in my hair and pillow his scent remains so close that sad story of Peter Abelard and Heloise in my deckchair I smell the freshly cut grass a neighbour mows the beech tree nuts softly knocking on my roof dark ruts people shuffle by in fresh snow

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 79 Woodstock Peter Fiore When I talked to her the next day she goes, “You’re still dripping down my leg,” and I couldn’t help wondering how many others had In The Middle Of A Nor’easter . . . heard that same line. Jason texts. I can’t believe how much I want to fuck Catherine. I lay awake at night imagining her thin white arms around me, the smell of her dark red hair. Her green eyes. Be-Bop Put it this way, sports figures live like counts I text back, me too. and dukes. Consider Sonny Rollins, who rose to the top of the DOWN BEAT AND METRONOME polls only to stop playing publicly in 1959 so he Jason’s Wife could practice his instrument. Only a few heard Only for a moment you let me see the curve of his commanding tone booming thru traffic on the your thin white neck and your dragon lady hair Williamsburg Bridge. When asked by the wrapped around it, as we drove off in a Crowell-Collier publishing company what he convertible. envisioned for the next 5 years, then Defense Secretary James V. Forrestal wrote, “Five years of peace with no periods of international tension,” a year before the start of the Korean War and Somewhere Else three months before his own suicide. As Gina’s last act of rebellion she empties the Which brings us to Lennie Tristano. who, joint accounts and enters the Ursuline convent in though blind, became one of the most inventive Paris. She’d rather eat, digest and sleep, scrub the musicians of the 20th Century. He was one of the lord’s toilets and floors in silence for the rest of honorary pallbearers at Charlie Parker’s funeral. her life than clean up after Jason. At one juncture, they dropped the casket, but intuitively, Tristano stuck out his arm at that precise moment and caught it. Stick around there’s more. Have Another Glass of Wine We have been here since before the raising of She had a houseful of friends. They were the mountains. I remember a great fire in the sky, drinking Pinot Gris. fierce flames and the uproar of slain horses. After — Why don’t you just have him over, Jeanne the cool winds returned, we lived by the sea, asked. sailed bright ships in the direction of the setting — We’d love to meet him, Adele put in. sun and lay the foundations in the hearts of — We’re not at that stage yet, she explained. many people. We have survived. — Oh Mary, you just don’t know how lucky you Who else are you going to believe? are, said Anya. At our age any of us’d die for the chance you have. — And you, Anya, aren’t you married? that place by the ghost bridge — So what! where the coming together — I have to admit my heart goes a little aflutter was the coming together when I see his name pop up on my screen. I think — What’s his voice like? I saw raspberries — Most times I don’t even answer. — Oh Mary, have another glass of wine.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 80 when you take your shower Lament I take your panties Richard Grahn up to my face and breathe deeply In my dreams you’re laughing and Bridget’s dilemma petunias are blooming the one she can fuck to the rhythm she doesn’t want of your breath. the one she can’t she wants My feather on the wind you gently float our worn underwear just beyond wet and gooey these fingertips. fucking in the closet our spooned bodies When I open my eyes sleeping you’re gone . . . footprints in the grass left fading with the sun. the red hat you gave me ~In the Beacon, Chicago, Illinois USA out in the rain Richard Grahn is an ever-aspiring poet/writer, sculptor, and photographer currently living in Chicago, Illinois USA. His poetic interests include various Japanese styles e.g. haiku, tanka, haibun and I meet my father haiga. He also enjoys collaborative poetry across a variety of styles. He in my dreams holds an Associate Degree in Fine Arts from Butte Community College he’s always yelling in Oroville, California with additional studies at California State University, Chico. I sit in front of the fire and drink wine

