Hot News: One Man's Maple Moon Vol. II

A tanka is snowflakes drifting through the ink dark moon. -- Chen-ou Liu

Dear Contributors and Readers:

I am pleased to announce that One Man's Maple Moon: 66 Selected English-Chinese Bilingual Tanka, Volume Two 2016 is now available online for your reading pleasure (Note: I'd revised some of Chinese translations. For those whose tanka are included in the anthology, each  will receive a copy of its e-book edition within three days)

This book is dedicated to Brian Zimmer, first NeverEnding Story supporter and contributor,who passed away on November 5th, 2014

The leaf does not grasp or grieve its last day.

-- Brian Zimmer


Featured Tanka by Brian Zimmer:

empty beds
in the old house
at night
the furnace whispers
its litany of names

blue eggs
beneath a hen
dream
of skies
cracked-open

not for whom
but with whom I write
these lines:
the skipping stone
the creaking tree house

Please post to all appropriate venues. Your time and help would be greatly appreciated.And I look forward to reading your tanka (see "2016 One Man’s Maple Moon: Call for Tanka Submissions"; Deadline: December 16, 2016)

Happy Reading

Chen-ou


Selected Tanka:

a blue highway
taking me beyond the before
and after...
days I remember
days I remember to forget

Rebecca Drouilhet

in silhouette
a woman sitting alone
beside the dock
the sound of a wave
turning into itself

Susan Constable

the red dot
on my forehead
binds me
to a man
who's in his own orbit

Kala Ramesh

waking half way
through the day
half the sunshine
half the pain
-- still time for a poem

Helen Buckingham

we lean
into one another's
broken parts
a pair of thrushes
rebuild their nest

H. Gene Murtha

perforations
along this notebook page
almost invisible
the tiny separations
that ease the final parting

Lesley Anne Swanson

this hour
of clarity each day
before dawn
and the dark wing
casts its shadow

Brian Zimmer

crossing over
the bridge of sighs
I felt you
folding into me
folding into prayer

Debbie Strange

aging
with or without
money
the ka-ching
of bones

LeRoy Gorman

at typewriter
backspacing to a typo
ra ta ta ta tat
my anti-war muse
machine-gunned dead

Guy Simser

lying
under stars
becoming
a wide slow
river

Larry Kimmel

unable
to buy postcards
in Auschwitz
I pick a fallen leaf
fold it into my notebook

Sonam Chhoki

never pregnant
i cut into a ripe
pomegranate
red seeds flowing
down the barren sink

Pamela A. Babusci

on a shelf
in her dining room...
the red truck
her father bought
hoping for a boy

Ken Slaughter

all dark
and boarded up
this year
the storefront where
the gypsy read my palm    

Barry George

last night's
storm still brewing
her voice
grows more defiant
with each fine

Shloka Shankar

flames lick
at logs that never burn
in the gas fireplace
after our divorce
embers smolder

Helen E. Herr