ATLAS POETICA A Journal of World Tanka
Number 27
M. Kei, editor toki, editorial assistant
2017 Keibooks, Perryville, Maryland, USA KEIBOOKS P O Box 516 Perryville, Maryland, USA 21903 AtlasPoetica.org
Atlas Poetica A Journal of World Tanka
Copyright © 2017 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 We do not publish haiku, except as incidental to a tanka collage or other mixed form work.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: 978-1543299953 ISBN-10: 1543299954
Also available for Kindle
AtlasPoetica.org TABLE OF CONTENTS
Editorial Lavana Kray ...... 50 Cherita and Pirates, M. Kei ...... 5 Leonard Zawadski ...... 50 Lesley Anne Swanson ...... 51 Educational Use Notice ...... 102 Lorne Henry ...... 51 Louisa Howerow ...... 52 Poetry Mac Miller ...... 53 ai li ...... 7, 9, 41, 90, 93 Malintha Perera ...... 53, 54 Alayne Alison ...... 14 Margaret Van Every ...... 55 Alegria Imperial ...... 12 Marilyn Humbert ...... 55, 74 Alexandra Davis ...... 13 Mark Gordon ...... 56 Alexis Rotella ...... 14 Marshall Bood ...... 56 Allyson Chen ...... 14 Mary Gunn ...... 55 André Surridge ...... 15 Matsukaze ...... 41, 57, 58 Andy McCall ...... 13 Michael H. Lester ...... 58 Anne-France Stevenson ...... 16 Mike Montreuil ...... 59 Autumn Noelle Hall ...... 16, 22 Mira N. Mataric ...... 59, 60 Bill Waters ...... 17 Miriam Sagan ...... 61 Bob Lucky ...... 18 Murasame ...... 58 Bruce England ...... 18, 19 Neal Whitman ...... 62 Charles Tarlton ...... 19, 20 Oz Hardwick ...... 62 Chris Cole ...... 20 Pat Geyer ...... 63 Dave Bachelor ...... 20, 21 Patricia Prime ...... 30, 64, 97, 99 Debbie Strange ...... 22 Paul Mercken ...... 68 Don Miller ...... 22 Paul Williamson ...... 68 Don Wentworth ...... 23, 24 Peter Fiore ...... 69 Ed Markowski ...... 24 Richard St. Clair ...... 70 Elizabeth Howard ...... 53 Robert Horrobin ...... 71 Eric Lohman ...... 25 Ryoh Honda ...... 71, 96 Ernesto P. Santiago ...... 25 Samantha Sirimanne Hyde ...... 73, 74 Frances Black ...... 26 Sandra Renew ...... 75 Frances Carleton ...... 27 Sanford Goldstein ...... 75 Gavin Austin ...... 27 Sheila Windsor ...... 42, 87 Geethanjali Rajan ...... 76 Shobhana Kumar ...... 76 Geoffrey Winch ...... 29 Sonam Chhoki ...... 76 George Mat ...... 29 Spiros Zafiris ...... 77 Gerrie March ...... 30 Steve Travis ...... 77 Giselle Maya ...... 30 Tanja Julija Trček ...... 79, 85 Hema Ravi ...... 31 Thomas Martin ...... 86, 87 Jacob Salzer ...... 31 Tim Gardiner ...... 13 Janet Lynn Davis ...... 32 Tom Sacramona ...... 87 Jennifer Hambrick ...... 36 Tracy Davidson ...... 89 Joanna Ashwell ...... 33 Vasile Moldovan ...... 88 Joanne Morcom ...... 33 Wendy Bourke...... 89 John Hawkhead ...... 34 John Tehan ...... 34 Articles Joy McCall ...... 23, 24, 37, 38 Julie Bloss Kelsey ...... 29 once upon a cherita, ai li ...... 90 Karen Klassen ...... 38 Cherita Published Examples and References, by ai li .....93 Karla Van Vliet ...... 38 Cherita and the Golden Spiral, Penélope O´Meara ....95 Kath Abela Wilson ...... 39 Tanka Ocean, Ryoh Honda ...... 96 Keitha Keyes ...... 40 Review: A Shared Umbrella, by Beverley George & Kevin Cowdall ...... 39 David Terelinck, reviewed by Patricia Prime ....97 Kris Lindbeck ...... 51 Review: Colorful Lives: A Coloring-Tanka Poetry Book, Larry Kimmel ...... 41, 42, 49 reviewed by Patricia Prime ...... 99
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 3
The really striking translation item in this Cherita and Pirates issue is an important contribution by Ryoh Honda who has been enlightening us on so many Cherita! And so many of them! When I tanka topics in recent issues. This time he announced that this issue would focus on cherita, translates several tanka written by Japanese I expected to get a few more than we usually pirates: the Murakami Suigun. As far as I am receive, but I was overwhelmed by the response. aware, none of their work has been translated You will find nearly four hundred cherita in this into English before, so seeing previously issue, making it the single largest collection of untranslated Japanese poets in English is a treat, cherita currently in existence. It grew out of a but these are special. The Murakami Suigun conversation I had with ai li, the inventor of were waterborne samurai. At the time, they were cherita. Since Atlas Poetica publishes cherita along just as powerful on water in western Japan as the with other tanka-related forms, I suggested she more famous land-based samurai were in eastern do a special feature for the website (you can find Japan. These Japanese samurai adventurers it at
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 5 cherita kenang-kenangan* losing the light we ai li are in silhouette
i see your breath before i hear it a mirror giving up on me was left in empty space in empty space i walk into fog a mirror was left there is no one no sound
i turn the corner after supper in my wet shoes touch the night after washing up for one i let your letters finding you this late miss me again the tint in my hair another black to be alone do i have the years to give you love in the darkness and grace? of the wee hours the scent of you on a distant train of memory dark dark night
no stars no moon desert sand i learn the salamander that your fingers and its slow crawl read braille our shadows in tandem oasis bound
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 7 find me wanting in the garden of remembrance
find me fair after rain after we in a marilyn wig scatter your remains the copy of travilla’s i turn to go pleated white dress and reluctantly leave you with no underwear to the mercy of the north wind
the light is soft sitting by the river and i am coming in the breeze in my hair from your garden my eyes closed there are voices here i was happy here in the old orchard hearing the flow, the language begging me to stay of its source
arthritic hip looking out for rain arthritic fingers my window and shoulder open when the sun shines when it arrives and day is hot i hear winehouse you can move mountains on my headphones
they say you’re missing family heirloom i fold your clothes there’s dead skin into the night in the drawers talk if you look closely to your pillow family dna that’s with my tears not in the graveyard
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 8 burial at sea cherita sayang* november afternoon the sea choppy ai li i remember the chocolate digestives the hot mugs of tea and wreaths that won’t drown back road
passing only one car the sleep of the innocent as leaves fall and more colours i close the door quietly tell me to forget as i leave the room you need to sleep after the deaths of your parents torch song for you to go home from the diva in a red sequined gown
her mascara starts to run a picnic by the waterfall as she gets to the part that says he is leaving building sandcastles a handkerchief cap on my head those were quiet days tanka blues before the drownings, the suicides and the exodus of dreams before ink dries
i add a sixth line i lose myself in the jigsaw and tell another story
finding another piece to colour the gaps at the columbarium do you hear me in the night a vegetarian feast touching space? for the ancestors
* kenang-kenangan is remembrance in malay i light candles and joss to guide them through ~London, England / Singapore to my dark
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 9 reading a ghost story in the shadows did i lock the back door? i see you disrobe is the alarm set? in shared moonlight worrying over nothing the clock stops i put another log on the fire the hands not touching for my dead cat for a decade
that winter feeling when you sleep painting it blue i inherit your dreams with sinatra in my wilderness behind closed doors i go nowhere the sound of crying and everywhere the beginning of night rain my feet bare
love strays a body on the tracks this year someone leaves flowers the missing valentine by her outline i open the box night comes of cards i hear her train i never received and cover my ears
all is not lost death poem there’s still a breeze using black ink where it matters to make a point in her drawer of mementos who will read my words an old white feather if it isn’t found going home this piece of rice paper
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 10 weekend bolt hole second honeymoon the fire lit the orient express giving my cat shadow new louis vuitton luggage he is slower outside she is more impatient snow is falling a full moon over the bosphorus and there are no footprints
a rose i miss your hugs from you to me but there are thorns the way your breath the late nights moves my earring those scented trips abroad our bed my morgue those were loving nights the moon in our attic window being faithful can’t buy me love over rooftops with a crescent moon dance hostess the cartier bracelet the spitting image i had on earlier of your daughter winking diamonds you ask her her age she whispers tongue in your ear a stranger calls with your face and smile but i’ve been there before a white lie he brings candy & flowers and eyes that bleed is that only for virgins ~London, England / Singapore she asked ? * sayang is love in malay straw ai li is a Straits Chinese poet who lives in London and Singapore. She in her blonde hair writes about Life, Love and Loss bringing healing and prayer to her her lipstick smudged poems. Besides being the founding editor and publisher of still, moving into breath and dew-on-line and the creator of cherita, she is an evidential spiritualist medium, an urban photographer, and a surrealist collage painter. Find the quiet of her inner rooms at:
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 11 Cherita first meeting the opal smoothness Alegria Imperial of a handshake
a diamond stud rooting on her chin where foundling winds birth muted air and roost in my heart as hummingbirds her eyes one day I woke air stilled in frost the emerald display case folded on wings a mid-sea calm
on her breast the gentle rocking of waves through grey lace higher and higher the fawn stares as my sorrows slough off haloed light will we meet again or must I hang on grandfather’s sighs to what’s unspoken? swathe the darkness
candle drippings like a beard stretch rain clouds farther and farther their dance of longing sweeps edge of skies ghost wafting on shore only the white sound of water persists summers the sea with distant castanets spilled over to my lips
no peak or forest remains just foam riding feather against sunlight . . . blue winds who senses like the blind ~Vancouver, Canada what hearts catch between beats? before dawn the un-striated glow Alegria Imperial has been writing haiku, tanka and haibun, some of of a human moon . . . as if lured, I walk which have been published, and a few awarded. But exploring cherita, for her, seems to be a perfect fit for her voice. into the infinite reach of tears
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 12 Ghosts her cold gaze hidden by the impotence Alexandra Davis & Tim Gardiner of plucked eyes . . . the centaur’s realm from the waist down
Hamlet ~United Kingdom in his clean hand a stone smooth skull Dr Tim Gardiner is an ecologist and poet from Manningtree in Essex, UK. His haiku and tanka have been published in literary magazines flesh pared away . . . including Acorn, Blithe Spirit, Frogpond and Skylark while longer soon all doubts poems have appeared in Poetry Quarterly and The Seventh Quarry. His will dissolve first collection of poetry, Wilderness, was published by Brambleby Books in 2015. He has published many scientific papers on natural history and several books, including one about glow-worms. a glow-worm’s fire cold to human touch . . . Alexandra Davis is an English teacher and poet from Felixstowe in Suffolk, UK. Her poems have been published in literary magazines my father’s ghost including Agenda and Twelve Rivers and anthologies such as Slow unrecognisable at first Things by the The Emma Press. She has performed at the Suffolk still haunts these chambers Poetry Festival and is a regular reader at Felixstowe Café Poets.
Macbeth before intention cools Andy McCall the dagger is swift makes gold of flesh . . . sleep lies dead my mind on this lonely summit is like a dark room black covers the pictures I try to see an untrue spot I pray for dawn stains her little hand . . . along dark corridors a candlestick comforts standing on the hill the motherless mind bones buried beneath me I talk to souls at rest — did your life give you peace or did eternity bring it? King Lear ~Norwich, England as edges crumble reason means nothing destruction seems a gift . . . Andy McCall lives with his wife Joy in Norwich, England. He works this piece of earth for the local council. He loves nature and motorbikes and coming home. was mine, was me
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 13 Little Treat Cherita
Alexis Rotella Alayne Alison
The stories “Farewell my granddaughter” she tells that aren’t true Wrinkled, cynical, feisty yet in her mind She repeated, year after year they are “This is the last time I’ll see you” Eleven years later Wash off that pickle The 102-year-old was right she admonishes shall I dip it ~London, England in Clorox too I laugh Alayne Alison was born in Seattle, Washington. She studied Science and Fine Arts at the University of Washington, USA. She exhibited her kinetic artwork before settling in London in 2003. Alayne currently I give it to her works as a manager in healthcare and is a member of the Royal Society the cashmere hoodie of Medicine. She is a patented inventor as well as a member of a I will miss Spanish singing ukulele band. as she strokes it gently with ancient hands
Before I leave Cherita I butter toast the rye from Russia I drove fifty miles to buy Allyson Chen to give Aunt Mary a little treat
~Maryland, USA breathe in, minced garlic with my sharpened knife paused on the chopping block Alexis Rotella breathe out, audible sigh As he takes me the aroma of everything you’ve done in his arms weighs in I point to the lake as blue as ~Los Angeles, California, USA a Cezanne
~Maryland, USA Allyson Chen was born in Canada and now lives with her husband and two children near Los Angeles, California. She enjoys career paths Alexis Rotella practices Oriental medicine in Arnold, Md. Her latest in several disciplines including engineering, Chinese medicine, and book of haiku, Between Waves, is available from RedMoonPress.com functional medicine.
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 14 Cherita what to leave behind that will be lasting, useful André Surridge there must be something
maybe one poem party at a friend’s that’s all I can think of now and how to write it as usual I hover by the food table that’s when I meet you and suddenly the nibbles my dear son-in-law lose their attraction he is dying of cancer there’s nothing more that can rain, rain and more rain be done except to ease the pathway from this life I wonder when it will stop to whatever’s next the forecast is poor it’s rained each day since we found a gold-bellied frog on the bowling green the end so near now
one might as well believe that somehow, yes, somehow browsing at the mall this pinprick of hope couldn’t resist the tee-shirt there is a hereafter with bright blue airplanes & love conquers all when he hears a plane my young grandson runs outside to scan the whole sky dogwood bloom
the open palm of a hand yet I stay hopeful feels each drop of rain though it be cold and the road but cannot hold them hard and uneven some raindrops maybe, not all & some memories somewhere ahead I believe there is a warm bed and fine brandy
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 15 scarlet oak Cherita hanging onto leaves until the new leaves come Autumn Noelle Hall a cautious approach which I wholeheartedly identify with God is Red
she studies by firelight she’s gone, she’s gone, gone coyote cries all that’s left in the wardrobe awakening inside is a short blue dress a beating drum one I bought for her ~Yellowstone National Park, USA our sixth anniversary one she never wore
~Hamilton, New Zealand deep breathing André Surridge was born in Hull, England and lives in the city of Hamilton, New Zealand. He is the winner of several national and dialing down international writing awards. Writing cherita is his latest challenge. my shutter speed
I am water falling like white silk Cherita from the weaver’s hand
Anne-France Stevenson ~Yellowstone National Park, USA spring walk hands in pockets at last, an elk’s tooth with holes buff colored and burnished smelling against rough granite scree listening to nature who knew how much disappointment could fit ~Los Angeles, California, USA in one spit pistachio shell
Anne-France has had a true cosmopolitan life, living in both Los ~Mueller State Park, Colorado, USA Angeles, California and Paris, France. She has created a one-woman business catering to high-end travelers to France. She has been awarded with a Gold Medal by the French Ambassador both here in Los Angeles and in Paris.
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 16 tornado sirens Cherita the dank basement of childhood osage orange and spider smell Bill Waters even here in dry mountains I still cannot weather the wind don’t be mad!
