The Great Haiku

1. Suddenly awake
   A moment of consciousness
   Burble burble burb...
2. Suddenly awake
   Screams.  Mother's love - and instinct
   Soothe, soothe, soothe, soothe, soothe
3. Suddenly awake
   Another gastric attack
   Shit Shit Shit Shit SHIT
4. Suddenly awake
   The hare flees the harvesters
   Scythe, scythe, scythe, scythe, scythe
5. Suddenly awake
   ICU staff stare at me
   How much of me left?
   

   * * * * *
   * * * * * * *
   * * * * *

6. Suddenly awake
   Flash!  The lightning rips the curtain
   Then thunder, then rain
7. Suddenly awake
   The Moon bores holes in doorways
   River fills with glass
8. Suddenly awake
   Wearily flap to a branch
   Start the dawn chorus
9. Suddenly awake
   - Reality rattles me
   Dreaming was better
10. Suddenly awake
    The morphine pump's functioning
    Not long to go now
11. Suddenly awake
    Clap eyes on new certainties
    Born Again Christian
12. Suddenly awake
    It is the Day of Judgement
    Uuuuuh - I'm all earthy
    

    * * * * *
    * * * * * * *
    * * * * *

13. Suddenly awake
    Much too dark for eye contact
    Enfold each other
14. Suddenly awake
    The alarm pummels memory
    - You are not with me
15. Suddenly awake
    Had an awful lot to drink
    - Who is this woman?
16. Suddenly awake
    Pick at fragments of a dream
    Tide - wind - fear - water
17. Suddenly awake
    Big black comforting silence
    Nightmares slowly fade

The last four haiku are, in fact, a working-through of a form of DIY haiku; the fourteen words of the 'conventional' treatment of Basho's original in the first haiku of the final sequence of five are rearranged in a more or less indeterminate fashion, after the manner of composers such as Boulez; the reader is invited to continue the experiment.

1. Suddenly awake
   Who has textured the daylight?
   Frost on the window
2. Suddenly awake
   Apparitions in the sky
   - For a pauper birth
3. Suddenly awake
   I thrill to the seasons' rounds
   The cuckoo's returned
4. Suddenly awake
   Strange feeling known from childhood
   Head like a big top
5. Suddenly awake
   Fevered, I see wall patterns
   Vibrant with being
   

   * * * * *
   * * * * * * *
   * * * * *

6. Suddenly awake
   My cat raises one eyelid
   Suddenly asleep
7. Suddenly awake
   During E7 night rate
   Start washing machine
8. Suddenly awake
   Where in heaven's name am I?
   - Oh yes - Basingstoke
9. Suddenly awake
   Approaching the next station
   - Ours was the last one
10. Suddenly awake
    I recognise sunlight - Shit!
    - Too much blood last night
11. Suddenly awake
    Alongside his horse's head
    - Offer not refused
    
    See footnotes.
12. Suddenly awake
    Troubles, aches - now winter
    Never been this old
    

    * * * * *
    * * * * * * *
    * * * * *

13. Suddenly awake
    - Dreamt a familiar landscape
    I have never seen
14. Suddenly awake
    Why has another day come?
    Life offers nothing
15. Suddenly awake
    I find that life's not all bad
    This is your doing
16. Suddenly awake
    To new possibilities
    - An enlightenment
17. Suddenly awake
    Heartbeats throb through my pillow
    - The rest is silence

The last bridges the Master to his third sequence.  This time a final thematic line leads to varied contemplations of more or less resolved finality.

1. Living on my own
   I spend the day with music
   The rest is silence
2. The note shows a sound
   In musical notation
   The rest is silence
3. Mahler's Ninth concludes -
   Sounds are just half its beauty
   The rest is silence
4. Music of the spheres
   Expands across the cosmos -
   The rest is silence
5. Gardening, brewing,
   Faith and prayer for Trappists -
   The rest is silence
   

   * * * * *
   * * * * * * *
   * * * * *

6. Some of life's funny
   Some makes us cry or rejoice
   The rest is silence
7. Their words tear apart
   Each other, his her, hers him -
   The rest is silence
8. Frenetic pleasure
   Desire noisily fulfilled
   The rest is silence
9. Cinematic greats
   The majority talkies
   - The rest is silents
10. Last message from space
    "Houston, we have a problem" -
    The rest is silence
11. Above the waters
    News resounds of the sub's doom
    - The rest is silence
12. The crowd's reaction
    As Hendry puts his cue on
    The rest is silence
    

