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The Whisky Blot

Literary Journal

haiku by R.D. Ronstad

10/6/2022

 
Picture

​a murder of crows
on a wire converse loudly
then fly, verdict reached


R.D. Ronstad writes mainly humor pieces and poetry. His work has appeared at Defenestration, Points in Case, Robot Butt, Bindweed Magazine, Lighten Up Online and many other online sites. A native Chicagoan, he currently lives in Phoenix, Az.

haiku by R.D. Ronstad

9/29/2022

 
Picture

​new-mown grass smells like
yesterday, before the fall
before the troubles


R.D. Ronstad writes mainly humor pieces and poetry. His work has appeared at Defenestration, Points in Case, Robot Butt, Bindweed Magazine, Lighten Up Online and many other online sites. A native Chicagoan, he currently lives in Phoenix, Az.

Trembling Aspen by Liz Kornelsen

8/16/2022

 
Picture

summer winds tickle
leaves into silver-rippled 
laughter, twinkling stars


​Liz Kornelsen is a prairie poet from Winnipeg, Manitoba and the author of Arc of Light and Shadow: Poems with Art. To dance lightly on the earth in solitude, with other humans, or with other forms of nature, is one of her greatest joys.

two haiku by Michelle Olivier

8/15/2022

 
Picture

Cicadas Sing
cicadas singing
strong drink and a warmer night
summer, welcome home

Summer Ditty
crickets play a tune
outside the window, bright moon
Shining through the night


​Michelle Olivier is a registered nurse by day and a poet by night. When she's not saving lives, she has her nose in a book or a pen in her hand.  

three haiku by Renate Wildermuth

8/9/2022

 
Picture

Dusk colors the sky;
a precocious preschooler. 
Look! It earned a star.

Art; life flat-lining.
Seventeen beats. Three straight lines.
Heart breaking. Yours. Mine.

Light/dark. Different? 
Two sides of the same thin coin. 
Dawn; like night and day.


Renate Wildermuth's poetry has been published by The Postcard Press, Poetry Jumps off the Shelf and the online journals Mannequin Envy and Literary Mama.  She is a freelance writer for The Albany Times Union. Her articles have also appeared in Adirondack Life Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Miami Herald, and The Charlotte Observer. She has been a commentator for North Country Public Radio and have appeared on New Hampshire Public Radio’s Word of Mouth program. Her creative nonfiction has been published by Syracuse University’s journal Stone Canoe. She teaches German at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania.

three haiku by Teresa Sari FitzPatrick

8/6/2022

 
Picture

​crushed a lanternfly
beautiful harmful creature
please don’t kill the trees

warm summer morning
each dewdrop is a prism
shattered by footsteps

shaft of white moonlight
spikes the fine lines of her face
it should be raining

two haiku by Sabrina Sanchez

8/6/2022

 
Picture

​sun kissed
early summer's sun
broken by my sago palm
retribution burns

cabin dance
hot, sweaty, sticky
your perspiration now mine
you dance next to me


​Sabrina Sanchez is a writer and artist living in Charleston, SC. The former Editor-in-Chief of The Troubadour, she is currently working on her first chapbook, all my dead birds.

three haiku by Carolanna Lisonbee

7/25/2022

 
Picture

​Tea Time

the perfect moment
one pot of tea, two teacups,
and a rose garden

First Song
a startling sound
robins sing to fading stars
just before dawn breaks

Gibbous
a separate thing
far above this wilting world
the half-melted moon


Carolanna Lisonbee is a writer, English teacher, and globetrotting adventuress from Utah. Her first collection of poetry is WISP OF FOG MOMENT. Her poems have been included in the collection TEA-KU: POEMS ABOUT TEA, by Local Gems Press, and her translations of Chinese poetry appear in issue 10.1 of the journal Reliquiae, published by Corbel Stone Press. She posts on Instagram as carolanna_joy_poetry, and writes #ScienceNewsHaikus on Twitter as @carolannajl.

