Spare a thought for the red click beetle (for James Bell)

by Martha Landman

by nightfall there is stillness in the forest
of beetle-larva-beetle-larva
extend their lifecycle in a relay
lying limp in the dirt
groove along sunbeams
high-jump off their backs
their way through a rotten log
blood-red beetles click-click
winter at its edge
the pine trees are down

Fall

by Ed Hack

Late in the day the falls look like alum-
inum, sun blazing out a sheen like shields
upon an ancient field where men are numb
with bloody death, yet all refuse to yield.
Odd thought this autumn day with summer heat
as couples chat outside a coffee bar
at tables right across the way and treat
themselves to ease. The river travels far
to plunge with its low roar and glow
like metal tempered by the sun. Old folk
who're bent with Time amid the leaves that blow
and tumble in the silver light like hope
deferred as yellow shines from inside out.
This world is falling down--just look about.

Aleppo

by Laughing Waters

temperature
suddenly drops
red camelia's flowers
covering ground
fresh snow

Lines

by Carl Mayfield

two roadrunners
in the orchard--
one less peach

Reflections

by Ginny Short

Uncertainty riding west
The sky clear
The ridge         the south side of lightning
Find and gather self    before noon

Red earth rocks branding the intersection
Of sun, sky and earth  Time moves slowly
Forgotten

Long wet trails up Wolf Creek Canyon
An eternity      Urging the distance

Mask of Rain

by Tim Staley

There is a mask of rain
over the canyon
and over the sun.

Scarlet light
sprays from the eyes
and teeth.

The liquid tongue
laps up the canyon
and the sun.

Arrival & Ascent of Autumn Immigrants

by Terrence Sykes

I am an immigrant
I am not from here
I don't own this piece of land
This small piece of Quartz
Grasped from the sandy soil
Taken in my hand
From beneath this canopy of
These PawPaw trees
These were not here
When I discovered & claimed
This as my own solitude
This enclaved fifty acres or more
Have kept my sanity from urban chaos
Who or What brought the first seed for
This clonal gathering must be content
A late frost prevented progenies
That pungent aroma of fallen ripened
Fruit upon the forest floor

Those silent shiso plants
Seeding again to scatter ascendants
Remind me of the Korean women who
Were at odds with me when gathering
Wild greens that grew
Upon the banks of this creek
Bitter greens of their own where rooted
Flourished in the swamp
Waxed then waned
Like a lunar eclipse
Their departure
Before the arrival of this shiso
Reluctantly then revealing
Established itself amongst
Others unlike themselves

These touch-me-nots
They too were not here when I came
Gems of orange fleck with gold
Emigrate me home
Remembrance of my hometown
Memories of my grandmother
I always think of her
A rose herself
Her garden of
Irises
Hydrangeas

Amongst flora & fauna
Here I have seen women
From all over the world
From where and when
In their native garments
Colorful & brilliant
As autumnal flowers
Today I walk alone
Along these paths
Who will  scatter the next seed
I am not from here
I am an immigrant

November in Rattlesnake Valley

by Jesse Bier

Cold fog is thick but mobile, streaming long coils
in draws, raveling gulches, strangling clumps
of young dim fir trees: moils
the air, heaves and slumps
over unseen ground, boils
spooky comfort, wallows ravines, clamps
bare corn fields, thins to mist, congeals,
smothering home and hill, with no reason spares a camp.
Where it goes is hap and hazard. Hit or miss,
this is no longer fall but winter’s start,
the drear of it, and almost the hiss
where it moves of slithercloud, gripping hearth and heart,
only easing, letting swiftly and helplessly go,
under the instant scatter magic—of first snow.

Walking Stick

by Bob Petras

This thing called walking stick
drawn by four-year-old God
shimmies on a blade of grass
phasmid of all limbs
on Ohio island shore.

Late Summer Song

by Lori Gravley

Underneath the electric hum and traffic noise
a smaller sound. You have to strain
to hear it, the way you must
squint to see the shadow
of a water strider traveling across the river
or the antenna of crayfish waving into current.
Say it’s a whir, but whir is fan, cool air
and the air here stifles.  A buzz, maybe?
Struggle to find the word that calls sound
to your ear. Not the sound of cicadas
dropping heavy through leaves
but the soft sound that laps
at your feet in small waves:
cricket, woods, late summer.

