one-line haiku

Welcome to the February 2022 issue of brass bell: a haiku journal.


This month there is no particular theme. Each poem is just one line long (or even a single word!)  . . .  revealing meaning and depth in a deceptively simple form.


Contributing poets are from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Ecuador, Ghana, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Malta, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Singapore, Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States


tracing the snail’s trail moonlight
    Adjei Agyei-Baah

the night air menu of roasted chestnuts
    ai li

backing up on the car roof a cat
    Alan Bern

rain spills into darkness now and then snow
    Alan Peat

overgrown driveway the butterflies hold a fashion show
    Alan Summers

shape of grandma rising dough
    Alexis Rotella

in my pockets grains of sand from last year
    Angela Giordano

moonlight on my hand a mantis
    Angiola Inglese

black wheelbarrow balanced on its front edge to teach me a lesson
    Ann Carter

small joys woodpeckers at the suet feeder again
    Antonia Matthew

socked in for another day brain fog
    Barbara Kaufmann

rearview mirror the homestead comes into focus
    Barbara Sabol

shaking the down quilt out flies the mad cat
    Barrie Levine

big heads on skinny necks tulips quietly defying gravity
    Blue Waters

the bench’s shadow empty too
    Brad Bennett

house move zen garden in sandbags
    Bryan D. Cook

shrinking on a stone the crab-shaped wet spot
    Bryan Rickert

brother’s birthday today I search for the moon
    C. Robin Janning

whiteout the universe inside me
    Carole MacRury

again and again wild strawberries
    Caroline Skanne

his aloha shirt my migraine
    Charles Trumbull

cuttlefish threatened collecting some ink
    Chen Xiaoou

blizzardalonetogetherduringrushhour
    Chen-ou Liu

the hand pump water trickles first poem
    Christina Chin

desperate birdsong news just in
    Christina Martin

dusty old diaries half-lost memories
    Christina Sng

clothespin holding on to nothing
    Christine L. Villa

broken shell the sting of each wave
    Claire Vogel Camargo

starless night at a single window the insomniac light bulb
    Dan Iulian

driving back home sweet chili chips
    Daniela Misso

winds of change i take refuge inside myself
    Debbie Strange

bees white iris wraps their wings in nightfall
    Deborah Burke Henderson

winter wind weeds lean
    Donna Fleischer

playing tennis the back and forth in my mind
    Elena Calvo

mayflies rise at dusk last dance
    Frank Muller

birthday hug grandma’s peppermint breath
    Geethanjali Rajan

wobbling on one foot I tug on the other slipper
    Glenn Ingersoll

scarecity
    Helen Buckingham

social exclusion growing on the tree lichen
    Hifsa Ashraf

timing my dash to a soft-boiled egg
    Jack Goldman

what it takes to bend me bamboo
    Jackie Chou

lonely day i get a call from a robot
    Jay Friedenberg

snow        falling        all        day        long
    Jill Lange

a long winter suddenly shorter violets in the snow
    Jim Mazza

ill but not ill enough surgery delayed
    Joan Leotta

escalator back and forth between us
    Joanna Ashwell

a curled strand of her hair on my pillow crescent moon
    Joe Sebastian

my granddaughter wears her cat as if it were a shawl
    Joel Savishinksy

even the junk store’s sign cobwebbed
    John J. Dunphy

never the same dance twice breakwater
    Julie Bloss Kelsey

the beveled mirror of loneliness
    Karla Linn Merrifield

ancient salt ponds on mars our mother’s tears
    Kath Abela Wilson

new roof i miss the moss
    Kathleen Kramer

two years from eighty a weighty birthday
    Katya Sabaroff Taylor

night walk startled by the whiteness of a moth
    kris moon

off in their own little world apple buds
    Kristen Lindquist

dreaming on my own paperboat I sail
    Lakshmi Iyer

ten thousand years the lake misses its glacier
    Laurinda Lind

droplets of smudged sky Monet lilies
    Lorraine A Padden

waking up the reflection in the mirror looks like my mother
    Lucia Cardillo

not letting a word in cicadas
    Madhuri Pillai

legos all her family together
    Margaret Walker

seagullsssssskimmmmmmmingblueskyclouds
    Marianne Paul

sliding into sea sliding into sea sliding
    Marietta McGregor

more gulls than sea ebb tide
    Marilyn Ashbaugh

river canyon swarm of swallows swoop from its mouth
    Marilyn Fleming

blind-sided the silent swoop of nesting magpies    
    Marilyn Humbert

reflected light in the broken pane a spiderweb
    Marta Chocilowska

saving face a little black mask with or without pearls
    Mary Kendall

my hair whiter one snowflake at a time
    Maya Daneva

a furry Buddha in fresh snow hobo cat greets the sun
    Michael Flanagan

polite words of lost friendship
    Michael Gallagher

car in the shop another book read
    Michael G. Smith

long journey steamy windows introspection
    Mimi Foyle

children’s room I rearrange memories
    Mirela Brailean

dropping pebbles from the footbridge my daughter’s daughter
    Miriam Sagan

raindrops raindrops raindrops worm raindrops raindrops
    Nancy Shires

perch for the robin’s song snowman’s hat
    Neena Singh

a corsage for myself just because
    Pat Davis

cracked bindings a bibliophile’s sneeze
    Paul Beech

bottom of the ravine my eyes swim upstream
    Paul Callus

white swan somewhere a ballerina is missing
    Pris Campbell

after party the lingering polite words
    Richard L. Matta

visiting for the smell overstocked bookshop
    Robert Epstein

waiting room reading the back of the sugar packet
    Rosa Clement

nursing home forced forsythia
    Ruth Yarrow

brushing snow from the day’s mail catalogs showing bathing suits
    Sue Norvell

making googly eyes at him pet rock
    Susan Burch

writing at dawn the shadow of my pencil on the blue-lined page
    Teresa Yatsko

a fly trapped in revolving doors morning rush
    Theresa A. Cancro

oh i have been the untamed river
    Tiffany Shaw-Diaz

comforting sight crows congregating in the winter oak
    Tina Wright

shoe box or fireplace love letters
    Tom Bierovic

a lucky penny where it landed
    Tom Clausen

moon meditation in dreams the small stars grow
    Vibeke Laier

after many years the wider shadow of the olive tree
    Wieslaw Karlinski

in the apple tree picking our favorite branches
    Wilda Morris

she turns the fan to face me this small act of tenderness
    Zee Zahava