Seasons, Places, Feelings

This section, 'Seasons, Places, Feelings', brings us perhaps closest to the heart of the Great Master.  There are many here that explore in varied and complex ways the main haiku themes of time, place and being.

Northland

1. Northumbria fine
   The days sunny except for
   Hai kumulus clouds
2. Newcastle pub crawl.
   In Alnwick the Old Cross, called
   The Dirty Bottles
3. Three dirty bottles
   Stand in a well-sealed window
   Placed by a dead man

Pembrokeshire

4. Black cows barely seen
   As darkness settles soft on
   Cathedral meadows
5. Dark little chapel
   I enter alone - for her
   I light a candle

A NW1 Odyssey

6. Choose at Camden Town
   (Northern Line) which way to go
   - Where to have come from?
7. Primrose Hill at dusk
   Not enough wind for the kites
   Nor scope in the zoo
8. October twilight
   On Primrose hill - men juggling
   Wine bottles empty
9. Joggers and jugglers
   Striving to keep their weights down
   And to keep them up
10. You've autumn gloves on -
    If we're still meeting in spring
    Perhaps we'll hold hands

Another NW1 Odyssey [2012]

See the note in appendix 3

11. William Blake, mystic,
    Met the spiritual sun
    Here - on Primrose Hill
12. Revolution times -
    Britain's ancient bards seeking
    Truth on Primrose Hill
13. Ancient relics here?
    Ages buried on the Hill -
    Now I see a Shard
14. People throng around
    Viewing high rise horizons -
    Imagine - lone hill
15. Twelve years have now passed -
    Do memories inspire me?
    Or spirit of place?

Elsewhere

16. Peak's mistful valleys
    'Dry' stone walls all dripping wet
    - Sheep close to the sky
17. This place is holy
    Dun Î, Iona's mountain;
    Banshee wail softly

Nivelles

See the note in appendix 3

18. Ten to six - Sunday
    Abbey bells suddenly toll
    Echoing the square round
19. Tyres rub the cobbles
    Pigeons swoop over the cafe
    One more beer to drink
20. Here in green Brabant
    Sun - and stillness far from home
    Recalling passed times
21. Not far to the ducks
    Half way across the still pond
    Making three small wakes
22. A hollow in time -
    Slowly I stretch out to rest
    Quickly - it closes

Europe

23. The rain turns to snow
    The Salzburg climate unfolds
    A Christmas sermon
24. I sit at my place
    Eating the Tagesmenu
    Nothing much has changed
25. Sunset over Chartres -
    Serenity or fervour?
    How to confront Life?
26. I find Sachsenstein -
    I know - it has the feel of
    Galadriel's hill
    
    See the note in appendix 3
27. Fireflies light the sky
    Then the atmosphere changes
    - Storm over Garda
28. The ice on the lake
    Grows dim, the snow deep and crisp
    Yields warm to my feet
29. Volcanic snow-rim
    Icelandic millennium
    Only place to be

Further

30. Gentility past:
    Raffles Hotel, Singapore,
    Backed by skyscrapers

1. Seek peace and wisdom
   Bookshop - or Eastern Garden?
   Perhaps water, stones
2. Press trigger, heart skips
   Gardening with power tools
   Frog parts everywhere
   
   See the note in appendix 3
3. When mowing the lawn
   I wonder - will the daisies
   Ever forgive me?
4. Beneath the flight path
   Small things keep falling from planes
   Leaves on the green lawn
5. Magnolia bare
   Lawn around is brown, old leaves
   Spring buds already formed
6. In my night garden
   I find a glow-worm glimmers
   - Unexpected gem

Childhood

See the note in appendix 3

1. A child stares agog
   At the object of wonder -
   Fire-engine passing
2. Jurassic Park watched
   Angie holding my finger
   Dragon myths are us
3. Young Johnnie downloads
   A Tyrannosaurus Rex
   - Just one killer bite
4. Our childhood dream ends
   For one moment all is clear
   For C.R. and Pooh
5. A good place to be
   We understand each other
   An enchanted place
6. Our childhood dream ends
   Now we must think as grown-ups -
   Which is more real?
7. Mary - long blonde plaits
   First whisper - in the playground
   - And then the bell rings
8. We walk the wet shore.
   Are our sandcastles more lost
   Than the kids we were?