~Davenport, Iowa/Green Mountain Falls, Colorado, a tentative smile USA a shy glance
a tiny golden weed-flower you offer between finger and thumb more than skin deep the bone marrow scan tells it like it is I was just a kid each time she denied that we looked alike — I knew a lot less turns out mom was right than I thought I did
~Iowa City, Iowa, USA about life, and I spurned love that did not suit me to my later regret in the palm of my hand speckled and spiraled in the deep of the night with his birthday wishes I hear a cat a purple heart playing in the hall — stone-weighted against future wounding pouncing, pouncing, and then bouncing down the stairs ~Green Mountain Falls, Colorado, USA a plastic ball
~Pennington, New Jersey, USA
Bill Waters lives in Pennington, New Jersey, U.S.A., with his wonderful wife and their two amazing cats. More of his work can be found at billwatershaiku.wordpress.com.
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 17 Cherita Bruce England
Bob Lucky So many thoughts now of things we didn’t do letting her shift the gears a scattering of coins as I drove the dust on the dresser thick as memory If I should die in a car wreck, may I have everything Van Morrison and she wanted she left (early) Poi Dog Pondering where it was on my tape deck
Does it end this way? her hands no longer visit warm sangria my back pocket kisses shorter, shallower children on the merry-go-round no leaning in as we walk squealing For some workers chickens on a spit in Silicon Valley, the view our offering to gods of the mountains we no longer recall from their workplace is a daily mirage
You could fire cold tile floor an AR-15 in a crowd of Valley workers pacing the length and not kill anyone of the night with military service one truth makes you Her skin is clear hungry for another her exquisite tattoos are hidden ~Jubail, Saudi Arabia inside her panties and bra
Bob Lucky is the content editor at Contemporary Haibun Online and the author of Ethiopian Time. He lives in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. Before going to our reunion I ask my friend are you single tonight?
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 18 Due to a lack of trumpeters Equivalences the end of the world Charles Tarlton will not be announced
~California, USA He knew the anguish of the marrow The ague of the skeleton . . . Sedoka ~T. S. Eliot The traffic’s forming up in roughly staggered Bruce England rows, and where the highway curves in a long slow arc the view out the windshield takes in the oxbow formed by the river’s twisting. Cajun store owner told my mom to place the cans Drivers are hunkered over the wheel, grim in back on the shelves as they were the morning commute; they are expert in the her customers car’s technology, their eyes unfocussed and don’t read and won’t recognize opaque. One tattooed carpenter (he could be a them, facing some other way plumber) in a red GMC pickup, speeds forward and honks his horn in irritation. I am, of course, there amongst them. I don’t much care for beaches anymore it’s old hat to say the rotting seaweed in these ways we are all dead the salty air who tastes the wet grass the foggy grayness anymore, or breathes the fog give me the desert or whistles in the morning light?
an older couple The sky is dark poke along in the slow lane there are swirls in the clouds they’re going for lunch the air is muggy and mild Madame Monet’s red kimono people are sitting and some music in the park on their porches, standing out in their yards, looking up it’s just something lost not of much use anymore now there’s things to do Forget that old fear chatter on your phone in line of being naked in front a hot spot for Sunday brunch of an audience the new fear ~Northampton, Massachusetts, USA no laptop, no projector for your PowerPoint
~California, USA
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 19 In a Museum Cherita
Charles Tarlton Chris Cole
. . . the birth of Light in painting. ~Robert Delaunay the small boy
A long afternoon spent in the Wadsworth trembling, he blinks up at the man Atheneum’s Impressionist room and in another cheek stinging in the icy air reality. Light shatters in fragments coming off the water, catching its skirt in the trees, against skies he turns away from the rattle of the dice of tiny pastel brushstrokes, and forces us to already inventing excuses interpret, always interpret. Where in other cases his mother will not believe — Rembrandt or Constable — you recognize as faces, faces; as fabrics, fabrics; apples, and the ~Australia perfect clouds. You can’t get up too close; painted illusions always dissolve. the truths of colors Chris Cole spray-painted across your eyes make you want to dream leaves fall by the porch the skies up against the sea she watches, then sees no more the wheat in its even rows the old man holds her memories, through veils of tears here are the highest leaves bittersweet smile, he holds her of a giant Elm, penciled in, thousands of them ~Australia another one sponge-scumbled speckles of greens and yellows Chris Cole lives and works in Canberra, Australia. Possessed of a boats in the harbor particular enthusiasm for short form literature, cross-country skiing, and not quite right, too square and clear crepes that are cooked just right, he dodges marsupials on his way to sky obviously brushed work, and spends vast periods of time staring at the sky. He may or may not be far too familiar with 8-bit computer games from the 1980s. in streaks of blue impasto soft blue wriggled over green
~Northampton, Massachusetts, USA
Charles Tarlton is a one-time philosophy professor turned poet. He lives Dave Bachelor in Northampton, Massachusetts, with his wife Ann Knickerbocker, an abstract painter. He has been writing poetry full-time for about eight years and has published poems in journals like Shampoo, Atlas Poetica, contemporary haibun online, Haibun Today, Review Americana, summer walk Tipton, Shot Glass, Rattle, Kyso Flash, The Journal (UK), Blackbox I perspire Manifold (UK), London Grip, 2River, and Fiction International. trying to Muse-Pie Press nominated his poems, ‘Doing Double Duty,’ ‘Solipsism,’ and ‘Lustrum’ from Shot Glass Journal Issue #6 for the recall how 2013 Pushcart Prize. He is the featured poet in the upcoming Fall issue to flirt of KYSO Flash.
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 20 Black Sand joggers, lovers and limping old men Dave Bachelor walk through the park — unimpressed ants That my aging body may last a bit longer, I’m clean a candy wrapper prescribed a midday nap. Shoes off, beneath a blanket, I find the recurring dream. I had just turned eleven. My older brother, my hero, was in dark waters expected home from the terrible war. I was a silver minnow kicking a can along a smelly alley in Chicago. It is by a still log — March 1945. Monday morning comes so soon on a black sand beach along with thousands of young men my brother fell — after the parade, more than 70 years speeches over, waiting for the reunion medals bestowed, cold wind snaps the rope ~New Mexico, USA against bare flag pole Dave Bachelor dwells in a tiny room in Albuquerque with his poems. When he is behaved Luisa visits him. locket hanging on a rose thorn — Don Miller lives in southern New Mexico, USA. He has been writing if I stretch, tanka since the early 1980s, and he has had his tanka, tanka sequences, risk a scratch tanka prose, and other short-form poems published in various print and I could grab it online journals over the past decade or so.
For Ribbons Tanka Prose Editor Autumn Noelle Hall, tanka holds boots covered with memory, emotion, people and place. Like her cabin in the Colorado mountains, it is home to husband, daughters, wild birds, waterfalls, an leaves newly fallen australian shepherd and the deer he trails, bears and mountain lions and what shall I do their tracks through the snow. But tanka is also a form of reckoning and now that the doctors reconciliation, a way to truly see and make sense of the world. Much have given me the news like her camera, tanka is Autumn’s lens on life.
Debbie Strange is a short form poet, photographer, and haiga artist. She green park is a member of the Writers’ Collective of Manitoba and is also affiliated with several haiku and tanka organizations. Her first circled by an iron fence collection, Warp and Weft, Tanka Threads, is available through to touch a blossom Keibooks, Createspace and Amazon. You are invited to visit her on I must have Twitter @Debbie_Strange and at debbiemstrange.blogspot.ca. a key
~Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 21 For Richer, or for Poorer her name was cherita
Don Miller & Autumn Noelle Hall Debbie Strange pricing the street awakens my baby girl’s wedding another tribe of wanderers doubling up home, a word long since forgotten on beta blockers in a shabby black coat she claims to be descended who said you can’t from a long line of crows put a price on love? appraising the per-foot cost of walking her down that wedding aisle her hands flutter convenience two migratory birds versus that have gone astray practicality measuring the world, too harsh true love to be a safe haven for accidentals
one stop shopping for flowers and favors The Dress paper-thin body the American way of saying ‘I do’ to debt this pale skeleton of the bird I once knew for profit those pinioned feathers wedding venues never had a chance to carry her gift wrapping too close to the sun the convenience of all inclusive pricing
broken-backed prairie what wouldn’t we pay for happily ever after . . . where the wild things are blown priceless when their roots are severed Daddy’s little girl safe on his arm uncaged at last, she joins the waiting flock ~Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA / Colorado that always knew her name Springs, Colorado, USA
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 22 lightning storm a caterpillar allowing itself to be a shadow nudged runs for shelter onto a fallen leaf an afternoon service I still see you, sparks flying a beetle from your fingertips in the hazel hedge sunning itself the ant brothers attack ‘this is our territory’ scimitar moon never enough light round to capture your curves and round and up a Rose of Sharon photographs of you, the little black ants go the negative spaces without, and with, us between us tiny spider spinning her web on the candlestick I am not who I was I’ll have no night flame for a month or two with each season comes a deeper sorrow in August a pulsating din rises the stones I carry and falls so round and blue in sync, piercing, alive — might have been your eyes cicadas, in ethereal tune ~Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada the pupae that were mealworms hatching in the sun — a flightless winged army of darkling beetles creeping, crawling preying mantis on the night screen Don Wentworth & Joy McCall praying we, too, bow low over our blessings Even with insects — some can sing, startled some can’t. by the sudden leap of grasshoppers ~Issa, translated by Robert Hass on the field path wishing I could high-jump
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 23 o, pill bug I wish how you curl and roll I had the courage at a touch — of the butterfly the master teaches breaking the bounds the student burns of the chrysalis
~Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA / Norwich, beating England our heads, our hearts, against the light our arms embracing wings taking flight of Sister and Brother Moth the virgin queens Don Wentworth & Joy McCall emerge from the ant nest and take flight black spots fast and furious on the red ladybirds ‘come and get us, boys’ I count seven — this year’s harvest ~Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA / Norwich, will be abundant England in this meadow Don Wentworth is a Pittsburgh-based poet whose work reflects his how the orange monarchs dance 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 so differently (2011), Yield to the Willow (2014) and With a Deepening Presence from the blue dragonflies (2016). He is the long-time editor of the small press magazine, to the very same tune Lilliput Review.
I light candles Joy McCall lives in Norwich, England, where she was born, a place in the old church with a long dark history. She is growing older but not much wiser. praying for dead poets in the walls the loud buzz Ed Markowski lives, writes, and paints in America’s Great Lakes of mortar bees Region. His book Reunion is due out this Summer from Shoe Music press. the king of kings the Jersey mosquito swaggers with a buzz loud as a bad memory that smarts and lingers Ed Markowski the swifts have flown early back home standing in a virgin forest to Africa now safely come the hosts being lashed by a wind-driven mixture of light-winged fishflies of rain sleet and snow in the city my wooden leg fireflies are brighter refuses than stars to leave under the streetlamp moon we howl for what we’re worth ~Auburn Hills, Michigan, USA
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 24 Eric Lohman Cherita
Ernesto P. Santiago scattering untold numbers of woodthrush from the trail sacred and mysterious is that really progress the gods smell wine the poets, too a million years of white grapes for photons — born in its core and syrah — my man’s mortal words to escape a star working all night how long for a poem to escape the heart
ports of call abandoned at the crossroads letting the ‘us’ go a woman’s left shoe a little extra time what else fell with last night’s rain clouds drift . . . and if they don’t they should passing his stretcher I wondered how much money spent on hospital could have kept him in good health blissful breeze breaks the year before the fading echoes of seaside bonfire comforting a friend in the wake of a tragedy over bottles of fix I realize the bond of stars and moon — it’s the first time all year a gorging season I said I love you at a time sailing by the stars when everything is dying the wind carries across the sea from east to west messages from a phone booth the wind blows hard on a hilltop in Japan
~Georgia, USA all that I knew of home of the dead — I pass on to myself Eric A. Lohman is a Christian, husband, father, psychiatric social that’s all I can worker, composer, poet, cyclist, co-editor @FreshOutmag, the least Republican Republican he knows @ealcsw.
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 25 night along the waves Human Dilemma moving with rhythm in every gust of wind Frances Black this other sea, I swim as close to my fear and let I have the honour of participating in an hope swallow me up aboriginal women’s art therapy group. Painting side by side is conducive to sharing stories. My neighbour, a dignified aboriginal elder the same age as me, tells me about her primary schooling hunger in life in northern NSW. I learn that a fence separated black from white in the playground. Classes were only God understands segregated and the curriculum was different. the man in me brooms and soap from the agony forget the three rs of a womb — the first light these kids of my journey attain high distinctions in demeaning servitude winter lust — Like treacle, a deep sense of shame flows over me. I was smugly comfortable in my middle- a few ants class, white city school located some hundred by the fire miles away, so unaware. the sumptuous news softness of our mismatched via bird telegraph bed socks feeds bush-life with the reality of human indifference in a bowl of soup We are the leaders, dazzled by our technological, scientific and artistic success. the pulse of mother earth, packed survival links to tribalism — red lentils . . . the gods think . . . ah, the comfort meals has the time come of my mourners to evolve the species
~Athens, Greece ~Sydney, Australia
Ernesto P. Santiago says ‘He is too small for his ego. He is enough for Frances Black has written in many genres over the years. She became himself.’ He thinks, ‘Poetry is a global temperature that will always aware of Tanka in 2016. She fell in love with the form and has been surprise us.’ His poetic thought has been widely published and working under the guidance of her mentor, an experienced Tanka poet. anthologised, in prints and online. He lives in Athens, Greece, where he She was published in Eucalypt in 2016. She gains satisfaction continues exploring the poetic myth of his senses, and has recently expressing ideas in essay form and look forward to doing the same in become interested in the study of haiku and its related forms. Tanka prose. She lives in the beautiful Northern Beaches of Sydney.
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 26 Accidental Engagement In the mud
Frances Carleton Frances Carleton
Under candle light I lay wrapped in soft scarlet robes white towels. I’ve been pummelled, walked on covering ebony skin and massaged, forcing relaxation into my bones, standing muscles and skin. The air is scented with jasmine, naturally yoga posed — ylang ylang, and coconut. how could I resist the invite Piped sound of the ocean softly laps at the shore, inviting me to stay awhile longer as cucumber blinds me and mud dries, drawing after a day impurities from my skin, leaving me feeling fresh walking in the wilds and alive. we share I walk back to my bed and breakfast along stories of childhood — the main street of Pozieres, watching a helicopter chasing cats through tall grasses filled with tourists buzz across the fields.
bullets fly bright beads through acrid air made by loving mother cleaving — adorn your flesh — eyes fixed on the stars the mark of a single man his life ends in the mud looking for his bride Farmers plough memories of the fallen into the ground with the broken wheat. drinking sparkling water from a glass ~Pozieres, France you laugh at me — visiting your world talking about eating salad Cherita you hand me bracelet of green, red and white Gavin Austin I say ‘Asante’* we share a smile and hug — my Masai fiancé spotless bathroom * Swahili for thank you at the basin she stands ~Amboseli, Kenya mouthing the word
her wet, soapy hands will never bathe her own child
~Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 27 she smiles sadly a frail sunset one hand held high collapses fingers splayed onto rooftops an image familiar arms to stow and keep of the veranda armchair before boarding the plane cradle her wasting body
~Aberdeen, Scotland, UK ~Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
living on the corner in a strange where fate intersects time twilight he waits somewhere hands stuffed in pockets between diagnosis one foot tapping and the long dark night out his tattoo
goodbye surviving she practices a life-threatening saying the word aloud illness in the dark he auditions she weeps silently those he knows for her son for the role of friend
~Melbourne, Victoria, Australia ~Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Frances Carleton is a Canberra, Australia, based counsellor, Lego minifigure enthusiast and poet. After years of writing only business needle in place reports and essays she is now focusing her creativity by writing down the thoughts that cross her mind when out bush walking with her chihuahua. Her poems have appeared in Eucalypt (a Tanka journal), the old mare lies quietly Atlas Poetica: A Journal of World Tanka, and ‘Poems to Wear’ by eyelids closing . . . Amelia Fielden. Gavin Austin lives in Sydney, Australia, and writes fiction, free verse pressed to bay hide and Japanese-form poetry. His work has been published in many you recall those arenas Australian journals and anthologies, been broadcast on Australian ribbons and rosettes Community Radio, and has been successful in numerous writing competitions. Gavin's writing has also appeared in literary publications in NZ, the USA and the UK. Gavin was the featured poet in the ~Yarram, Victoria, Australia January 2016 edition of cattails. His poetry collection, short and long poetry titled Shadow Play, was published in 2010. He is currently at work on a new collection.
