will seagulls
lift my unwritten poems
from my grave
and smash them on my tombstone
until they break open?

 
virgin poets launch
themselves loudly and lengthily
on open stage
we old hands follow with
our small, perfect mutterings

first daffodil
a yellow-striped snake
in its shadow
 

strawberries . . .
picking a handful
snap by snap
 

cattle trails
on silver fields . . . 
autumn dawn
 

snowy beach . . . 
the long slow sweep
of a gull
 

winter kiss . . .
a pink contrail
lingering

Susan Constable is an award winning poet living with her husband on the Canadian west coast. 

grey sky
the gull’s plaintive cries
fade into a wave

Fourth Place, Sea to Sky Haiku Canada Weekend contest, May 2019

between the rain
and my soaking feet
a lily petal teeters
on a heartbeat
that could be mine

on an empty trail
not a shadow not a name
not a word
only seconds as a breeze
puffs into night

geraniums
in my front window
green leaves
between me
and minus 20

he plans
a Caribbean vacation
for all his friends, but
however would I write angst-filled
poems amidst such gaiety?

 
in Egypt
on the morning train
while chickens run
around his feet, Cook asks
if we want eggs for breakfast

I'll never forget him
no matter what else
comes my way ---
the surgeon who held my hand
'til I fell asleep

winter rain
washes away rabbit tracks
in the snow ---
I refuse to consider
you won't be here next year

for one short week
my reality the confines
of a small apartment ---
now, on the return flight home,
the sky seemingly too big
 

Aurora Antonovic is a Canadian writer, editor, and visual artist. She is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, and the editor-in-chief and founder of Magnapoets, a literary publication that seeks to promote the love of verse in all forms.

daisies folding
under their own weight
crescent moon

skipping stones...
the water's ripples
scatter the clouds

the cognac
you told me never to open
rainy day

serenity
an ant relives itself
upon my hand

watching another sunset
from bed...
fusarium wilt

the slitting
of the cat's eye—
lunar eclipse

summer afternoon...
her kids chase jackrabbits
from the yard

hilltop —
lovers squinting
into the sunset

dying embers... 
reciting Neruda 
to myself
 

the Siren sings
to me from the other shore…
midsummer dream
 

between shadows
on the moonlit snowbank
words lost
 

moonlit alley
my shadow quivers
in winter gusts
 

the moon rises
to a dog's long howl...
scent of mooncakes

Chen-ou Liu lives in Canada in 2002. His poetry has been published  worldwide. He's the recipient of 11 awards.

Our Dreams

waking from the song
Mother hummed years ago
autumn dawn

I remember the night before I emigrated to Canada. My mother was helping me to pack my luggage, and she began to tell me about the dream she had the night before.

My mother stood holding me in her arms helplessly, unable to see anything ahead of her, for she was enveloped by darkness. With the passage of time, a pain rose from her feet and gradually up to her shoulders and arms. At the moment when she reached the point of almost despair, suddenly, a spot of bright space appeared by her side. She used her last ounce of strength to put me down while I remained sound asleep. As soon as I was laid on the ground, the earth unexpectedly began to tilt. My place of rest was now a slope. While careening down, I suddenly grew up, and within few minutes was no larger than a speck of dust.

nine autumns past...
between mother and me
the Pacific

Chen-ou Liu was born in Taiwan and emigrated to Canada in 2002. He lives in a suburb of Toronto. He is a contributing writer for Rust+Moth. His poetry has been published and anthologized worldwide. And his tanka and haiku have been honored with ten awards.

I show Father
my cover poem from Ribbons ---
his eyes
gazing into space
between T.V. channels

 
autumn night...
I bait a crescent moon
with my mind
angling in silence
for her flower heart

 
the caged eagle
just those few cubic feet
of freedom...
I see in its eyes
a skyful of my dreams

moonlit pond...
a frog penetrates
itself
 

New Year's dawn
Icarus in my dream
waving his wings

Moon Festival
I turn my other cheek
to the light
 

memories...
a blizzard survives
my dream
 

winter dawn
a butterfly wakes up
in my dream

Chen-ou Liu is the author of Ripples from a Splash: A Collection of Haiku Essays with Award-Winning Haiku and Following the Moon to the Maple Land (forthcoming in July).  

Poetics of Re-homing 

where are you from?
maple leaves drifting
here and there

Where is my home? Taipei, the capital of Republic of China (aka Taiwan), with its towering glass office buildings, where I was born and raised, the place I used to complain about? Or County of Mount Dragon in Hunan province, People’s Republic of China, a small town surrounded by waterfalls, mountains, and valleys, my father's home that I've never set foot in?

Taiwan’s moon
caught in Lake Ontario . . .
geese gone south

Or is my home Ajax, Ontario, a bedroom suburb of row upon row of indistinguishable bungalows and front gardens in the richest province of Canada? Here I have a piece of property and continue to struggle with a life in transition and translation.

treading on
my white neighbor's shadow –
illegal alien

Where then is my home?

Chen-ou Liu was born in Taiwan and emigrated to Canada in 2002. He is the author of Ripples from a Splash: A Collection of Haiku Essays with Award-Winning Haiku and Following the Moon to the Maple Land (forthcoming in July).  His tanka and haiku have been honored with 14 awards. Read more of his poems on his poetry blog, Poetry in the Moment (http://chenouliu.blogspot.com/).

the dog runs
in circles chasing its tail
under a blazing sun
the shadow and I look
into each other's eyes

 
autumn twilight
I stand against the wall...
one inch lonelier
than when I first became
a poet in exile

 
three words
you murmur into my ear
fill up the hole
I've had inside my heart
since that crescent moon night

Tabla class
summer rain against
the window

not a word
since our last moonlit kiss
yet autumn...

lamplit snow
pieces of her letter
on the wind

holding
winter moonlight in my hand
length of the night

chasing the wind
on the first day of spring
dragon kite dream

Chen-ou Liu is the author of Ripples from a Splash: A Collection of Haiku Essays with Award-Winning Haiku and Following the Moon to the Maple Land (forthcoming in July). 

eating alone
I scribble a few verse lines
on a napkin . . .
a long sigh emerges
from the waitress's pale lips

once again
the silence of a blank page
fills me with dread --
a lone star blinking
on the last night of spring

late into the night
unable to sleep again
I wander
the corridors of memory
unable to find EXIT

Chen-ou Liu is the author of Ripples from a Splash: A Collection of Haiku Essays with Award-Winning Haiku and Following the Moon to the Maple Land.

upland gloom -
the darkness becomes
an elephant

swallows
sweep the leadwood tree -
silence falls

almost noon,
my son’s still asleep —
I open
the blinds
on his dreams

growing small
in the broad
prairie sky
a crow flies
into itself