Lines

by James Babbs

summer day
crows fight over spilled popcorn
convenient store parking lot

Lines

by Nancy Scott McBride

brush fire on the mountain
sunset lasts until dawn-
hot dry autumn

Foot Prints

Stefanie Bennett

Bringing the outside in;
The crimson
Rosella.

Summit

by Chris Butler

Toes over the summit
of mount never rest,
the unadvised advise
to plummet.

Labor Day

by Al Ortolani

At summer’s

end, the humming-

bird appears

like an after-

thought, a (  )

between worlds,

a bit of earth

and spirit combined,

small bird

bound by gravity,

hollow bone and

feather, as much

weightless as

hope itself. Wings,

transparent in

flight, race

a scuff heavier

than sunlight.

Carousing

by M.J. Iuppa

Around & around, throaty
trills & secret pleasures, finding
an entrance to a mulberry’s
cache of berries, boasting
its bottomless lure that
most goldfinches
can’t resist.

Lines

by Terrence Sykes

goldfinch sings softly
amongst leaning sunflowers
harvest ecru seeds

On Myrtle Beach

by Robert Gillette

ocean breeze
can't overwhelm
the smell of coconut oil

Lines

by Marilyn Ward

sheltered from the wind
in granite fissures
coltsfoot

Parched Fields

by Suzanne Cottrell

Stunted, spindly corn stocks
Of the Berry's Farm
On Old Whitewater Road
Browned, brittle husks
Underdeveloped kernels
Lost crop except for silage

Bad-Ass

by E. Margareta Griffith

Yeah, okay, I'm in an air-conditioned box,
hurtling down a smooth road,
with hundreds of my kind,
toward a paved hole in the hills.

Red stones touch blue sky,
reaching from sunrise-gray rocks molded by wind and dynamite,
by no means an eternal flame, but close enough to fool my ephemeral kind.

The minerals will be there when our children are no longer our species.
The wind will tend the landscape when the highway is nothing more than travel-crumbs.
Water will smooth and crack the rocks without us to guide rivers or acidify rain.

Stones treat us gently, despite our violent adjustments,
to them we're mere newborns.
their bad-ass old age shows us up to be frail amateurs.

Our tantrums may spell the end of our toddlerhood,
or not.
The benevolent stones are unworried.

Badlands

by Eric Lohman

Pinnacle
Butte
Spire

Ochre
Coal
Fire

Silt
Clay
Stone

Whisper their witness

Dryness acrostic middle

by Clinton Siegle

I am the dry years turned to beauty
dried plants turned ashes of grass and trees to desert beauty
rain not forthcoming waterlessness area's deserted beauty
yearly no rains creating the areas to beauty
non open clouds draining plant's beauty
ever forever a parched beauty
season of a dryness beauty
season of whether desert beauty.
Never changing beauty.

Blue Heron

by Steven K. Smith

A great blue heron is more gray than blue.
As it stands shadowed by trees lining the bank
hunting frogs and minnows while
balanced on one leg, crouched, waiting,
anyone can see that blue is wrong.

Unless you see one in full sunlight
near noon, when the sun's vertical rays
pierce the gap in the tree canopy at full power,
and it takes off in your face as you
leave the forest near the stream's bank.

Then it's a deep shade of blue, somewhere
between cobalt and steel,
as wings climb air's stairway
up from the water's spruce
to the sky's chicory.

Nature Spills into Vandals

by Clifford Brooks

One chameleon takes tentative steps
from a potted plant.  Hummingbirds glint
like blades.

Opossums adore trash. Last night they
squalled and hissed over apple cores.  A bear arrived.
The bandits avoided each other.

In the early hours,
mountains pour out bearded vandals.  Before work begins,
they regroup and vanish.

A Dry Country

by David Chorlton

The vultures claim their portion of the sky
each day, and surrender it
with grace when the pines on the mountain
draw light through their roots
and a glow
spreads from inside.
You can see them from the porch
of an old house, built before convenience
when the miners arrived thirsty
and left without finding
what they came for. The roads
they used have outlived them,
still winding up and around
to where a shaft begins
its descent into darkness, still turning
to the dust a truck kicks out
on a day when the light is so dry
you can peel it away from the suede
colored slopes and watch
Whitetail Canyon erode.