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 28 Cherita Cherita
Geoffrey Winch George Mat her eyes and mine first day of summer met in a crowd a rumble of thunder then she was gone echoes through skies never to meet again in a twilight flicker except in my mind i hear the creak where our love story still unfolds of a wornout porch
~England heels tapping Geoffrey Winch is a retired highway engineer residing in Felpham on England’s South Coast. He is associated with a number of local on broken floorboards creative writing groups for whom he leads occasional poetry workshops she swirls including haiku and tanka. Widely published in journals and anthologies in the UK, US and online, his latest collection is Alchemy of Vision (Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2014) which focuses on the arts a noisy tambourine and includes a number of his haiku, tanka and tanka sequences. will become her lover
Cherita drawing hearts in the sand while I wait Julie Bloss Kelsey for the tide to come in will it take us away beneath the Japanese maples for a day to a place
I watch tiny hikers ~Melbourne, Australia kick through leaves George Mat is a 39 year old resident of Melbourne, Australia, who stirring up memories enjoys time with family and friends, reading, writing and music. He has a deep love for the ocean and spends much time boating and various of when I could walk water sports, especially in summer. His love of writing began after unaided reading ‘A Smile To Remember’ by Charles Bukowski. He’s never really looked back since, inspired by poets such as e.e cummings, Seamus ~Woodend Sanctuary, Chevy Chase, Maryland, USA Heaney, Emily Dickinson, to name a few. Gerrie March is from Whitby, North Yorkshire, moving south as a young teenager. During her working life as a shorthand typist for 23 Julie Bloss Kelsey is a Maryland Master Naturalist and a mother of years, she trained as a Psychic Medium. She has worked in eleven three. She volunteers her time - and writes poems - at the Audubon countries and has been as a tutor and Psychic Medium at the College of Naturalist Society. Psychic Studies, London, for 33 years.
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 29 Cherita Revelations
Gerrie March Giselle Maya & Patricia Prime april in paris a white peacock cries out and opens count basie played it with his band his fan tail please someone write a song the mystery of beings who dwell among clouds about october in london when leaves dance in pavement wind an invitation to see a magical new ballet The Wizard of Oz inspired by an enchanting she deserves much respect children’s tale that anne boleyn they called her a witch evening watering and couldn’t pronounce her name observing from a walnut tree but without her, the pope would tell us the cat’s antics what to do from morning til night twilight tristesse gains a brief hold on me writing cherita is addictive day or night light seeps in it’s worse than smoking above the curtain with smoking my lungs went kaput mysteriously illuminating my room that’s all right — i have inhalers but what happens to my head when i can’t stop thinking ?? a long life of gratitude for seeing this spring — you blossom with the lilacs being psychic mediums can be hard growth rings expanding we hear such private stories of sorrow and grief — a charmed morning looking in on peoples’ lives when it starts to rain my friend avril says licks of lightning we are just sad curtain twitchers tinselled basalt-grey tinged with silvery threads ~Whitby, North Yorkshire, England ~France / New Zealand
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 30 Leisurely Glance Jacob Salzer Hema Ravi two strangers It’s my weekly off. Tired of the monotonous speaking slavery to gadgets and apps, I decide to take a sign language — stroll on the patio. glass breaks without a sound The cars in the neighborhood are all gone, they would all return only by evening. The ~Olympia, Washington, USA, at the bus stop ‘Reserved’ and ‘Visitor’ signs seem to do the talking in the stillness.
wink of an eye she feels for braille white trail on my skin in the sky under bare moonlight brings back these wordless nights lost memories and pouring rain
The worker on the roof is spraying baking ~Vancouver, Washington, USA soda. His face is masked; he wears gloves on his right hand. This routine maintenance work is to prevent the moss from growing during the damp cry if you must season. With agility he ascends the sloping roofs the rain is falling with you — to spray the white powder from end to other. hearing the sound of her laughter the sun lifts the sea Soon, comes the familiar black towed-on into colored clouds vehicle. With the blow vac, the man blows all the leaves fallen around the large condominium into ~Lincoln City, Oregon, USA, at my Aunt Suzy’s beach a pile, gathers them and disposes them into the house bin. Meanwhile, the other mows the lawn; soon the grass gets collected in the bag which he disposes, once again, into the trash bin. Job done, thoughts the vehicle soon disappears down the lane. have permanently dissolved into the quiet depths of the ocean autumn leaves lifting each raindrop buried in the pile into sunlight her desires drift beyond ~Lincoln City, Oregon, USA, at my Aunt Suzy’s beach boundaries house ~Chennai, India
As a Communicative English Trainer, Hema Ravi is known to motivate before I leave young learners, particularly women, to successfully balance work/life. I wrap you in a warm blanket Co-author of Everyday Hindi, she is a prize winner in the 26th ITO EN Green Tea Haiku Competition, Japan (2015). Her verses have with my bare hands and whisper: been published in Annapurna Magazine, HSA Anthology, Poetic let go of all desire Prism, Metverse Muse, Contemporary Literary Review and a multitude sleep without fear this night of print and online anthologies. She has been writing short form poems, and free verse since 2001. ~Olympia, Washington, USA
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 31 as I grab my keys behind the door Deluge of a vacant room the sound of a dog Janet Lynn Davis barking
~My apartment in Vancouver, Washington, USA veins of lightning flash their warning to the earth . . . slow sunset the silent rivers cutting dead limbs that daily course through me from the bamboo old roots reclaimed Despite the rain, we have all the hope of in a vase of colored stones safely arriving home this spring afternoon. But then the heavens open wide. Sky soon blends into ~The back porch of my apartment in Vancouver, road, which blends into flash-floodwater. A Washington, USA massive wash of gray, a lengthy line of traffic. We make the decision to turn around in our tiny vehicle at the last possible opportunity to do a steady stream so — just before the tall pickup truck ahead of us of moonlight goes barreling through, water up to its taillights. touching our skin It appears that a second pickup, from the other I gently wrap my arms direction, could be floating. (We later realize this around you is where the highway dips and that the stream has risen well above the small bridge.) But ~Vancouver, Washington, USA halfway into the turn, momentary panic engulfs me: could the way back now be as treacherous as the way we were headed? Giselle Maya is a poet and painter whose home is Provence. She has lived and studied in Japan, literature and Japanese language at Sophia University in Tokyo and the tea ceremony, Chado, in Kyoto. ~FM 1774, Waller County, Texas, USA Presently she is writing, painting and gardening in and near a perched village near Apt. Maya has published 13 handmade books of poetry; two more recent books, Shizuka and Cicada Chant, were printed by Janet Lynn Davis lives with her husband in a community carved out of Alba Publishing and Red Moon Press.. Many well-known journals the woods not far from Houston, Texas. Her tanka and related forms such as Ribbons, Haibun Today, Lynx, Kokako, Atlas Poetica, have appeared in numerous online and print publications over the past Cattails, Skylark, the Tanka Journal have published Giselle Maya’s several years. She served as the vice president of the Tanka Society of work. America in 2014 and 2015 and currently is the tanka prose editor at Haibun Today. She also maintains a blog, twigs&stones. Patricia writes poetry, reviews, articles and Japanese forms of poetry. She has self-published several collections of poetry and a book of Jacob Salzer has been writing poetry since 2006. He is the author of 2 collaborative tanka sequences and haibun, Shizuka, with French poet, haiku collections: The Sound of Rain and Birds with No Names, and Giselle Maya. Patricia edits Kokako and is reviews/interviews editor of a collection of haibun: Origins. From 2015-2016, he served as the Haibun Today. She writes reviews for Atlas Poetica, Takahe and managing editor for a Haiku Nook international anthology: Yanty’s several Indian journals. Butterfly, dedicated to haiku poet Yanty Tjiam who passed away in 2015. His haiku are featured in Frogpond, Under the Basho, Modern Haiku, Chrysanthemum, A Hundred Gourds and The Heron’s Nest. His tanka are published in Atlas Poetica, and A Hundred Gourds. He currently lives in Vancouver, Washington, USA, USA. His poetry blog can be found at
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 32 Cherita Cherita
Joanna Ashwell Joanne Morcom below the castle walls chinook wind pausing to kiss it seems like spring the new couple full of hope at least for a day the smell of rain let’s go for a walk drifts across and breathe the fragrant air their moment in time I have some good news
ash in the mouth farmer’s field folding the words over and over horses on one side cows on the other watching the farewell burn embers spark our differences the end of us shouldn’t matter as much as they do the dead follow us rainfall their voices reappear through the gaps I hope that he’s soaking wet trying to fix a flat tire the lost moments we play over hot tears flow bartering with time as if he up and left me just yesterday ~United Kingdom ~Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Joanna Ashwell was born in County Durham, North East of England. Has been writing tanka and haiku for a number of years now. Loves My bio note is as follows: Joanne Morcom is a writer and social the inclusiveness and depth of these deceptively simple looking forms. A worker in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She has published three poetry few words can say so much. Collects rocks and books. collections and is working on a fourth one.
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 33 John Hawkhead Cherita
John Tehan equinox sunrise over ancient stones crows on gold wings invisible but not mute above our heads the tide of time and space he speaks a forest language ~Stonehenge, Wiltshire, England understood by small woodland creatures blood strands that scurry and dart flecking her catheter pipe stone moon breaking through clouds the vixen’s scream fifty years my senior ~Cheltenham General Hospital, Gloucestershire, England as dark complected as I am light trapped in the ballroom he asks a bright songbird that I call him on her dress boy the palm of his hand reminding her of bruises
~Everywhere the doll hospital
two antique Kewpies there again commiserate side by side that harvest moon a scent of burnt shadow one with an injured eye suddenly revealed the other in her raised skirt an above-the-knee amputee ~Never-You-Mind, England
he’s Earth Father, Fairy Godfather John Hawkhead is a writer of short form poetry, plays and stories who is widely published around the world. His book of haiku, ‘Small Shadows,’ is available from Alba Press. to men and boys of a certain bent
stepping to music however measured or far away
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 34 bending down hushed
I sweep up he lives the broken mirror at a loss for words shattered image silence in a hundred pieces surrounding him clumsy with age like a shroud bare-assed my life daybreak, first light in the nude his ebony skin shedding clothes silhouettes the bed sheets (and inhibitions) at the drop of a hat the ruby in his ear a drop of blood from a thorn in a crown at Aokigahara wading into that Sea of Trees like thousands before me he comes then turning back back onto the forest path suddenly relieved it’s not my time and silently he sighs
well pleased blessed with untold graces with the simplicity of his sabbath her days and years were kind to her gentle, whisper quiet she’s gone now at the greengrocer complete busy checking out the rutabagas tired as is my due I catch a glimpse of him I take from the corner of my eye to my rocking chair my imaginary friend let the world fix itself this time
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 35 a smart phone and a dumb dog Jennifer Hambrick one on my left one on my right the boy holds the reins straight ahead a gargoyle the girl sits next to him perched on the mantel gliding along protects our Sunday morning troika the country road in an Amish buggy to other men he’s Sir after autumn rainstorm the rugged foreman mulching of the construction crew the rainbow in our front yard beneath his well worn jeans his delicate white lace panties barely contain his manhood after the divorce at the dinette in her new condo — desperately trying to love waking from an afternoon nap the life she has surprised by a string tied round my finger quiet as paper moons what is it (this time) the poems release I’m forgetting into the ether to remember with the last gasp of the computer
~Columbus, Ohio, USA scattered flurries
first snow Jennifer Hambrick’s poetry has been honored with a Pushcart Prize of winter nomination, and her chapbook, Unscathed (NightBallet Press), was nominated for the Ohioana Book Award. She has won numerous awards for her work, which is widely published in journals and which of the Eskimos’ anthologies worldwide. A classical musician and public radio hundred words broadcaster and web producer, Jennifer Hambrick lives in Columbus, are falling out my window Ohio, USA. Her blog, Inner Voices, is at jenniferhambrick.com.
~Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA
John Tehan recently moved to a small village on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where he reads some, writes some and ponders this and that. His poetry has appeared in Atlas Poetica, Ribbons, Neon Graffiti and Bright Stars, as well as in several ATPO Special Features. In his spare time, John enjoys nurturing his eternity plant, Zamioculcas zamiifolia, which is happily proving true to its name.
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 36 in the end killing rabbits he learned to hit hard Joy McCall make it bloody and kill quick the old man and now tells me the tales he sits by the fire of growing up looking down at the end at his trembling hands of the lane and cries and cries and cries the apple orchard ~Norwich, England the vegetable garden the piggery the rabbit patch the chicken run paraplegia he was seven when his father took him Joy McCall by the hand to learn to kill loss the chickens, the rabbits grief sorrow he said longing the chickens were easy enduring he held the heads twisted sharply ~Norwich, England and they were dead Author’s Note: You got me musing on one word tanka, and the rabbits going a step further, adding one letter each line. seemed like pets he took the log and hit the first one Cherita on the brown head his father Joy McCall had to finish the job he could not do the doctor looks sombre and said — now you kill the next one my husband is pacing anxious, fretting the next and the next I watch them both, and think — and the next well, if my time has come his father did so be it what he could not do ~Norwich, England
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 37 who is Sylvia? Karla Van Vliet
Joy McCall from the lakeside hill the loon’s sharp call is a knife with its utter need we were sitting in the cedar gateway singing, cuts night, opens some sorrow when Sylvia dressed in a long brown and dark that has hidden in the reeds red patterned gown and tight brown boots came up from the ground and came to us (drifting, as ghosts do) and spoke in such a quiet old- and what if not stunned, fashioned kind of country voice: the caught fish held in talons snaps its bright body thank you moves through unexpected air on behalf of all the others as if a lone shooting star for the songs you sing and then she danced a little swirling her skirts when the swift enters on flashing wing, dip and flip, she danced her chattering song, across the browning grass the heart’s salve for loneliness, and went into the earth again — wakes possibility and all was still and quiet in the graveyard in the darkened sky I don’t believe in ghosts . . . do I? a scattering of stars emerge in the field, fireflies ~Norwich, England why do I feel so shattered? your hand is not in mine. Joy McCall lives on the edge of the ancient city of Norwich, England, where flint walls and cobbled streets meet green fields and wide skies and, eventually, the North Sea. She is thankful for a multitude of as the wind rises things. across the water I hear loons, their plaintive calls echo, my own morning cry, love, have you forsaken me? Karen Klassen ~Vermont, USA he always droned on nothing old nothing new even his suit yawned Karla Van Vliet is the author of two collections of poems published by Shanti Arts. She is an Edna St. Vincent Millay Poetry Prize finalist except for the day his teeth and was nominated for a 2015 Pushcart Prize. Her poems have smiled and flew out mid sermon appeared in Poet Lore, Blue Heron Review, The Tishman Review, Green Mountains Review, and Painted Bride Quarterly Van Vliet is a co-founder and editor of deLuge Journal, a literary and arts journal. ~British Columbia, Canada She resides in Bristol, Vermont, USA.
Karen Klassen is a poet that lives in Kamloops, BC, Canada.
