HAIKU DIALOGUE – Dreams – Day and Night – long list

Dreams with Co-Guest Editors Sherry & Zoe Grant

Dreams. Where do they come from? Can we foresee the future? Are our conscious thoughts during the day reflected in dreams at night? So many questions yet no definite answers. Dreams can be vivid, or half forgotten; they can be spun into beautiful poems or analysed and studied using Freudian techniques. Some dreams can be soothing, while nightmares are mostly disturbing. Dreams have EVERYTHING to do with our mental health and well-being. Dreams can be abstract or measurable, they can also be the start of something great, for as soon as you dream of something, you send out a message to the universe and the universe might just respond for your wishes to come true. It remains Zoe’s and my dream to inspire at least one billion people with what we create together: perhaps dreaming something up is rather like setting a tangible goal…Zoe and I promote haiku and rengay through editing our own poetry journals, chalk on the walk haiku and monoku, hosting workshops and our own online radio station because we strongly believe that our joint efforts can lead us all to the Next Golden Age. We have been gathering up our own “army” to combat commercialism in an age of depression, in the hopes to heal the world with the power of arts and creativity. Zoe and I would like to bring back kindness and gratitude through building networks and global communities, so nobody will have to feel alone or left out. In November 2025 Zoe and I will host our 5th online international music, poetry & arts festival to celebrate my favourite composer Alexander Scriabin’s (Russia, 1872-1915) 110th as well as haiku poet Fukuda Chiyo-ni’s (Japan, 1703-1775) 250th anniversaries since death. We would like to now leave you with Chiyo-ni’s beautiful haiku about dreams, translated to English by Marco Fraticelli in his book A Thousand Years: The Haiku and Love Letters of Chiyo-ni. Come dream with us!

………………………………………………………………dream fragment
………………………………………………………………a butterfly
………………………………………………………………through wildflowers

…………………………………………………………….– Chiyo-ni

Below is Sherry’s & Zoe’s selection of poems on the topic of Day and Night:

just like a dream
enjoy(ing) the (soap) bubbles
as long as they last

Deborah Karl-Brandt
Germany

 

flight of fancy
daydreaming because I can
deep thoughts float on air

Marca Robbin Gibson
Fairfield, Montana, USA

 

winter nightmare
i walk shoeless
through town

Jahnavi Gogoi
Ajax, Ontario, Canada

 

starry sky
with her the dream
more than a dream

Stephen A. Peters
Bellingham, WA

 

drifting mist
how we both dream
of fresh starts

Patricia Hawkhead
United Kingdom

 

he rarely listens
dream after dream of calls
that won’t go through

Pris Campbell
U.S.

 

dreaming
in meter i awake
to free verse

Curt Linderman
Seattle

 

my own archivist
thirty years’ worth of journals
all that dreaming

Kathleen Cain
Arvada, CO USA

 

voir dire
the rain reveals
my skeleton

John Pappas
United States

 

drifting snow in and out of a daydream

marilyn ashbaugh
usa

 

midnight
the scream of a fox
nightmare backing track

Ann Rawson
Scotland, UK

 

exoplanet search—
beyond my dream’s memory
was there a new world?

Lorraine Schein
Sunnyside, NY

 

only in a dream
everything is possible
impossible fleeting

Refika Dedić
Bosnia and Herzegovina

 

Cancer – in a morphine dream she rearranges our life

Nikola Đuretić
Zagreb, Croatia

 

darkness gathers
in the depths of winter
there are still dreams

Elizabeth Soule
Suffolk UK

 

sleeping girl …
a teddy bear clutches
mum’s hands

Samo Kreutz
Ljubljana, Slovenia

 

red frozen roses
remembering sweet perfumes
once filled summer’s air

Sonja Maria Teufel-Schmarsli
Rottenburg am Neckar, Germany

 

snow falling
on winter dreams
an evening in silence

Pamela A. Babusci
United States

 

the old dog
twitches in his sleep-
puppy dreams

Ruth Happel
United States

 

safe on tissue paper
the poem
escaped from a dream

wendy c. bialek
usa

 

shadow play –
under the faerie lights
a dance awakens me

Diana Ming Jeong
Pasadena, CA, USA

 

notte di pioggia
ai piedi del mio letto
girasoli

rainy night
at the foot of my bed
sunflowers

Angiola Inglese
Italia

 

wolf moon –
I invite the demons
to stay

Eva Limbach
Deutschland

 

drifting in
and out of the dream –
snow through the birch leaves

Deborah A. Bennett
Illinois USA

 

overgrown garden . . .
the orangutan and I
chewing on mangoes

Corine Timmer
Faro, Portugal

 

from the twilight
of a dream
alien music

rob barkan
usa

 

head against the post
playing for Inter Milan
i wake black and blue

(Inter Milan is a soccer team.)

