not breathing—
scent of plastic
in the air
20/100 #The100DayProject #100daysnewthings #EarthDay
I read we even breathe plastics!
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/22/health/microplastics-land-and-air-pollution-intl/index.html
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I took this photo during a recent visit to Wuerzburg. It is the Großer Sitzende (Big Seated), north side of Wuerzburg Cathedral, a work by Maria Lehnen.
quiet noon—
Earth Day like any other
day
19/100 #The100DayProject #100daysnewthings
prima donna
the annual trip
to fairyland
18/100 #The100DayProject #100daysnewthings
in search of a lost train of thought
17/100 #The100DayProject #100daysnewthings
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walther_von_der_Vogelweide
The #poet‘s burial place is in #Wuerzburg, in a place called Lusamgarten. This #photo was taken there. #haiga
My video ‘Lake Constance,’ filmed on location, with haiku by yours truly, and edited by Rob Ward, is now featured as part of The Haiku Foundation HaikuLife FilmFest 2018! (with the sound of waves and wind)
calm evening—
colours melt into
one another
15/100 #The100DayProject #100daysnewthings
undressing…
slowly the trees shed
their flowers
14/100 Photo from the garden of the Residenz, Würzburg, Lower Franconia, Bavaria, Germany.
next to
the Book of Genesis…
The Descent of Man
13/100 #The100DayProject #100daysnewthings
Statue of a Satyr in the garden of the Residenz, Würzburg, Lower Franconia, Bavaria, Germany
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where angels rest their weary wings
12/100 #The100DayProject #100daysnewthings
memories
the scent of white
on white
10/100
#The100DayProject #100daysnewthings #poetsofinstagram
#followme #poetry #poems #haiku #stories #dailycreativity
at last…
birdsong spilling out
of dawn
7/100
#The100DayProject #100daysnewthings #poetsofinstagram
#followme #poetry #poems #haiku #stories #dailycreativity #tomato
there is no end to us no beginning
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#The100DayProject #100daysnewthings
#followme #poetry #poems #haiku #stories #dailycreativity #light #monoku
It’s at its loudest in the early morning hours. Before light dissolves darkness, before the neighbour leaves for work, before the birds start singing, his laboured breathing comes over the baby monitor whispering, gurgling, rattling, spluttering…
I lie awake listening to the crack of thunder, the roaring waterfall, the sounds of the sea emitted from his chest. A car starting, the exhaust backfiring, the train leaving station. The boat reversing in the harbour. Light rain. A soft mieow. His breathing renders a whole world. In this soundscape, I make out the stories he told me when years ago he put me to bed.
Soon, light dispels the apparitions, and his breath comes over the monitor soft, steady, regular, lulling me to sleep.
music of the spheres
how we became
human
*
In the inaugural issue of Wales Haiku Journal, Spring 2018
cherry blossom —
from flowering to fall
our short lives
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Monoku ‘white light’ appeared as part of my haibun
Modern Haiku, 49:1, 2018
beyond Mars
all wars fought
in silence
*
alpha centauri. . .
reaching for a cup
of tea
*
no matter what
roses
on Venus
*
small wonders
the cosmic dust particles
on my roof
In Scifaikuest (print version only), February 2018, p.13 (ed. t.santitoro)
Available from:
http://store.albanlake.com/
On its 50th anniversary, the Museum received a gift towards establishing a Collection of Lost Words. The three curators entrusted with this project, feeling an overwhelming sense of responsibility and apprehension, set about their work immediately. At their first meeting, the youngest of the three suggested they might place an ad in the national press, or even tweet about it asking for submissions. The oldest suggested they go on a retreat together with hand-picked etymologists, philosophers, and linguists, in other words experts, to brain-storm. The woman on the team suggested they search online catalogues for words no longer in use. Words written on tablets and papyri, words from extinct languages. For weeks they discussed the relationship between words and the worlds they described; words and the worlds they gave rise to. Forbidden words, or overused words that lost their meaning. As a result of intense deliberations, a special linguistic search engine was built capable of scouring for lost words. It didn’t take long for results to start coming in. The first word to be returned was ‘love’.
cracked earth
last year’s seedling
yet to sprout
Frogpond 40:3, p.63, 2017
gathering moss…
small mercies of
the quiet life
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My entry to the EUROPEAN QUARTERLY KUKAI #20 – Winter 2017 Edition received 9 pts.
Congratulations to the winners and a big thank you to the organizers!
Happy New Year 2018 everyone!
squares with circles –
listening to the colours
sing
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After the painting Color Study. Squares with Concentric Circles, 1913, by Wassily Kandinsky.
Poem appears on p. 51 of Ekphrasis, The British Haiku Society Members’ Anthology 2017.
One of Kandinsky’s favourite descriptions of his work had been ‘making the colours sing.’ It is said that Kandinsky’s synesthesia — a condition in which one sense such as vision, triggers another, for instance, hearing — allowed him to hear the colours he worked with and . . . make them sing. In this poem, I admit hearing them!
