Haiku
winter morning
the new-lain snow
blue
north wind
boatmen flee
upriver
light in a glass of water
energy so far
removed from its source
church bells eddy
in a winter squall
crows take to the air
am i awake?
asking the question
i awake
The haiku above have been accepted for publication in the September 2011 edition of Blithe Spirit, the journal of the British Haiku Society.
Poems
Approaching Midsummer's Eve
We are drawn towards these hours -
It’s like the tides
Irresistible
This rise
Towards the midnight sun.
Soon we must return
But for now
Let us rehearse
Our rude nocturnal dance.
Tonight
We will prepare
To ask the stars
For blessing.
***
Sisyphus at rest
I saw today an old woman
pushing a pram
stuffed full of rubbish.
She seemed unaware
of the people passing by
some of which made way for
her others obstructed her.
She paused once
to shake a stone
from her shoe.
She reminded me
of one of those dung beetles
in a story by
Doris Lessing.
Not for the fact of her load
but for the achievement of it..
She had no doubt
and nor had I
that if she ever stopped
she would die.
Published in Rising Brook Writers, Vol 191 June 2011
Please don’t send me flowers when I’m dead.
Please don’t say then
The things you wished you’d said,
Those things that at the time
Would have been far more kind
Than what you chose to say.
When you lay me in my final bed
Remember me for what I had hoped to be
And not for what you made of me.
Published in Rising Brook Writers, Vol 191 June 2011
Reverie Outside the Hope and Anchor
They’ll not look at you,
old man,
wish as you might,
not while you sit
this summer’s eve
outside the pub
and watch the young ones
drifting by:
a mayfly bloom in June.
They’ll not see you
as you tip your glass
to toast their youth
or wait for it
to flicker, flare and die.
Blood runs strong
in summer’s veins
in winter’s only water
and the wind remain.
Once there was a time
when your clap and flutter
was at least as bold as theirs.
It may be sunk from sight now,
but it still burns
beneath the waters
like a star.
