We had so many great entries, it’s really challenging to narrow them down, so we’ve started by selecting a group of our favorites. We’ll choose the final winners from this group. You have not made this easy on us at all. But here are the first round selection.
You will notice that a few of them don’t meet the 5, 7, 5 rule. It turns out that many modern haiku writers don’t limit themselves. We appreciated the creativity, so we didn’t deduct for that. There are others we could also have selected, but it would have been counterproductive to choose them all!
Thanks to everyone who entered. You will all recieve an ebook copy of Haunted Futures with stories by Warren Ellis, Tricia Sullivan, John Reppion, SL Huang and more. Final round winners on Monday.
LILY
sea brings back to shore
boy bloated like closed lily
life never unfurled
by Samuel Son
Greed multiplies like
black mould along damp windows,
a utopia.
by Jennie Byrne
A HAIKU GESUNDHEIT!
Rivers run their course
Cherry blossom bears no fruit
Still singing, we die
by Max Bantleman
noncontiguous
even our vastest
star-infested oceans now
just thick wet borders
by Anita Lo
FINAL EXAM ON
MY BROTHER’S SKIN
Week before finals
“He looked like he had a gun”
Buried with cap & gown
by Erin Jamieson
IF ONLY WE COULD
CHANGE OUR COLORS
As we are, rivals.
Never will we overcome.
Sealing our ruin.
by Brandy Smith
MOTHER RUSSIA
We live in Russia
Even in America
Putin, pass the borscht
by Jeanette Quick
END OF THE BLUE SKY
Blue sky is turning
Cloudy with our ignorance
Rain will burn our eyes
by Angela McEntee
my black father didn’t
expect the taste of gunpowder
before he left home.
by Kavya Malhotra
AMERICA
Purity must grow —
Cocooned. Nurtured. Fermented.
Old Barrel, thrown out.
by Krishna Patel
IF
If I could only
Learn to not want to see things
To leave the lights off.
by Billy Malanga
AT LEAST
Ashes gently drift
Earth doomed by divers follies
But not her emails
by Michael Hope
Gerrymandering
and voter suppression made
an orange fool king.
by Mahan Ellison
I opened the window and a moth flew in
attracted by the light
and not me
by Yuki Miyoshi
THAT IS OUR TODAY
My neighbor I fear
He could be Muslim, Trans, Left
That is our today
by Dakota Hensley
PARALLAX
unforgettable
times of plenty, times of want
gratitude, regret
by Mick Ó Seasnáin
AMERICAN DREAMS
American dreams
are crushed by reality,
unforgivingly.
by Ashley Freeman
Haiku for the terrible
things in Boston, April 2013
by Anne Andersen
Sequester in place,
We may or may not be safe.
What is safety now?
Jesus, keep us safe,
Use your infrared night scope
Look under our beds.
How can a sweet boy,
I have a sweet boy myself,
do such bad things?
Is compassion wrong?
Such mixed feelings for this boy
Who did these bad things.
The hunt is over,
We found the boy in a boat.
A lost bloody boy.
How to understand,
We are all in the same boat
No one sails alone.
Use this sad time,
Show us how to reach out and
Touch those around us.
Stay my hand, our hands,
Give us the heart to forgive
In spite of our fear.
