Shorts Page Nine

More accepted shorts (spacing difficulties and possible duplications

day moon 
white on the horizon

these hands 

that caressed so many loves

rest pale in my lap



accepted by Ribbons 2018 

 



another leaf
shrivels and falls
I wonder
if he thought of me
as his heart gave out
Pris Campbell  (FL)










Moonbathing issue 15

even before                           Accepted HF
I reach the next turn —
wild lilacs

last bus   accepted HF
grilled pretzels with mustard
and I forget

blues beat                  accepted HF
the bar’s door
swings open

 

Times Square                accepted HF
he pockets
his third wallet

Moonbathing, a journal of women's tanka  is just out. 

Mine in the issue is

another leaf
shrivels and falls
i wonder
if he thought of me
when his heart gave out


Failed Haiku Jan 12019 issue below

 


Plus Mt Fuji haiga

antique spoon...
someone else’s secrets
with our morning tea

ripened plums —
the morning bluebirds 
outrace my father



Dear Pris,

Thank you for sending tanka for red lights.  I am pleased to accept your poems below for the June issue.  If you have a better footnote for your second tanka, please let me know.


All best regards,
Marilyn


imprisoned
in this silent house
stars 
once wrote love songs 
into every footstep

tethered
to my heeling* boat
the moon
forms a cradle for this night 
when seas are too rough

*leaning or tipping under the influence of wind on sails



one leaf falls              accepted Frameless Sky December 2018
then another
so suddenly
we kiss in the wild burst
of sun and oak


revisiting                       accepted sonic  Boom Dec 2018
the places I’ve lived...
sorries
come faster in reruns
and loving words easier 

 


visiting hours                  accepted Pulse oct 2018 for 2019
already the relatives
make their lists

nude hikers                          accepted HF
suddenly, a fascination
with tree roots


overgrown meadow                   Accepted HF
swarming honeybees drink
the last of summer

 


revisiting                    accepted Sonic  Boom Dec 2018
the places I’ve lived...
sorries
come faster in reruns
and loving words easier 



Haiku Pond Academy Feb daily haiku ebook from Feb 2018 entries


These were accepted


6: thunder(storm)
rolling clouds dolphins disappear mid leap


Feb 8: mother
hospital clatter...
so faint the sound
of a mother’s cry

12: sunset
sunset . . .
sprinklers pushing rainbows
across the yard


15: a safe place
curled behind
barricaded doors —
I love you texts


26: beach

moonlit tideline a clam digs in




HF shore sense of touch July 2018


black cloud-line
already the scent of rain
clears the beach

hF train /subway windows haiku call

almost home       Accepted!
her reflection checks itself
in the train window

HF sense of sound 2018. July

stolen kiss
one wave after another
slaps the shore


hFshore visual july 2018


mating season
the gator eyes me
from water’s edge


road trip ...
the turtle stops beside
a Shell station

in The Cicada's Cry 2018 Autumn Edition. 

———-

wild onions mother warned me about men like him. 

Frogpond Accepted Dec 2018

———-

bank drive-through                     accepted HF Windows 
a disembodied voice
bounces my check

hospital window                         accepted on HF windows challenge May 2018
someone’s lipstick kiss 
left on the pane

day moon                                     accepted for Ribbons 2018
white on the horizon
these hands 
that caressed so many loves
rest pale now in my lap


Submitted to earthrise HSA bird theme. Both posted

family gathering old stories shared with the leftovers.    accepted HSA anthology jan 2018

birdbath filled
with yesterday’s songs
dawn’s greeting

—-
egrets
overtake our yard —
pink surrender


Train haiku on HF website. June 2018

almost home       
her reflection checks itself
in the train window


Commended...green pencil 2018 contest

scattered sand..
baby sea turtles return
to the stars

Green tea Ito En. SECOND PLACE 2018

sunrise
the night blooming cactus
sheds its bees

 






Frogpond March 2018 submissions ready. Sent March 1 2018


sixty years ... 
his and her walkers
parked by the bed

 

 


almost dawn...      accepted cattails 2018 March
beyond the old shade tree
fractured stars




Frameless Sky  fall2014


a lily
covered in ice
first freeze
caught me unaware you
were already gone

cattails 2015

day moon... 
blue sky siphoned
from black 

sunrise... 
a line of gulls pulling
the tide behind it




sandpipers flee 
north for the summer 
i release
the lines that bind my heart
too closely to you



cattails Spring 2015

cloaked by clouds 
that morphine moon
his essence
slip-slides each night
back to Vietnam

a falling tide 
sucks at the shoreline
they speak
about war days now lost
to the tug of time.