John Holder
UK

 

end of semester
grading . . .
reindeer papers

Geoff Pope
Paducah, Kentucky

 

night terrors
the degradation
of my smile

Eavonka Ettinger
Long Beach, CA

 

to wake me
my dead mom blows a trumpet
my birthday morning

Cindy Putnam Guentherman
Illinois, USA

 

Dreams of weddings
married to my love
Glory to God!

Kirsten Strom
Auckland, New Zealand

 

I wake up laughing
the bad dream
moving company van

Kathabela Wilson
California

 

dreaming of rain
tui nesting in Pōhutukawa
burst of black tears

Lincoln Jaques
Tāmaki Makaurau

 

dreams under way under a bodhi tree

Jagajit Salam
Imphal, India

 

siesta–
I become a leaf
in the weightless world

Teiichi Suzuki
Japan

 

bustling city
urchin with ukulele
zoning out

A.J. Anwar
Jakarta, Indonesia

 

skeletons roam
from my open closet –
night sweats

Anne Curran
Hamilton, New Zealand

 

why do i still wake up screaming
mom’s been dead for years

Lev Hart
Calgary, Canada

 

all their dreams
wiped out…
drone attack

Helga Stania
Switzerland

 

dream unfolds
a bloom smiles
on night queen

Radhika De Silva
Sri Lanka

 

passing clouds . . .
how our summer dreams
drift away

Lori Kiefer
United Kingdom

 

in my dreams
the blue of his eyes . . .
cornflowers

Rosa Maria Di Salvatore
Catania (Italy)

 

different bodies
in my dreams but always me
echoes of past lives

Jenny Shepherd
London, United Kingdom

 

sea cliff – i fall
down & down & down
onto my bed

Xiaoou Chen
Kunming, China

 

this dream
howling at itself
wolf moon

Alvin Cruz
Philippines

 

recurring dream –
looking for my ex lost
among aliens

Natalia Kuznetsova
Russia

 

almost dawn
a birdsong sneaks
into my dream

Ravi Kiran
India

 

in and out of dreams still sparrow

Nitu Yumnam
India

 

unicorn dreams of peacekeepers

Sébastien Revon
Ireland

 

shooting stars –
a child’s dream still holds
the sky above

Dan C. Iulian
Romania

 

daydreaming
between the lines
geometry class

Sari Grandstaff
Saugerties, NY, USA

 

the world without wars…
is that ever possible?
a dream in a silent storm

Goda Virginija Bendoraitienė
Lithuania

 

dream river
through my fingers
slip golden koi

Neena Singh
Chandigarh, India

 

Leaves fall on the trail
Follow the yellow leaf road
Trace of emerald dreams

Rick Runner
Chesapeake Bay, Maryland

 

drifting thoughts
my day
a little dreamier

Tracy Davidson
Warwickshire, UK

 

motions picture–
this life I live
just a dream

Dorna Hainds
Michigan, USA

 

A kid again
In the kindergarten
Greatest nightmare

Rashmi Buragohain
India

 

a dream ends . . .
confetti in the wind
one single color

finisce un sogno . . .
nel vento i coriandoli
di un solo colore

Daniela Misso
Italy

 

they rattle of cups
the smell of burnt toast—
a dream I liked evaporates

Tony Williams
Scotland, UK

 

butterfly wings
retire
for evening moths

Diane Funston
Marysville, CA

 

border crossing –
dreams need no
visa

Vijay Prasad
Patna, India

 

summer dream
under the Gulmohar tree
a passing goat bleat

Govind Joshi
Dehradun, India

 

between dream
and reality ~
a display case

Guido De Pelsmaeker
Belgium (Holsbeek)

