Terebess Asia Online (TAO)
Index
Home
Back to the Modern American Haiku Poets

Wally Swist (1953-)
Selected Haiku


illuminating
the silence between us . . .
firefly


farm banter
the bartender chalks
her pool cue


going over and over
what my wife said—
petals of the rose


new buds
the ferris wheel
takes another turn


we wake at dawn
crow calling crow
through the fog


pelting rain
the cow's black spots
move through mist


brook's rush
giving the stones
a voice


thunder rumbles in the distance
drenched kitchen screens dry
mesh by mesh


the flatbed of baled hay
rocks with the tractor's pull
Indian summer


an old road through the hills
fallen leaves
fill the potholes


silence after our argument
crumpled cigarette pack
uncurling


flecks of hay in the wind
a pair of ponies
whisk their tails


heavy frost whitens the trees
a strand of barbed wire
glistens


beneath the storm-shattered beech
saplings begin
To spread their shade


fishing story--
my imagination fills
spaces between his hands


deep bend of the brook
the kingfisher’s chatter
after its dive


stopping in my steps:
a bird who seems to know me
calls from the pine


the farther into it,
the farther it moves away —
spring mist


one broken pane
remaining in the shed
full moon


joe-pye weed
silhouetted in the sunset —
the heat


deep twilight —
the abandoned horse pasture
thick with buttercups


dawn mists rise . . .
the river bottom covered
with mud-caked stones


new moon
tightening the darkness
a cricket’s ratchet


walking farther into it
the farther it moves away
spring mist


opened so boldly
in spring snow
the red tulip


spring rain
all night
the same peeper

 

Bibliography

The Mown Meadow. San Diego, CA: Los Hombres Press, 1996.

Blowing Reeds. Fulton, Missouri: Timberline Press, 1995.

The Gristmill's Trough. Richland Center, WI: Hummingbird Press, 1991.

Sugaring Buckets. Battle Ground, IN: High/Coo Press, 1989.

Unmarked Stones. Sherbrooke, QC, Canada: Burnt Lake Press, 1988.

The Silence Between Us: Selected Haiku of Wally Swist, edited by Randy Brooks (Decatur, Ill: Brooks Books, 2005). 128 pages

http://www.millikin.edu/haiku/writerprofiles/HawkOnSwist.html
http://www.brooksbookshaiku.com/brooksbooks/selectedSwist.html
http://www.modernhaiku.org/bookreviews/Swist2006.html
http://www.wallyswist.com/Interview_20051004.htm