Kernels 2015


passing storm... 
the pine tree throws
its own shower


cattails 2015 two haibun





Raging seas have surfed us faster than anticipated towards the buoy that marks the long turn into Atlantic City, New Jersey. Turn too soon and you hit shoals. We had planned our night run to arrive mid morning in order to easily see this crucial buoy. Now, still dark, the buoy sits in a sea of 'experimental buoys', lit up, too, so that it seems we are sailing into a sky of stars rather than this dark, frothing sea.
I quickly grab our hand bearing compass, get a magnetic reading on the fading glimmer of our last identified buoy then read the glow of light on the distant shore that is Atlantic City, scrambling below to chart where the two lines intersect-- our position. Time is of the essence.

Back on the pitching deck i hold the compass towards the course I've drawn between our location and our coveted buoy, pick out one faint light among the others and point.

'Are you sure?' R says.

The only thing I'm really sure of is my pounding heart but I say 'yes'.
Three hours later we drop anchor in Atlantic City harbor and sleep the day through.


casino lights
blink at the sun's belly
groaning halyards



=============





We are in the North Carolina waterway now, slowly moving south from the Chesapeake Bay, as fall appears in the tall trees alongside us. Albert and Suzanne motor-sail in front of us in the only other boat we've seen as small as ours since we left Boston. The water is calm so Albert plays his fiddle, foot guiding the tiller, hair brushing his shoulders, while I wash breakfast dishes in a bucket in our cockpit.

A huge power boat races up, then thrusts into reverse to stop beside us. The passengers rush to our side, cameras clicking, until they roar away again, leaving our boats rocking. I wonder whose photo albums we'll be in, how many viewers will later say, 'how quaint'.

a log floats
beneath the jet's contrails...
somewhere a song





Skylark Spring 2015

crows fill 
the afternoon skyline 
that storm
in your eyes when I ask
unbidden questions



thirty years past 
measured by birds' flights
kissing me
once for the good days
at my goodbye door


arrowheads 
from old battles
buried
beneath yet another mall
dead before its time


thorned roses
braided through her hair
the bloom
in her cheeks deepens
with my lover's glance

Pris Campbell
USA

 accepted cattails spring/summer 2015

gardenias
open to the red dawn
carry me back 
to white beside white,
Vietnam hovering

Pris Campbell accepted Moonbathing Spring/summer 2015
USA

Falling Sky Fall 2015


mother scissors 
him from each photo

frozen in time
I stand by the black hole
that once sucked my heart away


Skylark Feb 2016

another star.       
birthed in the north sky
such wonders 
clustered above our heads 
while we sighed over Elvis 


Hedgerow   Feb 8, 2016


a cross
sears the moonless night
my southern childhood 



sheep in the road...        
where were you last night
when I needed you?



glass slippers 
displayed in the pawn shop -
hard times




Pulse Journal in 2016

falling leaves 
the bald children laugh
at a clown


 

Tanka Time 2018 Winners

First Place
 
 
dirt-caked shoes 
still sit in the garage
we savor
the last yield of his garden
almost as a prayer
 
Pris Campbell
Lake Worth, Fl USA



——-


creaking floorboards
she returns to him
in every room





=


light on the water a sailor's tremulous chanty



night train
my dead uncle punches
tickets to my dreams


twilight...
the bluebird's last song falls
from the trees

Above three in Under the Basho 



off-shore      
stars I thought I made up
in childhood

Frogpond

 


IV drip
throughout the night
gentle rain  

Simply Haiku


just the cock's
yellow beak crowing-
barely dawn  

Simply Haiku


spring planting
a bee sings
in my mouth 

 

World Haiku Review


a seagull ... 
lifting the sun
with its wings

thunderstorm
the moth beats shadows
into the ceiling

The above two in A Hundred Gourds December 2013







 Betrayal 


 I took great care to check out a new therapist, since past therapists had initiated affairs.  In my naiveté, thinking them gods, hoping they could make gold out of my straw, I acquiesced. I share my seduction saga with this man who assures me he would never go down the road the others took.

