first frost distilling silence
*
Pleased to share that my monoku:
sleepless night formatting loneliness
.
is now in the Haiku Society of America anthology 2016, edited by David Grayson.
(First appeared in Bones – journal for contemporary haiku no. 9 March 15th 2016 p.22 and elsewhere).
front row
the soprano’s perfect
teeth
.
In ‘Beginning’ the British Haiku Society Anthology 2016
Being Remembered
Salting is one of the oldest methods of preserving food. Fish, meats, cheeses, cabbage, olives have been cured, brined, pickled to protect them from fungi, bacteria, and other harmful organisms, and thus keep them fresh for longer. Still, it comes as a surprise to read of one more entity to be preserved in salt: memory.
A project titled Memory of Mankind aims to preserve humankind’s most precious milestones by engraving them on special ceramic tablets, and then storing them in salt-lined vaults deep in the Austrian mountains. Small tokens engraved with a map pointing to the archive’s location, and other information helping our descendants decipher the tablets, will be strategically buried around the globe. And what will future generations find to define us? The article suggests sacred texts, treatises, classics, scientific articles, images of buildings, paintings, musical scores. And individual histories, family albums, recipes.
My list would include my daughters’ photos and paintings, multiple drafts of a haibun, favorite poems, a pin cushion and thimble, an amber komboloi, an oil lamp, a pot of basil; my grandmother’s piece of the Holy Cross, the sound of the sea . . ..
family supper
the same joke for
the umpteenth time
.
In Haibun Today Volume 10, Number 4, December 2016
The Path
At the top of the stairway snaking up the hill, a white-washed chapel and an olive tree. Blinding sunlight. Some way to go yet. The stony stairs are narrow, a couple of hands-width before the cliff falls steeply into the sea.
Slow down, there’s no hurry. Take a deep breath. Feel the rough warmth of the rock. The wind beating against it raises the fragrance of sage, of thyme and marjoram to the skies, erases the silence.
marble wings—
in the distance
windmill ruins
Feel the salt on your lips, the urgent wind tussling your hair.
This history book under your arm, so well-thumbed, leave it here, against that rock, someone coming after you might linger, take a look.
pillars of salt—
propping her foot
on a stone
And the pebble from Amorgos you kept in your pocket all those years, add it to the cairn over there, where the path widens. Let it go. The trail is moments like this, following the light, teetering on the edge of your desires, of your sorrows.
That bench at the top, see it now, under the olive tree? This is your goal. You can rest there. Wise, gentle Persephone will hold your hand.
embalming my tongue
I rest in the shadow
of the silver-leaved olive
Author’s commentary:
Having left Greece in my youth, I keep returning to it in my writing, visiting and revisiting the landmarks and landscapes of the country.
Time has a different texture in and about Greece. Sculptures solidifying the past appear at every corner, at every museum: looming, teasing, reminding. Accompanying us into the future. There’s no escaping the sculptures, the poets know it:
“… I woke with this marble head in my hands;
it exhausts my elbow and I don’t know where to put it down.”
Seferis, Mythistorema
and
Ritsos approaches the sculptures from different, mythical angles, turning the people and landscape into eternal presences:
“…Nowadays, we don’t think much
about Theseus, the Minotaur, Ariadne on the beach
at Naxos, staring out at the coming years.
But people still dance that dance: just common folk,
those criss-cross steps that no one had to teach,
at weddings and wakes, in bars or parks,
as if hope and heart could meet, as if they might
even now, somehow, dance themselves out of the dark.”
Ritsos, The Crane Dance
In The Path, honoring these roots, I try to present this aspect of my Greek inheritance. I fail, of course, but proud to be trying.
Painting “Golden Light, Port Isaac” by Maria Pierides
In Blue Fifth Review, Broadside #44 Fall 2016
Very pleased to say my haibun ‘The Path’, together with the painting ‘Golden Light, Port Isaac’ by Maria Pierides, appeared in Broadside #44 (Fall 2016 / 16.11) of Blue Fifth Review. Take a look.
.
the shower head splutters Perseids
.
Bones: journal for contemporary haiku XI, 2016
evening news—
forgetting
to swallow
.
In Failed Haiku, issue 1.11, p.152
Nights at the Opera
Don Giovanni…
learning from
my ghosts
.
opera buffa—
long after the laughter
the tears
.
opera seria
the prima donna throws
a tantrum
.
asphodels…
and the stars were shining
unseen
.
and what if
all the world’s a stage—
Pleiades
.
Failed Haiku: A Journal of English Senryu, issue 1.11, p.152
wind-blown street—
crossing the road
for no reason
.
Failed Haiku, issue 1.11, p.152
Passion Play
washing his hands backstage
Judas
.
Presence #56, p.16, 2016
A tanka of mine on the theme ‘Portrait’ appears on issue 103 of Right Hand Pointing: short poetry, fiction & art since 2004 A.D.
And what an issue it is! Alive!