Middle Age

9. The middle-aged fox
   No longer runs so quickly
   - And suffers hare loss
10. Win five kiloquid!
    Do I buy ten purple suits
    Or up my pension?

Later

11. "My wife" he tells me
    "Forgets things... grows forgetful"
    Five times he tells me
12. Gran dies Christmas Eve
    Leaves it all to charity
    - No good will this year!
13. Friends, days, many flown
    Long grey evening of pain
    - How long till the night?

1. If the time should come
   You want to dance on my grave
   Please wear a short skirt
2. - Imagining you....
   Standing alone in the wind
   - Wearing red undies
3. Prose is built of bricks
   Songs and poems - bells ringing
   Your words are soft gongs
4. You.  A world away -
   When I say your name out loud
   - As near as breathing
5. I'd love to play you
   But you are a fine violin
   - I have a drumstick
6. The simple pink room
   Love's open heart lies beating
   The simple pink room

1. She's a sex goddess
   But vulnerable, mortal -
   Marilyn Monroe
2. Walkabout stunning -
   Agutter skinny-dipping
   In a billabong
3. Fame is the prize for
   A calculating woman
   - Carol Vorderman
4. Thelma and Louise
   Rocky Horror Picture Show
   - Susan Sarandon
5. Men were most impressed
   By her, her feat in the air
   Miss Amy Johnson

1. Don't mess with dragons
   Because you're nice and crunchy
   And good with ketchup
2. Dragons buy ketchup
   Using Tesco's internet
   It's a dragon-drop
3. To not meet dragons
   Open all your doors with care
   Avoid the attic
4. It helps to cheer one
   Finding attic fantasies
   While real days drag-on
5. Summer.  Dragon sleeps,
   Awakes - hot breath on the thatch:
   Autumn-attic fire
6. Man found with drag.on
   Turns out to be transvestite
   Mister or a myth?
7. I am pursued by
   Fifty dragons!  Only one
   Thing to do.  Wake up...
8. ...Forty nine dissolve
   But - curled up on the duvet...
   Oh - hello Tibbles
9. The Bugblatter Beast
   That lives on the planet Traal
   Makes a tourist meal
10. The dragon takes flight
    Soaring into open hearts
    On wings of harpsong

1. I bounce like Tigger
   But I know I am Eeyore
   In Tigger's clothing
2. She strokes my hair and
   Draws her hands down my body
   - Shiatsu massage
3. I sit at my desk
   Alone with the Internet
   A techno-hermit
4. A still afternoon
   I watch the sea-fog slowly
   Advance toward me
5. I'm late coming home
   I pass the pond past twilight
   The bats split the air
6. Fearful symmetry -
   Mind-forests of night-tygers
   Loom in the blakeness
7. Tall trees catch the wind
   The sound of rushing water
   Confuses the ear
8. White birds fly shining
   Specks of sunshine against cloud
   Promising rainbows
9. Had Noah waited:
   Olive branches carried by
   The Raven of Peace
10. Waiting for a bus
    In my dream - at last it comes
    - It's a number 12
11. Beer drips on the flags
    Fitfully lit by sunlight
    This is existence
12. The moon on tip-toes
    Steps silently, night-shirt clad,
    Over roofs of pines
13. Vast fields of sunlight
    Buttercups take so little
    Somehow it's enough
14. Rich man lives alone
    Has his own world of sadness
    Grieves a dead goldfish
15. Short rain in the wood
    Steam rises from the bracken
    And then it is gone
16. As one the two swans
    And the gathering darkness
    Take flight from the lake
17. The waves lap the shore
    As for millennia past.
    Which were here before?

