Biting NOT Barking: Zombie Fires Tanka by Debbie Strange

English Original

zombie fires

come back from the dead ...

this wilderness

haunted by skeletons

and memories of trees

 

Blithe Spirit, 35:4, 2025

Debbie Strange

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

殭屍之火

死而復生

這片荒野

被骷髏和樹木的記憶

纏繞不止

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

僵尸之火

死而复生

这片荒野

被骷髅和树木的记忆

缠绕不止

Bio Sketch

Debbie Strange is a chronically ill Canadian short form poet, haiga artist, and photographer. Snapshot Press released her first full-length haiku collection, Random Blue Sparks, in 2024. It received 3rd Place honours in the 2025 Haiku Society of America’s Merit Book Awards. An archive of awards and publications can be accessed at http://debbiemstrange.blogspot.ca/ and you are welcome to follow her @Debbie_Strange on X and @debbiemstrange on Instagram.

Butterfly Dream: Mother and Ocean Haiku by Kobayashi Issa

English Original

mother I never knew,

each time I see the ocean,

each time --

The Essential Haiku, 1995

Kobayashi Issa 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

我從未謀面的母親,

每次我看到大海,

每次 --

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

我从未谋面的母亲,

每次我看到大海,

每次 --

 

Bio Sketch

Kobayashi Issa (1763–1828) was a legendary Japanese poet known for his raw, compassionate haiku. After a childhood marked by his mother’s death and family conflict, he spent decades traveling as a lay Buddhist priest. His work famously captures the beauty in the small and humble—from common insects to crying children

A Room of My Own: 3 A.M. Crescent Haiku

3 a.m. crescent

in the bedroom skylight 

dust motes drift

FYI: This haiku could be read as a sequel to mine below:

again her smile fades ...

I awaken to the silence

of a hazy crescent

NeverEnding Story, April 12 2026

Added:

bed unmade

I lie down beside

the hidden self

Added:

mail on the table

I read it twice, once in mind 

a week ago

Added:

a baseball bat

beside chained tires in the yard 

foreclosure tilted

FYI: This haiku could be read as a sequel to the following:

fence line 

crowded with baseball caps

World Series eve

NeverEnding Story, October 23 2025

crack of the bat

a roar of voices chasing

the sky-high ball

NeverEnding Story, October 27 2025

Added: Politics of Distraction, X:

waking in cold sweat

from dreams of a strait blockade:

the liar arrives

to save the strangled victim

by pressing down the pillow

FYI: Trump stated on Truth Social: If Iran did not agree to a deal, the bombing starts, and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level and intensity than it was before ... (BBC News, May10)

And his tanka is a sequel to the following:

Politics of Distraction, IX:

blocking the blockade

to break the strait blockade ...

in gathering dark

a gin-soaked flight to nowhere

through the un/truth of this war

NeverEnding Story, April 18 2026

One Man's Maple Moon: Haze Tanka by Susan Constable

English Original

ocean salt

spatters the windows

by winter’s end

I peer through a haze

of might-have-beens

The Eternity of Waves, 2017

Susan Constable

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

海鹽

濺落在窗戶上

到了冬末

透過一層薄霧我凝視

那些可能發生卻未發生的事情

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

海盐

溅落在窗户上

到了冬末

透过一层薄雾我凝视

那些可能发生却未发生的事情

Bio Sketch

Susan Constable’s haiku and tanka appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Her tanka collection, The Eternity of Waves, was a winning entry in the 2012 eChapbook Awards. She served as tanka editor of A Hundred Gourds from 2012 to 2016, and co-edited two anthologies as well as judged haiku and senryu contests.

Butterfly Dream: Mother's Day Haiku by Marion Alice Poirier

English Original

white violets

fried clams and a poem

Mother's Day

Marion Alice Poirier

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

日羅蘭

炸蛤蜊和一首詩

母親節

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

日罗兰

炸蛤蜊和一首诗

母亲节

Bio Sketch

Marion Alice Poirier is a lifetime resident of Boston, MA. She began writing haiku in 2001 and eventually began to teach haiku in workshops on Poetry Circle and Emerging Poets. She also write short poetry and have been published in on-line haiku and short poetry journals like Tinywords, Hedgerow and The Heron's Nest.

