Category Archives: Poems

Blog, Haiku

‘not breathing’ 20/100 #100daysnewthings

Image

not breathing—

scent of plastic

in the air

Wuerzburg,Der Grosser Sitzende,haiga,

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

.

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.

Blog, Haiku

‘gut bacteria’ 9/100 #100daysnewthings

Blog, blog items, Haiku, Journals 2018

‘Lullaby’ in Wales Haiku Journal

2 Comments

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

Blog, blog items, Haiku, Journals 2017

The Surface of Things

haibun 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

Blog, Haiku, Journals 2017

‘Squares with Circles’ in Ekphrasis, The BHS Members’ Anthology 2017

squares with circles –
listening to the colours
sing
.
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.

Ekphrasis, 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.

Blog, blog items, Haiku, Journals 2017

‘End Note’ in Haibun Today

4 Comments

Haibun Today 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