Butterfly Dream: Low Winter Moon Haiku by Elliot Nicely

English Original

low winter moon

the silhouettes

of shuttered steel mills

Frogpond, 48:3, 2025

Elliot Nicely

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

冬日低垂的月光

廢棄鋼鐵廠

的殘垣斷壁輪廓

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

冬日低垂的月光

废弃钢铁厂

的残垣断壁轮廓

Bio Sketch

Elliot Nicely is the author of Sine Qua Non (Red Moon Press, 2024). He resides in Lakewood, Ohio.

Poetic Musings: Trade War News Haiku by Chen-ou Liu

trade war news

a spiderweb on the eaves

sagging with raindrops

Prize Winter, 27th Haiku International Association/HIA Haiku Contest

Chen-ou Liu

Judge's Commentary: The first line is clearly topical, a concern of the moment, while what follows is natural, observed. The spider’s web is, I imagine, on the eaves outside the poet’s house, where the heavy raindrops gather and threaten to destroy it. The web is the spider’s lair and means of existence, yet one that may soon give way. Our lives too are delicately wrought, and may be easily disrupted. In the meantime we can admire the light refracted in the glittering raindrops, before they fall. I note the syllable count of 3-7-5.

Analysis: The haiku opens in abstraction—economic conflict, media chatter, global tension—impersonal and distinctly contemporary. It then pivots from headline-scale urgency to intimate observation. The spiderweb “on the eaves” grounds the haiku in a specific domestic space, an image of fragility fastened to shelter.

The raindrops’ weight becomes an unstated metaphor. The web, strained by accumulated water, quietly echoes global economic systems under mounting pressure, without ever declaring the parallel. The haiku’s strength lies in this restraint: the small, rain-soaked scene absorbs and reflects the larger unease of geopolitical tension.

A Room of My Own: Hollow-Eyed Men Haiku

hollow-eyed men huddled

outside the shelter window

hollow-eyed men waiting

FYI: This could be read as a prequel to my haiku below:

shelter window view

this two by two freedom

of an azure sky

Trash Panda, 9, 2025

Added:

the crescent moon

winter-blurred

what remains of us

Added:

awake, yet not awake

in the dark

this darkness inside

Added:

ice crystals 

on the hospital window ...

father's last look

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCLV: 'Gazan stray"

twilight haze

a Gazan stray in shadow

where ravens circle

Added:

the way home

this night stretches long

as my breath clouds

A Room of My Own: First Trillionaire Haiku

This Brave New World, CXXVI

first trillionaire ...

my son counts on his fingers

the zeros 

FYI: Times of India, Nov. 7 2025: Path to world’s first trillionaire: Tesla clears $1,000,000,000,000 pay package for Elon Musk

And The Guardian, Nov. 7, 2025: ‘Musk is Tesla and Tesla is Musk’ – why investors are happy to pay him $1trillion

Making Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire appears to fit a US investment culture of backing high-flying innovators

Added:

the front porch

bathed in autumn sunset glow

between us, not a word

FYI: This is a sequel to my haiku below:

hillside maples

the sunset glow redder

... and redder

NeverEnding Story, October 27 2025

Added:

a raven's cry 

stretched across the sky

cloud avalanche

Added:

edge of the dog park

a teen and her beagle

in a cardboard tent

Added:

another cup

of black coffee ...

first snowfall

A Room of My Own: Dumbest Trade War Tanka

On the Brink of Trumperica, XVIX

the dumb, no,

dumbest trade war in history ...

with news on mute

I glance at the MAGA neighbor 

piling up boxes of eggs

FYI: The Wall Street Journal, Jan. 31: The Dumbest Trade War in History

Trump will impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico for no good reason.

And the following is an excerpt from Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, news conference on Canada’s response to tariffs, March 3:

So today the United States launched a trade war against Canada, their closest partner and ally, their closest friend. At the same time they're talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator...

I think in what President Trump said yesterday, that there is nothing Canada or Mexico can do to avoid these tariffs, underlines very clearly what I think a lot of us have suspected for a long time — that these tariffs are not specifically about fentanyl, even though that is the legal justification he must use to actually move forward with these tariffs...