Butterfly Dream: Million Mothers Haiku by Kristen Deming

English Original

my body

out of a million mothers --

budding leaves

plum afternoon,  2017

Kristen Deming

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

我的身體

源自百萬母親 --

剛萌芽的嫩葉

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

我的身体

源自百万母亲 --

刚萌芽的嫩叶

Bio Sketch

Kristen Deming was an accomplished haiku poet and lover of literature. Her haiku collection, Plum Afternoon was a finalist in the Haiku Society of America's Merit Book Award in 2017. As a past president of the Haiku Society of America and active member in the haiku community in Japan for many years, one of Kristen's enduring contributions to the haiku communities around the world was a weekly poetry column in the Japan Times called "Haiku Moments" that she co-wrote with a Japanese colleague for six years, helping to open the world of haiku to English speakers and to give glimpses of Japanese culture through the lens of haiku. 

Biting NOT Barking: New Leaf Haiku by Eric A. Lohman

English Original

turn of a new leaf over and over climate conference

 

Trash Panda, 5, 2023

Eric A. Lohman

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

重啟新頁一次又一次氣候變遷大會

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

重启新页一次又一次气候变迁大会

Bio Sketch

Eric A. Lohman is a psychiatric social worker at a large public teaching hospital in downtown Atlanta,  Georgia, USA. His career focuses on helping the homeless, addicted and chronically mentally ill populations of Atlanta and the surrounding area. Most of his writing serves as a response to that reality. 

Poetic Musings: Boulders and Headstones Tanka by Paul Williamson

in pale sunshine

granite boulders dot the paddocks ... 

I remember

the headstones for miners

who once rushed here for gold

NeverEnding Story, July 23, 2023

Paul Williamson

Commentary: Ls 1&2 establish a muted, elegiac tone. The “pale sunshine” suggests diminished warmth and vitality, while the granite boulders “dot[ting] the paddocks” evoke a quiet, almost incidental permanence. These natural forms function as a kind of unconscious memorial, subtly anticipating the explicitly human markers of loss introduced in Ls 4&5.

A shift unfolds between past and present land use. The once-chaotic energy of the gold rush—captured in the single, kinetic verb “rushed” in L5 —gives way to the stillness of an agricultural landscape. This contrast heightens the sense of transience: human urgency and desire flare briefly, then recede, leaving behind a subdued and enduring terrain.

The tanka’s emotional force lies in the visual and conceptual parallel between the granite boulders and the miners’ headstones. The rocks scattered across the paddocks mirror the graves, suggesting that the miners have, in a sense, merged with the land they sought to exploit. What remains is not the gold they pursued, but the granite itself—solid, unyielding, and indifferent.

In this way, the tanka becomes a socio-historical meditation on impermanence. Human ambition, however intense, is fleeting; the landscape absorbs its traces and returns to stillness, bearing only quiet witness to what has passed.

A Room of My Own: River Trail Tanka

Starlight on the Gutter of  Blossoms, IV

silver moonlight 

drips through weeping willow leaves

the river trail  reeks 

where a stray rips the throat

from a bag of rotting guts

FYI: My new writing project, Starlight on the Gutter of Blossoms, applies the violent lens of the urban onihishigitei style to the modern landscape. Inspired by Christine Judd’s "neon lights" tanka, the title hijacks Oscar Wilde’s romanticism—"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars"—and forces that celestial gaze down into the city’s filth to "slay" traditional beauty.

You can read its I, II, and III here.

Added: Starlight on the Gutter of  Blossoms, V

the milky way 

floats in the midlight river --

one yellow stream

arcs higher than the other

while two drunks shout and laugh

Added: Starlight on the Gutter of  Blossoms, VI

the warbler’s wail

ripples through the morning mist --

the screech of brakes

as a truck grinds to a stop

inches from the toddler

Added: Starlight on the Gutter of  Blossoms, VII

the moonlit creek

chatters over mossy rocks

the drainage pipe 

spewing vomit after vomit

of neon-blue factory sludge

Added: Starlight on the Gutter of  Blossoms, VIII

fields of wheat

rippling in morning sunshine

roadside billboards

hawk cheap loans and debt swaps

to the hollow-eyed and aged

Added: Starlight on the Gutter of  Blossoms, IX

morning mist

veiling the river’s curve ...

the bridge traffic stops

as a rusted semi-truck 

grinds a stray into pulp

Butterfly Dream: Spring Wind Haiku by vincent tripi

English Original

spring wind --

the monk & his robes

out walking together

monk & i, 2001

vincent tripi 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

春風拂面 --

僧侶身著僧袍

一同漫步

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

春风拂面 --

僧侣身着僧袍

一同漫步

Bio Sketch

Founder of The Haiku Circle, vincent tripi was closely associated with the spiritual movement in American Haiku. He wrote haiku for over 35 years, and published 14 books of haiku. Most of his haiku reflect a Buddhist foundation.

