Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Family Haiku

Welcome to the November 2016 issue of brass bell: a haiku journal.

This month's theme is: Family.

Contributors are from: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Ecuador, England, Ghana, India, Ireland, Nigeria, Philippines, Poland, Singapore, Turkey, the U.K., and the United States


banana moon
my son asks me
the way to it
    - Adjei Agyei-Baah

like father before
sitting outside
fogbathing
    - Alan Bern

praying mantis
resting on the cake —
family raise an argument
    - Amauri Solon

thanksgiving picnic a family of fire ants joins us
    - Angelee Deodhar

lying side by side
soft intake of breath, then out —
i could strangle him*
    - Barbara Mink

warning signs
hidden in plain sight
grandpa's keys
    - Barbara Tate

hot air
dad tells his stories
again
    - Barbara Tate

Father's Day
my daughter confirms
my Facebook friend request
    - Billy Antonio

sibling rivalry
my brother takes a selfie
with the latest iPhone
    - Billy Antonio

four generations living
the youngest nine days old
the eldest ninety-one
    - Bre

daughter stops
to help a snail
cross the road
    - Caroline Skanne

grandmother
on her old red bike
with the comfortable seat
    - Caroline Skanne

dreamcatcher . . .
with both hands my baby grasps
the spring sunlight
    - Chen-ou Liu

one year gone
on her side of the bed
winter moonlight
    - Chen-ou Liu

sit down christina
the only thing my grandmother
can say in english
    - Christina Martin

always first
my brother running off the pier
life jacket
    - Christina Martin

dad's frail shoulders
that once carried me
arctic mountain
    - Christina Sng

sunday best
mother's sharp perfume
stings my nostrils
    - Christina Sng

Aqua Velva . . .
watching dad shave
in the mornings
    - Claire Vogel Camargo

she takes his hand
picking eggs
with grandma
    - Dan Schwerin

my tiny nephew
already fluent
in dinosaur
     David J Kelly

grandma's chocolates
locked in her drawer
now expired
    - Debbi Antebi

second servings
I criticize my mom
for criticizing me
    - Debbi Antebi

we hover around our mother hummingbirds
    - Debbie Strange

tangled fish line
my sons tug
their grandfather
    - Deborah P Kolodji

Canada geese
my mother doesn't renew
her driver's license
    - Deborah P Kolodji

ivory smile
with one gold tooth
nine grandchildren
    - Dottie Piet

bitter cold
my late brother's scent
in his own bedroom
    - Emmanuel Jessie Kalusian

both of them with white hair
mother and son —
which is old, which is young?
    - Frank Robinson

leaving school
hiding from chaos theory
our younger son
    - Goran Gatalica

throwing down the lettuce
Big Sister calls me
slug girl!
    - Helen Buckingham

the cousins i never hear from black ice
    - Jennifer Hambrick

golden leaves
the pocket watch
of the grandfather I never met
    - Jennifer Hambrick

trembling lilacs
this Mother's Day —
the weight of bees
    - Jo Balistreri

snow
softly ends
dad's slowing breath
    - Jo Balistreri

rain
on the window
mother's tears
    - Joanna M. Weston

my son plays
the violin —
screech owls
    - Joanna M. Weston

fashion twist
I share hair elastics
with my son
    -kjmunro

she taught me
to draw birds
my little daughter
    - Kath Abela Wilson

once a day
he makes me laugh hard
our wedding vows
    - Kath Abela Wilson

early morning sun
reveals in motel mirror
my grandmother's face
    - Katya Sabaroff Taylor

I call mom
my brother gets the credit
dementia
    - Lance Robertson

hairy caterpillar
crawling in milkweed dew
father's mustache
    - Laughing waters

her mother's pearls
around my daughter's neck
lie warm
    - Madhuri Pillai

the jungle book —
my grandson removes his clothes
in the cinema
    - Marta Chocilowska

thin ice —
her comment about her
mother-in-law
    - Martha Magenta

waning gibbous
grandmother smaller than
she used to be
    - Martha Magenta

almost 10
thinking about death
daddy buried in his cowboy boots
    - Marty Blue Waters

my older sister and I
dance a hobbled two-step —
the bar crowd cheers
    - Marty Blue Waters

reading aloud
the scent of her head
so close to me
    - Mary Hohlman

moon flowers —
my son shows me
how they unfurl
    - Mary Kendall

losing my mother
is somehow more difficult
than finding her was
    - Mimi Foyle

picture postcards
my father's greetings
on the fridge
    - Nina Kovacic (translated by Durda Vukelic Rozic)

grandma's birthday
she asks why
people are singing
    - Pat Davis

only child . . .
i dream of the sister
that might have been
    Pat Geyer

august birthday . . .
my father a leo
always lionhearted
    - Pat Geyer

cloud watching
I find
my father's face
    - Phyllis Lee

first snow
the roses still bloom . . .
grandma's wallpaper
    - Phyllis Lee

nightingale call . . .
mother rises at midnight
to sit with him
    - Pris Campbell

my aunt's birthday —
dinner runs headless
out back
    - Pris Campbell

drifting smoke
the pipe cleaner men
my uncle once made
    - Rachel Sutcliffe

visiting grandma
the relentless chatter
of the budgie
    - Rachel Sutcliffe

polaroid of woman in a two-piece before she was my mother
    - Ron Scully

old sewing machine
Barbie gains a sexy dress
from grandma
    - Rosa Clement

in my hand
under the hospice blanket
his cool fingers
    - Ruth Yarrow

you loved being slim
Mom, the box of your ashes
so heavy
    - Ruth Yarrow

talking of Saturn
my daughter shows us
the hula hoop
    - Simon Hanson

new generation
my son asks me
to put the fish back
    - Simon Hanson

family reunion
i tried in my way
to be me
    - Sondra J. Byrnes

tea time
with the aunties —
mahjong clatter
    - Theresa A. Cancro

longed for child
I never did say
thank you
    - Tim Gardiner

fallen leaves . . .
a fresh quilt
for mother
    - Tom Clausen

when my wife asks
what I did today . . .
look at autumn trees
    - Tom Clausen

mother's birthday
a friday the thirteenth
104 years ago
    - Tricia Knoll

family talk
phone line and a white lie
connect us
    - Valentina Ranaldi-Adams

water painting
just enough colour to
remember mother's flower
    - Vibeke Laier

wild roses
the memories i share
with my sister
    - Vibeke Laier

the Beatles —
I screamed once
my father slapped my face
    - Yvonne Fisher

in daddy's fedora
and her own pink tutu —
sister's sixth birthday
    - Zee Zahava

pinning a dandelion to her lapel
she calls this gardening —
my dear mother
    - Zee Zahava


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*  Barbara Mink — lying side by side — "Exposure to a trigger sound elicits an immediate negative emotional response in people who have the condition called Misophonia."