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 38 The Join Cherita
Kath Abela Wilson Kath Abela Wilson there’s a sharp place on the ring that slipped joy’s grape onto my finger from my mother it rolled around in my mouth after she left as he kissed me
I made it for her I tasted the words silver and gold years ago wondered which part of me two thin strands would break at the bend to fit it snapped ~Staten Island, New York, USA mostly only silver waves are left now where gold has been counting birds marked by strong impressions a peanut on each shoulder a sharp place and more in her outstretched hands at the join will I have she counts only the blue what it takes my angel mother to smooth it who left me her wings
~Santa Barbara and Pasadena, California, USA ~Santa Barbara, California, USA
Kevin Cowdall I used to live
I turn on the light by one ocean to the agitated sound now I live by another of a moth beating its wings on the window pane what is distance like a flutter of desire I am thirsty for the sound of waves ~England
Kevin Cowdall was born in 1959 in Liverpool, England, where he still ~cross-country, New York City to Santa Barbara, lives and works. Kevin developed an interest in writing at an early age California, USA and his first published poem appeared, appropriately, in the influential publication, First Time. His collection, Assorted Bric-a-brac, is available from the Kindle Store on Amazon.
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 39 my mother Keitha Keyes such a long way to cone for only 95 years on the highway I hold her cold hand as long as I can a warning sign while the flute plumbs SLOW DOWN the depth of sorrow does it know ~Santa Barbara, California, USA too of our whirlwind affair
I awake before dawn his proposal to find a small glass of wine by our bed New Year’s eve with a diamond ring hard to refuse why should I remember my wineless dream when the cask of night is full now of reddening sky I scrub the floors and wash his undies ~Pasadena, California, USA
scissors poised I walk the blue above this photo peaks of an ancient landscape it must be my motherland of our holiday — does blue deepen as life fades it could be she pauses her brush an ideal place deep in the sea without you there
~China ~Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Kath Abela Wilson loves to tell stories in many forms. She started a the crunch Facebook writing group, and gives prompts to Cherita Poets on Site, an extension to the Pasadena based Poets on Site. They share inspiration in gardens, galleries, museums, internationally and online. They perform do birthdays always and make books with musicians on the sites of their inspiration. feel like this Keitha Keyes lives in Sydney, in a small house decorated with ship a deep breath of evergreen models, antique irons and trivets. And a cocker spaniel. Her retirement would be very empty without the lure of writing tanka, haiku, cherita mixed with fresh decay and other poetry. autumn begins again
~Yellow Mountain, Huangshan, China
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 40 in every nook and cranny blue lotus children’s things . . . immersing myself in Maya Angelou’s poetry Larry Kimmel Matsukaze she was no angel ai li but she kept this large pair of wings under wraps . . . a woman can corrupt for singing lullabies a good man in 6 months . . . and whispering to stillborns i mean, really . . . that needs put up on the chalkboard sexting. for study just another example of how technology on Tuesday, wanting very much brings people together — to trust you sweet scent of jasmine i prune camellias late afternoon sunspill through the moon gate in a Super Target parking lot they come contemplating my next tanka butterflies that will only the corpse had tangled hair live for one day by the west gate one embroidered slipper sharing her cotton candy, the silhouette of a black crane i caution: and blue lotus matched her beauty ‘watch what you tell him’ the PA system’s vast distortion ~Colrain, Massachusetts, USA / Dallas, Texas USA / London, England
awake around early noon Larry Kimmel was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. He lives quietly against Mahler’s Symphony in the hills of western Massachusetts. His most recent books are ‘shards feeling that some things are ending and dust’ and ‘outer edges.’ ‘ this hunger, tissue-thin’ is free to read online at:
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 41 light-borne rain old Alexandria a cherita sequence here, the ever scrolling papyrus torched ash in the wind Larry Kimmel & sheila windsor knowledge of fragmented knowledge betrayed — o, Sappho a sea of ghostly thumbnails laughing . . . laughing . . . toward what grotesque end journal entry: this outré twist of fate I refuse to miniaturise myself to please
as Virginia Woolf’s father a church in Rouen slithers off the bottom of my page we teeter towards the tipping point
your skin, mine, as dusty webs they come & go intone unfinished psalms from a cocoon of white noise I watch without subtitles
Monet sip espresso check my e-mail the many facades sip espresso with which we navigate our days
finding the midnight way by touch and faith what do you think, Barbie? he wants me to meet him after school I lead her Barbie smiles, hush, softly rain worms the pane: back to her room ‘I suppose, if he’s old, you can run’
little somnambulist where did you journey this cool light of dawn?
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 42 headache, flushing,* barely seen,
3 quince blossoms in a Waterford vase the sparrow crouching in a niche in and out of focus, of the stone facade runny nose, our precarious nausea, dizziness, perch rash . . .* in this uncertain world
* side effects of Viagra
I will make you defiant smiles in the likeness float after float of my highest self Sambas by being of snow Rio to Brighton* androgynous, our moment a ribbon of high camp on the earth high vis security
* opening of the Olympic Games & 2016 Brighton Pride
‘you are made held to my ear of light, color & sound’ his opening words the conch shell carries me far to the flat world’s edge and I was hooked — the warmth of the woodstove if I don’t return, love, bittersweet at the window look for me @braveunknown
‘. . . I wish in vain silver eagle that we could sit simply in that room again . . .’ * with the Navajo turquoise eyes your face in the dying flame sometimes smiling, this time sad, I re-read his haiku* never aging and mine for him, the days before he passed *Bob Dylan’s ‘Dream’
for H. Gene Murtha in memoriam
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 43 on a wintry strand so much depends plover tracks from sedge on the pig skin oval missile to raft to sedge, once more — that barrel-rolling arcs errands run, over a grassy parcel my T-Gauge* marked out in lime homeward trek — as a gridiron
*T-gauge, smallest commercial model train scale in the world
up and down, up and down Advent the whirr of Dad’s Wallace and Gromit push-mower paused for tea Sunday-stripes the lawn; snowflakes fatten . . . white enamel tea mug here and there on the lawn bigger than both my hands a few begin to stick
the tinkle of ice in drinks each day, the chock of croquet balls inch by inch, the Magi close beyond the French doors on the plastic crèche tipsy, the dean’s wife ‘you’re not wearing as always, believing herself that outfit to Mass, young lady, the coquette and that’s final’
bark rubbing night fills them the heart where football boots slung over Mick L’d Angie the telegraph cable I wonder swaying if it mattered, I wonder to an imaginary how long ago serenade for strings
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 44 ain’t no use grandma’s attic in all that curiosity, girl — so hot the air flows by rooster call redolent of old wood the sun we cousins psyched to find will paint the shrunken head an empty road* of a finagling uncle’s tales
*after Bob Dylan’s ‘Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right’
glimpsed beneath ‘This Is How You Disappear’ dustsheets ‘. . . the sequins are stars ticking-time grey and doves . . .’ a finely turned torch I ran after rosewood cabriole leg through madness, light mirror to a mouse my waiting boat
* ‘Orange Sunshine’ by Jeremy Reed, at Ledbury, UK
in the apple’s cheek, out of the fog wee & awry, two glazed panes — the fact of reflection like a message from invisible ink the Eternal Ferryman emerges becomes fancy and we ask who lives inside nowhere to turn this pixie cottage? nowhere to run this is IT
two glasses down I open the door the third bottle of Pinot Noir of a Jacobean dark oak cabinet my face in his sapphire eyes a desiccated spider begins to swim twirls, in its antique web, with the draught
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 45 on a dark night our garden toad making the last turn home is back after a year’s the green eyeshine by the roadside, sabbatical — ‘where did you go?’ a piercing you blink one eye, nanosecond of pretend to be unbearable beauty a clump of soil
at first whose fingerprints?
I thought it a drop I hold a fragment of dew of ‘primitive’ clay pot
the earring a slice of moon where a body had or toy boat depressed the meadow grass on my upturned palm
the home in her letter that was home full of Parisian nightlife to me — a leaf I see how it is — beyond paired butterflies the river’s over the August pasture bend break my heart
‘Ratty!’ filigree-framed
a water vole, a wedding photo snouts out spring fades to grey
runs and leaps lift it lightly along the path, its tail for the last time a question mark blow away the dust
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 46 ‘doesn’t she look natural?’ at the table next to me no. — the jaw not right, a co-ed the lips too red — no lets down her hair a certain afternoon, her lovely arms wisteria hot chocolate and the rocker creaking . . . and autumn soon to be
Pierrot on my pillow Dad’s mended coat
no way to dry little stitches his embroidered tear bridging time
and what to the ramshackle shed I really asked for we sheltered in and spied was a cuddly teddy bear the light-borne rain
by a country mile October where the rainbow touches down I fill the woodbin the dream’s end take the chill off evening — we wake Jack Daniels on the shelf, to our half-full — his tools just desserts the way he left them
a posh café a thousand smiles
the little girl where the with a butterfly hair-slide sweet peas were
knickerbocker glory pods of fragrant reaching to the top pastel tomorrows . . . more of her head than you and I will know
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 47 hitchhiking round as any world now making my way along this iridescent bubble the pre-dawn streets a mere film of soap & water the sudden aroma shimmers in the sun of baking bread and floats away a kind of nirvana durable as dew
scrubbed pine table there he rides
Victorian, I guess . . . smaller, smaller and wonder if you ever over the blue horizon
in a rare this morning moment of precognition he fell from the sky pictured yourself chic into my cereal bowl
Nefertiti ‘old woman, old woman did you strive, in passing, to catch whither so high’ . . . I’ve said your likeness in silver or glass it before and I’ll say it again did you ponder all I know of physics your status, were you I learned from at moments made glad? Wile E. Coyote
I count two broken strings
iambic pentameter on the heirloom in the bath Welsh harp
practise my lines a spider by firelight again and again ’til meticulously the scaffolding doesn’t show darns across the gap
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 48 spin straw so peaceful into gold . . . or else — the empty parking lot — talk about stress dreams and the tiny clear lights surprised on the barren locust, my white hair didn’t blond right out of faerie overnight — who could forget that night?
‘Away in a manger . . .’
Ynys Enlli (Island of the Bards) the door’s draught loops a silken thread through air some say that Merlin’s bones rest here, beside the fire neither speaks, each knows where Sandpipers call there’s no-one there and a Grey Seal pup yawns gold in the first autumn sun ~Colrain, Massachusetts, USA / Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, UK
Larry Kimmel was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. He lives quietly in the hills of western Massachusetts. His most recent books are ‘shards and dust’ and ‘outer edges.’ ‘The Piercing Blue of Sirius: Selected ruby lipstick in a monochrome city Poems 1968 - 2008’ is free to read online at:
becoming habit Larry Kimmel
this daily meditation, all night with closed eyes this vigil the ventriloquist’s dummy lies as, one by one, in its velvet box the yellow lights of my little hillside town come on for the first time the muted many dream their voices
~Colrain, Massachusetts, USA
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 49 Cherita Leonard Zawadski
Lavana Kray these leaves which scatter the ground where we lay, like a patch-work of autumn: migration move gently to the passing breeze. the scud of birds before the wind in accord amid a swirl of leaves ance with the very laws of Nature, I do my plans to leave home the deep-moss grew upon: as I did every year a stone, sat wild ly amongst the trees. broken hourglass and as we awoke to be beside the sound of falling rain, the humming table fan in an otherwise quiet grove: spreads units of time we thought of how the water had become. and I pretend I meet you right now falling in love again we sat motion less amongst the snow-capped mountains, intent upon our way of breathing: looking into the blue soft light expanse of morning air. a butterfly shaking off old spider webs and in this way we stood amongst ourselves to breathe, in the painting class a silent gathering of wild-flowers: where the students focus so intent, and subtly on a nude enraptured by the moon. ~Romania we sought for ourselves within the bright meadow, then found a warm patch to: lay down upon and count the stars.
~Chicago, Illinois, USA
Leonard Zawadski currently resides in Chicago, IL. Poetry of his is forthcoming from The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy.
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 50 Cherita Sleeper in China
Lesley Anne Swanson Lorne Henry preparing to write A four berth sleeper through Northern China. I pick my cuticles We’d been warned we may be sharing with squint one eye either sex. Considered the ‘little old lady’ of the group on the cliff face — I don’t think so. a hand hold Our Chinese guide shared with me along just out of reach with two young Chinese people who may have been brother and sister. ~Coopersburg, Pennsylvania, USA Two kindly English ladies were quite concerned I was alone with ‘all those Chinese.’ Hadn’t we come to learn about the country and Lesley Anne Swanson strives to write musically, using words and its people? images that linger, especially when read aloud. Her tanka have been honored with the top awards of both the Japan Tanka Poets’ Society The aroma of the sweetest plumpest and the Tanka Society of America. She resides in Coopersburg, PA, strawberries I’d ever seen drifted from the centre USA. table. The young girl signalled for me to try them. Ummmm! With the use of technology we had quite a conversation. She entered something in Chinese and pushed the button. Showed me the English word. Cherita I answered in English. She pressed the button. Bingo! The translation. Kris Lindbeck Surprised by my age I wondered was she sincere. Our guide explained ‘Chinese women of The world darkens your age ‘have had it.’ They don’t go off on holidays to China.’ It’s hard to know whom to trust pleased by my friendship Still our guide we plant seeds settles to converse in the brown earth as maybe he wouldn’t have
~Boca Raton, Florida, USA ~China
Kris Lindbeck writes haiku and short poems on Twitter @krislindbeck. Lorne Henry has been writing haiku since 1992 and tanka from about She has published in M. Kei’s Bright Stars, Skylark Tanka, Bones, & 1996. She also writes tanka prose. She lives in countryside New South Gnarled Oak, and written an essay on senryu in Simply Haiku. Wales, Australia.
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 51 Louisa Howerow the cliff I walk the desert sky sheers off into the sea its stars so brilliant the water, sky so numerous free from luggers, raucous gulls I’m lost but for a nebula a brief gift of seamless blue Magellan’s far off namesake ~Cornwall, England ~Chile
All Soul’s Day, high noon an old woman kneels on the scrub trail on the church steps a swallowtail to scrub the stones of stains flutter-feasts on dung only she can see this, too, is mindfulness ~Iberia lanterns floating down the river the pilot not enough banks the bush plane– dots of light to reach the sea below me and stop the dying a white vast emptiness until the polar bear moves Chinese & Japanese custom adopted by Canadian communities. ~James Bay, Canada old uncle sits on the dock Louisa Howerow’s latest tanka have appeared in Eucalypt, Ribbons, moonraking Gusts, and Skylark. memories of his childhood under a southern sky Mac Miller b.1941 England. Married and has lived in New Zealand since 1966. past midnight Elizabeth Howard lives in Arlington, Tennessee. Her tanka have been a road sign flashes published in Eucalypt, red lights, Mariposa, Ribbons, Gusts, Atlas Vacancy Poetica, Skylark, Moonbathing, and other journals. rooster-tailing snow we chance a last fling a cornfield with its endless rustling and our shouts . . . in the cold failing light another little boy lost
~Ontario, Canada
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 52 Cherita Lavender Drops, A Cherita Sequence Mac Miller Malintha Perera over the bluff spring thunder lost in the mountains drenched in the rain his whistle I come searching higher now catches for him the wind back the shrine room is dusted tent canvas with starlight
flaps in and out with me shivering hands while trees bow and bend the blossoms I have plucked kings forest from the mountain paths
~Hamilton. New Zealand my robes had been wide as the three realms to keep them dry
silent prayer Cherita deep in my pocket Elizabeth Howard a scented candle how deep is the light of desire she limps along the wax forms a puddle closer to the flame long black coat dragging through thorns ~Colombo, Sri Lanka in a burst of wind she shapeshifts to a raven rises to the bent tree on the crag
~Arlington, Tennessee, USA
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 53 Cherita moonless a little too soft Malintha Perera with her evening prayers
Buddha’s palms heavy blue incense with tangled shadows the smoke tiptoes around the monk temple bells the gong is a pebble just then in the grey seas a wind passes
some young blossoms too break away ivory dawn from attachment this voidness of a self my saree is draped on your clothes Nonce Cherita an ancient text Malintha Perera pagoda lights the crickets flicker on and off rain in tune with the chants teak leaves a child draws a moon are rain cups on the sand fresh butterflies burst about twilight drizzle where to go I wonder your mouth whom to chase on my wrist ~Colombo, Sri Lanka how delicate is my life in your hands Malintha Perera writes haiku and tanka. She is from Colombo, Sri Lanka. ~Colombo, Sri Lanka
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 54 Cherita Margaret Van Every
Marilyn Humbert she welcomed me to Mexico harvest morning with a seedling mimosa look, she said, how the leaves hail on the roof come toward you hammering wheat beards if you hold out your hand father pacing to a tattoo of destruction Mexican wash shoulders slumped unabashed on the roof dances in the breeze; gringos in gated compounds the morning after cannot air their linen in public
first night lovers ~San Antonio Tlayacapan, Mexico face off at breakfast a vegan tourist to guide: a carnivore aren’t you proud to have come daylight strangers from the Mayans who built these pyramids? ~Sydney, NSW, Australia guide’s response: are the Jews proud to have built the ones in Egypt? Marilyn Humbert lives in the northern suburbs of Sydney, NSW, surrounded by bush. Her pastimes include writing free verse, tanka, and ~Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico haiku. Her tanka and haiku appears in international and Australian Journals, anthologies and online. Some of her free verse poems have been awarded prizes in competitions and some have been published. another day Mary Gunn writes haiku, tanka and other forms of poetry. Her writing has appeared in various publications including Shamrock, Presence, A before the monitor Hundred Gourds, Chrysanthemum, NeverEnding Story / Butterfly pecking out pages Dream, Tanka Journal, cattails, Moonbathing, and Neon Graffiti: An of our opus Anthology of Urban Tanka posthumous Cherita Isla Negra Mary Gunn Neruda’s seaside grave quiet 28 years — bereavement they dig him up, search the bones for poison is more difficult to cope with ~Isla Negra, Chile when friends stay away because they don’t know In 2010 Margaret Van Every moved permanently to Ajijic, Mexico, where she sees her life unfold as a constant stream of tanka. Her book, how to deal with it either A Pillow Stuffed with Diamonds/ Una almohada relleno con diamantes, (Librophilia 2011) is a bilingual tanka portrait of her ~Dublin, Ireland adopted village.
