i’m rattled in this current spacemy body spilling over with red ragethe crash proved fatalyou lurked in the shadowsanother slip-upanother flicker of dishonesty i was ravenous for connectionbut found only deceitthis time, i feel no… More
New Reality
face reality
best is yet to come your way
it’ll be wonderful
I Want…
to watch you with eyes
that know who you are
feel your insides
know your thoughts
anticipate what happens next
your body to respond
to my tender and adoring gaze
my heartbeat straining
beating out of control
screaming for release
to touch you with hands
familiar with fire
free to explore
all the soft places
aching for connection
my body enmeshed
with the feral excitement
the pent-up emotions
giving voice to them
screaming for release
… i want ecstasy
In Tune
Redux
nature
my safe haven
true connection to you
feeling this ease and acceptance
let’s sway
How Far We’ve Come
Inspired by What do you see #334
eyes have always
searched new horizons
blood, sweat, and tears shed
hard labor and determination
won us exciting discoveries
now at our fingertips
answers and explorations
are child’s play
Therapeutic Escape
It rumbles in my head as I walk guiltily like the filthy creature I feel I am, nothing but a lowly criminal. I feel lower than the dirt I walk on after the visit with the shrink. My mind is a dark place right now; shockingly, she dares to enter the space where I know my aberrant thinking gets me in trouble. What lives, no, exists in this space is a deep black hole on occasion. I welcome lighter thoughts, but my innards drag me down at the moment. Sometimes it really hurts to roam the world as a writer.
SenHai Saturday #45
Here is this week’s image to get your creative juices flowing! It shows a herd of zebras standing together in a grassy, but also rocky, field. In the distance, you can see a fuzzy dark brown animal.
Please create one senryu and one haiku to accompany this image prompt. Remember that traditional American haikus and senryus are three lines presented in a 5-7-5 syllabic pattern. The haiku describes nature or a season, and the senryu focuses on human nature and emotions.
Then, provide a link in the comments below or ping back to this post on your blog.
Here is a wrap-up of last week’s prompt. I appreciate each of you for sharing your thoughts!
Petru – for Senhai Saturday
Misky – 2103: Journal of SenHai
Ange – SenHai
Punam
A monster rises
yawing as the blizzard blows
my only way home
rising from the fog
drunken ramshackle bridge sways
trying to stand tall
Eugenia – #SenHai Saturday – 3/21/26
Carolyn – SenHai Saturday #44
Diana – Fragile Curtains
Nancy – SenHai Saturday #44 and a Bit More
Indira – SenHai Saturday #44
Carol Anne – Sen-hai Saturday #44
Goutam – Senhai #44
Violet – Ghosts
Sadje – Fog swallowed the past
Colleen S. Harris
Cinquain for Soldiers
We lay
prostrate, gore-cauled,
crying for our mothers.
And so we end as we begin,
in blood.
A Tanka for Tragedy’s Aftermath
The sea drives itself
to shore making promises
it will take thousands
of years to keep, same as not
keeping them at all.
Migration
Birds
fly
due south
for winter warmth
I get as far as
Cabo before my heart thaws out.
Long Island Winter
Earth,
sky,
ocean
breezes
and toppling
waves making merry
in the chilled New York Atlantic
Camarillo, California
Fire,
smoke,
traffic,
evacuation.
So little fits in a suitcase.
~~~
Colleen S. Harris holds an MFA from Spanding University. Her most recent poetry collections include The Light Becomes Us (Main Street Rag, 2025) and Toothache in the Bone (boats against the current, 2025). Her poems appear in Berkeley Poetry Review, The Louisville Review, Salvation South, among others. Follow at https://colleensharris.com. This is Colleen’s first feature with The Short of It.
If you’d like to be featured on The Short of It in the future,
click here for the submission guidelines.
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Preferred Outcomes
youth contemplating
a battle of right and wrong
they want to choose peace
Rotting Fruit
years went by
pleas were ignored
love languished
ripened, yet not picked
seen, and not heard
dying on the vine
a heart’s desire
not getting what it needs
it was perishing
before my eyes
I Write Her 