My Dear Friends:
Publisher, poet and NeverEnding Story contributor,
Denis M. Garrison, has made three volumes of
Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka,
I,
II, and
III (edited by NeverEnding Story contributor,
M. Kei, and an international board of editors expert in the form for each volume) available to read free online.
the old woman
with a walking stick
bent over
her daughter's grave
like a question mark
André Surridge
I could tell
from the look in her eyes
the cancer had spread
from her lungs to her liver
and into both our lives
Barbara Robidoux
a man and boy
arguing as they load stone
onto a donkey's back,
the pyramids behind them
rising tall in the thistles
Michael McClintock
I am
I am not
I am
as I walk in & out
of mist
A. A. Marcoff
and when
the sand runs out?
the stillness
of the hourglass
and I are one
Denis M. Garrison
narrow layers
of an ancient lakebed
visible
on the sheer rock wall
I finger-walk back through time
David Rice
that final spring
we were together flying
our kite—until
you let loose the string
and heart from soul divided
an'ya
this past August,
all at once, the abuse of a decade
condensed into a bullet --
there's a house for sale
in our neighborhood
Larry Kimmel
a rooster on a leg string
stands at the end of his world
daring traffic --
even a chicken feels
the pinch of a tethered life
William Hart
blood-soaked the bodies
littering the marketplace
this hot afternoon
one melon and a small child
not hit by flying shrapnel
C. W. Hawes
still held
by the sound
of a shakuhachi flute
I walk out into the wind
with holes in my bones
Peter Yovu
in the deep silence
of scorching midday heat,
my mother's spine
remembers
our wartime defeat
Mariko Kitakubo
Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, Volume II, 2009
twenty three dollars
in the bank account
these days
even a crow’s cackle
will shake my bones
Sean Greenlaw
slicing a lemon
with my sharpest knife
seeds remain in place
segments hold their structure
despite my child’s divorce
Beverley George
evening
between her breasts
sugar to lick off
the cocktail glass
rim
ai li
in the curve
of her hip
she holds
an earthen pot’s
tilted twilight
Kala Ramesh
in the food court
he mounts an argument
for divorce—
she nods mechanically
spoon-feeding their infant
Amelia Fielden
pumping petrol
this autumn morning
numbers swirl
five? six? or seven days
since we last made love?
Carolyn Eldridge-Alfonzetti
my soul
can soar over the Pacific
yet my feet
know the enclosing walls
of an attic room
Chen-ou Liu
the red dot
on my forehead
binds me
to a man
who's in his own orbit
Kala Ramesh
the feel of you
so deep inside of me
each movement
bringing us closer
to separation
Karen Cesar
beside the sea
spray-painted on asphalt
a mandala symbol
fading now
like the hippie in me
Marilyn Potter
in a city
drifting among
strangers
sometimes I want
nothing more
Michael McClintock
I fight the urge
to ask them
how to make love last
old couple holding hands
where the waves break
Roberta Beary
Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, III, 2010
you ask
about this bruise
the color of a crow
I wave my hand
like a wing, wounded
Angie LaPaglia
my blood and bone
slipping from darkness
into the light
her small skull as round
as a Slavic moon
an’ya
a small death
the cracked shell
of a snail
now this delay
at the train station
Alan Summers
cherry blossoms
hold for three days
then scatter . . .
I tell him I don't want to be
in love anymore
Aurora Antonovic
just as I am
falling asleep, I remember
the first bra
I successfully unclasped
and lie awake for hours
Bob Lucky
long holiday
I keep my eyes on the road
she measures
the distance between us
by the number of rest stops
Chen-ou Liu
done fighting
we search in twilight
for a stone
from the ring
that struck my face
Dave Bacharach
the sound
of a broken bottle swept
across asphalt
like the cry of a child
you have given away
H. Gene Murtha
opening this urn
I set you free to visit
all the places
you never had the chance to
before you had wings
John Soules
time and again
I leave the nursing home
through a locked gate
fearing the code that lets me out
will one day hold me in
Susan Constable
Happy Reading
Chen-ou
