THE HAIBUN GALLERY: January 22, 2026. Shloka Shankar - Guest Editor
- Kala Ramesh
- 2 hours ago
- 1 min read
editors on haikuKATHA: Shalini Pattabiraman, Vidya Shankar, Firdaus Parvez and Kala Ramesh
Lorraine Haig has stepped down from being a mentor for this forum. Triveni Haikai India and The Haibun Gallery are grateful for her exceptional feedback and responses over the last few years.
Guest Editor: Shloka Shanker
Featured Poet: Kat Lehmann
A Thursday Feature January 22, 2026
A List of Foods for the End of the World
Kat Lehmann
Chocolate.
go bag
eighty percent
won’t fit
— Prune Juice, Issue 47
Commentary:
This haibun by Kat Lehmann could easily be a gembun had she not titled it. Instead, she chooses a rather ominous-sounding title and offers us a one-word prose poem, if you will. Our apocalyptic expectations are swiftly thwarted upon encountering the word “chocolate.” In the face of impending doom, there’s at least dessert, right?
Prompt:
Write a haibun that employs elements of science fiction to describe a post-apocalyptic world. What monsters will inhabit the planet as we know it?
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Let's see how our members respond to this prompt!
Thank you for being with us through this month!
_kala
The Haibun Gallery continues as is.
We will be having editors and prompts, and your sharing …
#1
The Last Horizon
The wind carries the scent of salt and rust. What's in front of me once was sea, I'm turning off to the middle of nowhere. After an hour, finding the cracked highway, where the vine folds its green arms over forgotten signs: Exit 7, Rest Stop 5 kilometers. The rusty car wreck lying on the roadside, I don't recognize the brand. Sometimes I think I hear voices — laughter, maybe — but it’s just the wind moving the leaves of unnamed plants.
I keep walking west, toward where the light still remembers how to warm the earth.
ghost town
morning sun blooming
in the windows
feedback welcome
Jacek Margolak
Poland