Better Than Starbucks
Poetry and Fiction Journal
. . . if you love diversity and creative writing in any and every form, then you’re in the right place . . .
May 2022
Vol VII No II
Published quarterly:
February, May, August,
and November.
Haiku
with Kevin McLaughlin
The Morning Star
In some versions of the Buddha’s moment of Attainment, as Shakyamuni observed the morning star, Venus, he placed his right hand on the earth, and rejoiced that, “I, along with the earth, am enlightened!” From that moment forward the physical and spiritual realms were joined. The spirit of haiku can be traced back to that moment. For Christians that moment might have been when they first experienced sanctifying Grace. For humanists, it may have been when they experienced clarity with nature, a form of non-duality.
Unseen black vultures,
Make huffing sounds in the pines:
The morning star fades.
Kevin McLaughlin
Veronika Zora Novak resides in Toronto, Canada. Her work has been published in an impressive number of high-quality journals.
lotus pond . . .
a koi ripples
the universe
autumn chill . . .
a crow’s caw lost
in its shadow
climbing
till only you remain . . .
indigo mist
the nothingness
caught in your web . . .
black widow
Veronika Zora Novak
RP Verlaine resides in New York City. RP has an MFA from City College and has taught in NYC Public Schools for many years. Verlaine has had several volumes of poetry published and his work has appeared in world renowned journals.
red dawn
the two roosters decide
I have slept enough
bonfire of leaves
the smell of autumn
deepens
laughing mountain
the lone crow's caw
lost in the sky
night sky
flicking an ant
into the full moon
RP Verlaine
Joan García Viltró is a teacher and poet based in Cambrils. His poems often reflect his concern with Nature struggling under human pressure.
the beach constantly
taken, licked up, eaten up
brought back by the sea
the gale washed Shiva’s
face off that rock — now it has
been washed back on there
I keep edging out
of murky shafts of light to
dull, opaque fish stare
Joan García Viltró
Deborah-Zenha Adams is an award-winning writer and a certified naturalist.
Cresting the mountain
I spy my footprints in dust
rain clouds to the west
Summer morning
mist envelopes the blue heron —
there’s a mystery!
Deborah-Zenha Adams
Hifsa Ashraf has a talent for haiku with a slightly Gothic tone.
midnight stroll
lurking in a bare tree
the lunar corona
Hifsa Ashraf
Paweł Markiewicz, a frequent contributor to this column, has experienced the assimilation of subject and object.
winglets in the rain
— heart of subtle butterflies
needs to become dry
butterflies in flight
tender winglet in the rhythm
of the falling rain
wing of butterflies
the strong epiphany born
from ontology
Paweł Markiewicz
Christina Chin is a Malaysian haikuist. She is First prize winner of the 34th Cherry Blossom Sakura Festival Haiku Contest (2020) and First prize winner in the 8th Setouchi Matsuyama Photo-haiku Contest (2019).
fitted with correction lens
Cassiopeia on a clear
winter sky
frosted brown leaves
meet the cloudless horizon
winter moon
Christina Chin
Marylinn Mihaila of Calgary, Canada, teaches us about darkness.
Lightly existing
Fading into the dark, I
hunger to expire
In love with the night,
yet terrified of the dark
Tonight there’s no stars
Marylinn Mihaila
Max Bindi is an Italian-English translator and a poet/songwriter. He works his magic with photons.
a flash of lightning
fireflies vanish
and reappear.
Max Bindi
Pratik Mitra lives in Konnagar, India. He’s a teacher by profession and a writer by vocation. He writes both in English and in Bengali. He is fond of watching films, reading books, and playing chess.
The languid canal
Under wooden bridge befriends
winter sun and oblivion.
The darkness laughs with
fireflies while creating wonder
In tedious eyes.
The orange sky becomes
The backdrop of silhouetted trees
and the heart’s silence.