To the Lighthouse: Urban Onihishigitei

The urban onihishigitei style employs violent juxtaposition to "slay" traditional poetic beauty, crashing classical imagery into the grit of city decay. It utilizes abrasive, vulgar diction to confront the reader with the unvarnished reality of modern life, replacing aesthetic grace with a jagged, "demon-quelling" force (for basic information about onihishigitei, see "To the Lighthouse: Onihishigitei, the Style of Demon-Quelling Force")

For example, 

The Night-of: Aesthetic Sabotage

neon lights

fade in dawn's lilac glow

on the footpath

clubbers, drug-fucked

in bedraggled revelry

Christine Judd

This tanka is a quintessential example of onihishigitei. By intentionally shattering the "elegant" expectations of the form—traditionally reserved for nature or romance—Judd replaces classical refinement with the visceral grit of the street.

The tanka sets a "poetic trap" in L2 with "dawn's lilac glow." This soft imagery evokes a classic aesthetic, only to be "quelled" by the spatial descent to the "footpath" in L 3. This vertical drop from the sky to the concrete mirrors the physical and chemical "comedown" of the subjects.

The compound "drug-fucked" in L 4 is the definitive onihishigitei move. The diction is intentionally jarring and stripped of any romantic veneer, forcing the reader to confront the raw exhaustion of urban excess. This linguistic violence is sustained by the percussive weight of "bedraggled revelry" in L5—an oxymoron that perfectly captures the messy, depleted tail-end of the night.

The Morning-after: The Demon-Strike

Starlight on the Gutter of  Blossoms, I

cherry blossom rain ...

under a grey-veined sky

the park dump

with needles scattered

in mangy green

Chen-ou Liu

Chen-ou Liu’s work serves as a gritty thematic sequel to Judd’s tanka. The narrative moves from the "night-of" club scene to the "morning-after" in the public square. Where Judd ends with the physical state of the revelers, Liu pans the camera toward the literal remains of that excess.

Liu opens with "cherry blossom rain" in L1 only to violently sabotage the reader’s expectation by crashing into a "park dump" in L 3. The diction is visceral: "grey-veined" in L2 treats the sky like a bruised body or cold industrial marble, while "mangy green"in L5  acts as a stylistic "demon-strike"—transforming the grass into something sickly and flea-bitten. Finally, "needles scattered" in L4 provides the "vulgar" diction essential to the style, replacing the traditional "jewels" of dew with the hazardous refuse of addiction.

A Shared Atmosphere of Decay

Both poets employ the same structural logic: contrasting classical beauty (lilac glow, cherry blossom rain) with jarring realism (drug-fucked, park dump). Temporally, the lilac dawn of Judd’s poem bleeds into Liu’s grey-veined sky, creating a cohesive, hungover atmosphere. By tackling the "demons" of the city with such blunt force, these poets prove that the tanka remains a powerful tool for capturing the unrefined truths of contemporary life.

FYI: My new writing project, Starlight on the Gutter of Blossoms, applies the violent lens of the urban onihishigitei style to the modern landscape. Inspired by Christine Judd’s "neon lights" tanka, the title hijacks Oscar Wilde’s romanticism—"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars"—and forces that celestial gaze down into the city’s filth to "slay" traditional beauty.

Added: Starlight on the Gutter of  Blossoms, II

summer stars

drip silver light on the river -- 

slick after slick

of oily black choking

the throat of a storm drain

Added: Starlight on the Gutter of  Blossoms, III

the wisteria scent

in cascading clusters --

moonlit shards

from a smashed windshield

in the asphalt's teeth

One Man's Maple Moon: Neon Lights Tanka by Christine Judd

English Original

neon lights

fade in dawn's lilac glow

on the footpath

clubbers, drug-fucked

in bedraggled revelry

Christine Judd

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

霓虹燈

在黎明淡紫色的光芒中漸漸消逝

人行道上

嗑藥後神智不清的夜店派對舞者

沉醉於衣衫襤褸地狂歡

    

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

霓虹灯

在黎明淡紫色的光芒中渐渐消逝

人行道上

嗑药后神智不清的夜店派对舞者

沉醉于衣衫褴褛地狂欢

Bio Sketch

Christine Judd is an Australian writer and poet living in the Orange wine region of New South Wales. She has resided in Sydney and India for many years previously. Chris has recently rediscovered her love for haiku, senryu and tanka. By day, she works in the mental health field and has written books on emotions and trauma.

