The Geometry of Moths: A Ballad

By Concetta Pipia 16th June 2025

She counted streetlights through the fever glass,

Each bulb a planet in her liquid sky,

When June arrived like whiskey in a flask—

Sweet burn that made her weep, she knew not why.

 

The pavement wrote its name in molten script,

While strangers became prophets in the shade.

A dog named Tuesday licked her fingertips

And led her to the children's lemonade.

 

At three o'clock the world began to bend,

Reality grew soft around the edges,

She found a door that had no other end

And stepped inside to rearrange her pledges.

 

The moths came out to teach her sacred math—

How light divides among the summer hungry,

How every wing contains a spiral path

Through labyrinths both beautiful and sundry.

 

When autumn tried to knock upon her door,

She'd learned to speak in languages of haze,

To trust the strange geometry of floor

And ceiling in those shimmering, magic days.

Haibun

By Vidya Shankar 17th June 2025

Curtain Raiser

As with every other year, we buy two mangoes that we place in the Vishukani. The first lot of the season, the skins of these mangoes are still pale yellow with patches of green, the pulp not yet the enticing aroma of ripeness, and the sweetness falls flat.

awaiting alchemy the weight of spring

Poet's Note: The setting of my haibun is on the day of Vishu, a festival celebrated in the state of Kerala as well as in some parts of the other South Indian states to mark the Spring Equinox or the onset of summer. The Vishukani mentioned in the haibun, the most important part of the tradition, is an arrangement of rice, fruits, vegetables, flowers, coins and currency notes, and a mirror, done at the family altar. This is symbolic of prosperity and good fortune. All family members view this Vishukani first thing in the morning of the festival as a reminder of renewal, reflection, and gratitude.

Mirage of Magic

By Santosh Bakya 19th June 2025

I was asleep, even snoring, I guess.
Those unsleeping were creating a mess.
Some sloshing and shoveling, away the mess.

The miasma of death choked me;
I tried to massage a crick out of my neck.
But what the heck?  Wasn’t I asleep?
[And snoring too!]
But there I was, standing on a cliff. 
Not fiction, but fact. My neck stiff.
 
I found I was the lone survivor
of a world gone awry!
I stood still, stifling a cry;
my survivor’s guilt elephantine.
The wind had a sharp edge;
No way could I escape this surrealscape.

Lying almost comatose in bed,
a part of me had crept out of me,
the stench of all-pervasive death
pushing me out of myself, sweating.

The stench crept into my nostrils,
clinging to spaces inside my skull.
I could see smoke drifting from carcasses,
charred like wood. What could I do?
Nothing! Simply nothing!
Maybe sing dirges and heartfelt tributes,
purging me of guilt?

 From under the sweeping boughs of a fir,
I watched the scorched earth fuming in rage.
A caged bird singing,
trying to revive the folks, their souls so dead.

I choked, wondering, was it the caged bird’s singing
awakening me to the woes of the dispossessed?
Or had the tragic invisibles of my dreams
Visibilised the world’s woes to me?
Or was it just a mirage? Maybe a touch of magic?

Shopping List for when the earth ends 

By Smitha Vishwanath 20th June 2025

Walnuts, carrots, butter and some fresh cream
For the carrot cake, you love so much
A bottle of sauvignon blanc and cheddar cheese
To celebrate a life well-lived
Half a kg of prawns, grated coconut and dry red chillies
I want to cook up a meal that takes us back to our roots
Pita bread, hummus and kebabs
To honour the cities we spent our lives in
Also, a snowball for the younger one
Can’t leave without replacing the one that broke,
she cried about it for days.
A bottle of lemon-scented cologne for the older one
Let her splash as much of it as she wants,
The whole bottle, even, like there’s no tomorrow.
Some dark chocolate for the bittersweet memories
A packet of Oreos, Cheetos, marshmallows and cocoa
Let’s all be children again.

Fortuity

By Sanjeev Sethi 19th June 2025

Old hungers gnaw at your chance arrival

during the summertime. Gleed stirs up in

you my cutty-pipe image, and you laugh,

louder than required, adopting cachinnations

as a channel of expressing emotions that have

no business to be in our basket, as by now

I have met you on the pentimento of regrets.

If this sounds cavalier, let me assure you,

I understand pain. It is my portmanteau.

Biographies of Poets

Concetta Pipia was born and raised in New York City, New York. She is the founder and administrator of Aspiring Writers' Society, an online writing group. Her writing embraces both fiction and nonfiction poetry and prose. Her work has been published in numerous National and International anthologies. Her work also appears in literary magazines including: "The Raven's Perch: Adding Breath to Words," (2023), "The Wise Owl," (November, 2023, May, 2025), and "Different Truths," (2024, 2025).

Internationally acclaimed for her poetic biography of Mahatma Gandhi, Ballad of Bapu, and the biography of Martin Luther King Jr. Santosh Bakaya, PhD, poet, essayist, novelist, biographer, columnist, TEDx speaker, has written thirty well- received books across different genres. Morning Meanderings is her popular column on learning and creativity.com. Her TEDx talk, The Myth of Writer’s Block is very popular in creative writing circles

Sanjeev Sethi has authored eight books of poetry. Legato Without a Lisp is his latest (CLASSIX, New Delhi, September 2024). His poetry has been published in over thirty-five countries and has appeared in more than 500 journals, anthologies, and online literary venues. He edited Dreich Planet # 1 India, an anthology for Hybriddreich, Scotland, in December 2022. He is the joint winner of the Full Fat Collection Competition-Deux, organized by Hedgehog Poetry Press, UK. In 2023, he won the First Prize in a Poetry Competition by the National Defence Academy, Pune. He was conferred the 2023 Setu Award for Excellence. He lives in Mumbai, India.

Vidya Shankar, Associate Editor for haikuKATHA journal, is author of two poetry books, freelance copy editor, and an English Language teacher. A widely-published poet, her work has appeared in prestigious collections such as the Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English and the Poetry Marathon anthologies, and her haiku longlisted for the Touchstone 2024 awards. Featured in a unique coffee table book on 50 inspiring women of Chennai, Vidya finds meaning to her life through yoga and mandalas.

Smitha Vishwanath is an ex-banker, poet, author, and artist, residing in Kenya. Smitha's poem, 'Omid', was nominated for 'Best of the Net' in 2019 and ‘Out of Order’ for the Pushcart Prize. 'Do you Have Dreams' and 'Forgotten', written for NaPoWriMo challenge hosted by Maureen Thompson, won recognition on an international level. Several of her poems have been nominated as Publication of the Month and Year by SpillWords Press. She won the Reuel International Prize in 2022, and her debut novel, Coming Home, won the Certificate of Excellence by the Asian Literary Society.