    * * * * *
    * * * * * * *
    * * * * *

13. In all of language
    The greatest five syllables -
    The rest is silence
14. Hamlet's final words
    [not the last line of Hamlet]
    - The rest is silence
15. Hero full of doubt
    Soliloquies and corpses -
    The rest is silence
16. Sleep - perchance to dream,
    But that is surely false hope -
    The rest is silence
17. All sound and fury,
    What is it we signify?
    The rest is silence

1. ...Fortinbras bursts in
   Making a great deal of din
   The rest is chaos
2. His choice for a wife -
   Happy?, Chirpy?, Chatty?, Nag?
   The best is silence
3. Florida's mostly
   Just a big peninsula
   The rest is islands
4. Cue knocks and balls bang
   Spider scrapes along the baize
   The rest is silent
5. Dictatorship falls
   CIA Conspiracy?
   The West is silent
   

   * * * * *
   * * * * * * *
   * * * * *

6. Old, beached cargo ship
   Years ago, not much left now
   - The rusty silence
7. Ears pound and head aches
   Insanity beckons me
   Bereft of silence
8. A guilty secret
   The world must never find out
   Incest in silence
9. The 'Jewish Problem'
   The strong work in labour camps
   The rest are silenced
10. Calmly they approach
    No fuss, no words, no escape
    Arrest is silent
11. Nuclear missiles,
    Two fired.  Prepare for launch of
    The rest in silos
12. Bereaved.  Friends, smile, talk
    Cry, hug.  Some words stoke the pain
    The rest is solace
13. Wife scolds and berates
    Husband's tether ends and breaks
    The rest is silence
    

    * * * * *
    * * * * * * *
    * * * * *

14. Condemned person sits
    Electricity crackles
    The rest is silence
15. A minute's tribute
    For all our dead.  Big Ben strikes
    The rest is silence
16. Visit my doctor
    He explains my condition
    The rest is silence
17. The world ends this way
    Not a bang - but a whimper
    - The rest is silence

1. Step by step by step
   Climb up the steep cliff coast path
   The sea waves fare well
2. Step by step by step
   She climbs the steep cliff coast path
   Worn out, her short pants
3. Step by step by step
   The pilot climbs the staircase
   A flight, a landing
4. Step by step by step
   But does it go up or down?
   Escher's 'House of stairs'
5. Step by step by step
   To Whispering Gallery
   - No lifts in St Paul's
   

   * * * * *
   * * * * * * *
   * * * * *

6. Step by step by step
   The washing machine programme
   Wash, spin, wash, rinse, zzzzzzzzz
7. Step by step by step
   Side by side by side by side
   By - who's this Sondheim?
8. Step by step by step
   And each time I get it wrong
   - Loathe ballroom dancing
9. Step by step by step
   Inspect the guard of honour
   - What a load of prats!
10. Step by step by step
    Russian armies march eastward
    Steppe by steppe by steppe
11. Step by step by step
    The earth eclipses the moon
    - Stars in the high night
12. Step by step by step
    The mouse approaches its goal
    At the treadmill's end
    

    * * * * *
    * * * * * * *
    * * * * *

13. Step by step by step
    Last hopes of living dying
    - Path to the scaffold
14. Step by step by step
    Their progress is eternal
    In Pompeii's ash
15. Step by step by step
    Trudging to their icy doom
    They may be some time
16. Step by step by step
    The path to enlightenment
    - None of them easy
17. Step by step by step
    Uncertain we move onward
    From old lives to new

1. Passage migrants flown
   Life surrounded by sparrows
   - Need a kingfisher
2. Great full-blooded gale
   Shoulder-charges the oak trees
   Seven crows blown loose
3. High buzzard watching
   Each seem specks to the other
   - Under the same sky
4. Mist treads on the fields
   Late brambles hang fruit heavy
   Young boughs bend with birds
5. Boy on swing looks up
   Sees his first magpie in flight -
   A bird on a stick
   

   * * * * *
   * * * * * * *
   * * * * *

6. Two hours since you died
   Bleak dawn breaks - one lone starling
   Singing his heart out
7. We share unhappy stars
   Horseshoes rare in our suburb
   At last - two magpies
8. A single magpie
   Lies dead on the hard shoulder
   For one its sorrow
9. Time cuffs, money shouts
   And I have no time for the
   Breath of a sparrow
10. Woken, a strange bed
    Brown lake, trees green, evergreen
    Twelve white ducks quacking
11. She looks for rabbits:
    Pigeon takes flight - she's content
    - A flying rabbit
12. Jumbo passes over
    Heron looks up from the lake
    'One hell of a bird'
    