We have to fold back on the one thing he has said repeatedly, that what he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that'll make it easier to annex us.

And National Post, March 4: U.S. is busting more people with prohibited eggs at the Canadian border

Between October 2024 and February 2025 at the Detroit-Windsor crossing, for instance, the field office has witnessed a 36 per cent increase in “interceptions of eggs” compared to the same time last year. 

This tanka is a sequel to the following one:

On the Brink of Trumperica, XVIII

white house blowout...

this man-child's meaty smile

in the window

as southern magnolias explode

with a mob of ravens

 

FYI: Among the [symbolically rich] trees on the White House Grounds, the oldest ones, southern magnolias, were planted by Andrew Jackson in 1829.

And PopMatters, Feb.9, 2017: The Spoiled Little Man-Child They Made King: Celebrity, Richard II, and Donald Trump.

Did Shakespeare predict Donald Trump? No. He just wrote a play about a thin-skinned, petty, self-aggrandising narcissist whose poor leadership drove an empire to ruin. 

Added: On the Brink of Trumperica, XX

one ice jam

after another, another...

shouts of trade war

FYI: The New York Times, March 4: Trump’s Tariffs Set Off Day of Anger, Retaliation and Market Unease: Global markets fell after steep U.S. tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico went into effect, and as the possible ramifications of a global trade war set in.

Added: On the Brink of Trumperica, XXI

written in response to Convicted Felon Donald Trump's longest recorded address to joint session of Congress

floodafterfloodofshitwords

Trump's Castro-length bunk

FYI: The noun shit-word has been obsolete since its recorded usage only in  the Middle English period (1150—1500) (shit-word entry, Oxford English Dictionary).

Added:

rusty nail heads

in my neighbor's fence

blast of Arctic air

Added: Trump Empire, Inc., I

The True North, Strong and Free

hard and fast

a bald eagle strikes its prey

on the ice ...

through bursts of the shutter

he captures a goose defying Death

a "colourful call"

between the Convicted Felon

and the PM

hockey sticks atop snowbanks

along the longest land border

FYI: “The true north strong and free,” originally a description of Canada in Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem “To the Queen,” isa phrase from Canada's national anthem, “O Canada”, and a key part of Canada's identity. 

CBC News, March 5: a series of photos capturing this 20-minute deadly struggle about a Canada goose fighting off a bald eagle in a rare, symbolism-laden battle on the ice in Burlington, Ontario, Canada 

And The Hill, Feb.21: Trudeau after Canada hockey win over US: ‘You can’t take our country — and you can’t take our game’

Added: Trump Empire, Inc., II

lineups in snow for free eggs

these distances 

of each from each

FYI: CBS News, New York, Feb 21: New Yorkers line up for free eggs in Brooklyn And Down to Earth, March 6: Chicken on rent in US as Trump asks people to grow poultry in backyard amid rocketing egg prices, A healthy hen can lay up to five eggs a week.

A Room of My Own: Moonlit Dark Haiku

the neighbor's garden

fading into moonlit dark

a foreclosure sign

Added:

three glasses down

the lingering smell

of his apology

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CII: "between fireballs"

calm between fireballs ...

moonlit ravens' kraa-kraa-kraa

darkening

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CIII: "settler violence"

First Three-Line Visual Tanka

          under        slate-gray            skies

                                   |                          

a settler aims his gun | a boy throws his rock

                                   |

          tank track marks on the grass

FYI: The "single vertical line" has become the standard format for tanka written by the Japanese poets since the latter half of the 19th century; However, Ishikawa Takuboku, author of Poems to Eat and Romaji Diary and Sad Toys,  advocated for and started writing two or three lines, depending on the rhythm of each tanka. For more, see Hiroaki Sato, “Lineation of Tanka in English Translation,” 42 Monumenta Nipponica 3:347-56, Autumn 1987.

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CIV: "scream after scream"

a scythe of lightning 

in Beirut's smoky orange sky

scream after scream cut off

FYI: Reuters, Oct. 6: UN refugee chief says airstrikes in Lebanon have violated humanitarian law

A Room of My Own: Sound of Surviving

Re-Homing in the Maple Land, XVIII

I deliver

four rapid jabs, then a right

at my rival ...

the blood dripping off

my shadow on the wall

another

defeat by greedflation

and rent hike ...

