IHS International Haiku Competition 2014 announced!

The Irish Haiku Society International Haiku Competition 2014 offers prizes of Euro 150, Euro 50 and Euro 30 for unpublished haiku/senryu in English. In addition there will be up to seven Highly Commended haiku/senryu.

Details and previous winners here:
http://irishhaiku.webs.com/haikucompetition.htm

All the entries shall be postmarked by 30th November 2014. No e-mail submissions, please!

Good luck to all!

Shamrock Haiku Journal Readers' Choice Awards 

We invite all the readers of Shamrock Haiku Journal to vote for the best haiku/senryu poem published in 2014, i.e. in the issues TWENTY-SEVEN to TWENTY-NINE (you cannot vote for your own poem, though). 

To vote, send an e-mail to irishhaikusociety[at]gmail.com with "Best haiku of 2014" or "Best senryu of 2014" in the subject line. Please insert the full text of the poem you vote for (only ONE poem in each category) plus the name of its author in the body of your e-mail. The deadline for vote is 31th January, 2015. The best poems will be named in the next issue of Shamrock Haiku Journal.

summer dreams
fading contrail
the color of sunset


the pattern
on a blackbird’s wing
old lace


three fawns
return to the mist
summer solstice

-- Ann Magyar (USA)




cool dusk wind
the remaining heat
in your car


along the rail tracks home poppies

-- Dietmar Tauchner (Austria)




sandpipers dance
in moonlight
the rustling of reeds


misty rain
the emerald of
a peacocks plume

-- Amada Burgard (USA)




icy wind
the spider’s egg sac
trembles


early spring
rivulets of grass wend
through melting snow

-- Melissa Watkins Starr (USA)




worksite in moonlight
fox cubs playing chase
on a hill of sand


auction -
a smell of horse
where the horse has been

-- Hugh O'Donnell (Ireland)




roadside grave
a woman drives the cross
deeper


a wasp caught
in the net curtain
distant thunder

-- Paul Chambers (Wales)




autumn retreat -
a moth’s shadow
expands on the wall


spring morning
in a misty garden
an apple drops

-- Romalyn Ante (England)




returning home -
on the port wing
orange sunrise


snow mountains
in night clouds
lightning without sound

-- Earl Livings (Australia)




replacing floorboards
the grey expired strides
of ancestors

-- Ayaz Daryl Nielsen (USA)




tense air
a pileated woodpecker
breaks the silence

-- Joseph M. Kusmiss (USA)




dentist's needle
I attempt to numb
my mind

-- Joan Prefontaine (USA)




bare trees
roadside cross
newly white

-- Joshua Gage (USA)




headstone
the dash between
birth and death

-- Edward Huddleston (USA)




rocked to and fro
on the ebb tide
reef fish

-- Simon Hanson (Australia)




midnight moon...
one long howl
and then no more

-- Chen-ou Liu (Canada)




unidentified sound
an osprey's nest
on the antenna tower

-- Elizabeth Crocket (Canada)




failing light
a two-magpie cedar and
a three-magpie spruce

-- Nola Obee (Canada)




glimpse of morning sun
ignites the spring sky
a turtledove listens

-- Paul Casey (Ireland)




evening drizzle
the short-lived singing
of the frogs

-- Angelo Ancheta (Philippines)

under this pear-tree
I was conceived
now a doggie sleeps here

-- Yurko Pozayak (Ukraine; translated from the Ukrainian by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)




ash branch
against the March sky –
the absence of crescent moon

-- Galina Sen (Ukraine; translated from the Ukrainian by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)

Remote Controls

by Thomas Chockley (USA)


I lose my game of solitaire and turn off the tablet. “I’m going up and check email.” I tell her. She’s bent over her tablet playing her game and typing messages to her teammates. She mumbles, “OK.” It’s mid-morning already, but still I have no email. I move on to reading the news online. Things haven’t improved since yesterday. At one o’clock it’s time to go fix some lunch. I look reflexively at her corner as I enter the kitchen room. She’s still there. “Lunch?” I ask. No response. She’s typing a quick message to a teammate.

homecoming
our ship falling
through the sky

At a Station of the BTS

by Jeff Streeby (USA)


It is late afternoon, and a blind beggar at the bottom of the busy stairway tends his small brown bowl. He is dressed in the tatters of a tie-dyed t-shirt and a pair of stained and ragged shorts that may once have been part of a military uniform. His exposed flesh is covered with a patchy film of grime that gathers more darkly in the creases of his skin. It’s hard to tell his age - such an existence surely wears a person out very quickly - but he has as yet no trace of gray threading the dusty tufted mats that are his hair and beard. He is crippled -it is clear that he was born without hands and with only one clubbed and blunted foot. His twisted legs show unexpected red webs of scars. Propped crookedly on an elbow, he reclines on the sidewalk near the curb, having staked his claim to a little spot shaded by the overhead roadways. Pedestrian traffic flows around him. Chanting softly, he traces a mysterious pattern over and over on the cement with the broad calloused bulb of a forearm. We find him there as we leave the taxi at Udom Suk on our way to Thong Lo. Before we go up to the trains, my wife drops a few coins into his alms dish, but he doesn’t seem to notice. When we return hours later, someone has taken him away.

Wondering
if every sparrow is delighted
in his share of sky.