Rain Dance

by Wayne Scheer

they do rain dances
but  have no rhythm

they sing songs
but chant off key

I offer what they need
so the rivers flow

still, they dance and sing
wanting more or less

Afternoon with Closed Windows

by Olga Moskvina

Today the house burned down with me in it.
The smoke smelled like incense or something
far away, and I went back to sleep,
though it was afternoon and avocados
were rotting idly on the counter,
while fans turned like skeletal sunflowers
toward bottles of warm beer.

Were those the objects I was secretly waiting for,
trying to close suitcase after suitcase
to protect myself from them? The past tense
with avocados comes naturally,
and I no longer need to open windows
that are no longer there.

Virago on the Ocean

by Clifford Brooks

A virago enjoys smooth indigo.
To contain her knack
to knee-jerk push back,
she wears heavy boots.

Not unhealthy or unwise,
she is seasoned.
Four unquestionable words
cement the good news
she’s signed with the crew:
I believe in you.

There’s good business
in smart romance.
Sailing without an argumentative tide,
Costa Rica ripples off
the starboard side; two twisting in love,
now listing
toward mankind.

They get close enough
to smell the sand, then
muscle beyond it
to a valley that splays open
an orchard of olive,
fig, and apple trees.

It’s too soon for tourists,
shrieking children,
and souvenirs.  Tomorrow
will be all about sneaking out
for skinny dipping.

the faithful almanack

by Richard Thompson
                     
old laws
did not obtain:
that year
frost came
before the snow—
the fragile blossoms
with no frozen blankets
froze.

the sky
betrayed us:
rain burned
the leaves
black
as the looming sun

Morning Mist

by Ed Hack

The sun burns off the mist--no mystery,
but still. . .I wake up into morning mist;
the sun is softly radiant in trees
enmeshed in glowing gems, the dawn's last gift
before the clarity of day. Each gain
means loss, the basic mathematics of
our lives. You see. It leaves. The light explains
the rules. The worlds below, the worlds above,
the worlds inside, delirious with need,
arise like dawn, mature through afternoons,
demand the rest of night where dream exceeds
the reach of thought to ply the deep mind's loom.
Like mist our dreams with their peculiar skills
burned off by day. No mystery, but still.

Succession

by Laurinda Lind

Two hours south, it is not as dry and the grass
in the median of the interstate is actually green
or something like it. It is the same in the overflow
parking lot next to the funeral home, chlorophyll
coming through and even water scattering from
the sky and across the windshield. But behind
the back walk between the lot and the building,
the Little Salmon River has turned into a mud
meander with a pond at one end where every
thing alive in there must have come to coexist
in the same way we who just parked are about
to be alive together in a room with a dead cousin.

Drink the Ramen

by David Lohrey

It rains every day but there is no water.

In Chitose-Funabashi, the puddles are fine and the river runs wide,
But showers are on timers.

Take the wrappers off the bottles, keep the lettuce in the larder,
The neighbors eye our bin.

This summer, lightning strikes harder but the rains lose heart.

Locals don’t taste the noodles, the flavor’s in the broth.

It rains every day but there is no water.

Slater (Woodlouse)

by Alice Tarbuck

Behind the small white house
An elephant
Crests the alps.

Invasive Species Part 6

by Carla Schwartz

Trim the fire bushes, before they bloom,
before they flame.

Mourning rose

by Mercedes Webb-Pullman                    

Her letter said 'Your yellow rose
covered the end of the shed
and climbed up onto the roof.

The dark red scented one near the drive
ran down the fence to the street.
Best rose season in years.”

All through the drought I'd kept them alive,
rationed water carefully, caught shower waste
and turned my skin to petals.

When I left, the rain started.

It hasn't stopped yet.

Salty Wounds

by Chris Butler

Pour the rain upon me,
cook the dragon in the spoon.
Pour the brown into the shot glass,
and don’t wake me before noon.

The salty water around me
seeps into the wounds,
penetrating my nerve endings,
but don’t wake me before you.

I’m swimming
with the great whites,
I’m swinging
within the a rope tire,
I’m flipping
on a shore of carbon dioxide.

