HAIKU DIALOGUE – Intoxication – Writing Poetry – 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 Writing Poetry:

one stick at a time
the beaver builds a dam—
words start flowing

Patricia Haddock
United States

 

prairie wind
through wild asters
Apollo’s half-smile

marilyn ashbaugh
USA

 

a thousand
haikus about a frog
do I have one

Željko Vojković
Croatia

 

rainy morning
repeating the lines to myself
as they rush in

Dejan Ivanovic
Lazarevac, Serbia

 

gazelle eyes-
her kajal spills
into a vertical poem

R. Suresh Babu
India

 

happy space
a calligraphy pen
in free flow

Robert Kingston
Rayleigh, Essex, UK

 

in the woods
words fall in places —
a deep breath

Rashmi Buragohain
India

 

in the sun
a row of notebooks –
my life in haiku

Marie Derley
Belgium

 

syllable by syllable with only the rain as my witness

Shloka Shankar
India

 

day moon —
line after line
still full

Artur Zieliński
Poland

 

tree swallows
the swirling tornado
rests in the sonnet

Daya Bhat
India

 

in the small hours
my words tumble into being –
a secret life

Anne Curran
New Zealand

 

a sheet of paper
my focus
beyond words

Boryana Boteva
Sofia, Bulgaria

 

lonesome night …
finding peace and wisdom
in Omar Khayyam

Natalia Kuznetsova
Russia

 

leaf raking
letting the wind
work for me

Ivan Georgiev
Germany

 

the candle dies
and the last word quilled
moon ripples

Alfred Booth
Lyon, France

 

plastered leg
playing soccer
in my poems

Subir Ningthouja
Imphal, India

 

meditation labyrinth
winding deep inside
a poem

Louise Hopewell
Australia

 

just three little words…
anything or nothing
is possible

Omarion Anderson
Greenwood, MS

 

this autumn poem
every year I read it
differently

Urszula Marciniak
Poland

 

my heart overflows
on paper
your passing

Tuyet Van Do
Australia

 

a line of ants forming a kigo

John Hawkhead
UK

 

ink river—
i am 1 in a hundred
a hundred in 1

Adele Evershed
Wilton, Connecticut

 

Cloud gazing –
a new poem
takes shape

Caroline Ridley-Duff
UK

 

morning finds my glass,
I remember everything-
except myself

Valincia Richard
Sunflower, MS

 

play time to juggle words

Eavonka Ettinger
Long Beach, CA

 

highway zone-out
a slip to the shoulder
to scribble the poem

Maxianne Berger
Outremont, Quebec

 

quiet evening—
the stars whisper
a cricket’s song

Sanjana Zorinc
Croatia

 

iroshizuku words the rustle of wildflowers

Vaishnavi Ramaswamy
Chennai, India

 

ink smears my left hand
I scribble words on paper
illegible now

Veronica Hosking
Avondale, AZ

 

a falling leaf
to write or not to write
a poem

Vladislav Hristov
Bulgaria

 

artesian spring the poetry flowing from a fountain pen

Sam Bateman
Everett, WA

 

giddy from writing
this poem flowed drunk and happy
from my tired brain

Lorraine Schein
Sunnyside, Queens, NYC

 

fireflies
a blinking cursor
becomes words

Millicent Bee
Richmond, VA

 

rush of joy
i write one more
poem about grief

Jahnavi Gogoi
Ajax, Ontario, Canada

 

free falling
into midnight journals
the muse and me

Joanna Ashwell
United Kingdom

 

that perfect line
swallowed by sleep…
morning blues

Baisali Chatterjee Dutt
Kolkata, India

 

river bend
my poem finds
a new course

Hifsa Ashraf
Pakistan

 

female birds sing too
dad takes another sip
of my poetry

Patricia Hawkhead
UK

 

grandfather’s poems
in my hands
painful intoxication

Zdenka Mlinar
Hrvatska

 

sunday solitude —
verses flow
multihued

Sathya Venkatesh
Coimbatore, India

 

wine tasting
all my friends
suddenly poets

Anica Marcelic
Croatia

 

poems
when the flowers grow again
in Gaza

Isabella Mori
Vancouver, BC

 

unlike words –
tears never need
a translator

Dan Campbell
Virginia

 

warning me when to stop spirit guide

Roberta Beach Jacobson
Indianola, IA, US

 

evening silence-
I open my heart
to poetry

Gordana Kurtović
Croatia

 

night stars
drifting off to sleep
a poem arrives

Katherine E Winnick
United Kingdom

 

this leaf
ebbs and flows
as does my poetry

John S Green
Bellingham, Washington

 

burnout
a dog eating its own shit
on the dead grass

Steve Black
UK

 

ink-ku one word spills into another

Lori Kiefer
London UK

 

the Himalayas —
my father
visible in syllables

Lakshmi Iyer
India

 

blackout poetry reinventing the world

Olivier Schopfer
Geneva, Switzerland

 

a bridge across the stream
letting my unconscious
do its thing

Mark Gilbert
UK

 

a woodpecker
and my typewriter
pecking away

Sari Grandstaff
Woodstock, NY, USA

 

old journal
the lingering scent
of a lilac poem

Jenn Ryan-Jauregui
Tucson, Arizona USA

 

a gulp of air
before I drown
writing a poem…

Ayushi Dubey
Pune, India

 

written and read –
words flow
changing shape

Tim Chamberlain
Tokyo, Japan

 

at last the shapes of my poems
come true…
hypnagogia

Laurie Greer
Washington, DC

 

grace state…
a frog jumps into the pond
I play dumb

Mircea Moldovan
România

 

kinda tipsy ~
my charming style is cartwheeling
on her cornea

aangeschoten ~
mijn charmante stijl draait rondjes
op haar hoornvlies

Guido De Pelsmaeker
België (Holsbeek)