 

in my dream
a rock face crumbles
water rushes uphill

Deborah Bowman
Portal, AZ

 

daydreaming
under the sun a charred
beef stew

Hla Yin Mon
Yangon, Myanmar

 

falling snow
a romantic dream
under the weeping cherry

Fatma Zohra Habis
Algeria

 

endless war –
nightmares becoming day
becoming nightmares

Milan Rajkumar
Imphal, India

 

in my dream
the child I lost . . .
offshore mist

Kelly Sargent
Williston, VT

 

mum and dad still present in my dreams

Ingrid Baluchi
North Macedonia

 

ghost’s madrigal on a train my unfinished dream

Sharon Ferrante
Florida, USA

 

withered trees
a pigeon’s turd
greens my dreams

Jackie Chou
Pico Rivera, California, United States

 

soldiers’ dreams
summer grass camouflages
a mine field

Maxianne Berger
Outremont, Quebec

 

trembling
in the darkness
waiting…

Sherri Moye-Dombrosky
United States

 

patterns in the evening sky chiaroscuro of my dreams

Lakshman Bulusu
Princeton, NJ, USA

 

in days I dream
in nights I dream
a happy blur

Kristina Gaines
Angwin, CA

 

riding a cloud
into the sunset
daydream

Peggy Hale Bilbro
Alabama

 

catch a moonbeam in a jar
swing on a star
day dream of the night

Sudha Devi Nayak
Bhubaneswar India

 

swimming in a sea
of lilies of the valley
not a drop of scent

Urszula Marciniak
Poland

 

holding hands with granny…
a sweet dream? Or
a haunted dream?

Santhoshi Valli
India

 

corroboree
at the desert oak
cockatoos and I

Marilyn Humbert
Sydney, Australia

 

dream swing-set
I make a roundtrip
to the moon

Richard L. Matta
San Diego, California

 

New Year’s dream
his granddaughter’s first
paper crane

Archie G. Carlos
Minnesota

 

daydreaming
your last smile
in Kyoto hospice

Charlie Smith
United States

 

morning moon
the dream poem
burns off

Ron Scully
Burien WA

 

a nap in the orchard
maybe I won’t dream of
the last bee

Wiesław Karliński
Namysłów, Poland

 

origami boat
my childhood dream of
sail on to the sun

Tsanka Shishkova
Sofia, Bulgaria

 

on the border of dream a door

Anne Fox
Broomes Island, MD USA

 

major in world peace
in history class
daydreaming

Diana Davison
Brisbane, Australia

 

memories in sleep
petals collide
in wind chimes

Nicollen Nyx
United Kingdom

 

dreamscape
mirrored neon signs
after the rain

Vandana Parashar
India

 

ephemeral
my dreams fade
with the dawn

Susan Farner
USA

 

ward bed
awakenings and nightmares
cold dawn moon

Luciana Moretto
Treviso Italy

 

grandma’s hand on my cheek
the feel of childhood
in a dream

Laurie Greer
Washington, DC

 

christmas stockings
remembering my dreams
were simple once…

Adele Evershed
Wilton, Connecticut

 

blue light leaching the colour from my dreams

Nick T
Frome, Somerset, England

 

descending
into a bottomless pit
i wake up midway

Sumitra Kumar
India

 

a book
with my name on it. . .
daydreaming

Neha Talreja
India

 

shooting star
a dream’s fine line
between night and day

Alfred Booth
Lyon, France

 

angel wings hover
sleeping babes dream
peace on earth

Kathleen Mazurowski
Chicago, IL

 

up in the winter night
after not being able to take down
a sunflower-eating bug

Hynek Koziol
Czech Republic

 

night shadows
a lone sunflower bows
daydreaming

Ashoka Weerakkody
Colombo, Sri Lanka

 

windmills turning in dreams my childhood wallpaper

Barrie Levine
Massachusetts, USA

 

feather moon
the wisp of a lullaby
on fairy’s wings

Baisali Chatterjee Dutt
India

 

memories
like daydreams
fleeting

Christa Pandey
Austin, TX, USA

 

deep dream
my pearl necklace
in the eagle’s neck

Bidyut Prabha
Bhubaneswar, Bharat

 

yelping
with running legs
dog dreams

Barry Smith
New Zealand

 

crowded boat
I dare not wiggle
in my sleep

Ivan Georgiev
Germany

 

in my dreams
we talk
in our old familiar way

Margaret Mahony
Australia

 

when the moon
wanes
where do thoughts come from

Margaret Ponting
Melbourne, Australia

 

blue vibes
the doo-wop choir
on Neptune

Cynthia Anderson
Yucca Valley, California

 

troubled dream the rain comes in

Charles Harper
Yokohama

 

on the same wavelength—
replenish in the oceans
the colors of spring

(All spring season word, kigo 季語: the colors of spring, the color of spring, spring color, haru no iro 春の色 はるのいろ. Seasonless topic, muki 無季: sea, ocean, umi 海)