I yell out, I want to feel

alive in this broken world

FYI: The last two lines allude to the following poem, “Invitation” by Mary Oliver

it is a serious thing

just to be alive

on this fresh morning

in the broken world.

Added: Re-Homing in the Maple Land, XIX

brick bungalows

with sea-green roofs and skylights

now gut-renovated ...

three blocks away, migrants move 

in and out of rooming houses

Added: Re-Homing in the Maple Land, XX

this riot

of colorful blooms ...

at the corner

of my neighbor's garden

a sign: backyard suite for rent

(Note: XIX and XX are integrated into the following tanka sequence:

O Canada! Our home and native land!

this riot

of colorful blooms ...

at the corner

of my neighbor's garden

a sign: backyard suite for rent

brick bungalows

with sea-green roofs and skylights

now gut-renovated ...

three blocks away, migrants move 

in and out of rooming houses

clothes flap on the line

and whales breach through blue waves ...

four new temps

in the second-story window 

of a saltbox house

wave upon wave 

of prairie grass cascading

over the hillside

a rented cabin, my new home

in this promised land 

FYI: In Feb., 2022, a new ruling made it officially legal for Toronto residents to build "backyard or garden suites" (a little bigger and more furnished than the outdoor/yard sheds one can buy in The Home Depot) as a "form of housing" (because of the crisis of affordable rental housing)

And usually built between 1800 and 1850 in Newfoundland and Labrador, a saltbox house has two stories in the front but one in the back,  giving it an uneven roof that is steeper one side).

Added: Game Show, 2024, XLI

chants of USA!

listen, repeat after me

ge-ron-to-cra-cy

FYI: Pew Research Center, 118th Congress (with only 10% -- 20% approval ratings) of the Oldest democratic country: The Senate’s median age is 65.3 years and the House's median age is 57.9 years. And in total, 98% of all incumbents were re-elected; most Big Shot Politicians are close to or over 80-year-old.

Poetic Musings: Credit Card Tanka by Zane Parks

this credit card

already at its limit

I employ

this frosty morning

to scrape my windshield

American Tanka, 1, 1996

Zane Parks

Commentary by Michael Dylan Welch: The poet describes an objective scene with tactile immediacy. We hear the scrape of the windshield, see the white trails of frost curl from the credit card. The credit card may be at its limit financially, but not physically, and now it is gaining even further use as a makeshift ice scraper. The introspectiveness comes from the poet’s awareness that he shouldn’t be maxing out his credit car, just as he would be better off using a proper ice scraper. Not only is he misusing the credit card to scrape the windshield, it seems he is also misusing it financially. The poet is aware of this double misuse and becomes aware of it through this understatedly presented introspective moment.

A Room of My Own: Santa Ana winds Tanka

Re-Homing in the Maple Land, XV

chilly night again ...

rent hike, food inflation

and salary freeze

bring Santa Ana winds

on the embers of my desire

Added: Re-Homing in the Maple Land, XVI

these gray rain clouds ...

I bounce from job to job

and later move

from basement suite to attic 

with a broken skylight 

Added: Game Show 2024, XXIX

my pitbull

chasing her Siamese cat ...

Trump on TV blasts

If you go after me

I'm coming after you!

FYI: The New Yorker, Nov 9: The Warnings About Trump in 2024 Are Getting Louder

This was the week, to mangle a phrase, when people finally freaked out about Donald Trump becoming President again. “Whichever individual poll you choose to believe or not,” Susan B. Glasser writes in her latest column from Washington, “the data point overwhelmingly to Biden sitting at near-historic lows in popularity and being essentially tied with Trump, a man who is running on an explicit platform of revenge, retribution, and Constitution-termination.

And CNN, Nov. 10: ‘That’s insane’: CNN panel on what Trump said he would do if re-elected

“CNN This Morning” panel discusses Donald Trump’s interview with Univision, in which the former president hinted he would weaponize the Department of Justice against political enemies if re-elected.