I will post my poem here too in a few days – but why wait, take a look (scroll down by clicking on the hand image for the next poem): http://www.righthandpointing.net/issue-103
Enjoy!
creeping ivy
the plasterer’s
dry cough
.
Modern Haiku 47.2, Summer 2016
withered field
the old house yields
its past
moongarlic E-zine, issue 6, 2016
p.58
This week, a terrific haiku by Melissa Allen was up for discussion at The Haiku Foundation re:Virals. Interesting commentaries looking at the poem from different perspectives. You can read the whole post with the poem and all the commentaries here. I am pleased to say mine was this week’s winner. I copy it below:
.
Melissa’s poem:
radiation leak moonlight on the fuel rods
— Melissa Allen, Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years (2013)
And my take:
In current usage, the word leak refers to a variety of situations: from leaking a document and bringing into the light a secret, to taking a leak, to a wasteful dripping of water, to seepage of radiation. This poem, with its radiation leak, immediately opens up a danger zone. Step in at your peril into an image that gives rise to paralyzing fears, to the dead zones of Chernobyl, Fukushima; to the forbidden zones. Anything could happen here.
From a leak to a fireball, from the atom to the apocalyptic mushroom cloud, you could be walking into a minefield of the results of unbridled ambition and unscrupulous greed, a Faustian deal . . . Whether the leak is from a technological or scientific project, where man sees himself tirelessly bent on expanding knowledge and power over nature, finding solutions to the human problems of illness, poverty, and environmental degradation; whether hubris or dedication to the common good, here is a consequence: the spewing of poisonous material, the fall into a dark, man-made Hell.
But now the poet brings moonlight on the scene. Like a benevolent, all-seeing Eye of God, moonlight bathes the fuel rods in light we associate with understanding, with cool logic, in forgiveness. I am reminded of the Greek poet Yiannis Ritsos’ Moonlight Sonata, where moonlight hides smaller-scale follies such as showing white hair as golden, at the same time relentlessly intensifying shadows. In Allen’s poem too, moonlight is both kind and cooling, as well as relentless and permanent, not allowing the fuel rods to hide in the shadows. An image burned into the mind.
Note that the fuel rods are not spent. The young man in Ritsos’ poem too, is present all through the poem, at the end leaving full of energy, bursting into laughter as he walks away. Life continues in its boundless energy, in its perpetual flow, beyond leaks, beyond the night, beyond our human follies, beyond life itself.
The book of the Fifth Haiku Contest, Sharpening the Green Pencil, is out. An awe-inspiring two hundred and fifty poets from forty five countries took part. Great contributions. Congratulations to the winners!
I am honoured that my own haiku, translated into Romanian by Ana Drobot, was featured in the book (p.191).
reed ears —
not hearing what the doctor
tells me
.
sleepless night formatting loneliness
.
In Bones – journal for contemporary haiku no. 9 March 15th 2016 p.22
Joining the Dots
From the compensation for the demolition of his house to make way for a new road, he bought two tiny apartments, a four-poster bed, an amber komboloi, and a pendulum clock. As a child, I considered the wall-mounted, cherry wood, chiming clock to be my granddad’s most striking acquisition. I checked it continuously, comparing its time to the watch my dad had given me before going away to sea.
approaching wind knots matter
But it was the sound of it chiming the hour that stayed with me the longest. Half a century later, I can feel the deep resonance of that chime opening doors to the past.
let’s say the map shrinks afterwards
In Haibun Today, 10: 1, 2017
Pandora’s Box
I step inside a second-hand store in downtown Athens. A musty odor envelops me. A yellow handbag, by the entrance, has pride of place. Plastic dolls of varying sizes, unclothed but for the price tag, line a shelf. Rows of scaffed shoes, and shoes never worn, line the skirting board. Shirts, trousers, blouses, and skirts hang from circular rails. Moths dance in the sunlight. I run my hand across the clothes and continue to the back of the shop, to the books: Fiction, Poetry, Classics, Biography, Bibles. I duck to avoid a doll in military dress.
A glass-topped drawer catches my eye. Sparkling pair after pair of earrings: pearl, gemstone, silver, gold, diamond. I didn’t expect such quality.
The owner, dressed in a beige cotton tunic, approaches. “The Junta General’s wife,” she tells me. “After the trials she could not wear them. Brought them here. In all these years, nobody will touch them, although they come and look.”
A shadow of suspicion crosses her face. She looks me up and down, then relaxes. “Pity. She loved poetry,” she says, fanning herself.
bitter olives . . .
sound of a key turning
in the lock
.
In Haibun Today vol.9, 4, 2015
winter wind
the bird house filled
with emptiness
In Right Hand Pointing 95 The special Haiku Issue
guest-edited by Eric Burke.
typos
in the book of the dead—-
water lilies
In Right Hand Pointing 95, the special, and wonderful, Haiku issue guest-edited by Eric Burke
Interesting introduction by Dale Wisely, founder and editor of RHP, who refused to include haiku in the journal for twelve whole years! Well, at long last, Dale!
Read Dale Wisely’s introduction here
Stella Pierides 