Photo: copied from FB image posted by Shrikaanth Murthy.
halloween…
I feel the pumpkin
for soft spots
.
plastic fibres
the process of becoming
eternal
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besides poetry the weight of the now
.
In Blithe Spirit, vol 27, no 4
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The handwritten letter is long, the paper creased, stained. The stamps on the envelope, though, are glued perfectly straight, indicating help with the posting. It takes me time to decipher the spidery handwriting infested with blank spaces, as if the sender had taken breaks in between. I stumble repeatedly, especially after the first couple of sentences, when the handwriting grows smaller.
What are you trying to say, I want to ask him. Why didn’t you phone me? I reach for the phone, then stop myself. He wanted me to read this letter. I take off my glasses and bring the paper close to my face. I see better now, and I can smell the paper. A sweet fragrance mixed with acetone.
day lilies
at the hospice . . .
wilting
Once a year, The Haiku Foundation asks for our help to meet the financial challenges it faces to continue its work. It does so during the period from Thanksgiving through St. Nicholas Day, the time set aside by many to think about our blessings and give thanks. Each day between the 23rd of November and the 6th of December, a blog post on the Foundation site highlights one of its many features, presents a video, offers a sale item from the Gift Shop, and more!
Do visit the blog every day, find out what the Foundation offers, what the people involved with it do, celebrate the offerings, and help in whatever way you can to support the Foundation continue to promote the cause of haiku.
Looking back on 2017 I am very pleased with these two books: ‘Of This World: 48 Haibun’ (Red Moon Press, 2017), and ‘Ekphrasis: Between Image and Word’ in collaboration with Maria Pierides (Fruit Dove Press, 2017).
If you have liked any of the books please think of adding a review or a few stars on Amazon.
If you haven’t read them and you’d like to purchase a copy, please contact me via the contact form here, or Fruit Dove Press for ‘Ekphrasis’.
For copies ‘Of This World’: Amazon UK
USA: Red Moon Press
winter wind
the last leaf now
on top of the pile
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In NaHaiWriMo anthology Jumble Box (ed. Michael Dylan Welch, artwork Ron C. Moss, Press Here, 2017)
Thank you all for coming to the private view of ‘Ekphrasis: Between Image and Word,’ an exciting show of new paintings by Maria Pierides, with a response to each of those paintings with haiku by yours truly! We were delighted and grateful for your warm and appreciative presence at the show’s launch.
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(Photos from the King Street Gallery Facebook post)
The exhibition runs in the Chate Room, King Street Gallery, Carmarthen for your viewing pleasure until 15th Nov – don’t miss it! Copies of the exhibition book, postcards, and of course, paintings, are available for purchase from the Gallery, and from pieridesmaria@me.com
her pearl earring–
memories of that moment
of bliss
sitting quietly
the fullness of the world
and its emptiness
Over the past few months, I have been collaborating with artist and painter Maria Pierides on an ekphrastic project. The result is Ekphrasis, the forthcoming exhibition at King Street Gallery, featuring 24 of Maria’s marvellous paintings together with my haiku responses to each of her paintings. A book of the exhibition will be available at the show.
King Street Gallery, Carmarthen, Wales, announced the forthcoming event in Welsh Country Magazine:
M Pierides & S Pierides exhibition of paintings & poetry
A new exhibition which opens on 27th October in the Chate Room, King Street Gallery, showcases a dynamic new collaboration between painter Maria Pierides and poet Stella Pierides.
Delighted! So much looking forward to it! I copy below the full notice:
“Ekphrasis: Between image and word” presents new paintings by Maria Pierides – and a response to each of those paintings by Stella Pierides with haiku, the shortest of poetic forms. Maria Pierides’work is inspired by her surrounding landscape, cultural identity, history, myth, time – and poetry. Maria’s visual abstractions are the outcome of conversations with the artist’s being in a particular place at a given time, shortcuts of her lived experience in colour, in texture, in paint. The collaboration with Stella Pierides, who responds to the paintings with haiku, adds layers of meaning that expand in ever widening circles and offer new and unexpected inroads to the paintings. Between image and word; between substance, imagination, and reflection; and between the past and the present, a world resonates, inviting us to engage with the whole of our being. To coincide with her solo show at King Street Gallery, Maria is working on a book featuring a selection of paintings with the haiku written in response to them. King Street Gallery artist Matt Pearce said:
“Despite having been showing at KSG for less than a year, Maria’s work already has an extraordinary following at the Gallery because of its unique emotional impact.
We are very excited about Maria’s forthcoming exhibition which adds to her paintings a response – in poetry – by Stella Pierides,
which will inspire a new dialogue around the paintings.”
A private view takes place at King Street Gallery on Friday, the 27th of October from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. Maria and I would be pleased to see you there. The exhibition runs until 16th Nov.
For more information about King Street Gallery please visit: http://www.kingstreetgallery.co.uk