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 55 Cherita Marshall Bood
Mark Gordon making out in the elevator after walking you home . . . I decide to try it autumn leaves on wet sidewalk this new form of living a breath at a time a flower torn then listen from a magazine . . . to the gulls in my mind over the lake you were with me turning the pages
I am sure limited space of a bachelor suite . . . it’s a sky I still pile I’ve never seen before papers on the kitchen table brick road of cloud or something I’ve built sick of the bus, I walk up Albert St. past the big houses I walk under pines dreaming gather sunlight ~Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada in my hood yesterday Marshall Bood lives in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. He is very I too was traffic happy with his new apartment near a grocery store and Wascana Park. on the avenue
~Toronto, Ontario, Canada Matsukaze is a classical vocalist/actor/poet living in Dallas, TX. He has been writing short verse since early 2006.
Mark Gordon is a poet and novelist who grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals in Canada and the United States, including Poet Lore, Illuminations, RiverSedge, Quiddity, and The Roanoke Review. His poetry has appeared online at VerseWrights.com. He has published three novels, the latest being The Snail’s Castle. He lives in Toronto with his wife, Carol, and teaches English to newcomers to Canada and mentors novice teachers.
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 56 Cherita Matsukaze
Matsukaze after-3pm-rainpour seated before this computer cranking out a manuscript quickly sunday morning . . . watching you watch me in your eyes a sudden darkening and something more against a bit of John Coltrane bending cosmos flowers — sentinels on the computer protecting a front door that never admits lovers typing out a few cherita declining an afternoon assignation Elgar’s ‘Sea Pictures’ is my only companion today
when i rest my tired feet early morning rain a homeless woman’s eyes the most startling blue all is quiet getting dark along the way in the lobby i hear the 5pm train whistle in the distance staring into each drop i want my love to be like Snickers the sudden desire something i savor and hoard away in private to be in bed autumn scenery has no boarders i still wait expectantly for the cold to arrive
dad’s car parked under the car-port midnight. sparkplugs are needed for me, a man with warm hands how often have you called me? these Texas leaves, a pale green color with the approach of November little by little how often they turn brown have we shared kisses in dark alleys? not since childhood have i felt giddy — meeting him behind the apartment office ~Dallas, Texas, USA building what is it about promiscuity? this afternoon i put on the skin of a whore
come windless invader i am a raw song — lighting a cigarette i wait for the inevitable
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 57 curled up in a disheveled chair this evening another reading of ‘The Grapes of nine petals Wrath’ Matsukaze & Murasame remnants of wine in my system long into the night your hand on the small of my back — searing flower after flower they open, singing hoping for a little rain, puttering around the of cocoa house of his brown skin every now and then a little aimlessness is needed of triple three autumn’s colors stuck on the apartment roofs another little girl has been found dead this Sabbath morning what a welcome sight no phone calls, no house callers . . . one chocolate cosmos this town is dry and so is my life dense dark red and fragrant light downpour comes this morning a bit nondescript i cannot find my underwear or dignity nine petals the colour of blood in your kitchen sipping black coffee spilled, sacred my skin bathed in sunrise, i feel connected a trinity somehow a haiku
~Dallas, Texas sentinels in my yard Cherita i often feel their eyes on me Michael H. Lester who knows in the wind they toss their heads better than the robin dancing what it feels like like the lunatics of Bedlam to wake up in the morning ~Louisiana, USA / Norwich, England with a red breast
~Los Angeles, California, USA Matsukaze resides in Dallas, Texas, USA, a classical vocalist and actor, a lover of Japanese poetic forms. Originally from Detroit, Michigan, Michael H. Lester is a CPA Attorney practicing business management for the entertainment industry Murasame (Joy McCall) lives in her birthplace, Norwich, England, in Los Angeles, California. His tanka and haiku have recently been growing older and not much wiser. accepted for publication in Ribbons and Modern Haiku.
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 58 Mike Montreuil every so often you glance at me from the espresso machine it looks like rain what am I to think of your young smile rain to last the day I, your grandfather’s age? rain to sleep the day away ~Ottawa, Ontario, Canada still we are here looking into each others eyes remembering sunny skies Mike Montreuil lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He may be found at a coffee shop near you. in and out of focus the world stands before me, winter coming Three Angry Tanka: was it you that said I am in hate with you we must live through winter to appreciate spring? Mira N. Mataric
Tanka cannot absorb she has a wish my wrath for you my ex-lover and love lost at the cost to live a simple life of my peace and faith in love free of stress and hate now hate will replace it all I could take her get out of here out out by the hand and live there you nasty stain get out if life wasn’t so complicated my memory delete my feelings for you deplete I am in the mood for war little do they know if love is life and hate death what does wrath account for the past always repeats with the last breath I’ll hate you when you least expect it love is not the strongest force you’ll find out hate is almost like the time you pushed me off ~Pasadena, California, USA the dock into the lake
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 59 even her cooking Five Angry Tanka doesn’t taste sweet like before she has changed Mira N. Mataric after the wedding who is this shrew Mira N. Mataric, Serbian-English Translator / Мира Н. Матарић, енглеско- ни њено кување српски преводилац није ми слатко као пре постала је друга после венчања ко је ова вештица his love is so dead ni njeno kuvanje our lovemaking pure routine nije mi slatko kao pre repetition postala je druga not better than an old posle venčanja scratched compact disc ko je ova veštica његова љубав мртва је секс рутинско angry again понављање his teeth showing није ништа бољи од not in a smile напукле дискете what did I do wrong to my faithful puppy njegova ljubav mrtva je seks rutinsko опет је бесан ponavljanje зуби искежени nije ništa bolji od не у осмеху napukle diskete шта сам то згрешила момe верномe псу before her eyes opet je besan would never leave mine zubi iskeženi now she paints her nails ne u osmehu while I talk to her šta sam to zgrešila about our love mome vernome psu
пре њене очи нису напуштале моје she had her hair cut, лакира нокте cut short like a boy сада док јој говорим three weeks о нашој љубави I did not look at her I loved that hair pre njene oči nisu napuštale moje одсекла косу lakira nokte кратко као дечко sada dok joj govorim три недеље o našoj ljubavi нисам је ни погледао волео сам ту косу
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 60 odsekla kosu At the George Washington Bridge Cross Bronx kratko kao dečko Exchange tri nedelje nisam je ni pogledao my father cut off a VW Bug that stopped and voleo sam tu kosu spewed out a giant of an enraged man
~Pasadena, California, USA all my father did was say ‘Kids, lock the doors, Now!’ Mira N. Mataric has published 40 books (in English and Serbian) of poetry, short stories, memoirs, novels, one anthology and several books of translations. Awarded numerous prestigious international awards, she has 50 years of teaching English, Russian, Creative Writing and Special Education. She promotes haiku, tanka and short poetry emphasizing its effect on prose through precise and concise expression. In my father’s hidden basement file cabinet Mira organizes public poetry readings and workshops. so many folders full of certified feuds Мирјана (Мира) Н. Матарић је објавила 40 књига (на with the city, the garbage collectors, neighbors енглеском и српском) поезије, кратких прича, мемоара, романа, једну антологију и неколико књига превода. Награђена је бројним угледним међународним наградама. Педесет година у настави, and numerous accident settlements предаје енглески, руски, креативно писање и специјалну наставу. for small auto collisions, mostly my mother’s, Промовише хаику, танка и кратку поезију, наглашавајући да paid direct, without insurance. упливишу прозу сажетошђу и прецизношћу. Организује и активно учествује у јавним књижевним вечерима и радионицама.
My father did not believe in Free Will at all —
he felt every action of his was pre-ordained and when I argued
The Grown Ups in Transit he said he could have foreseen — a cherita sequence based on my character — exactly what I would say. Miriam Sagan
They flew in separate airplanes My mother confides that ‘They’ are controlling her brain claiming that this was so a crash wouldn’t leave us orphaned I suggest we sit on the screened porch in the lovely autumn air near the giant copper in airports, my father paced as if caged beech the truth is, my mother preferred to fly alone. she wonders if mind control extends to the porch I can’t tell if this worries her or she prefers it.
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 61 I do have free will, I tell my dead father Cherita it’s dinner time in the locked unit and I’m leaving Oz Hardwick
I kiss my mother’s forehead, her dark Russian Jewish eyes an empty house go blank. the remembrance of bodies decades after love has gone
My mother says she wants to die. the shower warms me touches me everywhere She says she has smuggled out a note I once touched you will call the police, will run away —
‘Where will you go?’ I ask. She smiles, and says brief fellowships in dark places ‘I’ll go to Italy.’ incense by the door ~United States joint held to the fireplace
Miriam Sagan’s haiku and tanka have been published internationally. a ritual of passing This is her first foray into cherita. The author of 30 books, she blogs at as close as we’ll ever come Miriam’s Well
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 62 white sky sometimes muffled radios without thinking silent footprints or even feeling a child’s red mittens it blows on a frozen fence in all directions . . . a robin sings north wind
~England
Oz Hardwick is a York-based poet, photographer, music journalist, and again and again occasional musician. His sixth poetry collection, probably called The House of Ghosts and Mirrors, will definitely be published by Valley Press in September 2017. As a viable alternative to poverty, Oz is i go up Professor of English at Leeds Trinity University, and has written i go over extensively on misericords and animal iconography in the Middle Ages under the pseudonym of Paul Hardwick.
Cherita March . . .
Pat Geyer the temperature begins to warm tip toe ground begins to thaw noodles wriggle in the Pho fully extended under the full worm moon feet within pointe shoes () fragile legs wings of a mosquito hawk gently whorl stone Buddha . . . the water inside me listens we argue . . . in the moon trying to mend there is no moon our weak points yet i see old threads break our patchwork quilt needs patches
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 63 black white Cherita and read and read and read Patricia Prime and read want ads . . . still wanting another beach day
reflections ebbing away becoming shadows winter sky low tide on a dark shellfish emerge and moonless night while they can the winter circle paints a pattern of bright stars to lasso the great hunter you can climb a ladder
~New Jersey, USA but you can’t climb out of the poem you’re reading
Pat Geyer lives in East Brunswick, NJ, USA. Her home is surrounded the phrases used by the parks and lakes where she finds her inspiration in Nature. in ordinary conversation Published in several journals, she is an amateur photographer and poet. are made new
we throw on our clothes
pretend we’re birds dazzling the world with peacock colours
summer flames fanning the air with blossom
the bamboo hide
is for bird-watching over the swollen lake
disturbing the ducks a will-o-the-wisp skims the surface
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 64 a seahorse on a clear day surrendered to sea-drift I can see is borne along on the tide a range of hills its pale form today a haze balancing upright covers the distant view on the whitecaps in silver light
listening to Bach a rose tree the unpredictable grows by a wall sound of his melody where a grave is dug pours forth sheltering into the silent hollow the bones of a pet cat of my living-room in a shoe box
the land and sky last night in moon or daylight I dreamed again have grace and grandeur of a long lost love when a blackbird sings his smiling eyes in the boughs of the oak looking fondly on me I want to sing too from ages past
just on dark not a breath of air
Venus rises the beach of coral sand above the horizon shimmers whitely amid the tumult under a full moon of the stars and fluorescence where teenagers meet of the moon for a barbecue
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 65 a scrap of paper children screeching scratches the concrete on the monkey bars as a breeze catches it in the suburban park it’s a letter on a braided leash addressed to me the woman’s terrier from overseas barks and leaps
the spiders sieving for gold stretch their webs a tiny nugget catching the sunlight gleams in the pan by my feet in the cabin in the dry grass we weigh our gold ants build a city on miniature scales
the holidays over in a farmer’s yard children return to school only a flock of sheep with their iPads and iPods the farmer out on his rounds not to the books, the sound blackboards and chalks of his motor bike of my childhood heard in the distance
far north over perfumed delicious oranges the masseuse exudes and tangelos for sale attar of roses the roadside vendor’s delicately massaging ‘honesty box’ contains skin-on-skin some foreign coins back and legs
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 66 a wild poppy at Paihia Beach pressed between the pages among the gulls of a library book what to do about a dog crushed and wrinkled how curious his fight it smells of fields and flight as the birds from long ago dive down on him
should I call it love chill wind when I stand stock-still the Muslim girl’s in the crowded woods hijab tied tightly where I can’t beneath her sandal put a name to one bird the smooth pavement of the hundreds here? glistens with rain
reclining on the deck beside the falls surrounded by the windows bride and groom of peering neighbours exchange their vows the sun is hot appearing moisture on our skin in the wedding photo it’s almost like the beach a double rainbow
~New Zealand a love-bottle bobs on the sea Patricia writes poetry, reviews, articles and Japanese forms of poetry. She has self-published several collections of poetry and a book of collaborative tanka sequences and haibun, Shizuka, with French poet, people swim past Giselle Maya. Patricia edits Kokako and is reviews/interviews editor of not noticing it Haibun Today. She writes reviews for Atlas Poetica, Takahe and several Indian journals. it will be carried away on the next current to a distant land
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 67 Paul Mercken Paul Williamson
Paul Mercken, Dutch-English Translator
warm and greening De massa is dom: the mountain rests zo’n laag opgeleide, wat as if smiling kan die verwachten having an itch scratched van een poenige blaaskaak as I walk upon its back met miljarden in de bank? your good idea De wereld in rouw. brought you to this thorny slope Is dan iemand gestorven? hurting Integendeel, iets: you are lifted up wijlen de democratie. carried for a while En zijn moordenaar leeft nog. curl your toes The scum is stupid: dig them into the clay what can the low-skilled expect from where you grew from a bullshitter, look up at the sky a yapping bloated windbag how high can we fly with billions in the bank? perhaps The world in mourning. the kangaroos have come Has somebody passed away? to watch our young On the contrary, the children have gone a thing: democracy. they have taken to the road And its murderer still lives. echidna ~Bunnik, The Netherlands padding steadily along the path sharply groomed Retired philosophy professor and medievalist from Belgium (°1934), looking for a friend Bunnik, NL. Research and teaching in GB, USA, Florence IT and Utrecht NL. Committee Haiku Kring Nederland (Dutch Haiku Society) since 2004. Published Bunnikse haiku’s en ander dichtspul, 2012 sunshine (Bunnik Haiku’s and Other Poetic Stuff, in Dutch) & Tanka of Place sends golden glints — ATLAS POETICA — Tanka’s van plaats, 2013 (bilingual). streaming Voluntary work in the fields of nature, society, culture and spirituality. workers returning Humanist, promoting democratic confrontation by dialogue. Nominated for the local poetry contest Bunnik about Bunnik 2017. to the bee tree
pardon me I will step around quietly blue tongue lizard on the path surprised like me
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 68 wings stretch in a wakeful moment Cherita fold back the tawny frogmouth Peter Fiore almost tree again
first rain these stormy days kangaroos disappear for weeks moving no tennis for days in the forest tangle as twitching phantoms and already the first leaves starting to fall seas warm winds blow from the east branches sway slicing through the harried clouds if this were 50 years ago beams of sunlight we’d throw caution to the wind and shoot for the moon
fires pass glad it’s not though but this summer is too dry buying a new frig today is enough disruption flames flare in tree tops close to my sister’s home
what to do? dusk creeps near in clinging autumn rain nipples rising ashen sheoaks pussy wet hang skeletal fronds across my tenuous path Cubs tied ~Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia in the ninth
Paul Williamson lives in Canberra in Australian Capital Territory, Australia and has published numerous poems in the US, Canada, UK, New Zealand and Australia and read them on radio. He has published I want an orgasm in Ribbons, Skylark, Gusts, Eucalypt, Neverending Story, One Hundred Poems by 100 Poets (Australia and New Zealand) and in Quadrant, for Christmas Cordite and other journals and e-zines. He has three collections this year Santa including Moments from Red Hill (2013).