One Man's Maple Moon: Salt Wind Tanka by Marion Alice Poirier

English Original

all our yesterdays

scatter like white feathers

in the salt wind --

still, you come into my dreams

when the seagulls call

Marion Alice Poirier

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

我們所有的昨日

像白色的羽毛般散落

在鹹澀的海風中 --

然而當海鷗鳴叫時

你還是會出現在我的夢裡

    

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

我们所有的昨日

像白色的羽毛般散落

在咸涩的海风中 --

然而当海鸥鸣叫时

你还是会出现在我的梦里

Bio Sketch

Marion Alice Poirier is a lifetime resident of Boston, MA. She began writing haiku in 2001 and eventually began to teach haiku in workshops on Poetry Circle and Emerging Poets. She also write short poetry and have been published in on-line haiku and short poetry journals like Tinywords, Hedgerow and The Heron's Nest.

Cool Announcement: Celebrate Tanka Poetry Month with NeverEnding Story

My Dear Friends and Readers:

May is the month of wishes and expectations, a time born for tanka. Every verse should hold the essence of the season: singing in the lilies of the valley and laughing with the nightingales.

-- Chen-ou Liu

Please join NeverEnding Story to expand the readership base for tanka by tweeting at least one tanka a day throughout the month of May. The hashtags for Tanka Poetry Month are #MayTanka and #NaTankaMo.

Please help spread the word about this celebration via your poetry blogs, websites, Facebook pages, and X accounts. And NeverEnding Story seeks the tanka that can bite and bite hard. 

written for Harper Lee’s 100th birthday

I climb inside

my MAGA neighbor's head

to see his world ...

a mockingbird's song

snaps in two through half-sleep

NeverEnding Story, April 28 2026

Poetry acts as a witness in, to, and most importantly, through troubled times.

-- Chen-ou Liu, An Interview with Dimitar Anakiev

We read to know we're not alone. 

-- William Nicholson

seaside bow-windows

radiating the canopies

of sunlight ...

a cup of coffee and poetry

nothing more and nothing less

Gusts, 41, Spring/Summer 2025

The proper response to a poem is another poem. 

-- Phyllis Webb 

A cursor blinks in the white of my screen.

darkness pools around stars

words I never said

words I never sent

NeverEnding Story, March 11, 2026

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

-- Thomas Mann

The blank calendar; even thoughts paused like a frozen screen.

the cursor blinks ...

the weight of another

hazy day moon

coffee ring on ring ...

I type five lines, five lines

then delete all

start again as robins sing

sing up the morning sun

NeverEnding Story, January 30 2026

These days, it’s easy to feel that we’ve fallen out of connection with one another and with the earth and with reason and with love. I mean: we have. But to read, to write, is to say that we still believe in, at least, the possibility of connection.

George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life, 2021.

To conclude today's post, I would like to share with you my warning tanka below for International Workers' Day or May Day

after mass layoffs

breakroom chairs stacked and cold —

on the floor below

robot arms swivel and sort

as boxes breathe barcode light

Chrysanthemum, 36, 2026

Added: The following gembun is a sequel, about the precarious "work-life," to the warning tanka above:

The fan oscillates, its hum a steady heartbeat in the cramped dark.

dust motes

in the slanted moonlight

life between motels

A Room of My Own: Cherry Blossom Dawn Haiku

cherry blossom dawn

my beagle and I bathed

in the scent of light

Added:

breezy sunshine

bumblebees stitch gold threads

among blossoms

FYI: This haiku could be read as a prequel to the following:

bumblebee flitting

among the meadow flowers

humming to itself

Haiga Moments: Pens and Lens, 2008

Ignatius Fay

Added:

blossom rain

my son takes a selfie

I breathe deeply

Added:

pick-your-own farm

my toddler’s lips and fingers

blue-stained

Added:

strawberry juice …

drip, drip from her tongue

into my mouth

Added:

garden hut

newborn kittens blink

into tulips

Added:

break of dawn

a wedge of geese honking

the northbound freight