~New York, USA

Peter Fiore lives and writes in Mahopac, New York, USA. His poems have been published in Atlas Poetica, Bright Stars, American Poetry Review, Rattle, Ribbons, Skylark, A Hundred Gourds and others. In 2009, Peter published text messages, a book of tanka poetry and in 2015, Peter’s book of tanka prose, flowers to the torch, was published by Keibooks. In the spring of 2017, Peter’s first novella, when angels speak of love, was published by Loose Moose Press.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 81 seagull New England Projections on a pylon high tension wires Richard St. Clair snapping with current and biting wind day dreaming through the void in a rocking chair waves of warming meditating sunlight on its winking eye unseen x-rays the crescent moon broadcast cosmic love across light-years from last fall’s such wondrous light tag sale the terrible beauty the bulldog of an exploding star tendering me touches me a slobbering welcome stillness news flash the kayak ploughing through the ruins breaks hungry ghosts the river’s foraging for sustenance glassy skin and survivors a flowage old age of surreal images growing pains slowly my creeping undoing emerging simple comforts from anesthesia ever more elusive frozen surf distant crows jellyfish their shrieking caws crucified counterpoint on a gnarled cross to the meadowlark’s of driftwood lilting trill aurora magic sweet air once a magical vision in through the window now fogged early spring day’s by the sheening face halcyon bliss of city lights and herald of new life a rhapsody web of karma wisteria spilling over eddies of samsara the lattice fence clutching at me glorifying my heart tearing asunder and my spirit my hopes and dreams

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 82 wet dream subzero woken by the along the tracks shriek the train of steel wheels like myself on steel tracks groaning refugees listen lying in tented filth to the heartbeat of the burning sun waking cosmos another symptom sky and land caressing of lost enlightenment the nurturing ocean wandering mind like upticks a rolling stone of memories this mind roiling like a gathers no moss kaleidoscope no rest distracted lingering by life’s unforgiving a cragfast dream sorrows unable hiding under blankets to safely stay refuge in sleep or safely leave snow waiting once welcomed for spring now for the sonatas my heart murmurs of songbirds in gale force winds to loosen my veins surf fishing along the beach the heron frozen fast so still beach bum finding its shadow condemning 50s bottle caps unknowing prey légion d’honneur humming posthumously the neighbors’ awarded dishwasher bittersweet memories vibrating the firewall softened by pride like a metronome ice sculpture sunset resplendent tinging a flock in the light of distant geese resilient against here I am battering winds westwardly yearning

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 83 horses counting turning heads minutes and hours in sync keeping vigil joining eyes the daughter-in-law with passersby you no longer know day’s end coddled finally by coddled eggs taking baby steps late spring’s to accept myself blizzard bliss I eye those glazed tarts at the local patisserie blast of sleet ~Sydney, Australia soothing my loneliness inside the quantum recompense from the hills of indoors a powdery mist drifts off . . . ~Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA my perception of you not what it used to be Richard St. Clair (b. 1946 in North Dakota) is accomplished in both the musical and the poetical arts. His tanka, haiku, and renku as well ~Bandarawela, Sri Lanka as other longer poems have appeared in a number of print and online journals in the US and abroad. In addition to poetry he is a prolific composer: his new chamber music cycle “Through the Seasons with the sign Haiku Master Buson” is a setting of 39 newly discovered haiku by the do not feed animals great 18th century master. on the wall, Samantha Sirimanne Hyde was born in Sri Lanka and now lives in a squirrel scampers up Australia. She is grateful to have crossed paths with the exquisite world to steal my sugar cube of haiku, tanka and other Japanese poetry forms. ~Habarana, Sri Lanka

low tide . . . Samantha Sirimanne Hyde the placid shoal luminous in my darkest hour winter walk your enduring goodwill the sun’s warmth and birdsong . . . ~Galle, Sri Lanka my mind on you bedridden with pain this book tunnel-burrowed winter clean-up by silverfish . . . digging up daffodils remembering my father with their toxic bulbs I hang on to it yet again I recall the sharp sting of your words that day ~Nugegoda, Sri Lanka

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 84 a visit to Fukushima Shernaz Wadia

Sanford Goldstein venturing into the vastness his eyes reflect too bad the shimmer I cannot remember of the mica-flecked sea my name too bad I cannot remember any names! hungry goats on either side inside the capital the grassy of Fukushima no-man’s land we search for the library out of bounds even to them where the exhibit is and we found it this morning how blue my only companions the Pacific ocean thrushes here skimming along I stare the hilly track in disbelief

~Shibata-shi, Japan in strong denial he converses Sanford Goldstein is now 92 years old. He has been writing tanka for angrily with more than fifty years. He continues to live in Japan with his friend his wife’s Kazuaki Wakui. vacant chair