Peter Fiore lives and writes in Mahopac, New York, USA. His poems I think I deserve one have been published in Rattle, Atlas Poetica, Bright Stars, A Hundred and have been waiting Gourds, Ribbons, Skylark, and others. In 2009 Peter published text a long time messages, the first volume of American poetry totally devoted to Gogyohka. In 2015, Peter’s book of tanka prose, flowers to the torch, was published by Keibooks. And forthcoming in spring 2017, Peter’s ~United States novella, when angels speak of love, will be published by LMP .
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 69 Cherita a percocet high a small gift Richard St. Clair from my dentist
for enduring soon he will die a wisdom tooth pull at this advanced age he’s the victim of a failing mind his failing body too has barely enough strength baseball blues to end his own life the promise the Red Sox made bluejays call but could not honor to the fans grackles this year chant in reply carollers singing in many keys at once my aging lust
with all the pills it’s become a laugh retired at last Viagra now all the hours is letting me down I longed for yes down
I fill watching the t.v. newscasts the candidate
his sins creeping old age and compulsions my aches and pains make me feel are like a chorus strangely holy in my dark mind singing the blues that even pills cannot quell
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 70 living with PTSD Conversation with grown accustomed the Samurai Pirates of to the numbness the Murakami Suigun can’t imagine really being in touch Ryoh Honda, Japanese-English with my feelings Translator
~Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA Murakami Suigun tanka on the left Ryoh Honda’s tanka on the right
Richard St. Clair (b. 1946 in North Dakota) has been writing tanka for over 15 years, and numerous of his tanka have appeared in Atlas Poetica publications. He is also a writer of haiku and renku, with work published in leading journals. He holds a Ph.D. in music composition 国をおさむ⼸を袋に⼊れおきて 芳阿 from Harvard. A Shin Buddhist by faith, he lives life naturally, writing あずまの琴やしらべ伝うる 重好 music and poetry as the muse moves him. His music has been heard on three continents and he has composed over 120 individual works. He resides in Massachusetts, where he has lived for over 50 years. kuniwoosamu yumiwohukuroni ireokite azumanokotoya shirabetsutauru
~Houa Shigeyoshi
having put the bow that guards our nation into its bag Cherita then the sweet sounds of koto of Azuma Robert Horrobin for a melody emptying everything Sitting alone. in my mind’s bag I just wonder who Thinking about plays koto of Azuma his father’s service.
He too たのしみをきわむる国はたのしもや 独阿 has more past かりのこの世はとにもかくにも 其阿 than future. tanoshimiwo kiwamurukuniwa tanomoshiya ~Orkney, Scotland karinokonoyowa tonimokakunimo
~Dokua Goa Robert Horrobin is a minor local government functionary. To find him follow the great north road till reaches its end. Then take a boat over the old seaways to an island that’s half way to the middle of nowhere. how dependable! the nation filled with great pleasures anyway we are in this transient world
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 71 to rebalance 浪⾵のあれぬまにとて出る⾈ 純阿 our minds with pleasures むら⾬くもる遠こちの⼭ 喜阿 here is tanka a convenient tool namikazeno arenumanitote izuruhune for this real world murakumokumoru ochikochinoyama
~Jun’a Kia うき雲のさだめなきこそことわりや 不明 ⾵にまかせて浮ける世の中 不明 set sail already before the waves and winds ukigumono sadamenakikoso kotowariya getting rough kazenimakasete ukeruyononaka rain clouds covering mountains here and there ~Anonymous through the storm undoubtedly a sailor recognizes no one knows directions one’s destiny of floating clouds to discover something follow the wind well across his frontiers enjoy the life well
do not miss 忍ぶ夜の恨みをつきにしらせばや 重 a dew of sentiment 更に⽴つ名を今は思わず 盛 inside clouds as tanka shall walk shinobiyono uramiwotsukini sirasebaya alongside of your life saranitatsunawo imawaomowazu
~Shige Mori いずくとも知らぬ波路に⽇はくれて 不明 星はしるしとたどる物うさ 不明 let the moon know my bitterness and patience izukutomo shiranunamijini hiwakurete in lonesome night hoshiwashirushito tadorumonousa now I do not care my rumors again ~Anonymous we have done the sun has set enthusiastically and doesn’t show our road in that night on the sea waves it could be too perfect relying only on stars to be repeated again is so much onerous
actively or Notes: passively playing with whimsical waves 天の川苗代⽔にせきくだせ天降ります神な our tanka could scoop らば神 something onerous
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 72 amanogawa nawashiromizuni sekikudase amakudarimasu falling off the wagon kaminarabakami the festive season let the river firmly at fault in the heaven come down to rice fields this karma our god please descend like father, like child with rain please our god on a much travelled road
Priest Noin submitted the tanka to god to pray for rain in 1041, when the Iyo region experienced a heavy drought at the two thousand-year-old (at the time) camphor tree at the German hostel within the grounds of the Oyamatsumi shrine. This is the shrine of the Murakami Suigun, the outside my room samurai pirates who dominated the Inland Sea of students queue for haircuts western Japan, who continuously submitted nearly 30,000 linked poems (renga) for 300 the Italian girl gifts me an apple hundred years since the 15th century. They the Korean boy a bookmark hoped their renga pleased their gods so that the the others give me two thumbs up gods would protect them and give them good luck. By doing so, they also believed the right world would come sometimes in the future.
~Omishima Island, Imabari Japan full moon gleams
above the temple roof Ryoh Honda is a tanka lover in Japan. He is enjoying and feels more over the bo tree* than happy to share this language-free poetic form with all tanka poets all over the world. incense lingers, clay lamps wink amidst the chanting this temporary haven
*sacred fig or ficus religiosa Cherita Samantha Sirimanne Hyde on the road to Yala* the jeep bounces on the gravel road on a rural street we see no wild elephants only road marker posts sloth bears or tigers to guide me in darkness only a flock of waterbirds on the car bonnet * a wildlife sanctuary in Sri Lanka a flash and a thud of a kangaroo
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 73 syringe in hand, the vet asks boxing day tsunami
‘do you want to be here with her?’ on that beach I shake my head your family strolled with one last touch in my nightmares rushing outside, that wall of water, the coward that I am those thousand cries
after the bomb at the party i stumble through rubble a woman corners me my mind in a tunnel ‘have we met?’ she asks my ears will stop ringing the classroom bully but my eyes . . . those looters of my childhood now so small tearing at earlobes . . . i smile and shake my head ~Denistone NSW, Australia
years afterwards Responsive Cherita Sequence on this unused jumper Samantha Sirimanne Hyde & Marilyn strands of fur . . . Humbert at unbidden times i catch my breath roadside temple and close my eyes the frangipani tree covered with filmy dust
yet inside this little sign cool cement floors and an overwhelming stillness spoilt dogs live here still looks new prayer chanting it stays near the front door floats beyond the wall years after they’ve gone ruffling my mind
these thoughts another time another place
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 74 tropical drizzle Sandra Renew clay lamps flicker blowing out one by one sleeping rough in the Crowne Plaza garden this fire in my mind rolled up only I can sleeping bag protects his head stamp out cursing at four black boots
Sunday morning mall shadows writhe pink bouffant fairy frock she pirouettes, this dance of precise steps busker bows — a man in sports coat watching her my day to day chores a hedge maze city without water prickles and thorns too many bored young men yesterday’s Tidy Town — is there a floral emblem amidst the chaos for a city in despair?
finding time in this city street for these songs getting a feel for the place cocaine lines creation, cessation alcohol, bag snatchers, guns — and all things in-between watch through a broken window this cosmic cycle wealth ~Sydney, NSW, Australia begs for happiness poverty holds out a hand for coin . . . Marilyn Humbert lives in the northern suburbs of Sydney, NSW, my city lives on market choice surrounded by bush. Her pastimes include writing free verse, tanka, and haiku. Her tanka and haiku appear in International and Australian Journals, Anthologies and Online. Some of her free verse poems have ~Australia been awarded prizes in competitions and some have been published.
Samantha Sirimanne Hyde was born in Sri Lanka and now lives in Australia. She is grateful to have crossed paths with the exquisite world of haiku, tanka, and other Japanese poetry forms. Sanford Goldstein Sandra Renew writes about the darker sides of love and nature, war and family, as social commentary. She does it for fun. I will endure to the end of my time, and still the end remains ambiguous
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 75 tell me, where you masters of has the young man prophecy, disappeared? when will I get he used to come to to my ninety-second year? the cafe but no longer off to get ~Japan our car inspected, but my friend, Sanford Goldstein is now 9l years old. He has been writing tanka for he leaves the house keys more than fifty years. He continues to live in Japan with his friend Kazuaki Wakui. in the car at a distant station
I tried boat of dreams to walk this morning but failed. Sonam Chhoki I rest on my couch like an exhausted old man Geethanjali Rajan Shobhana Kumar my supper’s being made at tired of waiting the tanka cafe, for the burst of distant stars and twenty of these to colour my dreams tanka too spill on the page I turn to the tingling sparkle of glass jewels I see how the world will the salt breeze is breaking, carry your laughter global warming this evening is a sad sad joke how quickly each wave recedes before the next one arrives what to do? how to go on in every turn in this dreary world? of the kaleidoscope I decide to stay put, stay alone, a new story — and try to live my life out all I have to do it seems is to seek how violent the morning rain, leaving behind down and down and down, the clamour of another day the pancakes beside me how I long and I wait to pick up my spoon to flee with the clouds beyond the rim of light the birthday of my daughter’s a sudden burst dead husband — of furious orange I send him a card, in the heavens I sent him a check I too will ride a saddle-free unicorn
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 76 for you Geethanjali Rajan teaches Japanese and English in the city of Chennai, from the depths India. She writes prose, opinion pieces, haiku, tanka, haibun and other forms of poetry. Her writing can be found in various international of the dark expanse journals online and some in print. I thread a bracelet with skeins of rainbows Sonam Chhoki is inspired by her father, Sonam Gyamtsho, the architect of Bhutan’s non-monastic modern education. Her Japanese form and free verse poetry has been published in international journals and stillness of shore anthologies. She is the current haibun and haiku editor of the UHTS after the curlew’s call . . . journal, cattails. I learn how silence enchants with its own eloquence Spiros Zafiris a hermit crab the double espresso inspects an abandoned shell confidence didn’t last long on the grainy sand . . . at the craps table the soothing sound of sea my first three points fills my hull of emptiness all sevened out I build castles no need to play to quell this yearning cutesy with words everyday I’m happy teeters on the hope simply to see her down the hall you will come home if she were mine, I would be true who else I told her hears this wild ferment I was a gambler of the Lyra star on medication, to take the boat of dreams in search of secret firmaments with an ancient work history — and that was that in another life lacing Akoya pearls ~Montreal, Canada for you to wear Spiros Zafiris is a Montreal poet who mostly writes tanka and kyoka. I now pretend the tears are from dust in my eyes
a pair of seagulls circle the coastline Cherita are they singing a requiem for Steve Travis what we once were i always understood ~Bhutan / India / India beneath the addictions and Shobhana Kumar has two collections of poetry, The Voices Never Stop 3AM calls for help and *Conditions Apply, and has written five books of non-fiction. Her poems have appeared in anthologies and several international journals. this world She works in the education, communication and social work spaces. simply felt too big for you
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 77 knife to his wrist gazing into space he is ready to he says there are too many plow a field old ghosts lingering in his life where only i wonder about peaceful darkness a mind where grows so many dead things live endless night from his window lost in the darkness of the mind wisps of woodsmoke rise from the neighbor’s chimneys but then a sliver of moonlight through the he thinks about broken blind all his abandoned dreams a new family moves in ruffling the feathers of the doves meditation in the tree next door sitting with there will be no sleep this closed eyes night what with the racket of baby birds crying! feeling the afternoon sunlight fill up my room seven years gone every room still holds on my bike the shape staring at of her the nearly frozen river absence wanting to jump in, her heart lies broken just to feel alive yet she knows ~United States full well Steve loves the challenge of writing, and how a poem almost writes itself sometimes. He loves when a poem touches him in some way, and when what can and cannot something he writes does the same for someone else. He lives on the east be truly coast of the States. In between working, he writes, reads, exercises, broken walks in nature, and practices being mindful, specially how it relates to observing the world and writing poetry.
