HAIKU DIALOGUE – Intoxication – Meditation – long list

Intoxication with Guest Editor Deborah Karl-Brandt

It has been with us since time immemorial, and almost all of us have experienced it firsthand: intoxication. Endorphins produced in the body during exercise give us a feeling of happiness known as a “runner’s high,” and once again we are intoxicated. Intoxicants have been used to awaken our spirituality, make us forget physical hardships, or elevate our imagination to unprecedented heights. And yet intoxication has its dark side. In the coming weeks, we want to explore how legal intoxicants affect us, our brains, and our everyday lives. I invite you to join me on a journey into our everyday lives and our brains to explore intoxication.

Below is Deborah’s selection of poems on the topic of Meditation:

meditation
all the places
you leave yourself

Laurinda Lind
Sackets Harbor, NY

 

oooommmmmmmmmmmygod!

petro c. k.
Seattle, Washington

 

backward chant
the cow’s cosmic answer
to oum

Daya Bhat
India

 

able
to breathe again… I walk
lighter

Madeleine Kavanagh
California

 

chanting
the Lotus Sutra —
dishes in the sink

Rashmi Buragohain
India

 

last breath
breathing—
“Tetelestai”

(Tetelestai means: it is finished)

Jonathan English
United States

 

chirp-chirp
of the crickets
I reply with OM

Barbara Anna Gaiardoni
Verona, Italy

 

early spring
my breath in sync
with the leaky faucet

Liza Boyce Linder
Maryland, USA

 

zen masters the lust of letting go

Surashree Joshi
Pune, India

 

skyline divide
6250 feet high
just me myself and I

Stephen A. Peters
Bellingham, WA

 

drifting beneath clear waters mind still

Pegah Rahmati Nezhad
Tehran, Iran

 

meditation
eventually your name
will come back to me

Michael Henry Lee
Florida

 

morning stretches
the elasticity of thoughts
covering decades

Firdaus Parvez
India

 

smokeless incense—
I exhale
my old life

Adele Evershed
Wilton, Connecticut

 

a bundle of nerves —
it unravels
one breath at a time

Sathya Venkatesh
Coimbatore, India

 

the zen of this chair cushion sitting with my mind

Peggy Hale Bilbro
Alabama

 

fire moon—
the ashes
of what was

Patricia Carragon
Brooklyn, NY, USA

 

nothing but moonlight
I delete
my meditation app

Eva Limbach
Germany

 

i n h a l e . . .
the weight
of mom’s nose pin

R. Suresh Babu
India

 

morning walk
my head
in the clouds

Margaret Mahony
Australia

 

breathing in a river of stars flows through me

John Hawkhead
UK

 

beginner’s yoga
all I get to release
is gas

Tracy Davidson
Warwickshire, UK

 

pebble altar
the caress
of many rivers

Kavita Ratna
India

 

sound of silence
blooming lotus
mirrored in the lake

Sanjana Zorinc
Hrvatska

 

a murder of crows
screams blue murder
meditation retreat

Louise Hopewell
Australia

 

walking in the wind
my inner noise dissolves
within the trees whispers

Goda Virginija Bendoraitienė
Lithuania

 

the tranquil face
of my Buddha statue –
celestial light

Anne Curran
New Zealand

 

at the edge of the blank
fly

Keiko Izawa
Japan

 

eyes closed
I inhale petrichor
to calm myself

Valincia Richard
Sunflower, MS

 

waves crashing
a momentary stay of
white foam

Omarion Anderson
Greenwood, MS

 

sitting
in the dark
before dawn

Derek LeDayn
Pōneke Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand

 

meditation walk—
with every breath
fresh fallen snow

Sam Bateman
Everett, WA

 

taking deep breaths
on the front lawn
dawn chorus

Tuyet Van Do
Australia

 

an attempt
to focus on my breath
bouncing ball

Eavonka Ettinger
Long Beach, CA

 

daybreak
crows murdering
my meditation

Mary Weiler
Watsonville, California

 

midnight drip
syncing
with my breath

Biswajit Mishra
Canada

 

under
the night sky
I breathe in stars

Jennifer Gurney
United States

 

zazen
I find my way
within

Katherine E Winnick
Brighton UK

 

sitting seiza
and scratching that itch
meditation lite

Mark Meyer
Mercer Island WA USA

 

meditating—
I count sangha
head after head

Ahmad Olawale
Osun State, Nigeria

 

Qigong –
I dissociate
from which world

Scott Smithline
Nelson, New Zealand

 

mountain’s silence –
the echo steals
my mantra

Dan C. Iulian
Romania

 

levitating
across the deep silence —
splash!

