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Haiku For Lovers
An Anthology of Love and Lust
Edited by Laura Roberts
© 2013 Laura Roberts
Published by Buttontapper Press
Cover image courtesy of youichi and Canstockphoto
Cover by Joleene Naylor
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I could french press you – Elizabeth Ashe
Kitchen God – Shannon Curtin
The First Five Months – Dave Wright
Curled toes, sighs, and moans – Jessica McHugh
Early Thaw – Quill Shiv
SEX billboard – Vuong Pham
Life has taught me this – Bridget Brewer
Vasectomy healed – Craig Steele
Cherry tree blossoms – Angela Barry
Pink calla lily – Kenneth Pobo
Hey Sailor – Shannon Curtin
Strip Club Etiquette – Curtis Woodcock
Slept bad after sex – Katya Amchentseva
When it comes to sex – Jessica McHugh
New Love – Fiona Johnson
You could power towns – Cathy Bryant
Outside in the Country – Kimberly Morgan
Kiss-Blush – Winston Plowes
Francis threw himself – Janet McCann
A Wave Away – Quill Shiv
Be a sexy mess – Jessica McHugh
Hotel Room Haiku – Susie Berg
Muses to Bruises – Sam Alex
Bebop it's Coltrane – Winslow Porter
Elixir of love – Linda Crate
Goldie – Jessica Van de Kemp
Against the hard wall – Lola Howard
Sweat and skin – Miguel Eichelberger
The perfect puzzle – A.J. Huffman
A bit of red wine – Clyde Liffey
Started as spooning – April Salzano
Barefoot on the beach – SuzAnne C. Cole
Tell Doctor Johnson – Jessica McHugh
A huge erection – Don Webb
I balled my panties – Domenica Martinello
Painstaking lacing – h. l. nelson
A formal-strewn floor – Jessica McHugh
Damn, girl, you look good – Winslow Porter
Intoxication – Richard Scarsbrook
My Hair on Your Pillow, Your Breath In My Ear – Chantelle Rideout
On the windowsill – James J. Stevenson
Put me in your mouth – A.J. Johnson
Film Noir – Sue Mayfield Geiger
Sexy, But No One Knows It – Tristen Fournier
Moist – M. Douglas Poole
Hot Haiku – Joy France
Because we are old – Janet McCann
Outro – Laura Roberts
Contributor Bios
I could french press you,
swallow the words and your smells,
boiled and clung to.
Elizabeth Ashe
“French press” by Ed Schipul
Kitchen God
Your touch, a sweet slice.
You peel me like an orange.
I burst in your mouth.
Shannon Curtin
"Orange Juice Sellers in Djermaa el-Fna (Central Square) - Medina (Old City) - Marrakesh, Morocco"
by Adam Jones
The First Five Months
1.
Silk sheets tussled damp
Evidence of where we lay
Winters the long night
2.
Naked in the den
Snow drift window view
You say good morning
3.
Quick-flame heat returned
Hot tea screams on flames open
Smoke rings on breaths hang
4.
Sharp alarm rings
Two bodies wake late together
Breakfast overlooked
5.
Soon to leave snow drips
Fewer logs of hardwood burned—
The new wife showing
Dave Wright
“By the Window” by Jessie Holloway
Curled toes, sighs and moans.
This bliss heightens as you brush
The hair from my eyes.
Jessica McHugh
“Girl, brush, ocean and window” by Jacopo Romei
Early Thaw
Winter melts, mingles
with sweat on my warming skin.
You kiss frost away.
Quill Shiv
“The Kiss...” by Thomas Leuthard
OUTRO
by editor Laura Roberts
Anthology editors know that most folks skip the introduction, hungry for the meat of the book. Indeed,
as the world goes digital and ebooks become the norm, all of that “front matter” (as the industry calls
it) seems to clutter things up, rather than providing insight. When people choose to download or skip
titles after approximately two seconds of deliberation, every moment counts.
Which is why I originally wanted to skip the intro altogether, and let readers experience the poems
themselves. Pure content!
Of course, some people do read the intro, and now that I've let the poems speak for themselves, I
figured I could slip in a few words about why I chose them in the first place. Let's call it an “outro,” if
you will; more like the liner notes of an album, helping to shed further light on your favorite songs, as
opposed to the dusty words of a scholar discussing long-dead poets.
This anthology is the product of my own interest in haiku. Although I am primarily a prose fiction
writer, I have always dabbled in poetry, writing lines in the vein of Bukowski or Cohen in closely
guarded notebooks. At university, when I was forced to choose between short fiction, poetry and
playwriting, I eagerly chose the playwriting class, afraid that formal poetry classes would force me to
spin sonnets and wrestle sestinas in mortal combat, killing my interest in noodling around with words
on a page. Like Paul McCartney, who repeatedly shrugged off musical training, I have avoided the
influence of formal training for years.
But my interest in playing with words persists, and since I am not the “poetry type” (envisioned as the
classic writer in a turret, churning out heartfelt words of longing written with quills sharpened by hand,
in ink mixed from the poet's own blood), I published a mini-book of my take on the haiku form. Short,
simple, and packing a punch, I enjoy the form's straightforward rules and inherent limitations. How can
a writer pare down her prose to its most essential elements? Write haiku. Actions and images become
paramount. Modifiers and linking words are cast off, cursed. One-syllable words are cherished. If you
are on Twitter, you already know how to shorten, make do, place words within a 140-character
framework; you are well on your way to haiku!
Having published a collection of Haiku for Haters, thumbing my nose at those that dislike poetry and
feel it speaks to no one, it seemed only natural to create a sequel: Haiku for Lovers.
Of course, I am much more suited to poems of lust and longing than poems of love. Blame the years as
a sex columnist and editor of a smut magazine, if you must, but I suspect it also has to do with essential
images. Love images are often clichés, overworked and overloaded with baggage to the point of
meaninglessness. Images of lust, on the other hand, are unique to each would-be lover, voyeur and
fetishist. I came up with these images easily, in poems like:
riding crop whips past
slapping flesh fresh from silk sheets
your mistress awaits
Not exactly a love note. I tried again and came up with:
Leonard Cohen song
whispers “I'm your man” – make love
wishing it were true
Closer, but still not rose petals strewn on a honeymoon bed. I needed a different tack. I opened the
anthology up to submissions. I got myself schooled. I found lots of ways to express love without
sounded cheesy, weak or schmaltzy. They were unique, and they each had their own voice.
So my haiku are not featured in this anthology, except in this “outro,” and I prefer it that way. Perhaps I
will eventually publish a companion volume of sexy haiku, those lusty images dancing through my
perverse head, but for now I hope you have enjoyed this mix of love and desire, in haiku form, from
each of these excellent contributors. These are, in short, the poems I wish I could write about love.
XO,
Laura