Added: Game Show 2024, XXX

in dim light

I'm half awake, half asleep ...

blonde-haired old man

draped in a red-white-and-blue

cloak of impunity

One Man's Maple Moon: Headstones Tanka by Paul Williamson

English Original

in pale sunshine

granite boulders dot the paddocks ... 

I remember

the headstones for miners

who once rushed here for gold

Paul Williamson

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

在蒼白的陽光下

花崗岩巨石點綴著牧場 ...

我記得

曾經趕往這裡淘金

的礦工墓碑

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

在苍白的阳光下

花岗岩巨石点缀着牧场 ...

我记得

曾经赶往这里淘金

的矿工墓碑

Bio Sketch

Paul Williamson is an Australian poet who has published poems on eclectic topics in magazines including Neverending Story, Eucalypt, Tanka Music Anthology, Ragged Edges, Poems to Wear, Poetry Bridges, Atlas Poetica, Gusts, Skylark, Ribbons, Quadrant and Cordite.  He writes poems to clarify feelings and impressions, and record them. He has five collections: The DNA Bookshelf, Moments from Red Hill, To the Spice Islands, Edge of Southern Bright and Ties to Red Hill  in 2018.

A Room of My Own: Abundance Tanka

new neighbor's sign

that reads B & B in bold

staked in long grasses

I wonder at this abundance

that other manicured lawns lack

FYI: CBC News, May 12, 2022: The case for leaving the perfectly manicured lawn behind: Why a more diverse and hands-off garden makes for a better environment 

North Americans have had a longstanding love affair with crisp blades of grass and the perfectly manicured lawns we shape them into. The tidy turf tradition isn't homegrown though: the concept was hauled across the Atlantic by colonists who maintained lawns in Europe going back to the 17th or 18th century. The growth became a staple of the leisure class who revelled in lawn games like croquet and tennis and turned it into a status symbol, since bringing neatness to nature's chaos required deep pockets. And so, keeping up with the trim-turfed Joneses began.

Added:

the rise and fall

of my old dog's snores ...

alone in TV's light

Added:

alone and sandwiched

between Tucker Carlson's fans and foes

reunion buffet

FYI: Bess Levin, VanityFair, April 24: World Reacts to Tucker Carlson’s Departure From Fox News Like the Allied Forces Just Defeated the Nazis

And Rae Hodge, Salon, April 24: "American hero": Tucker Carlson's fans mourn as star right-wing pundit departs Fox News

Added: Game Show 2024, XIX

written in response to Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, April 24: The Trump-Biden Rematch Is Inevitable: The choices will be a traditional [i.e. Mediocre] American politician or a de facto [MAGA] cult leader—again.

2024 re-match ...

Washington apple cut in half

with core rot

FYI: Washington is the top U.S. producer of apples; however, the apple tree is not native to the northeastern United States, where it was first declared “America’s fruit.” The apple traveled to North America the same way the Pilgrims did in the 1600s. 

After 1918, people started associating apple pie with the "freedom and prosperity" they enjoyed as Americans. When the United States joined World War II, soldiers said they were entering the war for "Mom and apple pie."

One Man's Maple Moon: Credit Card Tanka by Zane Parks

English Original

this credit card

already at its limit

I employ

this frosty morning

to scrape my windshield

American Tanka, 1, 1996

Zane Parks

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

這張信用卡

已經用到了它的極限

這個寒冷的早晨

我利用它

刮我的擋風玻璃

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

这张信用卡

已经用到了它的极限

这个寒冷的早晨

我利用它

刮我的挡风玻璃

Bio Sketch

Zane Parks lives with his wife Bridget and cats Boaz and Miss Kitty on the gulf coast of Florida. He writes haiku, senryu, tanka and related forms. His books, tiny dropping and Journey are available at lulu.com.

Butterfly Dream: Talk of Recession Haiku by Elliot Nicely

English Original

 

talk of recession --

dusk deepens

the cicadas' trill

Presence, 65, 2019

Elliot Nicely

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

談論經濟衰退 --

黃昏加深

蟬的鳴叫聲

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

谈论经济衰退 --

黄昏加深

蝉的鸣叫声

Bio Sketch

Elliot Nicely is the author of The Black Between Stars (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2017) and Tangled Shadows: Senryu and Haiku (Rosenberry Books, 2013). He resides in Lakewood, Ohio.