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 78 Cherita hospital parking lot I just stand here, in the rain, Tanja Julija Trček my hair sticking to my face
Tanja Julija Trček, Slovenian-English if only there was a bird, Translator just one small brown bird chirping and hopping around
I knew right away something was amiss parkirišče pred bolnico, the house was holding its musty breath stojim tu, v dežju, na obraz se mi lepijo lasje, shutters closed, a cobweb in the door a glass, a bottle da bi le prišla ptica, shattered on the floor le ena drobna ptičica, ki bi pela in skakljala naokrog
takoj sem vedela, da je nekaj narobe, tonight I’m the rain hiša je zadrževala svojo zatohlo sapo falling nourishing you with my softness polkna zaprta, pajčevine med vrati, kozarec, steklenica, watching na tleh razbita with wet eyes how you blossom
five months today ta bolezen the world hangs askew tea cups slide off the table ti ne da videti kaj dosti sveta roll down the hill, plunge into the sea just in time for the little fish hrbti se obrnejo, vrata zaloputnejo, to enjoy their seaweed tea stopnice prestrme, travniki preširoki in na koncu ponikneš v črni luknji
pet mesecev danes, nursing home garden svet visi postrani, skodelice zdrsijo z mize, it’s snowing but she sits there unperturbed trkljajo se po hribu, čof v morje, ribice bodo pile čaj iz alg, talking to someone ravno pravi čas I’m not old enough to see
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 79 vrt doma ostarelih, a thought of him
sneži, just a small one, a ona mirno sedi the size of an ant
z nekom se pogovarja, yet with all its legs a jaz nisem dovolj stara, it clutches at my heart, mercilessly da bi ga videla I smash it with a chocolate bar watching tv misel nanj, my little cousin čisto majcena, keeps on chatting kot mravlja, at the sight of bombs falling on Aleppo a se mi z vsemi nogami she falls quiet, oprijema srca, neusmiljeno clutches my hand jo treščim po glavi s čokolado
gledava televizijo, more than a decade ago
moja mala sestrična more than 3650 showers taken klepeta in klepeta, and yet and yet
ko pa vidi, his smell still clings to my skin, padati bombe na Alep, his fingers, fat and greedy, utihne, mi stisne roko still grabbing at my purity midnight tea on the terrace pred več kot desetletjem, accidentally že več kot 3650 prhanj, a thought of him a vendar, a vendar, this little spoon stirs up njegov vonj še vedno na moji koži, a tornado funnel in my cup, njegovi prsti, debeli in pogoltni, which gobbles up all the stars hlastajo, še vedno, za mojo čistostjo
na terasi čaj ob polnoči, poetry
pomotoma not just pretty words, pomislim nanj, sighs about love
čajna žlička naredi tornado, also a protest, naenkrat zvrtinčene, a fist raised high, a fight won vse zvezde, na dnu skodelice gracefully, with dignity
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 80 poezija, freezing cold tonight and so dark
ne le ljubke besede, I watch a movie set in Nice: vzdihovanje o ljubezni, the sea in front of a pâtisserie
tudi upor, suddenly I want a stone cottage vzdignjena pest, bitka dobljena with blue shutters and a bougainvillea, elegantno in dostojanstveno pink and bright in the Mediterranean sun seeing his picture tako hladno to noč, temno,
I get sick gledam film, ki se dogaja v Nici: literally morje pred slaščičarno, you think I’m weird? naenkrat si zaželim kamnite hiške have you ever tried being a woman z modrimi polkni in bugenvilijo pretty, with a pen in her lyrical hand pod sredozemskim soncem, vso svetlo, rožnato
ob pogledu na njegovo sliko tonight I’m a storm
mi postane slabo, I’ll leave in my wake dobesedno shipwrecks, dead bodies
se ti zdim čudna? and a tiny star si kdaj poskusil biti ženska, shining čedna, z nalivko v svoji lirični dlani? in the midnight sky you say I’m quiet to noč sem vihar,
I say za seboj bom pustila you must be deaf razbitine ladij, mrtvece don’t you hear the lightning in drobno zvezdo striking jagged sijočo in my head na polnočnem nebu
praviš, da sem tiha, someone lives in my chest
pravim, usually she’s quiet, da moraš biti gluh, as though she weren’t even there
kaj res ne slišiš strel, but sometimes she races, pounds restlessly ki cikcakasto udarjajo trying to tell me v moji glavi she’s cold and lonely in there
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 81 nekdo živi v mojih prsih, golden leaves swirl across the piazza
ponavadi je čisto tiho, a boy places his fiddle kot da je sploh ne bi bilo, into a battered case
včasih pa divja in razbija, he picks up his hat, shakes it, želi mi povedati smiles at the sound of da jo zebe, da je osamljena tam notri silver coins tinkling for years and years he had been a poet zlato listje se vrtinči preko mestnega trga, but then one day he just turned into a poem deček položi gosli v oguljen kovček, and whispered into my ear: don’t interpret me, pobere klobuk, ga potrese, savour me se nasmehne ob žvenketu srebrnih cekinov
dolga leta je bil pesnik, between us the flames
nekega dne he holds up a feather: pa se je spremenil v pesem ‘you shall be kestrel’
in mi zašepetal na uho: the prophecy perched on my ribs ne tolmači me, my heart ever since užij me a wild and winged thing melting ice caps scare me med nama plameni, i want to yell, pokaže mi pero, reče: beg people to live differently »sokol selec boš,« but there isn’t anyone, prerokba mi pristane na rebrih, anywhere, vse od takrat moje srce, just this old clock ticking krilato in divje
bojim se taljenja polarnega ledu, black tiles
vpila bi, the cold gleam of scissors prosila ljudi, naj živijo drugače, snip!
a nikjer nikogar, suddenly in the mirror le ta stara ura my small white breasts tik-tak, tik-tak at my feet — were these my wings?
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 82 črne ploščice, the door off the hinges
hladen lesket škarij, pine needles, leaves hrsk! in the hall
naenkrat v ogledalu I knock on the window moje majhne bele prsi, a kestrel’s cry pri nogah — so bila to moja krila? wind in the pine
Fukushima, remember? vrata s tečajev, stealthily, silently borove iglice, listi the dark thing grows and spreads v hodniku, it especially likes what is soft potrkam na okno, pink and tender flesh krik sokola selca, like that of your kids, of newly-born lambs v borovcu šumenje vetra
Fukušima, se spomniš? in the cemetery
potuhnjeno, tiho hundreds of tiny flames temna reč raste, se širi, flicker restlessly
še posebej ima rada kar je mehko, the carved names rožnato, nežno meso, grow distant kot je tisto tvojih otrok, majčkenih ovc the poplars tall today is a painting na pokopališču
I am in it nemirno utripa sitting under the yellow beeches na stotine plamenčkov,
Klimt’s secret muse vklesana imena lavishly covered in postajajo vse bolj oddaljena, gold-leaf topoli vse višji
današnji dan je slika her grave
in jaz na njej, sedeča covered with a layer of pod rumenimi bukvami brown pine needles
Klimtova skrivna muza, and there, a maple leaf razkošno okrašena aflame and restless z zlatimi lističi in the dusk
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 83 njen grob tonight i saw her
prekrit s plastjo rising from among the trees rjavih borovih iglic her hair aflame
in tam, javorjev list, an owl with singed wings rdeče razvnet in nemiren flew past the church spire v mraku screeching wake up! to noč sem jo videla, do you hear them, vzdignila se je iznad dreves, the silver bells? njeni lasje goreči, these are weather sprites sova z ožganimi krili summoning snowflakes je vrešče letela to the edge of the sky mimo zvonika
zbudi se! snowshoes on the wall
jih slišiš, every morning, on this stove srebrne zvončke? my grandma cooked kasha
to so vremenske vile, a thick layer of snow on the fir trees ki kličejo snežinke deerskin gloves on the chopping block na rob neba the clock quietly tick-tock there’s a door in the sky to noč sem jo videla, only the birds know of it and vzdignila se je iznad dreves, they knock with their beaks njeni lasje goreči, a kindly ancient hand reaches out sova z ožganimi krili and sprinkles golden seeds je vrešče letela across the clouds mimo zvonika
~Golnik, Slovenia v nebu so vrata,
le ptice vedo zanje in s kljuni trkajo po njih,
prijazna stara roka jih odpre in natrese zlatih semen po oblakih
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 84 Cherita Sequence i’m the poplar by his grave bowing deeply Tanja Julija Trček i touch his heart
lift it to the sky a bright then I returned home and restless star and he remained by his small lamp writing long into the night sem topol ob njegovem grobu, hands in his pockets, head bowed globoko se priklonim he walked the streets in se dotaknem njegovega srca, leaves swirling in the wind ga dvignem do neba, svetla potem sem se vrnila domov, in nemirna zvezda
on pa je ostal tam, ob svetilki in pisal dolgo v noč in the stream of silver moonlight
z rokami v žepih in sklonjene glave he descends to me je hodil po ulicah, on his angel wings listje se je vrtinčilo v vetru his shimmering blue lips a cosmic breeze down my belly, to my hips we met again he placed a slim volume in my lap v srebrnem soju mesečine walked to the window, stood there se na angelskih krilih did his shoulders heave? spusti k meni, I don’t remember it was snowing, the light was grey njegove svetlikajoče se modre ustnice, kozmični veter preko mojega trebuha, okrog bokov ponovno sva se srečala,
v naročje mi je položil drobno knjigo, every night he returns to me stopil k oknu, stal tam leaves his angel wings so mu trepetala ramena? by the bed, on the floor ne spomnim se, entwines his heavenly body with mine and I become a star, dying one kiss at a time
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 85 Thomas Martin vsako noč se vrne k meni, a column of midges pusti angelska krila climbs the sunbeams ob postelji, na tleh, a fine smoke this autumn to find a mate preplete svoje nebeško telo z mojim or define the light in postanem zvezda, umirajoča poljub za poljubom passing clouds sucking on sweet grass he takes me inside himself looking up at the cloud angels velvet darkness barnstorming so far above flowing, swirling green-blue stars all afternoon in the infinite space the blue jay calls of his celestial hair flies off and lands again pushing his lifeless mate through the dry grass vzame me vase, ~Portland, Oregon, USA žametna tema teče, se vrtinči, silver falls zeleno-modre zvezde my face dripping water v neskončnosti as a brown snail njegovega nebeškega srca slides along the wet rail leaving a silvery track ~Golnik, Slovenia ~Oregon, USA
Severe illness has sharpened Tanja’s vision, so she can now find the tiniest of joys, hiding in the most unexpected of places. She loves sunshine and the sea, as well as everything, which is green and growing my office wildly. To build worlds made of words, to laugh and love many beings once for news now a shoe shop and things is what she enjoys most. in the small village look deeply at the photos my presence virtually gone
thanksgiving our latest argument to eat in or out the blue-shrouded mountains hold the sunset so easily
~Western North Carolina, USA
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 86 cherita Tom Sacramona
Thomas Martin lucky to catch a leaf the child after we parted thought in his heart the man starts and stops I wandered Midsummer Common hand in hand with your ghost stretching my legs and mind I couldn’t find any stars restless though I stared walking drives away deeply in the mist the thoughts others think ~Cambridge, UK the purple aster holds no malice against me though the sun shines you are spinning me it touches not one petal in the autumn breeze round and round in your web I made the bed and tucked the sheets in you have made me so tight your jelly doughnut, a snack you can’t pull them up for your long journey home to hide your breasts ~Beaverton. Oregon, USA my eyes traced your harmony and whispered Thomas Martin was raised on a farm in the southeast and now lives of love with his talented wife, Joyce, in Oregon in the beautiful Pacific then I gazed down Northwest of the USA. He has published haiku, tanka and haibun in at a lady bug many journals both in print and online. morning she is only a single Cherita red rose her resplendent petals blacken — Sheila Windsor nights fall earlier and earnest a thousand smiles ~Massachusetts, USA where the Tom Sacramona (b.1992) has worked as an editor and English teacher. sweet peas were The Blackstone River Valley of Massachusetts is his natural habitat. His love-affair with haiku is long rooted, and the flower of his life is Lisa Macciolis. pods of fragrant pastel tomorrows . . . more Sheila Windsor has written poetry, mainly short verse and haikai, as an than you and I will know almost daily practice for over twenty years. She is a former founding co- editor of Bones Journal, former editor of The Living Haiku Anthology and currently co-editor of moongarlic e-zine. ~Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, England
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 87 Cherita graffiti on the birch bark Vasile Moldovan Cupidon’s arrow
beneath it notice: some professions of love scratched with a penknife nothing new about crickets . . . we always rose in fall listen to the same song in each autumn its petals scattered for a long time
but its thistles divine music remained at their places unchangeably a lady’s fingers on the piano outside native beauty a lonely cricket begins to sing a lone wild flower is opening its petals
just like a girl at the mirror who is smiling to her boyfriend my father’s face unrecognizable only his smile at the mill remains unchanged for a lifetime a lot of farmers waiting for the wind
they have a chat face to face about the past harvest and the next sowing campaign the full moon and the blue planet ~Romania on one side Vasile Moldovan was born on 20 June 1949 in a Transylvanian the Sea of Serenity village. He graduated the Faculty of Journalism in Bucharest and published several books of haiku both in Romanian and English, a on the other the Pacific tanka booklet and a renku book (this one with Magdalena Dale).
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 88 Cherita Wendy Bourke
Tracy Davidson old woman buying food explains the senior discount — hall of mirrors she’s never had to prove her age . . . forty still thinking she looks fat she tells me with a toothless grin in the thin one my heart breaks on one side — the ocean stops to see her at the foot of a continent fade away on the other side — the sea is boundless same island . . . same ocean his umbrella ~Vancouver, BC, Canada offers a brief respite from the deluge angry voices but all too soon a baby howling . . . the flood behind a picket fence of angry words resumes someone’s happily-ever-after escapes into the street
~New Westminster, BC, Canada she hears music scores the notes into her skin condo fire alarm — time to meet neighbors when the song ends at two a.m. in pjs and a ski jacket . . . she lays the bloodied razor sometimes to one side I think about settlers
~Warwickshire, England ~Burnaby, BC, Canada
Tracy Davidson lives in Warwickshire, England, and writes poetry and flash fiction. Her work has appeared in various publications and anthologies, including: Mslexia, Poet’s Market, Modern Haiku, Atlas I must have spent Poetica, A Hundred Gourds, The Binnacle, The Great Gatsby many hours Anthology, Ekphrastia Gone Wild and In Protest: 150 Poems for breathing in lake scent . . . Human Rights. though I have never lived by water the fragrance carries me home
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 89 once upon a cherita* lake song and leafy yawns sleeping under stars ai li and lantern moon . . . feeling young and forest-ancient once upon a cherita
~Mesachie Lake near Lake Cowichan, Southern those were giddy nights when Vancouver Island, BC, Canada you were created in the late 90s
over the years you have stood tall Wendy Bourke lives in metro Vancouver, Canada where she writes, goes on long rambling walks gathering photos and inspiration – and hangs enriching all our lives out with her family (especially her two young grandsons). Her poems with tales of life, love and loss have been published in several anthologies and journals, such as American Tanka, Skylark, Ribbons and Moonbathing. ai li
* cherita is the malay word for story
When Kei very kindly asked me to write a non-fiction article for ATPO 27, my first reaction was one of mild panic. I use certain brain muscles to write my Haiku and Tanka where the discipline of holding back and being as minimal as one can is not only essential but completely necessary for keeping the integrity and power of my one to five line poems. To have to elongate these tried and tested muscles would require some kind of compromise which I was not sure I was prepared to do. I have been writing short form poetry for over 20 years or so, and to start waffling on about one of my creations in a learned way (which I tend to leave to the academics) was anathema to me. Besides writing micro-poetry, I also take urban photographs where I am always behind the lens and not in front of it. The same ethos of finding me in my work and not in long essays applied. However, after a short spell in Innsbruck doing my mediumship and gorging on luscious sachertorte, strudel and amarena ice cream for ze little grey cells, I wondered if I was capable of producing this article on the cherita but in a fun way, thereby invoking the spirit of storytelling. I have always believed that our inner child is also the custodian and archivist of all our stories, both told and yet to be told.
