March Poetry Contest

Spring is coming in the northern hemisphere.  Eventually.  We hope.  This month’s poetry contest is simple: Write about your experience of the spring.  You may reference fertility if you must, but try to avoid descriptions of your outdoor whoopie.  That doesn’t start until the first of May.  Follow us on Instagram and post with the hashtag #PessimisticSpring or email your entry to canard@pessimistichaiku.com between now and March 31 to enter.  We’ll feature the stand outs on Instagram along the way, and may choose one of those to feature on our website for March if we really, really love any of them.  


For now, we’re going on the JoCo Cruise.  Many thanks!  

-pessimistic haiku

Incompatibilities 5, by Jacqueline Smith

We’re proud to present our next pessimistichaiku.com featured poet, the winner of our February Poetry Challenge, Jacqueline Smith (@ravingpoet64)!

Jacqueline Smith lives in London and works as an interviewer. She has previously been published in Ambit, South Bank, Cake Magazine, Inkspill, Spilt Milk and Poetandgeek.

Visit our page or post with #pessimistichaiku for a chance to be featured here.  Many thanks!

Incantation #16 (salt)

Scorched and powdered,
lifeless furrows
poisoned by the concentration
burning tongues and
tearless sorrows
recollect the irrigation.

Stretching fields of
bony desert, 
cloaked in slime and deathly fragrance,
earth will purge your
vile infection.
She sets all things right with patience. 

Send the downpour
flowing free to
cleanse the soil we have salted. 
Heal the cracking
river beds and
see that we are never faulted. 

Electrons

Turn around.
Turn around.
Let me see your face.

Tell me if it's real or just
a desperate mind's creation.

I've been sleeping in with my
divine hallucination.

What was once exciting, utile
and so comfortable
now has become commonplace and
lets the pain seep through.  

When the shifting phase disrupts
your orbit once again,
will you drift away just like you used to do? 

Come inside.
Come inside,
to this vacuum space.  

Shades of past and future fly
through us til we awaken. 

Confidence in reason and
my senses has been shaken. 

In the sound and light from moments
spent so long ago, 
I stretch out to find my place and
get my message through. 

When the shifting phase disrupts
my orbit once again,
will I drift away just like I used to do? 

Scrambled words on posters,
feathers on roller coasters,
smiling fools and screaming ghouls
with shallow soulless eyes,
deserts filled with flowers,
deep space flights in hours,
telepathic tête-à-têtes
are somehow no surprise. 

Take my hand.
Take my hand.
Let me leave this place.

Distilling down to you, we'll
split up this amalgamation. 

Get your head in order first.
Don't storm out in frustration.

Let it be cathartic, peaceful
and so comfortable.
If it turns out commonplace, we'll
dream up something new. 

When the shifting phase disrupts
your orbit once again,
will you drift away just like you used to do? 
 

Incantation #14

Remember me sweetly.
Remember me as a friend.
I love you, and you can depend on me.
I'll be here until the last no matter how long. 

When the value of dreams is questioned,
When you wonder if you're enough,

When the essence of you is doubted,
When your fire meets a cold rebuff,

When your sleepless nights are too quiet,
When the sunrise screams in your head,

When the one-way road appears endless,
When it flings you backward instead,

When the typhoon sinks your weary ship,
When the harbor is not a home,

When this offer sounds like a bargain,
When you don't want to be alone,

remember me sweetly.
Remember me as a friend.
I love you, and you can depend on me.
I'll be here until the last, no matter how long.