Afternoon of February 21, 2025

The Golden Hour

~Jean-Paul Moyer

Editor’s note: Our featured artist, Jean-Paul Moyer, is a cat. Here’s a video of him at work.

 

 

A shriek in the night.

The cat has slaughtered

a pair of underwear.

~Noah Berlatsky

I must stand forever,

for in every seat

there is a cat.

~Noah Berlatsky

Someday cats

will fly.

All the cats here

are waiting.

~Noah Berlatsky

day breaks gently

in saunters the new year

on cat’s paws

~Jennifer Gurney

consistent

Valentine

my cat

~Jennifer Gurney

the rumble

of affection

cat’s purr

~Jennifer Gurney

my stray queen

gives me brief company

as her gratitude!

~Tejendra Sherchan

alley

a feral follows me

to the food bowls

~John J. Dunphy

reincarnated Zen gardener

now rakes patterns in

his litter box

~John J. Dunphy

my black cat

tuxedoed

by the snow

~John J. Dunphy

The Asahi Haikuist is in need of haiku (catku) about cats in love.

Details (scroll to the end): https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15632135

Afternoon of February 2, 2025

Open all of February: https://tinywords.com/submit

first time ever in my dream giraffe

~Tejendra Sherchan

ratting the mongoose year of the snake

~Rashmi VeSa

antidote of all venoms honey badger

~Tejendra Sherchan

even inside

the dragon’s belly

it is spring

~Noah Berlatsky

'til death do us part —

my very last words

to the mosquito

~Mark Meyer

five fleas

one minute on the dog

then they're gone

~Mark Meyer

15-yard dash

the pesky cockroach

wins by a hair

~Mark Meyer

a hare shy

on the other side

of the looking glass

Alice’s transition

~Kelly Sauvage Moyer/Terri L. French

ethical doubts

date night

the lobster’s

handcuff collection

~Robert P. Moyer/Kelly Sauvage Moyer

beloved escargot

second edition

the posthumous success

of a bard

~Robert P. Moyer/Kelly Sauvage Moyer

chest-deep

in the city sewer

chocolate dreams

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

crocodile eyes

smiling in the bayou

I wake in your jaws

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

Martian slugs

heartless romantics whose love

songs swept the system

~David C. Kopaska-Merkel

It Still Rains

in the market place

almost every day-

It's a blue metallic rain

and it's always fresh

with a salty after taste-

So it's hard to see the ghosts

that float just out of reach

but stay still

you will feel their gentle push

toward the light of brighter days

~dan smith

The excitement

Of a new coffee mug

In the morning

~Sarah Mahina Calvello

ground truthing grief in the field of loss

~Rashmi VeSa

the past participle of I in the past tense of self

~Rashmi VeSa

moss post-truth particle

~Rashmi VeSa

the day stares at me passing by

~Vijay Prasad

Open all of February: 

http://www.chrysanthemum-haiku.net/en/submission-guidelines.html

Evening of February 9, 2026

 

 

designer turncoat delivering putin the pralines

~Kelly Sauvage Moyer

snuffed out

on jesus’s behalf

little lights

~Kelly Sauvage Moyer

crunch of gravel

even the cat sleeps

with one eye open

~Kelly Sauvage Moyer

revitalizing zine culture

for posterity . . .

       the damned

~Kelly Sauvage Moyer

bullet train

one inch

either way

~Michael Henry Lee

dead poets

a society

unto themselves

~Michael Henry Lee

two blocks to school

most of the sidewalk

full of ICE

~Randy Brooks

friend and foes

equally

TARIFFied

~Randy Brooks

amidst the materialists

pebbles fascinate me more

than the diamonds...

sharing all the bugs on earth

1.25 billion in my lot

~Tejendra Sherchan

When you have a child

you wish many things

and one is to die

before they do.

It is a long race

and you start well ahead

and you lose if you’re standing

at the end.

~Noah Berlatsky

Smog Alert

pretending the orange cloud goes poof

meaning the nightmare is over

so we can go back to being ourselves

cooperative and kind

inclusive and compassionate

right now we’re trapped in a smog alert

the cloud is orange

with no end in sight

it just goes on and on

we’re choking

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

one final vote

on whether we ever

get to vote again

~Noah Berlatsky

airbrushed 

still the sharpness

of your absence

~Arvinder Kaur

super bowl

I tune in for

the halftime show

~John J. Dunphy

Afternoon of February 3, 2023

calling bell

nobody comes in

one goes away

~Bipasha Majumder

Cyborgs

without brains

smoosh.

~Noah Berlatsky

3 am -

a shriek from the top

of the wardrobe

~Juliet Wilson

hissing

from a straw blade

a praying mantis

gets eaten by one

less pious

~Christina Chin / M. R. Defibaugh

Hives

Who says the monk cilice shirt,

hair of sackcloth, penance ash,

cannot be simply fleas at work,

lashes, stripes, the welts of bites,

or even hives, bee-keeping work?

~Stephen Kingsnorth

air raid

a mum-to-be writhing

in labour pain

~Bipasha Majumder

new rank promises of war

~Roberta Beach Jacobson

picking willow twigs

from the frozen moat

(he’s no jesus)

~David Cox

hototogisu

I still don’t understand you

hototogisu

~Noah Berlatsky

Afternoon of February 21, 2023

 

my toe is still blushing from meeting your foot at the boardwalk

~Nolcha Fox

Song


I'm exile

I'm smoke

I'm long dead in the trenches

I am home

nowhere

alive in the fire

erasing words

with the bone of a crow's wing

I'm alone with a voice

of the blank page

~Alexander Etheridge

Last Change of Address

The earth knows we’ll return‒‒

our few feeble movements 

down under the flowers,

and our names repeated like a song’s chorus 

so the ones left won’t forget 

through all the winters.

Look, moon, sun, and moon and sun again,

the mist coming down 

to the cold lake and the churchyard‒‒

It’ll all be forgotten.

~Alexander Etheridge

Past Life

It’s strange how time falls into itself.

One second I’m here, the next

I’m back in middle school---

the hour is bright, my friends there

are so young.

That long dead day is risen

and my life is gone into 

its white-gold October 

moment, my only

life.

~Alexander Etheridge

She opened her mouth

and swallowed a bird.

She spit out feathers

instead of words.

~Nolcha Fox

my dad

still never says much

ouija board

~petro c.k.

the chug-chug-chug of a party bus

~petro c.k.

no fewer people

could see me

than already did

~Noah Berlatsky

 

Ocean Daybreak Sketch

Fogshifts

and a respiration of inland trees

Unanchored graves

Foot-tracks of light

opening

along the lengths of the tide

~Alexander Etheridge

Retreat


Laundry

Expands to fill

All space. All time. The house

Is worn by clothes and we flap loose

Worn down.

~Noah Berlatsky