Butterfly Dream: Das Kapital Haiku by Jack Galmitz

English Original

In my bureau drawer

a copy of Das Kapital

and a leather glove

Applause Please, 2020

Jack Galmitz 

 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

在我的辦公室抽屜裡

一本資本論

和一隻皮手套

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

在我的办公室抽屉里

一本资本论

和一只皮手套

Bio Sketch 

 

Jack Galmitz was born in NYC in 1951. He received a Ph.D in English from the University of Buffalo.  He is an Associate of the Haiku Foundation and Contributing Editor at Roadrunner.  His most recent books are Views (Cyberwit.net, 2012),  Letters (Lulu Press, 2012), yards & lots (Middle Island Press, 2012), not-zero-sum (Impress 2015) and Takeout (Impress, 2015).  He lives in New York with his wife and stepson.

A Room of My Own: Snap Pandemic Election

Two Hundred and Sixty-Third Entry, Coronavirus Poetry Diary

six feet apart

and their minds miles away 

from each other

five smiling party leaders

shout, get your shot

question after question

answered with talking points

my parrot babbles

in the unseasonal heat

we'reallthistogether 

thumbs up

from the photogenic PM

forward, for everyone --

a masked gig worker 

gives him the finger

nightly barks

penetrate the thin wall

of my room

build back better blasting

from my neighbor's tv

same old, same old?

I stare in the mirror

on election eve

wondering if I can flatten

the curve of my pot belly

campaign signs

along a winding stretch

of highway

on election night

I sink deep into the couch

FYI: Pandemic federal election campaign produces little enthusiasm for any party, The Canadian Press, September 18

A campaign that started with anger over Justin Trudeau's decision to call an election in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic is ending amid anger over conservative premiers' handling of the health crisis...

When Trudeau pulled the plug on his minority government on Aug. 15, he tried to frame the ballot question as: Who do you want to finish the fight against COVID-19 and lead the country into a robust, greener, more inclusive recovery?

"I think many of us misread what was an optimistic country in terms of where we're going, the vaccines and everything, and we just mistook what was a really grumpy, anxious, kind of tired electorate that had no real desire at all to have an election," says pollster David Coletto, chief executive at Abacus Data...

Added: Two Hundred and Sixty-Fourth Entry

wave upon wave

of new covid variants ...

my world shrinks

to the size of a friend's garage

doubling as my bedroom

A Room of My Own: The Same Face, One Hundred Days Later

This Brave New World, V

Biden won! 

And so did corporate elites!

with fists in cold air

rows of masked protesters march 

into the gathering dark 

two masked women

sit behind the President

who gives a speech ...

the word growth becomes heavy

and heavier on a migrant's mind

Notes:

1 "The Big Role That Big Donors Still Play, Quietly, for Joe Biden," The New York Times, Feb. 12 2021, updated

2 "It's about time," USA Today, April 29

For the first time in history, two women sat behind a president during an address to a joint session of Congress. 

The historic image during Joe Biden's speech Wednesday is 245 years in the making since the nation's founding.

"Madam Speaker, Madam Vice President," Biden said as he took the podium. "No president has ever said those words from this podium and it's about time."   

Added: Two Hundred and Third Entry, Coronavirus Poetry Diary

the hands

of my grandfather's clock

dragging each second

in my quarantined mind's eye

the three-year-old me

A Room of My Own: Is to mask or not to mask your question?

Seventy-Ninth Entry, Coronavirus Poetry Diary

A notice posted on the large window at the entrance to American Beauty Salon reads:

Dear Customers: If you FEEL (not think) that you need to wear a mask, please stay home until you FEEL that it is safe to be out in public without one. No Mask Allowed.

business as usual ...

a masked woman mutters

to herself

Note: The seventy-ninth entry is a sequel to the fifty-first entry:

business as usual

giant Stars-and-Stripes flapping

over a salon

NeverEnding Story, May 9, 2020