haibun
untitled
Untitled
Bruno Coelho
The Night of San Lorenzo
Johannes S. H. Bjerg
CONCENTRICITY
The brain sways like a bob suspended on a nylon string between two worlds. Delirium. Anti-pyretics, anti-histamines and anti-biotics conjure up an obnoxious after-taste on the salivary glands. Vision of everything around spins like a reel of 70mm cinema strip. Senses drift into the alpha level of cognizance. Passing thoughts pour in at tandem. Lines demarking the real from the virtual start blurring. Surreal obscurity fills in. Fragile emotions come to surface, old regrets raise their vile heads.
Supposed to be a special rain drop that would fall upon a prism and splash out into a myriad of brilliant hues, here I am, getting carried away on a stray strand of destiny into sheer nothingness. The slide show of randomness continues till I wake up soaked in perspiration.
paradigm the fraying borders of an inkblot
Yesha Shah
I and I
Everyday it’s the same. The strictness I force, the culture I despise and the gamblers I don’t care about.
the poet
impersonating
a pit boss
– Gabriel Patterson
Ground Coffee and Matins – demonstration pieces
These two haibun are meant as demonstration pieces of different ways the haiku can interact with the prose:
Ground Coffee
Almost no wind. 3900 light years If it wasn’t for the tiny un-rhythmic movement in the thinnest branches of the tall trees no one would blame you for thinking that the air had fallen asleep. The heat is like a bell or a heavy carpet weighing everything down. The swallows from the Big Dog having nests under the gutters come and leave, come and leave to feed their chicks. Quite understandable. The heat is probably different to them and they have a lot of growing to do before they head off to Africa later this year.
I greet the woman downstairs sitting in the shade smoking. We agree that this kind of heat is ground coffee intolerable and I go back into my apartment for yet another shower.
…
Matins – or: The Origin of Rain
matins
The world rises into view and form through the morning fog. That’s (apparently) the ritual; how days (or just the same day repeated) are stacked one on top the other until they reach … what? He looks at the musical sheets he filled with notes and notes on how to play them the night before, she sits at her table making noises with the pen against paper in her usual rage. She’s fighting for many. He’s fighting on his own and coughs up a little blood. This damned fog.
ora pro nobis
Where the monk kept his memento mori skull a wobbly tower of his and her scribbles threatens to fall over. A hooded shadow walks through the room and through him. He’s sure she doesn’t see it. It’s for him. Outside the orange and almond trees have taken shape but it’s not the season for blooms or fruit. Everything is held back as a possibility.
should do it
Then his piano starts raining.
– The Editor/Johannes S. H. Bjerg
ILLUMINATIONS I — IV
Aristarchus, by standing in Alexandria,
Revolved around the Sun;
Whereas another in Alexandria, Ptolemy,
Stood at the Universe’s Center;
And both were right.
The Pharos Lighthouse
paned with mirrors
of the Sea
——Joseph Salvatore Aversano
Nothing
Please don’t read beyond the title. This is not a poem, nor is it a haibun, short story, or flash.
It has no beginning, middle or end. No development of any sort. It is here as a no thing, and by reading it you gain nothing. Unless you make it into something.
petals or thorns
a scratch on the surface
of infinity
-Stella Pierides
8 Foot
Sweat drips in my eyes. In rainbows I see the arch of a jump shot but I wait. Patient. I didn’t come to win but to kick the kid’s ass. Faking the shot he expects I drive hard to the basket.
summer solstice
I slam dunk on
an 8 foot rim
– Dave Read
the other bunny 