evolutionary crosswalk by Roméo Desmarais III

7/6/2022

 
Picture

​as I jaywalk, I
dodge cars like bullets, hoping
that Darwin was wrong 


Roméo Desmarais III (he/him) is an established poet, musician and visual artist living in London Ontario, Canada. His publication history includes the only Pride month feature in last year’s oddball magazine. Roméo is 2Spirit, belonging to the Indigenous group Muskrat Métis. When performing spoken word, he introduces himself by bellowing:  I… AM… RoMeO-HoMeO ô£ tHę MåRtïÃñS >{:) –his pseudonym since 1991. He believes that puns in poetry are underrated, that haiku on human nature are still inherently about nature, and that humorous and light-hearted poems are needed now more than ever. www.romeod3.ca.

mother-in-law by anonymous

7/5/2022

 
Picture

​dragon breathing fire
heart the cornerstone of hell
​the mother-in-law


Anonymous writes from his home, just north of Hell. He sometimes can't sleep at night knowing intimately the terrors that roam our world in the darkness.

Dove by Louis Faber

6/5/2022

 

a mourning dove sings
prayers to the departing moon
a monk sits zazen


Louis Faber is a poet, photographer and blogger. His work has appeared in The Poet, Alchemy Spoon, New Feathers Anthology, Dreich (Scotland), Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Erothanatos (Greece), Defenestration, Atlanta Review,  Glimpse, Rattle, Cold Mountain Review, Eureka Literary Magazine, Borderlands: the Texas Poetry Review, Midnight Mind, Pearl, Midstream, European Judaism, The South Carolina Review and Worcester Review, among many others, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He can be found at https://anoldwriter.com and at https://bird-of-the-day.com.

a haiku by Lisbeth L. McCarty

6/1/2022

 

summer has arrived
time to get a pedicure
sandals show my toes


Lisbeth L. McCarty has a B.A. in Journalism (Professional Writing) and a J.D. in law. She enjoys free-lance writing and has been published in various genres.

Cherry Snow by Shane Huey

5/25/2022

 
Picture

they walked hand in hand 
blossoms fell like cherry snow 
April in Tokyo 


Haiku and photo (April 2017, Tokyo) by Shane Huey, editor. 

three haiku by Joan García Viltró

5/25/2022

 
Picture

​daisies in a blue
vase under a summer sun
dazzle on the soul

· · ·

dive after the gale
‘where’s beauty?’ I ask the fish
‘insolubly gone’

· · ·

sea scales burst aflame
ugly starlings flee southward
in bright multitudes



Joan García Viltró is a poet based in Cambrils, on the south Catalan coast. His poems often reflect Mediterranean mythologies and his concern with Nature struggling under human pressure. Published or forthcoming in The London Magazine, Green Ink Poetry, Punk Noir Magazine, etc. Highly commended in the 2022 erbacce-prize for poetry.

Who Knew? by Jamie Lee Knight

5/17/2022

 
​This is not haiku.
You can’t tell me what to do
or how to rhyme schemes.

This is not haiku.
Pigeons in the sky high coo.
We know not bird speak.

This is not haiku.
It’s reverse psychology.
No hidden truths here.

This is not haiku.
Lepidopterology;
flower lamp is life.

This is not haiku.
Bowl of bone marrow broth stew;
dip at your own risk.

This is not haiku.
Why are we still reading this?
Just go outside, bitch.


Jamie Lee Knight is a super duper poet muppet hula hooper artist from the midwest living in Colorado. She planted too many tomato plants & now lives in a cherry tomato jungle gym. Send machete.

Haiku by KD Wilkinson

5/15/2022

 
Picture
longing for cool breeze 
feeling the heat of the sun
the joys of summer



KD Wilkinson lives near Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.A.  After retiring, he was inspired and encouraged by a friend to share stories and insights in written form. Following said inspiration he has made such attempts.

