Haiku Winners

There was an excellent response, both in terms of quantity and quality. We will definitely run further such competitions in the months ahead – perhaps Wordles, six-word stories, a quiz?

In no particular order, with each selected haiku winning a free membership (for the author or nominee/ friend) to the Halo and Noose resource web site, the winners were:

Brett Beiles from Durban sent in Before the Fall:
The decline of Rome
started with an unrepaired
pothole in a road

Love’s Labour’s Lost also came from Brett
While writing poetry
on his cellphone to his love,
the battery ran flat

From Rev. Peter Fox, St Luke’s Hospice Spiritual Counselor
When once we are met
In places of the heart by
Memory we’re held

Barbara Nussbaum, who coaches writing around the world
Sounds in nature’s silence
Hold the wisdom of the world
Slow down let us hear

Some sage advice from Storm Ryders (Stry Ink) of Texas:
Don't let your human
Nature damage your spirit
separate the two

Len Stevens of Cape Town
Beggar at my door.

Am I my brother's keeper?

Inescapably

Submitted by Kiki Theo of Money Alchemy in Cape Town (written as a meditation on a street child)
Ten years I watched a
little boy beside the road
become a man. How?

A moment captured by Jenny from the UK (Gennepher)
I watch the moonlight
silvering my garden
shimmer of statues

Out of Cairo, Egypt (shades of Tahrir Square) Safi
The people awake
to new freedom beckoning
rejuvenated

And Stuart Nager, a professional storyteller, USA sent in a 9 stanza story (but gets only 1 free membership!)
In ancient Japan, Chiyoko had bribed Kitsune, the trickster Fox, with his favorite food, a freshly caught kunimasu salmon that was ready to spawn. From that day forward, Chiyoko would be known, and feared by many, as The Kitsune-Mochi, the Fox Witch. On a path of vengeance against the wicked, The Kitsune-Mochi used the powers of Fox to call on lesser demons (oni) to right wrongs. That is, until she crossed paths with Red Helen, a beautiful oni made up of a hundred-hundred deadly butterflies. Their parting was not amicable.
Fox, while liking being fed, does not like being held under anyone’s sway for too long. He plots to change this…

Dreams of giving chase.....Nestled in Fox den; .....at darkFortunes change in light

Embrangled tightly.....Fox waits for chance to break free;.....Desire, Bidding time

Kitsune-Mochi sits.....Trickster Fox food devours.....Her will, for now, done

Vengeance Spirits come.....Engulf the wicked, ensnare.....Fox yawns; time is near

The Fox Witch grows tired.....Her grief so long to abate.....Lamentable, she

Red Helen, intrigued.....Plotting with traitorous Fox.....Smiles deadly poison

Asleep, alone; NOW.....Driven winds of hundred wings.....Deadly red blanket

Curse uttered slowly.....Kitsune-Mochi spins away.....Defeats betrayal

Fox Witch hunts the Fox.....He slinks in shadows and dusk.....Wrath is on his tail