The Summer 2019 Showcase appearing at the zen space means that we have had more than thirty issues of this e-zine. And we are still attracting new names amongst the regulars. This is something I want to see continuing – it makes this into a live and lively venture – so please do feel free to draw the zen space to the attention of anyone you know who writes in short bursts.
I have decided to hold all the haiga over until the next issue. I am seriously thinking of making the Autumn 2019 Showcase a haiga-only issue. These days it’s an easy option, marrying up a photograph or an image found on the web with some text, which can be added by a simple annotation routine in most image-editing software that comes as standard with computers. So I would like you to be inventive, see if you can do something different. Make no mistake, though, I’ll accept haiga done ‘the easy way’, if it is good on the eye and the inward ear.
But wouldn’t it be lovely if someone found that different way of doing things – maybe actually do a drawing and calligraphy with a brush, and then scanning it? – and if you’re a poet you’re entirely free to team up with an artist, and vice versa, to produce a joint effort.
For this time, however, à propos of nothing, I have found some images of lookalikes, Doppelgänger, and twins, which I shall sprinkle liberally though the Showcase. Enjoy.
Marie Marshall
editor
the zen space
__________
Pawel Markiewicz
.
seven hundred miles
from home but a dreamy stork
our rumination
.
silence of morning
a flock of storks sitting
on beloved camping
.
dew and dawn-miracle
one stork having sitten down
eating the dog’s food
.
a herd of storks
Japanese she-tourist
watching them dreaming
.
woman from Japan
on campsite she is drawing
two storks above her
.
miracle of morning
my dog looking at the storks
marvelous dreams-friends
__________
Richard Stevenson
.
old Kano
trumped Abomey
with a wall
the cookie
didn’t crumble
.
Maiduguri sprawl
the taxi’s horn
a tittering bird!
.
White Egret
patient, still
spears a passing fish
.
fillet mignon
(with viscera attached)
or goat meat to go?
the vendor flays
his meat of flies
.
Night Train Express wine
tastes like cough syrup
but it works
.
no kids
the juju man assumes
I can’t get it up
__________
Richard Witherspoon
.
closing and storing
water beginning to freeze
silence and stillness
.
pointing at the moon
fingertip’s not important
neither – the moon
.
another frog, a man
sits, an age-old outhouse – no
plopping frog, today
.
time to say goodbye
in the shadow of spring leaves
water from the heart
__________
Robert Sorrels
.
spilling out
her long black hair
in work boots
earth dark mystery
her ink
from the charcoal
of ancient betrayal
burning blood moon shadows
her voice
the midnight light
determined
into the borderland of boundaries
ragged pink
cheating what darkness
claimed
__________
Brett Brady
.
night mist
skeleton flowers
evaporate
i
zephyr
the bird a leaf……
…?.. we stare
__________
Chen-ou Liu
.
a loon’s call
my thoughts of home
take flight
.
the sound
of summer clouds
childhood river
.
slant of sunlight
the smell of cedarwood
and old books
.
motel night
the scent of her lingerie
in my dream
.
summer breeze
no fake or real news
from the White House
.
casino entrance
the Laughing Buddha
robed in gold
.
alone
but not alone …
me and my drunk shadow
_________
Sondra Byrnes
.
lavender fields
the distance a mind
can wander
:
the gravel path
never speaks for itself—
evening shadows
:
daydreams
the far off mountains
glazed in blue
:
a yelping dog
deepens the heat
summer night
:
casablanca lilies
a fragrance that calculates
loneliness
:
summer storm
church bells remixed
by the wind
__________
Bruce England
:
In almost terror
I woke, her limbs
wrapped around me
:
Before the storm
the rear of an unknown bird
flew away
:
Buzzing bush
on the trail, closer, louder
no visible source
:
Little nothings
spoons spin funnels
in cups of cocoa and tea
in my mind I would like
to see them rise up out of cups
into splashy-walks through cafés
:
First separation
first arrival in this world
wet, cold, shivering
I cried, wanting warm again
not yet fearing any shape
__________
Kari Davidson
:
still water–
a leaf drifts down to meet
itself
:
midnight cruise
the distant lighthouse
is moving
:
tiny bird
trying to be
sky
:
first children,
then parents
catching snowflakes
:
wind in the trees
God is the wind in the trees
and nothing else
God is the wind in the trees
and everything else
I feel the wind
and I am no more than a leaf
I feel the wind
and I am a thousand forests
God is nothing else
and I am the wind in the trees
God is everything else
and I am no more than a leaf
__________
Contemporary Haibun Online is due out on 2nd July! Pay them a visit, and be sure to mention to the CHO team where you heard about them.
__________
The next Showcase at the zen space will be Autumn 2019 which will be released, subject to karma, on 1st October 2019.
Please note that the copyright of all written work and images used in this Showcase and elsewhere in the zen space is held by the creating author/artist, even when not explicitly stated, and may not be used elsewhere without permission.
[Any advertisements etc. below this line are not the responsibility of the editor of the zen space, and should not be considered to have been endorsed by the zen space or by the editor personally.]
__________
the zen space 