Japanese forms of poetry (selection)

HAIKU

See also Excalibur under images
A small selection from: 'Freedom passing!/Pas de liberté! - a haiku a day for a year and a day' (29/06/2005-30/06/2006), begun on the eve of my 60th birthday

the sky jasmine-studded
the stars having fallen
to earth

02/07/05 (first published by Lishanu;
also in Lines in the Sand, Bradshaw Poets)

HAIBUN

if the shoe fits (extract)

It isn’t a particularly remarkable day in May. Warm but not over warm. I’ve never been here before, to the Imperial War Museum. It’s much as I expected – tanks and rockets and bits of planes – apart, that is, from the 27,000 clay figures.

colourless clay
around each tiny shape
a bright ribbon

They represent the number of children killed or wounded in the closing months of the Second World War.

young spirits roam
is that the grumble of spring thunder
or something more sinister

published online at:

also in 'freedom passing' available from

dragonfly
drains the rainbow
moon-dusts the path

06/07/05 (first published by Lishanu)

unfinished commutings
red-stained dawn
and silence

07/07/05 (first published by Lishanu;
also in Lines in the Sand, Bradshaw Poets)

stirred by the wind
leaves and the shadows
of leaves

27/02/06 (first published in Presence)

four years old
she laughs at the concept
of a hover fly

02/05/06 (first published in Blithe Spirit 
then in The Humours of Haiku, 2012)