Mircea Moldovan
Romania

 

Zzzzz not zazen
better to go to bed
and fall asleep

Ann Rawson
Scotland, UK

 

to the pur-rhythm on my lap box breathing

Vidya Premkumar
India

 

silent meditation
waiting for the wind
to move

Lori Kiefer
UK

 

the morning mudra –
breathing almost facing my body

Benedetta Cardone
Italy

 

mindful walking
a centipede
owns the path

Geetha Ravichandran
Chennai, India

 

snowy peaks –
dandelion seeds
in the wind

Minko Tanev
Bulgaria

 

silent forest —
an unseen lizard stirs
the fallen leaves

Stoianka Boianova
Bulgaria

 

butt hurts —
one hundred eight pricks
in one breath

Artur Zieliński
Poland

 

dawn silence —
I watch daylight
drawing my room’s edges

Fatma Zohra Habis
Algeria

 

seashore
finding my breath’s
shallow end

Shalini Gupta
India

 

taming the monkey mind
inhale, exhale—
what’s for dinner?

Rebeca Thomas
Youngtown, Arizona, USA

 

transcendental meditation
forgetting to remember
my mantra

thomas david
United Kingdom

 

walking meditation
cherry petals swirl
around my feet

Mona Bedi
Delhi, India

 

mindfulness class
I walk out
through the in door

Nick T
Frome, Somerset, UK

 

4’33”
birdsong slips
into my breath count

Meera Rehm
UK / Nepal

 

mindfulness…
between breaths faucet’s
drip Drip DRIP

Stephen J. DeGuire
Los Angeles, CA

 

So-ham. . .
with every breath
the journey within

(Soham – this mantra represents the unity of the individual soul with the universal consciousness.)

Neena Singh
India

 

slow breathing
a mint leaf
quenches the air

respiro lento
una foglia di menta
disseta l’aria

angiola inglese
Italia

 

breathing in moonrise a web’s silver shiver

Patricia Hawkhead
England

 

do meditating monks
copy me
and still check the clock

Dan Campbell
Virginia

 

too many
thoughts circling
–the cicada ‘s buzz

Nancy Brady
Huron, Ohio

 

from beyond
the beyond…
first starlight

Kerry J Heckman
WA

 

       circular
     breathing
led by the willow

Helen Buckingham
United Kingdom

 

the blankness
of the wall …
the cosmos

Subir Ningthouja
Imphal, India

 

facing the wall
one of us blinks
right of wrong

Ron Scully
Burien WA

 

on market street
a shoeshine boy
barefoot grounding

Anthony Rabang
Philippines

 

autumn ginko drifting with the clouds

Melissa Dennison
UK

 

lowered gaze,
sitting still in the humming breath —
snow gently falls

Douglas Lim
Los Angeles, California, USA

 

his shirts
while ironing her doubts
disappear

Urszula Marciniak
Poland

 

Zen walk
every tree every leaf
holds my breath

Annie Wilson
Shropshire, UK

 

zazen —
swallowing
a ho-hum

Vaishnavi Ramaswamy
Chennai, India

 

meditation mantra:
eyes closed, eyes closed, eyes —
what about now?

Mimi Dollinger
Colorado, USA

 

sukhasana …
sweating in cloudless heat
among still trees

Marilyn Humbert
Australia

 

chanting ommm together
me
and the fan

Marjan Sabouri
Greece

 

alpha waves—
the moon
above the lake

Sandip Chauhan
USA

 

a zest of zen
in the ladle
Harvest Moon

Orense Nicod
Paris, France

 

trying not to think
I think
about trying

Nalini Shetty
Mumbai, India

 

two old men
counting breaths to ten
the rain starts up

chad henry
Aurora CO USA

 

a rainy day
the cat meditates better
than I do

Ivan Georgiev
Germany

 

guided meditation
my migraine
flies away

Ruth Holzer
Potomac Falls, VA

 