Pratik Mitra
Dan Brook teaches Sociology at San Jose State University. He gives us the ideal cherry blossom, the one that both exists and doesn’t exist.
scandalous indeed
a falling cherry blossom
that nobody saw
Dan Brook
Shobha Rao PhD is a retired scientist and poetry writing is her hobby. She has penned many poems including haiku, tanka, and haibun. She is from India and has lived and studied in the USA.
both swirl around phi
the milky way and the DNA
life by design
delicate strands
of saffron in milk
color of love
Shobha Rao
Featured
Samo Kreutz of Ljubljana, Slovenia, offers two haiku that each deserve two careful readings.
chickadee
preserved from frostiness
the snow among feathers
children’s room
all the shadows in it
disordered
Samo Kreutz
Rachel Zempel of Minnesota is a 911 dispatcher who has mastered the appreciation of colors. May she visit many art museums.
a symphony of
elegant color sings her
to sleep at sunset
violet bleeding
into a soft magenta
God’s twilight palette
Rachel Zempel
Nishant Verma of Mumbai, India, is a scriptwriter and an associate director for various television serials.
Sitting on the plum
A fly is cleaning itself —
My hesitation
Butterfly carries
The colour on both its wings —
Stealing from flowers
Nishant Verma
Laurie Rosen is a lifelong New Englander.
Gray harbor islands
Float above dusky water
Beneath a flush sky.
Seaside ancestors
Decay in brackish water
As sea levels rise.
Feathery green fronds
Spring grasses tickle bare shins
Black flies swarm and bite.
Laurie Rosen
Sara McNulty resides in Staten Island with her husband and her two rescue dogs. Her haiku is a hand beckoning, an invitation to return to nature. Note how closely she stays with the classical 5-7-5 format.
ocean tide ebbs
sand glistens with sea treasures
lucent blue beach glass
silhouetted snow
craggy outline on moon's face
on roof fiddler plays
(I have never read a better astrophysics-oriented haiku.)
lunette moon lingers
sole luminescence for stars
after night sky sleeps
(Remarkable word selection.)
Sara McNulty
Victoria Stefani lives, paints, and writes in the desert outside Tucson, Arizona. She notes that she is not averse to spiders or snakes.
Thick air, rain coming.
Cats wait by the window,
summoning thunder.
Over the swamps like
mist rise the ghostly cries of
long-forgotten birds.
High, wild, lonely,
an elk’s bugling slices open
midnight’s moonless sky.
One massive boulder
guards the trail. Touch the stone.
Feel the earth breathing.
Victoria Stefani
Stacey Law invites you to see the world through her eyes, and perceptive eyes they are.
Wild envy in eve
The darkened soul of daffodils
Close eyes in the night
(I am much taken with that creative second line.)
Matures the beauty
Roses impelled in my soul
I look at a thorn
(Close to being Gothic haiku.)
Stacey Law
Richard Matta, raised in New York’s Hudson Valley, is a Notre Dame graduate and a former forensic scientist. He does not need a lantern to peer through reality’s metaphorical darkness.
deep in nectar
the catapult
of a honeybee
spring dawn drizzle
the slow wiggle
of a worm
my red dappled hand
in the rose garden . . .
the webbed monarch
breezy day
a boy pinches feathers
in outstretched arms
moonlit garden . . .
the lingering scent
of pinched basil
(The moon is just another lantern.)
latticed arbor
a pair of cardinals
one on each end
(And the reader’s mind may form a third cardinal.)
Richard L. Matta
Hanoch Guy is a bilingual poet writing in Hebrew and English. He writes powerful haiku.
fireworks in
Shalom cemetery
sparks on Hebrew letters
late desert snow
the wail
of double hump camels
Hanoch Guy
Milorad sin Nade Tesla Ivanković is from Vršac, Serbia.
Buddha’s lovingkindness
let’s save all those needy and distressed
bacteria, microbes, viruses
sun-disc is drowned
by the Danube demon of the deep
winter solstice
hoarfrost
untimely blossomed
tender apricots
Milorad Ivanković
Writing haiku enables us to have pristine awareness of nature and our place in the natural world, regardless of religion or philosophy.
To write haiku in the morning, you will be
Enlightened in the morning.
To write haiku in the evening, you will be
Enlightened in the evening.
Kevin McLaughlin
Yet once more I encourage all haiku writers to share their work, their insights into the nature of all things, with fellow poets and BTS readers.
For those interested in haiku, I recommend you cast back into the BTS archives and reference the September 2016 column.
It provides a pretty thorough explanation of the basic format.
—Kevin Mclaughlin
Haiku Archive
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