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 90 I was born in what was British Malaya. My chance to breathe free of the straightjackets of father’s family were Roman Catholics but my dogma. mother’s side of the family embraced Buddhism, The cherita was also my humble way of Confucianism, Taoism and Hinduism. Malaya paying homage to loved ones, many of whom was multi-racial in the true sense of the word. have passed into spirit, for gifting me with their Practically all creeds and religions jostled for wonderful tales that littered so much of my place in this pineapple-shaped peninsula, and childhood with their timeless sense of wonder. At with these legions of immigrants came stories this point though, I am wondering if I have been told and retold by coolies in old godowns dimly meandering and going off on a tangent. To lit by swaying Chinese paper lanterns, sari clad ensure that I have not, here a few virgin examples women tapping rubber in tiger-infested of mine to perhaps help bring us back to what plantations and white Russian Jews over the cherita is all about. smuggled vodka in their opulent Art Deco cinemas. I had little choice but to be a poet and writer in later life with my ears still ringing with where did love go? lost dialects, timeless lullabies and more importantly with the triumphs of the indomitable i’m in an empty room human spirit. with no furniture to call my own It was no small wonder that the cherita appeared as manna from heaven. I had been in a battered suitcase, one fading love letter self-imposed exile for decades in the West and the no one left to remind me acute longing for my spiritual home never quite as to who i am went away. Now it was the words from way back that jostled in my mind wanting to be heard again, bringing all the ghosts of past and present back to life. No article on the cherita can be in a nutshell deemed kosher, in my opinion, without mentioning how much one poet and writer, Larry the storm will not miss us Kimmel, who also happens to be a dear friend, and the shutters will not help has made the form his second skin. He, along with many others have written many examples of i’m therefore running a bath which I am truly in awe. with himalayan salt I am also deeply indebted to the many poets with my headphones on out there who have written, nurtured the cherita and given it more than nine lives. I mustn’t forget too, the vision of all the editors who embraced this then new form and who have published belly dancer many fine examples of cherita. In those mad and giddy nights in the late 1990s, so many other a latter day mata hari forms, both linked and otherwise, were created and her bejewelled costumes by a number of poets including myself, who wanted new avenues to open up for emerging her love of men in uniforms Haiku and Tanka poets. I posted most of these taking her far into the desert new forms on still’s website. These forms, where they shoot her with paintball guns including the cherita, allowed us to experiment and push the boundaries within what was religiously policed. The emergence of these forms gave us all much needed fresh air and the
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 91 in a chevrolet at the masked ball at the old drive-in you are pierrette with tumbleweed to his pierrot you wake up a crescent moon hangs in a cold sweat in the makeshift stage and it is 2010 littering tinsel
caravanserai stepping out into autumn a stopping point a year older under the first evening star another fine line on your face in her djellaba you find with her eyes kohled a new russet for burning frankincense and myrrh your cheeks and mouth
While pausing for some fresh juice, I had a phone call from my sister out east letting me know that we had lost our only brother to a red lanterns in the west garden sudden fatal stroke. He died alone in a hospital in Toronto, 3,547 miles away from London where I the last butterfly now live, and 8,991 miles from where we were all bathed in blood hue born. We were not close as adults but the news stopped me in my tracks. no one came home after the long war and the grasses have grown tall news of your death
we try to find your ex-wives and your two estranged daughters your will has been read while you lie uncollected in the mortuary we shared the same blood, had similar the silence dreams of hope in the solicitor’s panelled room i hear my heartbeat in this new darkness the money has long gone for larry 1943 – 2016 along with the exotic eastern gems of old and the splendid decaying mansions Writing about the cherita unexpectedly brought about my own sad story to share. It seems fitting to close here as every story should have a beginning and an end. We do not need to go and find stories to write about. They live
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 92 within and around us. It is by sharing these www.hsa-haiku.org/frogpond/backissues/ stories that we are reminded as to how blessed we 35-3-Frogpond-Autumn-2012.pdf> are that we are not alone in how we live our lives, • Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie B&P’s Shadorma how we love, often again and again, and & Beyond. Jan 2016. One cherita example ultimately how we grieve to start the process of each from Larry Kimmel and ai li.
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 93 • Neverending Story.
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 94 • Graceguts - Breaking through Novelty - A survey of Invented Forms of Linked Poetry. The Cherita and the Golden
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 95 curve of the nautilus shell. The Fibonacci spiral, Tanka is myriad-minded as it works as a small or simply the golden spiral, is the visual mirror to reflect human minds. This poetry form manifestation of the golden ratio which can be is available to all languages thanks to its flexibility. traced in the Mona Lisa and Renaissance What defines tanka is just its length, no paintings. requirement for rhyme, stress and tone. As a A study of the adjacent sequence of one, two short song mainly for reading nowadays, it has a and three, describes patterns and processes in length of time to take two breaths, which gives nature. It is a sequence with power generated tanka its flow. We have some occasions to from a focussed centre, either seen or unseen, mention waka (和歌) as classical tanka, and the allowing an unfoldment, development and literal meaning of wa (和) is ‘harmony’ or structure which facilitates a richness in art, architecture and music. ‘harmonize’ and that of ka (歌) is ‘song’ or ‘sing.’ The golden spiral captures our imagination. So we notice here tanka is essentially It is a powerful composition tool in portrait ‘harmonizing song.’ painting, drawing and photography. It is a self- In its first appearance in history, tanka contained and unfolding structure which the became an independent literature genre. In the Cherita embraces in its poetic form of three era of Man’yoshu, the first anthology of tanka and stanzas, expanding from a collection of thoughts other forms edited during the latter half of the and feelings to articulate a story of human seventh century and the eighth century, tanka experience. was a name in contrast to choka (long song, after the Heian period (794 – 1185) tanka called waka Penélope O’Meara (Japanese song), which was in contrast to kanshi MSc, MA and PGCE (Cantab.), MRSB (Chinese poetry), and then in the latter half of Associate King’s College (Theology) the Meiji period (1868 – 1912) it was called again IAFL, BPS (Forensic Division) as tanka, this time in contrast to shintaishi (new Dip. Astrol., British Association Vedic style poetry). And now, not only independently Astrology but also internationally, tanka is absolutely tanka. We know there are no language barriers in tanka, as eloquently shown by tanka works in different languages. As a common tool for the human mind, tanka is expected to be available to all those who need it actually and also potentially. Each tanka can be a dew of emotion, will make a brook gathering the works of a tanka poet, and then become a big river bundling the brooks of the same language Tanka Ocean tanka. And those rivers flow into the tanka ocean, where all tanka meet together. Poets who enjoy Ryoh Honda tanka would find something precious there and share its value whose range is as vast as the “I love the voice of the sea. It is nice to look at the blue ocean. tides and also not bad even they are not seeable. Far away, near here, continuously, not continuously, when the voice of infinity touches my heart, full of anxiety, though it is inexpressible, the sound makes me sad, but it also brings me consolation.” — Preface of ‘The Voice of the Sea,’ Bokusui Wakayama, 1908
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 96 Value Matrix of Tanka Ocean
Transparency Availability Newness Keenness Adaption
Openness for everyone for no entry barriers continuous free discussion broadminded tool every language refreshing space
Commonness universal use voluntary perpetual invitation mutual respect acceptance of reality participation
Equality no discrimination fair exchange equilibrium age and gender constructive criticism among languages equity
Accessibility no complexity in the deep and large expanding frontiers developing themes shared techniques form historical pool
Neutrality simply no bias built-in stabilizer of flexible rebalance spiritual stability tolerance for change emotion Ryoh Honda is a tanka lover in Japan. He is enjoying and feels more than happy to share this language-free poetic form with all tanka poets all over the world.
the theme and imagery of their native country. Review: A Shared Umbrella Consider these two verses: Reviewed by Patricia Prime a sickness only the Freemantle Doctor A Shared Umbrella (2016) Pb 75pp can cure Beverley George & David Terelinck the blue of the lace flower ISBN: 9780994367013 the blue of the ocean . . . $16 AUD incld. postage in Australia / $18 AUD (or $20 NZD) to NZ/ $20 AUD (or coast to coast $16 USD) to USA, UK & worldwide. foam fragrant the shoreline . . . Payment to David & Beverley via PayPal to I shake free [email protected]. her lacy shawl from tissue, and draw it close around me Beverley George and David Terelinck are two of Australia’s most notable tanka poets. In their The Freemantle Doctor being a cooling latest collection, A Shared Umbrella, they are at afternoon sea breeze which occurs during their finest. Here we find tanka sequences, summer in southwest coastal areas of Western interspersed with thirteen rengay. The book Australia. contains an Introduction by the fine American ‘Testing the Strength’ is about partnership, poet, Michael Dylan Welch, the responsive illness, loss, love and reconciling with the loss of a journeys, an Afterword, Credits and Biographical loved one: Notes. Layout and typesetting is by Matthew George and Cover Art / Illustration is by Tumi your silk scarf K. Steyn. George’s verses are in normal type, soft around my throat . . . verses by Terelinck are in italics. our lives apart The opening sequence is titled ‘Harmonies.’ are complete, but oh! It is a three-page poem in which the poets share the memory of that kiss
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 97 after your illness sms & email I tap your too-thin hips are fine in their own way tears behind the joke I take up no need to explain to you the pen you gave to me how it is I feel to scribe this poem for you
Another example of the effect of linking of who knows where two voices can be seen in ‘Unseen Breath,’ where such thoughts and words will lead — the poets write about the ageing process. ‘Love in all the places Many Guises’ connects the poets to their lovers. we never would have reached Here are the last two verses of the poem: but for the travelling in tandem
seeping into marrow The rengay are limited to six haiku that and the complex matter develop a central theme. As Michael Dylan beyond hearing Welch explains in his Introduction: ‘Yet they are melodies you weave me like tanka, too, in that any pair of three-line and flow through all I do two-line verses become a sort of tanka, written by two poets instead of one, harkening back to the reading aloud tanka-like effect of adjacent verses in renga and from a book of T’ang poems — renku.’ The first rengay, ‘Sliding into Place,’ for I never dreamed example, begins: my lover and spouse . . . would not be one first spring day green tea travelling ‘Converging Worlds’ takes the reader into the spout to cup Australian landscape. Here we are in the presence of eucalypts, a billy can, summer rain, languid drift corrugated roofs and a backyard tap. Another of words and wisteria example of the effect of grouping tanka together between two poets so familiar with one another’s In ‘Snapshot’ the verses rebound off each work can be seen in ‘Jigsaw,’ which begins: other, in the give and take of collaborative verse, taking care to respond to each other to make a encrusted palettes, larger whole. Thus, as we see in these two verses: strewn on a paint-splotched floor under skylights never able to discard a jigsaw of canvasses that crazy hat you bought me report truths of village life rummage sales — how can you how cheaply we priced be sure that all you see those memories . . . is black and white — the artist’s linocut ‘Imprint’ is dedicated to the fine British poet shaped by what’s unseen and editor, Martin Lucas, who sadly passed away in 2014. One of the features of the journal, The final tanka sequence, ‘Travelling in Presence, which Martin edited, was the Seashell Tandem’ sums up the poets’ friendship, their Game, which is alluded to in this rengay: trust in each other, the act of writing and the convergence of their paths:
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 98 seashell game lifting one, then another Review: Colorful Lives: A fading imprint Coloring, Tanka Poetry Book
the memory Reviewed by Patricia Prime of migrating geese Colorful Lives: A Coloring Tanka Poetry Book ‘Cooling Sand’ takes the reader to outback Genie Nakano Australia with its images of Uluru (a massive Chin Music Press, Seattle, WA, USA (2016) sandstone monolith in the heart of the Northern
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 99 oceans and the “whale’s belly filled with The poet’s beautiful hand is illustrated in styrofoam.” ‘The Grass is Soft.’ In ‘Colorful Short Lives,’ she Nakano’s tanka reveal a deep love and writes of her delight in the sound of waves, a kite knowledge of nature and there are references to flying in the wind, the sunlight and flowers: rain, bees, gardens, buds and “the trees / we planted many years ago.” sunlight She also has an appreciation for animals and is what flowers turn to one of the sweetest photos is of her little dog, Sensai says which accompanies the sequence ‘Bodhi Sattva’: we are all flowers with colorful short lives at night our small black dog ‘August Moon’ describes the poet “standing / snuggles between us under an August moon.” She wears a flimsy dress lies on his back with nothing underneath. The night “perfect for and snores loudly romance / yet I’m here all alone.” The longer snip, brush, snip sequence ‘Shushhh’ takes place at night, where around his furry face crickets thrum, trees sigh in the breeze, a purring Bodhi loves it all cat rolls over on its back in light rain and stars tilts his head way back twinkle. The poem ends: crooning to the moon shushhhh Bodhi means, sets all worries out to sea Buddha in training . . ., as we drift away they say all good dogs in a blanket filled with go to heaven sweet fulfilling dreams I hope to meet him there The final poem, ‘Yin Yang Moon,’ is The photograph of the tattered bridge in illustrated by the full moon above the sea and ‘Straight Ahead’ is evocative of the eerie bridges contains this lovely verse: one might have crossed when tramping: swaying beaming down on a tattered bridge on my skin a silver moon the other side how can needs be fulfilled is far away when what is wanted I breathe and take a step is not needed
‘A Palm Tree bends and Waves’ is illustrated Enjoyment of these tanka sequences lies as by a bleak picture of a man leaving his partner much in the visual qualities of photographs and after an argument. The poem indicates the artwork, as in the aural patterning of the verses. devastation of the experience. Nakano shows a precise and knowing grasp of The poem ‘Purple’ contains a lovely both language and visual effects and of the photograph of the poet and her relationship to emotions conveyed by tanka. Here, she is playing meditation. It ends with the fine verse: to her strengths, and shows herself to be a poet of purple charm and elegance. majestic mountain tops Murasaki and her tales of Genji royal color of ages
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 100 ANNOUNCEMENTS Cirrus Published
Atlas Poetica will publish short announcements in any The 6th issue of the French tanka journal language up to 300 words in length on a space available basis. Cirrus 6 is now on line . . . 10 full days ahead of Announcements may be edited for brevity, clarity, grammar, or schedule!
Winfred Press Announces Cherita Poets on Site Blue Smoke: a two voice
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 101 Educational Use Notice Editorial Biographies
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. He is a tall ship sailor in real life and has schools and colleges, at every level. It is our published nautical novels featuring a gay intention and our policy to facilitate the use of protagonist, Pirates of the Narrow Seas. His most Atlas Poetica and related materials to the recent poetry collection is January, A Tanka Diary. maximum extent feasible by educators at every level of school and university studies. Educators, without individually seeking toki is a published poet and editorial assistant for permission from the publisher, may use Atlas Keibooks. Born and raised in the Pacific Poetica : A Journal of World Tanka’s online digital Northwest US, toki often writes poetry informed editions and print editions as primary or ancillary by the experience of that region: the labyrinthine teaching resources. Copyright law ‘Fair Use’ confines of the evergreen forests, the infinite guidelines and doctrine should be interpreted vastness of the sea and inclement sky, and the very liberally with respect to Atlas Poetica precisely liminal spaces in between. toki’s poetry can be on the basis of our explicitly stated intention found online and in print, with work published in herein. This statement may be cited as an Atlas Poetica, The Bamboo Hut, and Poetry effective permission to use Atlas Poetica as a text or Nook. 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. Individual copyrights of poets, authors, artists, etc., published in Atlas Poetica are their own property and are not meant to be compromised 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 Our ‘butterfly’ is actually an Atlas moth (Attacus tanka education. atlas), the largest butterfly / moth in the world. It comes from the tropical regions of Asia. Image Atlas Poetica from the 1921 Les insectes agricoles d’époque. Keibooks P O Box 516 Perryville, MD 21903 AtlasPoetica.org
Atlas Poetica • Issue 27 • Page 102 Publications by Keibooks M. Kei’s Poetry Collections
Journals January, A Tanka Diary Slow Motion : The Log of a Chesapeake Bay Skipjack Atlas Poetica : A Journal of World Tanka tanka and short forms
Heron Sea : Short Poems of the Chesapeake Bay Anthologies tanka and short forms
Neon Graffiti : Tanka of Urban Life M. Kei’s Novels Bright Stars, An Organic Tanka Anthology (Vols. 1 – 7) Pirates of the Narrow Seas 1 : The Sallee Rovers Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka (Vol. 4) Pirates of the Narrow Seas 2 : Men of Honor Fire Pearls (Vols. 1 – 2) : Short Masterpieces of the Heart Pirates of the Narrow Seas 3 : Iron Men Pirates of the Narrow Seas 4 : Heart of Oak
Man in the Crescent Moon : A Pirates of the Narrow Collections Seas Adventure The Sea Leopard : A Pirates of the Narrow Seas Black Genji and Other Contemporary Tanka, by Adventure Matsukaze (forthcoming) Fire Dragon October Blues and Other Contemporary Tanka, by Matsukaze
Warp and Weft, Tanka Threads, by Debbie Strange
flowers to the torch : American Tanka Prose, by peter fiore
fieldgates, by Joy McCall (forthcoming) 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