Monica Kakkar
India

 

until I met her
the dream
in black and white

Bryan Rickert
Belleville, Illinois , USA

 

floating moon—
quietly she speaks again
in dreams

Jonathan English
Washington, DC

 

uncovering old
coins on the ground
my favourite dream

Christina Chin
Malaysia

 

daydreamers wanted –
sitting on the roof with cat
waiting for the dawn

Maria Tosti
Perugia, Italy

 

racing heart…
I tear apart the bed
looking for spiders

Nancy Brady
Huron, Ohio

 

empty house
grandpa babbling
in his dream

Minal Sarosh
Ahmedabad, India

 

Dreams bubble-
Grandma’s golden yellow fritters

Lakshmi R Srinivas
Hyderabad, India

 

cusp of a dream
roaring sea
reduced to a hush

Madhavi Karri
Andhra Pradesh, India

 

walking uphill
trees and tentacles
of the river

Geetha Ravichandran
India

 

hunter’s moon—
the hollow ache
of your turning

C.X. Turner
UK

 

dream
of a vast sky
stuffed eagle

Luck Chou
Taiwan

 

dead butterfly
missing from my home
in the dream

Tejendra Sherchan
Nepal

 

recurring dream –
I return at night
in a previous life

Stoianka Boianova
Bulgaria

 

angel breath –
the unborn child
grows in sleep

Minko Tanev
Bulgaria

 

starring role
in Ghibli film—
Scoville dreams

Stephen J. DeGuire
Los Angeles, CA

 

spazi di fuga
tutto quello che sogno –
noi a piedi scalzi

escape spaces
everything I dream –
us barefoot

Giuliana Ravaglia
Bologna (Italy)

 

i dream
of the world beyond
blue moon

Mona Bedi
Delhi, India

 

dreams
dandelions all over
the air

Satyanarayana Chittaluri
India

 

morning after…
a haiku evaporates
from my dream

Muskaan Ahuja
Chandigarh

 

far past the prairie
oval leaves whisper in dreams
wild cherries ripen

Elizabeth Shack
Illinois

 

dreaming of
an empty classroom—
lessons unlearned

Terri French
Huntsville, Alabama

 

street child’s dream
birdhouse
on an orange tree

Anica Marcelic
Zapresic, Croatia

 

Raas Leela
twirling away from dreams
into the Dream

(Broadly defined as ‘Dance of Divine Love’, Raas Leela is part of a traditional story described in Hindu texts.)

Vidya Shankar
Chennai, India

 

dawn haze —
the unfinished dream
of a paper boat

Nalini Shetty
Mumbai, India

 

ruined dreams
a cuckoo is heard
from under rubble

Mircea Moldovan
România

 

deep sleep
the old family photos
come to life

Richard Straw
Cary, North Carolina

 

tangled dreams
I follow the Wolf Moon
round the garden

Annie Wilson
Shropshire, UK

 

blackbird’s song drifting into my daydream

Cezar Ciobica
Romania

 

unfinished Christmas list
daydreaming
about a yacht

Nairithi Konduru, 10 years old
India

 

daydreaming…
two more flamebacks arrive
on the tree trunk

Amoolya Kamalnath
India

 

once in a dream
lips against my lover’s
just to wake up alone

Alwv Gvli
Scottsville Kentucky

 

princely toads qwark the truth

Bittor Duce Zubillaga
Basque Country

 

late night sneezes–
I dream of grandma’s soup
wake up well

Joan Leotta
Fairfax, VA USA

 

still circling
the dreamcatcher
last night’s nightmare

Helen Ogden
Pacific Grove, CA

 

summer dream
on the wings of winter
my new book

Zdenka Mlinar
Hrvatska

 

awakening
in a New Year’s dream
the war ends

Mihovila Čeperić-Biljan
Croatia

 

dreams –
our suspended spot
where we can catch up

Cristina Povero
Italy

 

synaptic gap
the width
of this dreamscape

Lee Hudspeth
United States

 

dream visit
her little tail wagging
among the daisies

Margaret Tau
New Bern, North Carolina

 

dead to the world
with all his daydreams
Dad

Keith Evetts
Thames Ditton UK

 

flying back to Earth
we dream of vast battlefields
the last Martians

Greer Woodward
Kamuela, Hawaii USA

 

blossom strewn field—
a strong gust lifts
my veil

Rashmi VeSa
Bengaluru, India

 

a little orange robin
brings a sprig of olive overseas
winter dream

Colette Kern
Southold, NY

 

lost in a dream
the kindness of strangers
finds me

Rita Melissano
Rock Island, IL USA

 

wonder why
in my dreams
sadness rules

Sigrid Saradunn
Bar Harbor Maine

 

