LOST AT SEA

Looking at the maps on your body, I knew I had found a far away land, a Shangri-La.  I did not want to know your home port’s name, only that I wanted to bring you back and never return.  You did not believe in the calm seas of your skin.  You were at home in the mountains of the desert, rough, harsh and sometimes devoid of life.  It is who you are, you said, as I hung up the phone. 

months at sea –
different time zones
and tears

Mike Montreuil lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He spends his spare time people watching at his local Timmies, while waiting for hockey season to begin.

wishbones–
my retirement plan
in a jar

scrawled
on the oceans edge
his confession

outpatients …
my appointed time
has long passed

where the lake was …
an osprey
circling

needlepoint–
flipping sides
as they quarrel

hands caressing
a new book…
eyes, too

sunrise tai chi
the pops and clicks
of a warming house

at the clinic
I know everyone
in the waiting room . . .
growing old together
we now share diagnoses

a pile
of detective stories
by my chair
as if solving murders
can help me deal with death

calligraphy
for the coming year
now thin strokes
now thick strokes
foretelling the months to come

 
Hokusai's wave
awaited the Prussian
blue dye
occasionally it's good
to let a stranger in

screaming in silence full moon

reinventing the sound of sky starlings

hung in a Jesus Christ pose scarecrow

frozen butterfly . . .
i too know the touch
of winter 


deep within —
the melody of a 
fallen tree

lending
a coyote its voice —
river of mist

cupped hands—
i drink the rhythm
of rain

Chrysanthemum Issue 20

lullaby...
curling up in the sound
of rain

Chrysanthemum Issue 24

swallowed by a river of ice ageing

fearing the space I can’t maintain my breath

lights on all over the house fly

a river bends my thoughts in the woods

pausing a moment in traffic traffic

a shadow drifts into the dead headlight rabbit

the facts I alternate between satellites

spring dreams...
last year’s butterflies
sewn into her eyelids

ants tend
to the hole in the hill
with more ants!

she finds the light switch off my enemies

a distant galaxy...
I gather my yardstick
and will to work late

shrinking space
the elevator drops
my call

Dejan Pavlinović, Croatia
Michael Dudley, Canada
Tomislav Maretić, Croatia

*each haiku is written collaboratively by the three authors

raindrops
wet a writing stone —
tales twice told

missing her
the surface tension
of water

winter rain falls,
taking shelter under dark firs
an alpaca pair
flanks touching for warmth
consolation for me too

 
first picnic outdoors
at our feet clustered crocus
open to the sun,
drunken bees revelling
in their golden pollen

winter twilight ---
is what I see real or
a figment of desire
crimson aura around
the plum tree next door

 
spring has passed
while I listened so intently
to the song sparrows
I could almost score
their compositions

transience . . .
petal by petal
we let go

Winning Haiku, Canada - 2017 VCBF Haiku Invitational

soft rain
the lily and I with stars
in our throats

homeless
wet leaves seal the holes
in his boots

out-breath . . .
a sheet of glass falls
from my paddle

rush hour
the quiet helicopters
of maple seeds

rolling thunder
kiss-curls at the base
of your neck

office windows
the mountains will wait
for me

the blue eyes
of African daisies
how I miss you

pond ice
the things we lost
last summer

early thaw
the morning chimes
of waxwings

hoodoo spires . . .
a buck's antlers tinged
with sunset

shell fragments
the chirps of otters
in the dark