Shernaz Wadia is a retired primary school teacher, and lives in Pune, India. She was educated in St. Joseph’s High School Valsad and Wadia College, Pune. Her articles, short stories and poems have been passing by widely published in web journals and anthologies. She has also the paddy field published ‘Whispers of the Soul’, a collection of some of her poems he is grateful and “Tapestry Poetry” — a genre of poetry composition in partnership, developed by her and Israeli poet Avril Meallem. he has cultivated good contacts

~Pune, India

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 85 Dream of Lesbos Thomas Martin

Thomas Martin the moon and stars with us as we drive to our site along the river in the warm night we need no tent Sequence inspired by a girlfriend’s dream crickets and frogs sing us to sleep she awakens ~campground, Bend, Oregon, USA dreaming of Lesbos again in a sweat her passions stirred by Sappho parked cars she wants to give herself in the front yard a fence for the child to her dream lover who drives his battery car a beautiful woman round and round his dad who bends over her takes her beyond the red dawn to orgasm after orgasm ever the loner when I am old and sick so spent like an old cat she wonders if she can give I want to wander off herself to a man and die in some secret place again but not love and sex but for the fire of his seed ~Portland, Oregon, USA her lover’s touch stirs her beyond the reach of words unfolds her legs spreads her labia open and leads her into the sweet storm Sedoka she loves sapphically now Thomas Martin she can’t help it a nightcrawler their love so strong and unattached through some cosmic strange she gives herself again and again twirls round and round my fingers so quietly ~Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA I cannot pin it on a hook and so release his silence

~Liberty, North Carolina, USA

Thomas Martin was born and raised on a farm in Southeastern USA. He graduated from the University of NC at Chapel Hill. He now lives in Portland, OR, with his beautiful and talented wife, Joyce. He has published haiku, tanka and haibun in many journals both in print and online.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 86 Vijay Joshi Review: Only in Silence by Beverley George even Reviewed by Patricia Prime among the cherry trees I miss the koi pond Only in Silence competing for attention Beverley George food vendors Pearl Beach, Australia (2017) Pb 35 pp ISBN: 978-0-9943670-0-6 among $15 or $20 AUD incl. postage in Australia the babble of syllables $25 AUD incl. postage in Japan and New hear Zealand the voice $28 AUD incl. postage in USA, UK and of new poem worldwide

Beverley George has been a major presence hospital room in the tanka world for a long time. As founding eastern glass window lights up editor of Eucalypt: a tanka journal, she influenced tiny spot on the bed and fuelled the growth of tanka among many gradually becomes poets. Only in Silence is a selection of tanka by big bright red blob Beverley George, translated by Aya Yuhki. These tanka were first published in The Tanka Journal (Japan) by the Nihon Kajin Club (The Japan still damp Tanka Poets’ Society). The collection includes on the clothes line seventeen tanka sequences by Beverley George yesterday’s wash (two written with collaborators). monsoon rain The collection displays Beverley George lingers working at the height of her powers in a series of tanka sequences. There are poems about a train journey, a grandson, friendship, generations who walking alone have gone before, and many more. Throughout in the dark alley there is a sense of taking stock; of reviewing the the flashlight fails past and contemplating the present, together with even her shadow anxiety about the passage of time, and the mind abandons her full of things that need to be accomplished, as expressed in the first sequence: “First Light on Tree Bark”: Aleppo a crying toddler tries a phone call jerks me to wake up her dead mother from dreams of blue mountains random bombings hazed by eucalypts — disrupts school classes . . . again the new day crowding in, my mind writing its long list (12) ~New Jersey, USA

Vijay Joshi is a published author. His poems are published in Atlas The book contains many powerful poems Poetica, Contemporary Haibun, Haibun today, Chrysanthemum, US 1 such as “Scars”, with its images of being “scarred worksheets, Eucalyptus.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 87 by a rope,” “his long white scar /made by the There is also an interesting poem, “From teeth of a shark” and the lovely final image of a Here to There,” about Japan and the “guide who sideboard made by the poet’s grandfather: died.” The sequence begins with the lovely verse about grandchildren: rim stains of port wine glasses beach café and hot cocoa mugs first one, then two, then three this oak sideboard grandpa made grandkids write haiku the last thing I will part with (17) small white fingers flying eyes darting here . . . now there In “empty garden” George poignantly recalls the loss of a loved one: But a flying bird reminds the poet of the distance between where she is now and the time how can I explain she spent in Japan: what life is like without you? in an alcove my heart does not believe of the Ishidatami inn that you are gone (18) a framed photograph We also discover pungent and wry poems of my guide who died, and me about pain, death and a funeral, as in “RDF”: . . . weeping cherry tree (26)