Haiku by Nolo Segundo

5/12/2022

 
the orchids dazzle 
beauty stealing air and sun
some unknown painter


◊◊◊◊

reluctant leaves fall
from the old tree showering
an old man walking



Nolo Segundo, pen name of L.J.Carber, 75, became a published poet in his 8th decade in over 70 literary journals/anthologies in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Romania, India, and in 2 trade book collections: The Enormity of Existence [2020] and Of Earth and Ether [2021]. Recently nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2022, he's a retired teacher [America, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia] who's been married 42 years to a smart and beautiful Taiwanese woman. 

samsara by Gerard Sarnat

5/11/2022

 
Picture
hamster is my name
seventy-seven approached
time to get off wheel



Gerard Sarnat has been nominated for the pending 2022 Science Fiction Poetry Association Dwarf Star Award, won San Francisco Poetry’s 2020 Contest, the Poetry in the Arts First Place Award plus the Dorfman Prize, and has been nominated for handfuls of 2021 and previous Pushcarts plus Best of the Net Awards. Gerry is widely published including in 2022 Awakenings Review, 2022 Arts & Cultural Council of Bucks County Celebration, 2022 Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival Anthology, Washington Square/NYU Review, The Deronda Review, Jewish Writing Project, Hong Kong Review, Tokyo Poetry Journal, Buddhist Poetry Review, Gargoyle, Main Street Rag, New Delta Review, Arkansas Review, Hamilton-Stone Review, Northampton Review, New Haven Poetry Institute, Texas Review, Vonnegut Journal, Brooklyn Review, San Francisco Magazine, Monterey Poetry Review, The Los Angeles Review, and The New York Times as well as by Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth, Penn, Columbia, North Dakota, McMaster, Maine and University of Chicago presses. He’s authored the collections Homeless Chronicles, Disputes, 17s, Melting the Ice King. Gerry is a Harvard College and Medical School-trained physician who’s built and staffed clinics for the marginalized as well as a Stanford professor and healthcare CEO. Currently he is devoting energy/ resources to deal with climate justice, and serves on Climate Action Now’s board. Gerry’s been married since 1969 with three kids plus six grandsons, and is looking forward to potential future granddaughters. gerardsarnat.com

Haiku by Alexander Pérez

5/8/2022

 
HONEYMOON
Pleasure uncovers
Pillow-talk loosens feathers
Seduction sleepless

HARK!
Angels blasting horns
Strip off their heavy winged coats
Apocalyptic

DANCE FEVER
Sweat-humid disco 
Dancers’ arthritic young toes
Set fire to rhythm


Alexander Pérez has published poetry in Trolley (The New York State Institute journal) as well fiction in Flash Fiction Magazine and Defenestration. He lives with his partner James Adriance in Albany, New York, works at the University at Albany, and holds an MS in Philosophy. He strives for brevity, economy, and conciseness in his poems while exploring atypical themes. 

Hemingway-inspired Haiku by Shane Huey

5/7/2022

 
anxiously waiting
calm, soothing much as honey
a dram of whisky
.....

once steady hands shake
abstinence cost him the kill
the big cat unscathed
.....

marlin from the depths
bulls under the Spanish sun
writing is harder
.....

the nib dipped in soul
authenticity the key
just one true sentence
.....

life is to be lived
the sun, it sets and rises
youth, it slips away
.....

between life and death
that is where the living is
life is on the line
.....

they were unlucky
the marlin, they did not run
fishing to drink rum
.....

life written in ink
with the pen and the bottle
life lived in whisky
​.....
​
lie in every truth
a good writer walks the line
truth in every lie


Shane Huey writes from his home in South Florida, where he resides with his wife and son. His works have appeared in Black Poppy Review, The Chamber Magazine, Raven Cage Zine, Purple Wall Stories, MONO., Open Leaf Press Review, Haiku Journal, and 50 Give or Take. He is also editor-in-chief of The Whisky Blot literary journal. 

Haiku by Layla Beth

4/17/2022

 
"Sir, bye”
He corrected me
Feeling so superior
I forget his name

"It’s probably allergies”
I have a headache
But alas I have to work
To afford Advil


Layla Beth is a blogger, storyteller, and poetry dabbler. She is the author of 24 hours in Vegas, a novella available on Amazon. You can see more of her work at laylabethmunk.medium.com.

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Photos used under Creative Commons from Michel Hébert, brighterdaygang, aivars_k, rchdj10, dalbera