Pour it all upon me,
the world and its monsoons,
let me drown above ground
when the levees break through
walls built to fail.

Succession

by Laurinda Lind

Two hours south, it is not as dry and the grass
in the median of the interstate is actually green
or something like it. It is the same in the overflow
parking lot next to the funeral home, chlorophyll
coming through and even water scattering from
the sky and across the windshield. But behind
the back walk between the lot and the building,
the Little Salmon River has turned into a mud
meander with a pond at one end where every
thing alive in there must have come to coexist
in the same way we who just parked are about
to be alive together in a room with a dead cousin.

Doppler Farms

by Todd Mercer

They dance to make rain, seed clouds with silver iodide. They pray
over cracks in the field, summon up a freelance climatologist,
but saturated air won’t condense to drops to save the crops. The loan looms
like a scythe overhanging the end of October. They skirt the sharp edge of it,
kick up dust that was topsoil. Before. Water—they pack it by buckets
from the well-head to mist the crop rows. The brute labor,
his and hers, passes days quickly, but the drought holds on.
The green-screened TV rain-man lacks answers. He’s primed
to evaporate, dissolve into the atmosphere, where farmers
can’t find him. Like them he’s losing precious sweat
at the mercy of the Fates, the Guy Upstairs,
and the Southern Oscillation.

Curve Wind

by Joe Hess

The devil’s latest commitment
to global warning is a strange ocean
concoction with a cocktail

umbrella the size of Texas
growing in the Pacific. It’s been
pretty impolite to suggest the devil

is anything but a sweet and sexy
taboo artist, ever since
Rita Hayworth first suggested

in the forties to: “Put the Blame
on Mame,” as she peeled one
white, satin glove down her arm.

Now mother nature pays
for our seductive game of chicken
with the Mr. Big—in blood

as his final event horizon creeps
like a curving zephyr
through our half-tapped

wilderness, touched irrevocably,
profanely naked, and all
the sacred veils are falling away.

Harsh Realities

by Patricia Tyrer

Predators lazily waiting atop the bluff, patiently alert to harsh realities
hanging over unseen life too small to notice and of no use to coyotes.
Ragged brush covering narrow paths amidst the rocks,
righteous in its authority to squeeze out the slighter undergrowth.

Cowering mesquite waiting for the un-initiated vulnerable to its razor-like spurs.
Secretive flora and fauna ready to entangle the unwary.
Sudden bursts from ragged skies swallow lesser creatures foolishly sunning in the dusty burn. The creek a red running miasma giving, taking.

Sun slipping off the western sky leaving its reddened breath
Shadows barely dimming the high plains
still saturated with dense heat.
Insects rush against the evening skies.

On One More Drought Day

by John Grey

Wind whispers why the rain won't come
to brown wheat,
to bony cattle,
to falling fence posts.

In the sweltering bar,
beer, underwear crackle,
random hugs eschew the feral hormone smell.

Beneath the rickety bridge,
old shoes ride brown current
to the death.

Weatherman flutters about
on a storefront television,
paints the screen a torrid red.

Wind whistles through
the silence of the cop
steering his car in circles.
July thickens his brow
with gluey sweat.

On melting sidewalks,
by dried up marshlands
and burnt-out gardens,
old men, heads buried in each other's,
whisper the past into better shape
than the searing present.

Daybreak, Drought

by Joe Cottonwood

Sun rises in a dry sky,
we walk a dirt road,
the dog and I.
Rounding a bend
little Mickey halts,
one paw lifted.

Three deer—a buck, a doe, a fawn—
senses ablaze with the twitch of ear,
quiver of nose, blink of eye
take our measure.

The buck has a handsome rack
but I can see ribs, count the bones.
I once saw a doe maul an Aussie shepherd, cracking
the skull with her forelegs to protect a fawn.
Mickey with uncommon good judgment
stays frozen by my ankle.

A moment, mild,
of silent negotiation,
the domestic and the wild.
With such hunger the fawn, at least,
might eat from my hand
before the buck spears me.