the way in which Another poem with a Japanese background, our children spoke “Riding the Wind” contains this lovely verse: at your funeral service . . . I prune the bougainvillea I acknowledge back to its buds (20) but do not yet believe my own transience — The collaborative tanka sequence, “Paddocks betrayed by breath and pulse . . . of Wild Grass,” with Meredith Ferris, is also a thistledown on the wind (27) poem about love and loss. The poem ends with this verse by George: “In the Footsteps of Bashō” is a four-page collaborative sequence between Beverley George, June solstice M. L. Grace, Michael Thorley, David Terelinck, and the pelicans have fled . . . Catherine Smith, Robert Miller, Carmel wave after wave Summers and Lynette Arden, in which the of yellow wattle flares headnote states: “In the autumn of 2010, twelve under rain-washed skies (23) Australian travellers from Edo to Yamagata following the footsteps of Basho on his ‘Oku no Hosomichi’ (Narrow In some of the sequences we experience that Road to the Far North)”. The poem begins with this nagging feeling of slight dislocation that many of verse by George: us feel and which George captures in “Loss and Longing.” This is the first verse: oku no hosomichi we pause among cedars . . . crescent moon the faint scuff defines the pale edge of Basho’s straw sandals of driftwood . . . on the leaf-strewn path gleaming coldly my discarded wedding dress (24) and ends with this verse by David Terelinck:

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 88 signature.” George seems to have deliberately purple grapes chosen to avoid clear sections, presenting more a plump and heavy on the vines stream of consciousness in the arrangement of the sweetness of the tanka. The poems are ordered in a way that this harvest, this season, gives some tracks or threads of thought, so that this time of life (35) ideas from various places and poets blur and knit in surprising ways. This collection provides a compendium of The various poets are adroit in their craft of interesting sequences by a wonderful tanka poet language and form. For example, in Belinda and her friends. It’s an ideal collection for Broughton’s tanka there is a wonderful vignette of someone coming to tanka for the first time or for a hardworking farmer, who yet has time to a devoted follower of tanka and tanka sequences. admire beauty:

smelling of sweat and cattle dust my father akubra in one hand A Temple Bell Sounds, tanka wild orchids in the other (9) selected by Beverley George The tanka are concise, yet powerful. One of my favourites being Shona Bridge’s

Reviewed by Patricia Prime each small stitch of her needle A Temple Bell Sounds in the moonlight . . . Beverley George, editor the movement of red thread The Digital Centre for what words won’t say (11) Artarmon, Pearl Beach, Australia (2017 Pb 38 pp The tanka show a range of style as well as ISBN: 978094357020 subject. Some draw on humour, as in Jan Dean’s RRP: $20 AUD incl. postage in Australia tanka: $25 AUD incl. postage to Japan and New Zealand choirboys $28 AUD incl. postage to USA, UK and angelic, soothing, sweet worldwide sang at my wedding unaware between hymns A Temple Bell Sounds contains 108 tanka from I saw their chewing gum (14) the first twenty-one issues of Eucalypt: a tanka journal, selected by the journal’s founding editor, While others are ironic and show how one Beverley George. can overcome insults and derision, as we see in The wide array of subjects and scope of the following tanka by Sonam Chhoki: tanka from poets around the world is amazing. The poems take the reader travelling across years of his taunts — geographies and histories — including “summer she aches with uselessness evening / on the wide verandah”, the “Sea of and unlearns Japan”, ancestors, children and relatives and how to sing, how to hope more seemingly personal reflections such as “the how to dream in colours (15) simple certainties / of a loved child’s world”, “war time / at the factory” and a “father’s

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 89 The poets’ dexterity and skill in the tanka These poets have a gift of turning the form are captivating and exciting. Take this tanka ordinary into enchantment in their writing. The by Julie Thorndyke: poems make me look again at simple things: a cabin, a yellow leaf, shadows, the scent of mint the warm arc of you and “the hour I am / most alone.” The writing in our midnight haven making everyday living suddenly an incredible no words and exciting gift. just a single movement my instep against your calf (18)