dreamcatcher hole letting in the nightmare you

susan burch
Hagerstown, MD

 

all the folks from
my wildest nightmares
planchette session

Sangita Kalarickal
United States

 

no such place
The tsunami devours
a galaxy

Aja Rhianna
United States

 

gliding
across the sky
mother’s incense

Kavita Ratna
India

 

my dream…
floats away on the wings
of an origami crane

Lafcadio Orlovsky
USA

 

adam dreams of eve
she dreams
of running

madeleine kavanagh
United States

 

beautiful dream –
waking up, I try to fall
asleep again

Tomislav Maretic
Zagreb, Hrvatska/Croatia

 

shattered dream –
the old mattress springs
a rude awakening

Paul Callus
Malta

 

a dream
painted in poetry
violinist in gold

Randall Vemer
United States

Join us next week for Sherry’s & Zoe’s commentary on additional poems…

Bios:

Guest Editor Zoe Grant, a well-published 10-year-old haiku poet from New Zealand, is the co-author and illustrator of Bat Girl (2020) at the age of 6, and illustrator for Being Katherine (2023) at the age of 9. Her haiku “snowy night” won the first prize at the 2021 NZPS International Haiku Competition (School/Junior) and she is the co-editor of Chalk on the Walk Haiku, Chalk on the Walk Monoku, Haiku Zoo Journal and Raining Rengay. Zoe enjoys drawing, crafts, singing, playing the flute, ballet and writing poetry. She co-hosts the International Rengay Gatherings (https://www.artsinfinitypress.com/irg) with her mother Sherry Grant twice a year. This daughter-mother duo plans to go on concert tours to share their poetry and music with the world. Zoe read 250 haiku and other short form poems during the 2022 International Scriabin 150 Festival, and was the judge for two haiku competitions, the 2023 Sri Lankan Haiku Contest and 2023 KM100NZ Haiku Competition (junior category). Zoe is the host of “Haiku Journey”, where she interviews haiku poets and journal editors from around the globe since January 2023. Follow Zoe’s projects at www.linktr.ee/zoe.grant and listen to her interviews at Sherry’s Next Golden Age Radio (https://www.artsinfinitypress.com/13point10).

Guest Editor Sherry Grant is a Taiwan-born New Zealand classical concert pianist, cellist, poet, author, translator, radio broadcaster and festival organiser. Her own poetry writing journey started in June 2020, with her youngest daughter Zoe. Since 2021 this mother-daughter duo has been promoting short form poetry by co-editing several journals, presenting at haiku conferences (2020 Haiku Society of America conference and 2022 Haiku Down Under conference) and organising poetry workshops. As a musician, Sherry plays multimedia concert tours around the world (2022 USA/Canada, 2023 Thailand/HK/Taiwan/NZ, 2024 Brazil/Argentina/Chile). Sherry is a well published haiku/cherita/rengay poet. Her rengay written with Alan Peat (UK) won the first prize at the 2021 Otoroshi Rengay Contest. Sherry has organised many international music/arts/poetry festivals including the 2022 International Scriabin 150 Festival, the 2023 KM100NZ Festival for Katherine Mansfield’s centenary and is planning the International Scriabin 2025 Festival and the 2026 International Dialogues Down Under Festival to curate New Zealand and Australian Culture. In July 2024 Sherry started her own online radio station “Next Golden Age” curating world literature, arts, poetry, haiku and music weekly, sometimes including interviews from her “Creative Hub” and “Finding Scriabin” interview series. Find the radio programme schedule at https://www.artsinfinitypress.com/13point10 and subscribe to listen at https://nextgoldenage.substack.com/ Visit www.linktr.ee/sherrygrant for updates on Sherry’s projects and concert tours. Sherry’s upcoming 2025-2026 concert tours are planned for USA, Taiwan, Australia and Europe, including her own solo piano + haiku lecture-recitals and Vio-Latino (https://www.artsinfinitypress.com/vio-latino) with Dutch violist Emlyn Stam.

Lori Zajkowski is the Post Manager for Haiku Dialogue. A novice haiku poet, she lives in New York City.

Managing Editor Katherine Munro lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and publishes under the name kjmunro. She is Membership Secretary for Haiku Canada, and her debut poetry collection is contractions (Red Moon Press, 2019). Find her at: kjmunro1560.wordpress.com.

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Photo Credits:

Banner photo credit: Sherry Grant

Prompt photo credit: by Joe from Pixabay

Haiku Dialogue offers a triweekly prompt for practicing your haiku. Posts appear each Wednesday with a prompt or a selection of poems from a previous week.