 

soft water
the poet murmurs
internal rhymes

Adele Gallogly
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

 

lake fishing
two german browns
and a tanka

MyxlP
Newfoundland

 

last night’s poem swirls in morning fog

Peggy Hale Bilbro
Alabama

 

cloud after cloud –
on a receipt
key words

Elisabetta Castagnoli
Italy

 

late night
the susurrus
of recto and verso

Jagajit Salam
Imphal, India

 

sudden rainbow
I count colours
carefully

Margaret Mahony
Australia

 

a poem
the bliss of following
a cloud

Minal Sarosh
Ahmedabad, India

 

lost in thought
the search continues
for five words

Stephen J. DeGuire
Los Angeles, CA

 

daily pages
someone cut
the brake lines

Margaret Anderson
Vancouver, BC

 

go with the flow —
another poetic flop
down the toilet

Mark Meyer
Mercer Island WA USA

 

backspace backspace backspace resnowing the field

petro c. k.
Seattle, Washington

 

grocery run –
blindsided
by a haiku

Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
Fairlawn, Ohio USA

 

spring breeze
the dormant verses stir —
red lilies explode

Douglas Lim
Los Angeles, California, USA

 

poppy seeds
monkey in a raincoat
points to the interior

Morgan Ophir
Sydney Australia

 

freewriting I carry cloud thoughts

Lee Hudspeth
United States

 

the blue in the sky…
that part of me
that I now know

l’ azzurro in cielo …
quella parte di me
che ora conosco

angiola inglese
Italia

 

haunting my dreams
all night long –
an exchange of ideas

Refika Dedić
Bosna i Hercegovina

 

flow writing –
a piece of dark chocolate
in my mouth

Daniela Misso
Italy

 

moon beyond the balcony
beyond the hills…
all I need to write again

Steliana Cristina Voicu
Ploiesti, Romania

 

the first words
spoken on the moon
poetry

Greer Woodward
Kamuela, HI

 

writer’s group
we all get on
the same cycle

Margie Gustafson
Lombard, IL USA

 

off the cuff haiku
just letting
the ink f l o w. . .

Nancy Brady
Huron, Ohio

 

autumn deepens the poetry left in me

Sumitra Kumar
India

 

talking to me?
I am here
somewhere else

Barbara Grueger
Whitehorse, Yukon

 

even better
than when I wrote it
its acceptance letter

Bryan Rickert
Belleville, Illinois

 

autumn dusk—
writing my death poem
I start to live again

Mona Bedi
Delhi, India

 

wordsflowfasterfrombrainthanMimifingerscantypethem

Mimi Dollinger
Colorado

 

an invisible ladder –
the words come down
with stardust

Stoianka Boianova
Bulgaria

 

rollercoastalstorm

Helen Buckingham
Wells, Somerset, UK

 

butterfly colours
on a little palm
a poem takes shape

Fatma Zohra Habis
Algeria

 

limpid pool
the heart chakra opens
to word-rhythm

Geetha Ravichandran
India

 

autopilot
the stillness of my mind
on a ginko

Arvinder Kaur
Chandigarh, India

 

writing clinic
my poem slides out
like a sea lion

Orense Nicod
Paris, France

 

doomscrolling
for a season word
another haiku

Anthony Rabang
Philippines

 

reading Basho
I spare the life
of a mosquito

Cezar Ciobica
Romania

 

school song book …
lost in the words
we once gave voice to

Madhuri Pillai
Melbourne, Australia

 

blackbird song
the love poem
writes itself

Annie Wilson
Shropshire, UK

 

leaves turning…
raking in the cheer
with favourite lyrics

Raji Vijayaraghavan
Bangalore

 

Fall ginkgo walk
Basho and Issa
in every verse I write

Lakshman Bulusu
Princeton, NJ, USA

 

ki-no-nagare
poetry
in motion

Mike Fainzilber
Tel Aviv, Israel

 

if only a poem could perch dragonfly

Nitu Yumnam
UAE

 

words composed
like falling leaves…a haiku
forgotten

madeleine kavanagh
USA

 

ginko walk––
our footsteps transform
into metrical feet

Sheila Sondik
Bellingham, Washington

 

hammock…
a lilting line
in the love poem

Lorraine A Padden
San Diego, CA USA

 

pulled down
by the undertow
the joy of letting go

Ann Sullivan
Arlington, MA USA

 

still dark out
day breaks
into a villanelle

Stephanie Bauer
Chelmsford, MA

 

restored prairie
every windblown bluestem
a poem

Elizabeth Shack
Urbana, IL

 

my muse Vulcan mind meld ChatGPT iPadkuing

Bruce Feingold
Berkeley, CA USA

 

a vaulter
planting the pole
the right word

Richard Straw
Cary, North Carolina

 

blue hour
w i d e n i n g
on my page

Nalini Shetty
Mumbai, India

 

one line becoming another becoming first light

C.X. Turner
U.K.

 

roller coaster
I gasp at the ending
of my poem

Kimberly Kuchar
Austin, Texas

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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Banner Photo credit:  Andreas Brandt

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.