I like the expression “warm arc” and the sensitivity of “just a single movement” is haunting. The tanka in A Temple Bell Sounds are ANNOUNCEMENTS anecdotal and lyrical. They are imagistic and depend on their conciseness and suggestion for Atlas Poetica will publish short announcements in any their effect. The fabric of the poems is evident. language up to 300 words in length on a space available Within the book the joy of love is evident, there is basis. Announcements may be edited for brevity, clarity, delight and confusion, pleasure and pain and all grammar, or any other reason. Send announcements in the conveyed by the language, the setting-out, the body of an email to: [email protected] — do not gaps, punctuation or lack of it and we receive send attachments. both the pleasure and pain evoked by the reading of these poems. Some of the tanka are dream- like or suggestive; there is a gut-reaction. Everything relates to our humanness, of being in relationships, of being one with nature or of Three-Part Harmony, Tanka being challenged by adversity, and Terra Martin’s Verses, by Debbie Strange fine tanka about receiving a loved one’s prognosis: Published by Keibooks

gazing In Three-Part Harmony, Tanka Verses, Debbie into the lapis lazuli sky Strange has taken her previously published tanka your prognosis and strung them together like notes on a staff to disappears in a haze create a new set of trios that together form a of tears and disbelief (24) seamless symphony. Each tanka poem stands on its own as a fully developed verse full of meaning The well-known names of tanka poets from and music, but joins together with the other various countries are spread out to meet us but in members of its trio to create a whole that is amongst the serious, the philosophical, the greater than the sum of its parts. Each verse is intellectual, the personal, there is still room for like a musical instrument with its own unique humour, as in Sanford Goldstein’s voice, but blends in harmony with the sounds of its mates to form a richly sonorous tapestry of during sound and image. Readers who loved her the hearing test previous book of tanka, Warp and Weft, Tanka for names, Threads, will be delighted by her newest I come out with Desdemona, collection. For those who are new to the poetry of with Iphigenia (35) Debbie Strange, Three-Part Harmony is an excellent introduction.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 90 and lyrical metaphors. Her songs flow from I am thrush, robin and bittern, from wind and storm, the black and the cries of human emotion.” — David and holy roundness Terelinck, author of Casting Shadows and Slow of stone Growing Ivy and water Three-Part Harmony, Tanka Verses f i n a l l y by Debbie Strange the river trail freezes Introduction by M. Kei our ski tracks Afterword by ai li the only graffiti Keibooks (2018) in this whitewashed city ISBN 978-1986077934 (Print) 136 pp $13.00 USD (print) or $5.00 USD (Kindle) fence posts wearing prairie crows Available in print and ebook at Amazon.com and and dust shrouds other online retailers. we strum the rutted road with barbed wire fingers

stonescapes along the arroyo rain-spattered my every bone thirsty Contemporary Haibun Online for one last taste of you 14:2 Published

“Debbie’s tanka are all richly layered, with The team of Bob Lucky and Ray Rasmussen every word carefully chosen. In her triptychs, she is pleased to announce the release of Contemporary explores the interplay of natural and human Haibun Online 14:2, July 2018, for your reading worlds in a very deep way, more so than would be pleasure. Please check out the current issue to possible in individual tanka. The quality of enjoy a stimulating assortment of haibun, tanka individual tanka is consistently high, and the prose, articles, commentary, and haibun news. interweaving of themes between the sets of tanka Writers are invited to submit haibun and is also impressive. I highly recommend this tanka prose. Please consult our submission book!” — Ken Slaughter, Past Vice-President, guidelines. Tanka Society of America Note that you can use the links at the bottom of this page to easily forward this announcement “Debbie brings her own brand of magic to to friends and/or Facebook should you wish to her tanka. One can’t help but be mesmerised by do so (and we would appreciate it if you did – we her adept use of language to help take us through need to spread the haibun genre around to new her inner and outer world of beauty.” — ai li, readers and writers). If you have a different editor and publisher of the cherita, still, moving into preferred address, you can send it to us and if breath and dew-on-line you don’t want to receive these notices, you can also unsubscribe to future mailings. “Strange is an acute observer and gives If you experience any problems with this insightful, lyrical and honest accounts of the mailing or the CHO issue, we’d appreciate your world around us from the tide-pool at our feet to feedback. luminous bodies in distant stellar realms. She tackles the traditional topics of tanka with fresh

