Haiku by A.J. Huffman

Carousel horses
fly, frozen ghosts of spirit,
captured purity.

Umbrellas offer

protection but not solace.
Rain still makes me cry.

Sandcastle learning:

What hands toil to erect,
nature will erase.

Color by numbers.

Two tiny hands pretending
they are Picasso’s.

Crescent snags starless

sky, illuminates blanket
of smothering night.

A.J. Huffman has published seven solo chapbooks and one joint chapbook through various small presses.  Her eighth solo chapbook, Drippings from a Painted Mind, won the 2013 Two Wolves Chapbook Contest.  She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and her poetry, fiction, haiku, and photography have appeared in hundreds of national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, Bone Orchard, EgoPHobia, Kritya, and Offerta Speciale, in which her work appeared in both English and Italian translation.  She is also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press.  www.kindofahurricanepress.com

 

Haiku by Denny E. Marshall

Aliens attack
Transform the world into a
Ball of candy


Worn roadside sign says
Unlimited dreams ten bucks
All nightmares are free


Clones only action
Is to repeatedly sigh
I call him cyclone


Martian colony
Lots of work available
Except for lifeguards


Mars evolution
History long ago hid
By meteorites

Denny E. Marshall has had art and poetry published, some recently. He does have a website with previously published works. The address is www.dennymarshall.com.

Haiku by April Salzano

Bright bulb swinging on
bare, black wire.  Questioning.
Interrogation.


Messing up my own
mistake counting syllables,
writing haiku wrong.


Knick knack paddy whack.
Dog, bone, sudden elation.
Then she goes to sleep.



April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania where she lives with her husband and two sons.  Most recently, she was nominated for two Pushcart prizes and finished her first collection of poetry.  She is working on a memoir on raising a child with autism.  Her work has appeared in journals such as Convergence, Ascent Aspirations, The Camel Saloon, Centrifugal Eye, Deadsnakes, Visceral Uterus, Salome, Poetry Quarterly, Writing Tomorrow and Rattle.  The author also serves as co-editor at Kind of a Hurricane Press.

Haiku by Kelly-Cressio-Moeller

Haiku Noir

I did not want to

burn the bridge, only remove

a few of the planks

sometimes we have to

throw ourselves off the cliff in

order not to drown

lampblack raindrops fall

from the nib of my fountain

pen, a vein punctured

black widow spider

mother protecting her young

still, the hourglass drains

inhaling paint fumes

the sigh of brush on canvas

never been higher

 

 

 

Kelly Cressio-Moeller’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Boxcar Poetry Review, Crab Creek Review, Crab Orchard Review, Gargoyle, Pirene’s Fountain, Poet Lore, Rattle, Southern Humanities Review, THRUSH Poetry Journal, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and ZYZZYVA others as well as in Diane Lockward’s book, The Crafty Poet. She shares her fully-caffeinated life with her tall husband, two ever-growing sons, and their immortal basset hound in Northern California. She’s at work on her first book of poems.

Haiku by Jennine Scarboro

monument

stone angel
veiled glance cracked, still wings
impassable

Jennine Scarboro is a poet, arts writer and painter. Her writing has appeared in HAARP, Vallum, Whole Beast Rag, pacificREVIEW, Whitehot and on the KQEDArts website. When she’s not at her day job sorting slides of 80s installation-art in the CSP Archive, Jennine’s scribbling verses and making paintings in her downtown Oakland studio. www.jenninescarboro.com