 

When I weep over my lost husband, he edges closer. I think he plans to comfort me, but, suddenly, both breasts are in his hands, my head forced back in a kiss. 

I shove him away and rush out, leaving him next to my abandoned chair. 

our house
still empty at sunset
my unfed cat

Haibun Today 2018


mid-afternoon
I stop surf gazing
to type this haiku

Brass Bell, December 2017




the fragile line.     
where sky meets sea
misted over now
that space where we met
to share tales told to no other

shuffling through.    
forgotten photos
not until now
could I see how much
leaving must have hurt you

Hedgerow Dec 2017


Once Upon A Time

In those days before my memory began, Mother took me in her belly to the small southern school where she taught first grad. But, as summer break neared, I began to kick fiercely, stopping only when she gathered her students in a circle for story time  each day. This fascination lasted throughout a bout of croup in early infancy when she discovered that rocking, burping, patting, and walking me back and forth did nothing. In desperation she decided to tell me a story. As soon as the words "once upon a time"  left her mouth I stopped crying, and we survived the long nights in peace, until all was well again.

baby bluebird
deep in the nest...
passing storm

HSA Southern Anthology 2017


thunderclaps                
surround the house
his temper
becomes a tempest
carrying me away

Moonbathing  2017




blue moon...
Elvis dolls still swivel
at Graceland

audiologist day...
birds sing a different song
for you


seaside...
the gulls and I fight
over lunch


booming thunder...
even my stuffed pup 
howls in the night


Hitchcock reruns...
crows gather one by one
on the drive-in fence


All of the above:
Failed Haiku Spring 2017



waves pound outside      
our secret hideaway
our shadows 
merge on the sandy floor
making music only we hear

Frameless Sky Spring 2017



family gathering old stories shared with the leftovers.    

 HSA anthology 2017 


my toni doll —
that same red dress
for sixty years

Brass Bell 2017



overgrown yard —
his dog still waits
by the door
misted mirror...
the way he hides
what he feels


skimming the pond...
clouds pretending 
to be ducks


Failed Haiku
April 2017


.

old ducks out back
chase off the new ducks
I intrude
into a male profession
upsetting the pecking order

grad school break...
yet another lover
in Kansas


Above in Wild Voices Issue Two 2017



Haiku Pond Academy Feb daily haiku ebook from Feb 2018 entries


These were accepted


6: thunder(storm)
rolling clouds dolphins disappear mid leap


Feb 8: mother
hospital clatter...
so faint the sound
of a mother’s cry

12: sunset
sunset . . .
sprinklers pushing rainbows
across the yard


15: a safe place
curled behind
barricaded doors —
I love you texts


26: beach

moonlit tideline a clam digs in

———————————

Commented on HF shore sense of taste July 2018

aloha oe...
slowly steamed lau lau’s
laced with sadness


Even not knowing that the first line is the title of a song, the reader may be moved by a sense of loss here – a parting, and possibly a death – as many know that ‘aloha’ can mean hello or goodbye… after some research (including listening to the song, and learning about the native Hawaiian dish lau lau) the poem simply gets better…


HF shore sense of touch July 2018


black cloud-line
already the scent of rain
clears the beach

HF sense of sound 2018. July

stolen kiss. 
one wave after another
slaps the shore


hF shore visual July 2018


mating season
the gator eyes me
from water’s edge

 

road trip ...
the turtle stops beside
a Shell station

in The Cicada's Cry 2018 Autumn Edition. 



bank drive-through                           accepted HF Windows 
a disembodied voice
bounces my check

hospital window                       accepted on HF windows challenge May 2018
someone’s lipstick kiss 
left on the pane

day moon                                   accepted for Ribbons 2018
white on the horizon
these hands 
that caressed so many loves
rest pale now in my lap

 

 
family gathering old stories shared with the leftovers  

HSA anthology January 2018

 

 



Submitted to earthrise bird theme 2018. Both posted


birdbath filled
with yesterday’s songs
dawn’s greeting

—-
egrets
overtake our yard —
pink surrender




Commended                          green pencil 2018 contest

scattered sand...
baby sea turtles return
to the stars

 

 





Congratulation! Your haiku is selected as a March Ito-en semi-finalist.
.

mourners in black...
shadows bury shadows
among the pines

ーPris Campbell, FL




 

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