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 91 Educational Use Notice Editorial Biography

Keibooks of Perryville, Maryland, USA, M. Kei is the editor of Atlas Poetica and was the publisher of the journal, Atlas Poetica : A Journal of editor-in-chief of Take Five : Best Contemporary World Tanka, is dedicated to tanka education in Tanka. His most recent project is Stacking Stones, An schools and colleges, at every level. It is our Anthology of Short Tanka Sequences. He is a tall ship intention and our policy to facilitate the use of sailor in real life and has published nautical Atlas Poetica and related materials to the novels featuring a gay protagonist, Pirates of the maximum extent feasible by educators at every Narrow Seas. His most recent poetry collection is level of school and university studies. January, A Tanka Diary. Educators, without individually seeking permission from the publisher, may use Atlas Poetica : A Journal of World Tanka’s online digital editions and print editions as primary or ancillary teaching resources. Copyright law ‘Fair Use’ guidelines and doctrine should be interpreted very liberally with respect to Atlas Poetica precisely on the basis of our explicitly stated intention herein. This statement may be cited as an effective permission to use Atlas Poetica as a text or resource for studies. Proper attribution of any excerpt to Atlas Poetica is required. This statement applies equally to digital resources and print copies of the journal. Our ‘butterfly’ is actually an Atlas moth (Attacus Individual copyrights of poets, authors, atlas), the largest butterfly / moth in the world. It artists, etc., published in Atlas Poetica are their own comes from the tropical regions of Asia. Image property and are not meant to be compromised from the 1921 Les insectes agricoles d’époque. in any way by the journal’s liberal policy on ‘Fair Use.’ Any educator seeking clarification of our policy for a particular use may email the Editor of Atlas Poetica at [email protected]. We welcome innovative uses of our resources for tanka education.

Atlas Poetica Keibooks P O Box 346 Perryville, MD 21903 AtlasPoetica.org

Atlas Poetica • Issue 33 • Page 92 Publications by Keibooks Journals

Anthologies Atlas Poetica : A Journal of World Tanka

Stacking Stones, An Anthology of Short Tanka Sequences (forthcoming September 2018) M. Kei’s Poetry Collections Neon Graffiti : Tanka of Urban Life January, A Tanka Diary Bright Stars, An Organic Tanka Anthology (Vols. 1 – 7) Slow Motion : The Log of a Chesapeake Bay Skipjack Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka (Vol. 4) tanka and short forms

Fire Pearls (Vols. 1 – 2) : Short Masterpieces of the Heart Heron Sea : Short Poems of the Chesapeake Bay tanka and short forms

Tanka Collections M. Kei’s Novels Three-Part Harmony, by Debbie Strange NEW! Pirates of the Narrow Seas 1 : The Sallee Rovers Warp and Weft, Tanka Threads, by Debbie Strange Pirates of the Narrow Seas 2 : Men of Honor Pirates of the Narrow Seas 3 : Iron Men Black Genji and Other Contemporary Tanka, Pirates of the Narrow Seas 4 : Heart of Oak by Matsukaze Man in the Crescent Moon : A Pirates of the Narrow October Blues and Other Contemporary Tanka, Seas Adventure by Matsukaze The Sea Leopard : A Pirates of the Narrow Seas Adventure flowers to the torch : American Tanka Prose, by peter fiore Fire Dragon

on the cusp encore, a year of tanka, by Joy McCall fieldgates, tanka sequences, by Joy McCall on the cusp, a year of tanka, by Joy McCall rising mist, fieldstones, by Joy McCall hedgerows, tanka pentaptychs, by Joy McCall circling smoke, scattered bones, by Joy McCall

Tanka Left Behind 1968 : Tanka from the Notebooks of Sanford Goldstein, by Sanford Goldstein Tanka Left Behind : Tanka from the Notebooks of Sanford Goldstein, by Sanford Goldstein This Short Life, Minimalist Tanka, by Sanford Goldstein