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
Mary Kendall (c) 2020
Kokako 32, 2020, a journal of the New Zealand Poetry Society
My thanks to the editors of Kokako for publishing all three poems.
Blithe Spirit, Journal of the British Haiku Society,
Volume 28 Number 4, November 2018
Three tanka were published in Blithe Spirit this past November:
Snow Landscape by Hans Braxmeier
winter woodland
bereft of birdsong
with your passing
even clear days
are shadowed
Photo by Frantisek Krejci
together so long
we seem to finish
one another’s sentences,
fluent in the pauses
of each other’s mind
Universe by Gerd Altmann
loneliness
comes and goes,
dancing around
my mind
with two left feet
cattails, October 2018 Issue
The Official Journal of the United Haiku and Tanka Society
black swan
the beauty
in difference
Credit:Bournemouth News / Rex Features
I urge all of you to read the full issue of cattails, which you can download as a pdf here: http://cattailsjournal.com/currentissue.html
Three tanka published in one my very favorite journals.
GUSTS No. 28, Contemporary Tanka
(fall/winter 2018)
pounding rains
& the peonies are lost –
how did I miss
your pallor, your reticence
that last day?
turning from pale gold
to dusky violet
our last embrace
so certain
so final
rain patter
on windows –
just when it seems
the darkness is over
it all begins again
Three senryu and one haiga appeared in Prune Juice, Journal of Senryu, Kyoka, Haibun & Haiga, Issue 25, July 2018.
wild apple–
one bite is all
it took
inertia–
a thin coat of dust
on his burial urn
cloud cover–
darkness brewing
in daddy’s words
My thanks to editor, Steve Hodge.
Cover Art: Happy Monk by Jerry Dreesen
Two tanka of mine appeared in the last issue of Ribbons, the journal of the Tanka Society of America.
Ribbons, Fall 2017: Volume 13, Number 3
still collecting dolls
into her old age
a special name for each –
and one story
she refused to tell
Tanka Café, Fall 2017: theme was “paper”
a book propped
by the pillow on my knees,
page after page
I ease into someone
else’s life