1. Spring-sharp yellow edge
   As bright as March-cold sunlight
   The rays of coltsfoot
2. Bluebells in the wood
   In dense massed ranks surround me
   Like beckoning ghosts
3. Cotswold Evening
   Sun sets around my shoulders
   I drive at the moon
4. Haydn's 'The Seasons'
   Is playing. - I have to leave
   In early summer
5. Leaves sunlit dapple
   The apple-tree's first small fruit
   Green Hopes of July
6. Rain beats on the roof
   Drums on the muffled garden
   Summer percussion
7. Lying on my back
   On a summer night cliff-top
   I see all heaven
8. Walk summer night lanes
   Water trickles by the path
   Wind sways an inn-sign
9. It is not easy
   A summery summary
   - Long, hot, August days
10. The dance of midges
    Complex orbits in the sun
    A small universe
11. Bright white cottages
    Sunlit against purple sky:
    Thunderstorm postlude
12. The sun lies to rest
    The day's heat turns to soft mist
    The lake's eyes grow dim
13. Manningtree morning
    The sun is hot on my face
    The wind blows icy
14. A fallen conker
    Lies before me this morning
    Herald of Autumn
15. He stoops to conker
    Carefully - for he fears that
    The Fall is coming
16. It is now Autumn
    I realise this tonight
    Mashing potatoes
17. Autumn wind shakes leaves
    Sun-dappled on distant trees
    - Moving pointillism
18. Seeking a lost cat
    Stare up many autumn trees
    - Sifting many leaves
19. Leaves are turning now
    Crisply edged with brown on green -
    Summer's catafalque
20. Chrysanthemums bloom
    Autumn days are shorter now
    Woodsmoke in the air
21. The days grow short now
    It is dusk when I get home
    Not long to first frost
22. Early Winter night
    Rain beats against my window
    Lulling me to sleep
23. Autumn dahlia
    Wan in the street light.  Then frost
    - Morning memory
24. All this autumn rain
    Fills the hills - till they overflow
    - Unexpected spring!
25. Our strong brown river
    Comes to town.  Here, sat upstairs
    We watch swans overflow
26. October's leaving
    Patterns on the paving stones
    - Impossible jigsaw
27. Sky's blue, then rain's down
    A depression's coming on
    - Now wind takes a fence
28. Early Winter night
    Rain beats against my window
    Chrysanthemums glow

1. Present suffering -
   Solace and inspiration
   From impermanence
2. For the troubled mind
   Solace and inspiration
   Seem unlikely hopes
3. To one in despair
   Solace and inspiration
   May be unforeseen
4. Flashes of insight -
   Solace and inspiration
   To haiku writers

Hal~Kus

See the note in appendix 3

1. Two score English dead
   They said 10 kilofrogs slain
   In war, truth dies first
2. The dauphin's insult
   Cries Hal "No peace in our time"
   The balls keep bouncing
3. Hal before Harfleur
   Has to attend to his breaches
   First makes rousing speech
4. Sad they cut the text
   About France gone to thistles
   - War's devastation

Plastic Haiku

5. Painting of roses
   The petals easy to catch
   The leaves difficult
   
   (not an original thought, but translated into Haiku)
6. A plain wicker chair
   Van Gogh's chattels, pipe and hat
   Haiku in thick paint
7. The bombs are silent
   As you survey Guernica
   You just feel the screams
8. Greek pottery: girl
   Craves fertility, waters
   Her phallus garden

Original Instruments

1. Players of plucked strings
   Down Renaissance instruments
   - Lutany afoot
2. Lutany afoot!
   Base, vile, highly strung - a truce
   We consort it out
3. Lutany afoot!
   Needs effective weaponry
   Use a theorbo
4. Instruments fretted
   String twanged, snapped; silent serpent
   - A broken consort

More Music

5. Herr Anton Bruckner
   He done great - adagios
   Motor to my soul
6. Sense in a mad world
   Fantasia on a Theme
   By Thomas Tallis
7. On a rainy day,
   Just the thing to cheer you up:
   "Riders to the sea".
8. Ceiling-hung mushrooms
   Intercept heaven-bound sounds:
   Bach at Albert Hall
9. Sounds from the sitar
   Resonate in my belly:
   Evening raga
10. All the world's lost winds
    Gather in the bamboo grove -
    Shakuhachi flute
11. My world view entwines
    Both Tristan and Isolde
    And Noggin the Nog
12. 'Richard, please don't fret
    If you're stuck on Parsifal
    Just give us a Ring'
13. Frau Bach waits in bed.
    JS, before joining her,
    Checks his organ works
14. Last Night of the Proms
    'Land of Hope and Glory' sung
    By the Elgar louts
15. Welsh hill-farmers choir
    Think the best Handel chorus
    Is "All we like sheep"

With the Beatles

16. Isle of Wight day trip
    Yellow submarine no shows
    - A ticket to Ryde
17. The holes in Blackburn
    Fill the Albert Hall: so now
    - What's left in Blackburn?