    * * * * *
    * * * * * * *
    * * * * *

13. No luck with the birds?
    Go visit Antarctica
    - Pick up a penguin
14. The sad bird watcher
    And the joyous nightingale
    - Busy making notes
15. The haiku cuckoo
    (Fifteen syllables missing)
    Calls across the wind
16. The clock works poorly
    We'll have to send it to the
    Cuckoos' hospital
    
    See footnotes
17. Haiku and you coo
    No need speak Pigeon English
    - All you need is Dove

Seventeen 'Haikruise' to recall a Circumnavigation of Britain.  July/August 2012

1. Arrive at Dover
   Congregation of strangers
   - The sea waves hello
2. The crew's ship's cargo
   An old folks' home in motion
   - Circling Saganauts
3. Olds and very olds
   Couples long coupled still love
   - And weeping widows
4. The Jurassic Coast
   Is now on our starboard beam
   - We have more fossils
5. Frisian the barmaid
   'Like the cow' she says, laughing
   - Far from Manila
6. Alone on the deck
   Watching Britannia's small waves
   - Drinking and thinking
7. Cast off, fare forward!
   Between the past and future
   - Dividing water
8. Archbishop on deck
   Wears a baseball cap.  Mitre
   Looked better without
9. Bishop comes on board
   Makes no diagonal moves
   Soon taken ashore
10. Not just room service
    But 'deck service' - prayers, hymns
    - Holy unforeseen
11. Clamber in tenders
    At the shallow ports of call
    Big boat, small boat - whoosh!
12. Just right for 'old folk'
    Is George Hamilton IV
    - A tall, kindly man
13. Classical trio
    All the way from Belarus
    - Floating night music
14. North through the Minches
    Round Cape Wrath (unfurious)
    - Scotland's wild angle
15. Gulls gather, terns turn
    Pretty wake - and kittiwakes
    - No sign of a whale
16. Behold the gannet
    Best looks, best flight, best diver
    - Mad about the gull
17. Disembarkation
    n cases (one stretcher case)
    Crew works Dovertime

NOTES

Wakings II/11: the horse's head is a reference to the film 'The Godfather'.

Birds 16: the 'cuckoo's hospital' was composed in German, the German version will be found in Pun & Games.

Silence: 'The rest is silence' are the last words of Hamlet, the prince not Hamlet, the play.  As Hamlet dies, Fortinbras and armed men enter and mayhem and speeches follow.  The last words of the play are 'Go - bid the soldiers shoot'.

Dividing Water:, an original title, suggests not only the ship's cleaving of port from starboard but this, my longest sea voyage, cleaving the past when it was a possibility from the future when it becomes a memory.  There is a serious 'pivot' - see haiku 7 - while the others are happy, lesser things, capturing moments and impressions and embellishing them with word play.
4   The Jurassic Coast runs west from Portland, our first port of call.
5 & 13   The crew were 95% male Filipino, the resident musicians and many of the ship's officers were sons of the Soviet empire.
6   Small waves: not only calm seas but our one-time empire now less glorious.  Not HMY which we moored next to at Leith.  Students of my haiku of which there are many (haiku not students) will recognise drinking and thinking as a repeat.  The only one.
7   The pivot.  The first two lines are inspired by Eliot's The Dry Salvages:

Fare forward travellers! not escaping from the past
Into different lives, or into any future...
And on the deck of the drumming liner
Watching the furrow that widens behind you..
You are not those that who saw the harbour
Receding, or those who will disembark..
When time is withdrawn, consider the future
And the past with an equal mind.

8-10   The cruise had a 'Christian add on'.  The archbishop was George Carey, erstwhile of Canterbury, the visiting bishop was of Sodor and Man.
14   The North and South Minch are the channels that divide Skye and the Sutherland coast from the Outer Hebrides.  Thence round Cape Wrath and through the Pentland Firth.
16   If gulls are saloon cars and terns gadabout sports cars, the gannet is a Bentley Continental - big, powerful, stylish.  Seen in numbers near Grasholm off Milford Haven, off Scotland and in the Channel.  They also breed on Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth which we passed in the dark.
17   At Dover we were asked to be clear of the gangway for a 'medical disembark'.