mindfulness
the scent of warm waffles
creeps into the mind

Marie Derley
Belgium

 

kundalini
my inner demons now
wide awake

Jahnavi Gogoi
Ajax, Ontario, Canada

 

meditation
perspiration beading
on my forehead

Minal Sarosh
Ahmedabad, India

 

breathe in
a wasp’s buzz fills
the tree shadow

Samo Kreutz
Ljubljana, Slovenia

 

park bench
i release the hum
of the bumblebee

Margaret Anderson
Vancouver, BC

 

sitting in silence
footsteps awaken me
back from the immense

Rita R. Melissano
Rock Island, IL USA

 

still waters
this life I have
is enough

Cynthia Anderson
Yucca Valley, California

 

sci-fi meditation
walking step by step on Mars
kicking up red dust

Greer Woodward
Hawaii, USA

 

sunlit carpet
the cat’s hour
of meditation

Richard Straw
Cary, North Carolina

 

stepping into it slowly the forest of silence bathing

Kathabela Wilson
USA

 

Zen walk
going nowhere
slowly

Anne Fox
Broomes Island, MD USA

 

focused on diyas my blues now blossoms

(Diya is a traditional oil lamp of India and focusing on its flame is a form of meditation in the process.)

Lakshman Bulusu
Princeton, NJ, USA

 

pool walking
full focus on
how many lengths

Maxianne Berger
Outremont, Quebec

 

feeling peace
then thoughts
dam, dam, dam

Herb Goldsmith
Texas, USA

 

circling the stupas
on the path to Everest
om mani padme hum

Bruce Feingold
Berkeley, CA, USA

 

tintinabulation
i am the sound
of temple bell

Margie Gustafson
Lombard, IL USA

 

walking meditation…
beyond 12 steps
a road less traveled

Laurie Greer
Washington, DC

 

meditation hall
the still body
of a praying mantis

Cezar Ciobica
Romania

 

zendo
a window open
to the cherry tree

Cristina-Valeria Apetrei
Romania

 

Tibetan singing bowl –
deep caves open up
to snuggle in

Cristina Povero
Italy

 

waiting room
within the waiting room
counting breaths

C.R. Harper
United States

 

flow state slipping in and out of the interstices

Lee Hudspeth
United States

 

insomnia
my deep breaths until …

Sumitra Kumar
India

 

predawn —
a chirp
through the silent chant

Raji Vijayaraghavan
Bangalore

 

lucid dreaming
I really hope
i am the butterfly

MyxlP
Newfoundland

Join us next week for Deborah’s commentary on additional poems…

Bios

Guest Editor Deborah Karl-Brandt lives in Sinzig, Germany, with her husband, two rabbits, and a sizable collection of books. After completing her PhD in Scandinavian languages and literatures, she works as a freelance writer. Her works have appeared in numerous haiku and short poetry magazines and have earned her several honorable mentions, second place in the haiku competition at the 2021 Pula Film Festival, and the 6th Star Haiku Contest Overseas Grand Prize in 2025. Also in 2025, she was selected as a fellow for confluence. She has also served as a guest editor for Haiku Dialogue since 2023. Her new book, Wild Rabbit Moon, was published in 2026.

Assistant Editor Lafcadio, a former teacher, now works from home writing, editing and proofreading study guides for nursing textbooks. She lives in Tennessee. She has written poetry for a long time but a couple of years ago fell in love with Japanese micropoetry and hasn’t looked back. Lafcadio has been published in a number of journals and anthologies. She writes under the nom de plume of Lafcadio because nom de plume is so fun to say. You can read her poems on Twitter (X) @lafcadiopoetry or BlueSky @lafcadiobsky.

Assistant Editor Vandana Parashar is an associate editor of haikuKATHA and one of the editors of Poetry Pea and #FemkuMag. Her debut e-chapbook, I Am, was published by Title IX Press (now Moth Orchid Press) in 2019 and her second chapbook Alone, I Am Not, was published by Velvet Dusk Publishing in April 2022.

Lori Zajkowski is the Post Manager for Haiku Dialogue. She lives in New York City and enjoys reading and writing haiku.

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

Portrait by Laurel Parry

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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. Read past Haiku Dialogue posts here.