M. Shayne Bell

midnight on the front steps  . . .

heat releases
a few hours

Full Moon by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi

About the writer:
M. Shayne Bell received a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (1991). His haiku have been published in Modern Haiku, Heron’s Nest, The Wales Haiku Journal, Journal of the British Haiku Society, Stardust, Tinywords, Sunstone, Shot Glass Journal, haikuniverse, and Mainichi Japan (where his haiku were listed among the best English-language haiku of both 2015 and 2017). Bell has also published poetry in The Ghazal Page, Cathexis Northwest, Fibonacci Review, High Shelf, Typishly, Dialogue, Asimov’s, and Once Upon a Midnight (an anthology commemorating the 150th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”).

Image: Full Moon by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892). Color woodblock print. 45.8 x 23.3 cm. 1878. Public domain.