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Haiku For Lovers An Anthology of Love and Lust Edited by Laura Roberts

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Haiku For Lovers: An Anthology of Love and Lust is available for purchase at Amazon, in ebook and print formats. For more information, please see http://buttontapper.com.

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Haiku For Lovers

An Anthology of Love and Lust

Edited by Laura Roberts

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© 2013 Laura Roberts

Published by Buttontapper Press

Cover image courtesy of youichi and Canstockphoto

Cover by Joleene Naylor

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

I could french press you – Elizabeth Ashe

Kitchen God – Shannon Curtin

The First Five Months – Dave Wright

Curled toes, sighs, and moans – Jessica McHugh

Early Thaw – Quill Shiv

SEX billboard – Vuong Pham

Life has taught me this – Bridget Brewer

Vasectomy healed – Craig Steele

Cherry tree blossoms – Angela Barry

Pink calla lily – Kenneth Pobo

Hey Sailor – Shannon Curtin

Strip Club Etiquette – Curtis Woodcock

Slept bad after sex – Katya Amchentseva

When it comes to sex – Jessica McHugh

New Love – Fiona Johnson

You could power towns – Cathy Bryant

Outside in the Country – Kimberly Morgan

Kiss-Blush – Winston Plowes

Francis threw himself – Janet McCann

A Wave Away – Quill Shiv

Be a sexy mess – Jessica McHugh

Hotel Room Haiku – Susie Berg

Muses to Bruises – Sam Alex

Bebop it's Coltrane – Winslow Porter

Elixir of love – Linda Crate

Goldie – Jessica Van de Kemp

Against the hard wall – Lola Howard

Sweat and skin – Miguel Eichelberger

The perfect puzzle – A.J. Huffman

A bit of red wine – Clyde Liffey

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Started as spooning – April Salzano

Barefoot on the beach – SuzAnne C. Cole

Tell Doctor Johnson – Jessica McHugh

A huge erection – Don Webb

I balled my panties – Domenica Martinello

Painstaking lacing – h. l. nelson

A formal-strewn floor – Jessica McHugh

Damn, girl, you look good – Winslow Porter

Intoxication – Richard Scarsbrook

My Hair on Your Pillow, Your Breath In My Ear – Chantelle Rideout

On the windowsill – James J. Stevenson

Put me in your mouth – A.J. Johnson

Film Noir – Sue Mayfield Geiger

Sexy, But No One Knows It – Tristen Fournier

Moist – M. Douglas Poole

Hot Haiku – Joy France

Because we are old – Janet McCann

Outro – Laura Roberts

Contributor Bios

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I could french press you,

swallow the words and your smells,

boiled and clung to.

Elizabeth Ashe

“French press” by Ed Schipul

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Kitchen God

Your touch, a sweet slice.

You peel me like an orange.

I burst in your mouth.

Shannon Curtin

"Orange Juice Sellers in Djermaa el-Fna (Central Square) - Medina (Old City) - Marrakesh, Morocco"

by Adam Jones

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The First Five Months

1.

Silk sheets tussled damp

Evidence of where we lay

Winters the long night

2.

Naked in the den

Snow drift window view

You say good morning

3.

Quick-flame heat returned

Hot tea screams on flames open

Smoke rings on breaths hang

4.

Sharp alarm rings

Two bodies wake late together

Breakfast overlooked

5.

Soon to leave snow drips

Fewer logs of hardwood burned—

The new wife showing

Dave Wright

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“By the Window” by Jessie Holloway

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Curled toes, sighs and moans.

This bliss heightens as you brush

The hair from my eyes.

Jessica McHugh

“Girl, brush, ocean and window” by Jacopo Romei

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Early Thaw

Winter melts, mingles

with sweat on my warming skin.

You kiss frost away.

Quill Shiv

“The Kiss...” by Thomas Leuthard

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OUTRO

by editor Laura Roberts

Anthology editors know that most folks skip the introduction, hungry for the meat of the book. Indeed,

as the world goes digital and ebooks become the norm, all of that “front matter” (as the industry calls

it) seems to clutter things up, rather than providing insight. When people choose to download or skip

titles after approximately two seconds of deliberation, every moment counts.

Which is why I originally wanted to skip the intro altogether, and let readers experience the poems

themselves. Pure content!

Of course, some people do read the intro, and now that I've let the poems speak for themselves, I

figured I could slip in a few words about why I chose them in the first place. Let's call it an “outro,” if

you will; more like the liner notes of an album, helping to shed further light on your favorite songs, as

opposed to the dusty words of a scholar discussing long-dead poets.

This anthology is the product of my own interest in haiku. Although I am primarily a prose fiction

writer, I have always dabbled in poetry, writing lines in the vein of Bukowski or Cohen in closely

guarded notebooks. At university, when I was forced to choose between short fiction, poetry and

playwriting, I eagerly chose the playwriting class, afraid that formal poetry classes would force me to

spin sonnets and wrestle sestinas in mortal combat, killing my interest in noodling around with words

on a page. Like Paul McCartney, who repeatedly shrugged off musical training, I have avoided the

influence of formal training for years.

But my interest in playing with words persists, and since I am not the “poetry type” (envisioned as the

classic writer in a turret, churning out heartfelt words of longing written with quills sharpened by hand,

in ink mixed from the poet's own blood), I published a mini-book of my take on the haiku form. Short,

simple, and packing a punch, I enjoy the form's straightforward rules and inherent limitations. How can

a writer pare down her prose to its most essential elements? Write haiku. Actions and images become

paramount. Modifiers and linking words are cast off, cursed. One-syllable words are cherished. If you

are on Twitter, you already know how to shorten, make do, place words within a 140-character

framework; you are well on your way to haiku!

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Having published a collection of Haiku for Haters, thumbing my nose at those that dislike poetry and

feel it speaks to no one, it seemed only natural to create a sequel: Haiku for Lovers.

Of course, I am much more suited to poems of lust and longing than poems of love. Blame the years as

a sex columnist and editor of a smut magazine, if you must, but I suspect it also has to do with essential

images. Love images are often clichés, overworked and overloaded with baggage to the point of

meaninglessness. Images of lust, on the other hand, are unique to each would-be lover, voyeur and

fetishist. I came up with these images easily, in poems like:

riding crop whips past

slapping flesh fresh from silk sheets

your mistress awaits

Not exactly a love note. I tried again and came up with:

Leonard Cohen song

whispers “I'm your man” – make love

wishing it were true

Closer, but still not rose petals strewn on a honeymoon bed. I needed a different tack. I opened the

anthology up to submissions. I got myself schooled. I found lots of ways to express love without

sounded cheesy, weak or schmaltzy. They were unique, and they each had their own voice.

So my haiku are not featured in this anthology, except in this “outro,” and I prefer it that way. Perhaps I

will eventually publish a companion volume of sexy haiku, those lusty images dancing through my

perverse head, but for now I hope you have enjoyed this mix of love and desire, in haiku form, from

each of these excellent contributors. These are, in short, the poems I wish I could write about love.

XO,

Laura