The doe breaks first, up a hillside so vertical
her hooves can’t hold. She slides back,
then on a switchback leaps again
followed quickly by the fawn
as the buck remains, impassive and supreme,
gentleman and protector,
what you wish in your own father, frankly,
and then he follows with that head-bobbing walk
balancing antlers into the parched brush
holding our gaze until vanished.

Last Night's Storm

by Ed Hack

Day dawns with mist and meadow soaked with rain
and sun across a swath of grass as crows
are barking loudly through the air. The train
is rumbling, speeding by, its horn a low,
long, mournful note that ribbons out like smoke.
A rabbit hops into the brush away
from hunger's eyes that circle in the cloak
of distances of sky, weak blue, not gray
that shattered into rain's strange mystery,
exploding air and what the crazed world flings,
hysteria of fire broken free,
the world seen by the flash of angels' wings.
There're diamonds glinting in the grass from last
night's storm, perfected by its lightning blasts.

Crane

by Laughing Waters

This haiku it is very dear to my heart story. My father always wanted a boy but I came to this world and when my sister was born they find out that they can't have no more children so he become very close to me because I was a wild one in the family, tree climbing, bugs, mud rides, risque homeless animals and I was bringing in the house anything I could find.

autumn sky
absorbing
last scream
of the crane

Once late September he took me fishing on the lake and it was early winter, cold nights and short days. Birds was gathering and they was ready to fly South for winter. Cranes love that lake and one of them get hurt, his wing was injured so he couldn't fly so that early morning they took off and he was left behind he was calling for them and they would answer, but far they fly he would scream louder and louder but they keep on going south. And if you ever hear crane screaming you will never forget that I promise you, this sound so desperate it will chill your blood and make your heart skip the beat. I will never forget that scream. 

autumn sky
absorbing
last scream
of the crane

Years later I was visiting Big Easy aka New Orleans me and girl friends was walking late right before sunrise and it was time when finally everyone went to sleep. Trash was everywhere and wind was blowing it around few love couples and it was so quiet and to our surprise we heard scream "Amanda, Amanda please come back to me" it was a man very well dressed and he was standing on the balcony, holding champagne bottle and he was keep on calling her. For some reason I remembered my favorite series Frazier. And main character was Dr. Frazier Crane. He has everything in his life, money, fame but no love. So all this create this haiku. Birds and humans we alike we love and we want to be loved. 

autumn sky
absorbing
last scream
of the crane

As for bird me and my daddy catch him with my daddy's jacket he was doctored and released back to the wilderness in the Spring.  

Rain Comes in the Fourth Year

by Laura Hogan

Drought-flamed leaves wake
in bewilderment under
the unfamiliar caress of
liquid mercy,
a strange drenching of hope.

Sugar maple fingers drip
myrrh, precious dew
persimmons gather courage,
gasping pepper trees and
wasting cottontails revive.

Roots remember
Elijah casting prayer
over the sea long ago;
changed hearts
watered the dust of Carmel.

Every living thing
drinks, colors deepen,
darken with wet blessing.
The collective breath draws damp,
sighs relief.

At last you have turned your face
to us, wreathed in cloud.
Your gentle rain
quiet as the prayer
of our very cells.

And the towhees and larks,
darting acrobats
in air washed
clean
of the dry multitude of regrets,
pierce the sky with
reaching cascades of joy.

Landing A Steelhead

by Lee Seese

Thigh-deep in the Queets in wool and waders on St. Patrick's Day,
I stand below a tailout, the water dark and still as Jacob's dream.
In drizzled dawn, drawled and drawn, the ceiling low,
I am sodden, stiff, half-asleep even after coffee. And yet,
my appetite is keened for the electric instant when the trout’s life
courses through my fingertips. I watch the bobber drift the surface,
walking speed. Fifteen feet below, a roe sack bumps along the bed.

Now it strikes! The jagged current courses down the line.
I give a flick to set the hook. Long before the sixteen pounds of
fight has left the fish, before the photo shot with mossy backdrop
highlights iridescent silver shining from its flank, I feel the spooling out,
the conscience-bothered sense, that it is wrong for only one of us
to end this day at home.

Lines

by Martha Magenta

missing
from May
cuckoo's song

Lines

by Ali Znaidi

desert sun…
even scorpions
chase the mirage

Lines

by Carl Mayfield

dead sycamore tree
   glistening
      in the rain