POEMS PUBLISHED IN 2020

This part of my blog includes poems and places in which my work has been published in 2020. To make this readable, the newest poems are at the TOP of this page. In some cases there will be a link to a blog page if the poem is already on my blog. If not, then I will post the poem in this section. Your comments are always welcome. I love hearing responses from readers. It’s wonderful knowing people read my work and I enjoy learning about what a poem means to them.

(Entries are in reverse chronological order) 

Moonbathing Issue 23, Fall/Winter 2020

hot roasted nuts
heaped into a paper cone –
all that burning anger
you hold onto
so tightly

Blithe Spirit, 30.4

dream time –
chasing blossom
after blossom

Presence Issue 68, November 2020

(two haiku dream poems)

winter nights—
dreaming of blackbirds
on snow

~

sleepless nights
Chekhov’s birch trees
become our woods

 

hedgerow: a journal of small poems, issue # 132

September roses
the stone wall
hidden between us

Ribbons 16:3 (fall 2020)

 

ghosting myself
by looking away . . .
     the mirror                        
no longer a friend
I care to see

The Heron’s Nest, XXII.4, December 2020

 snow day–
a crackle of fire
in our stories

cattails: The Official Journal of the United Haiku and Tanka Society,
October 2020 issue

the chiming clock
begins to wind down . . .
five months of quarantine
yet still the roses bloom
and red birds sing

Gusts no. 32, Contemporary Tanka, Fall/Winter 2020

(three tanka)

.

lapis lazuli, delft blue
and French ultramarine . . .
the blueness of blue
in these tired veins
just won’t let go

.

pale pink petals
scattered on the desk
one by one the days
of isolation pass,
each fading to nothing

.

even the crows
are quiet now . . .
the sudden silence
that morning snow
brings

Frogpond, vol. 43:3 fall 2020

.

forgetfulness—
soft feathers drift out
of a poultry truck

Ribbons 16:2 (spring 2020)

icebergs drift and melt
and furious fires rage
will this earth dissolve
into rivulets
of decisions poorly made?

Frameless Sky, Issue 12, 2020

soft ripe plums
sitting on the sideboard ~
wouldn’t it lovely
to know you’re
so desired

 

Presence 66, Spring 2020

tiny fledglings
with wings outstretched
take that first leap—
how old were we
when doubt began

               ~

wind spilling
from copper rain bells
unbroken drought

~

impossible
to count them
fireflies

 

Presence 67, July 2020

bitter wind
the maple’s heart
still frozen

~

once so innocent
we had to make up sins
. . . first confession

~

I tried to bury
those memories
for so long…
the raw scent
of freshly plowed earth

Eucalypt: A Tanka Journal, Issue 28, 2020

in the attic I find
your small Wellies
with little frog faces—
oh, those happy puddles
when you were only three

 

               ~

 

sea glass in cerulean,
aqua and seafoam green
wash up in the morning tide,
mysteries I gently place
in this pail of dreams

Red Lights, Summer Issue 2020

 

Half-light    (a tanka sequence)    

August morning
just before the katydids
begin to sing . . .
the lake finally calm
with no ripples

milkweed seeds
scatter straight from
the cottony pod ~
such freedom to go
anywhere, everywhere

a spoon slowly stirs
cream into coffee
those quiet moments
when we lose
all sense of now

arm in arm
we walk together –
forty years & more miles
than either of us
can count

half-light—
walking in fog
where nothing is seen
but somehow we trust
it’s still all there

Moonbathing 22, Spring 2020

a faint train whistle
passing by at 3 a.m.
. . . the only normal thing
in these pandemic nights
that makes any sense

Kokako 32, 2020, a journal of the New Zealand Poetry Society

the slow hiss
and sudden pop
of a pinecone in fire—
admitting the mistake
is a first step

≈

had you lived
we’d almost be twins,
two sisters
so close in time
we nearly touched

≈ 

this urge
to turn and walk away
chokecherry

Acorn: A Journal of Contemporary Haiku, #44,  Spring 2020 issue

sleepless—
I turn and watch
the moon watch me

Hedgerow, a journal of small poems ~ #130, Winter 2020

spring…
hearing green
and only green

* 

 

we turn away
from all we just can’t face—
the glistening red
of a vulture’s head
emerges from a carcass

Prune Juice, Journal of Senryu, Kyoka, Haibun & Haiga
Issue #30, March 2020

 both parents
dead at sixty one –
imagine my surprise
the day I turned
sixty-two

Redlights, Volume 16, No. 1, January 2020

a gradual loss
of peripheral vision
leaves it all unclear
why is it that the brain
still searches for the edge
~

underlined passages
in a library book –
I idle away an hour
puzzling why a reader
chose those words

 

 

The Heron’s Nest
Volume XXII, Number 1: March 2020

snow melt
a trickle of caribou
comes to an end

 

Tanka Society of America, Member’s Anthology 2019 

sweet peas,
crab apple blossoms
and old roses—
for part of each day
I become my mother

Frogpond, Volume 43:1, Winter 2020

widowhood
day blurs into evening
into night . . .

 

Fourth Annual Jane Reichhold Memorial Haiga Competition, co-hosted by Failed Haiku and Prune Juice.

Photographic/Mixed Media Category:

Moonbathing, a Journal of Women’s Tanka, Fall/Winter 2019

it took sixty years
to find the voice I’d lost–
that day
blue dragonflies
alighted at water’s edge