Roman Haiku by Richard Kenney

Pantheon

Columnar sunlight
Aslant across the curve, moves:
Mortar and pestle.

Did You Hear That?

Over cobblestones,
God’s sudden suitcase…
Dark. Run. Rain in Rome.

Parliamento

Aquariumlike
Smoked glass limo wherein swims
The Minister’s cheek.

About the author

Richard Kenney's most recent book, The One Strand River was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2008. He lives with his family on the…

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Issue 15 · June 2012

Table of contents

From the editors
Poetry
- The Museum of Gug by Terese Svoboda
- Blackout by Joanna Grant
- Talus by Claire Keyes
- An Ancient Citizen’s Tweets From Athens, Greece by Sandra Larson
- Roman Haiku by Richard Kenney
- USA, an excerpt by Elisabeth Blair
- Long Distance with Camel by Carol Light
- Paengaroa Skype-fishing by Mary Scheurer
- Two Poems by Nina Bahadur by Nina Bahadur
- Gift of Nous by Jessica Morey-Collins
- Two Excerpts by Anne Germanacos
- Teresa of Avila Compares the Soul to a Palm Cabbage by William Kelley Woolfitt
- Views from Above by Corrina Bain
- Delphi by Bonnie Bishop
- Two poems by Karen Greenbaum-Maya
- Taking the First Shot After a Three-Year Absence by Tim Suermondt
Postcard Prose
- Eiffel Tower by Karen Greenbaum-Maya
- Invitation by William Kelley Woolfitt
- Rhinoceri by Bonnie Bishop
Travel Notes
- Theft by Lee Haas Norris
- The Silhouette Artist by Rachel Chambers
- Walls by Robert Keiser
- Xavier Meets the Wall by Heather M. Surls

More from The Journal

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I touch my wallet in my front pocket, I could do it, purchase // them all, leave the overflowing suitcase on a bus stop bench/ for you, oh stranger, you oh person or persons unknown ...
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down a washboard roadside through an old forest, / departing the copse of a quiet village, / we spy a youth dangling protein by the tail,
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We followed her in, a stray, the fattest & first, the temple cat./ In a niche by the altar she crouches, watches them come: the/ mad parade we’d wanted, this troupe of heretics — the ass,/ alpaca, gyrfalcon — unbroken line of celebrants, creatures ...
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Why Honey Matters
By Ksenia Rychtycka
Mother comes to me as I’m making honey cake, / measuring out sugar then whipping eggs. / Never mind that Mother left this earth / eighteen months earlier...
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Two Poems by Rimas Uzgiris
The trolley bus won’t go. / Its reins have fallen / from society's hands.
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Missing Buses
By Maryann Corbett
I miss things: swooping, diving, passionate voices/ in several African tongues, so far beyond me/ they might as well have beamed from the constellations.

Read more Poetry or Postcard Prose