again this year
the wind-sown poppies
flower between stones
The Haiku Calendar 2010 (Snapshot Press, 2009)
I Dream of Speaking Italian
so obvious things were falling apart when I had to walk up the street with a plateful of red pesto dressing to find out what had happened to my salad, though my haute couture dress — an off the shoulder taffeta Gina Lollobrigida little number in wine and black — was particularly appropriate for the restaurant, the army of Italian men appearing / disappearing through doors, but I couldn’t find the one in the silver suit who’d approved of my choice of sun-blush tomatoes, roasted aubergines, peppered salami, and had to speak to a woman with black eyebrows who was busy stacking up billowing leaves of oversized lettuce — radicchio, sweetheart, frisée — so I decided on a sandwich instead, buffalo mozzarella and black olives on ciabatta, and no, not toasted, or open, just give me the bloody sandwich will you, banging my fists on the glass counter, attracting the attention of a ginger-headed freckled Italian in pinstripes who smiled too much when he apologised, glanced down at my shoes. It was then I knew I should have listened to you, gone for the cheese and tomato on white, a bag of crisps, half a lager and lime, but I couldn’t resist the temptation of those slippery slices and curls and it’s not that I want to be different, look, we both have those little knots in the tendons at the back of our heels, and even though you say you wouldn’t, I know you’d love those studs of green peppercorn firing your tongue, oh yes dancing over the roof of our mouths
like firecrackers
the dreams we have
the dreams we never had
Modern Haiku, Autumn 2009
so obvious things were falling apart when I had to walk up the street with a plateful of red pesto dressing to find out what had happened to my salad, though my haute couture dress — an off the shoulder taffeta Gina Lollobrigida little number in wine and black — was particularly appropriate for the restaurant, the army of Italian men appearing / disappearing through doors, but I couldn’t find the one in the silver suit who’d approved of my choice of sun-blush tomatoes, roasted aubergines, peppered salami, and had to speak to a woman with black eyebrows who was busy stacking up billowing leaves of oversized lettuce — radicchio, sweetheart, frisée — so I decided on a sandwich instead, buffalo mozzarella and black olives on ciabatta, and no, not toasted, or open, just give me the bloody sandwich will you, banging my fists on the glass counter, attracting the attention of a ginger-headed freckled Italian in pinstripes who smiled too much when he apologised, glanced down at my shoes. It was then I knew I should have listened to you, gone for the cheese and tomato on white, a bag of crisps, half a lager and lime, but I couldn’t resist the temptation of those slippery slices and curls and it’s not that I want to be different, look, we both have those little knots in the tendons at the back of our heels, and even though you say you wouldn’t, I know you’d love those studs of green peppercorn firing your tongue, oh yes dancing over the roof of our mouths
like firecrackers
the dreams we have
the dreams we never had
Modern Haiku, Autumn 2009
the sound of the sea
speaking to my mother
on her birthday
Joint 2nd Prize
With Words International Online Haiku Competition (2009)
speaking to my mother
on her birthday
Joint 2nd Prize
With Words International Online Haiku Competition (2009)
Living Things
The weeping willow, despite its name, its curtain of low-sweeping boughs, does not weep over what is lost,does not grieve.
after her death
watching the rain
meeting the river
Beneath the bark, a layer of living cells divides and multiplies, expanding sapwood and heartwood, stretching the bark until it cracks and sheds to fit the new girth.
laughter lines—
the scar around my breast
faded now
Growth: out into the world, down into the dark earth, and up into the light.
Contemporary Haibun Volume 10
Red Moon Press 2009
after her death
watching the rain
meeting the river
Beneath the bark, a layer of living cells divides and multiplies, expanding sapwood and heartwood, stretching the bark until it cracks and sheds to fit the new girth.
laughter lines—
the scar around my breast
faded now
Growth: out into the world, down into the dark earth, and up into the light.
Contemporary Haibun Volume 10
Red Moon Press 2009
market stall
buying the smell
of tomatoes
'July' from The Haiku Calendar 2008 (Snapshot Press, 2007).
www.snapshotpress.co.uk
buying the smell
of tomatoes
'July' from The Haiku Calendar 2008 (Snapshot Press, 2007).
www.snapshotpress.co.uk
Some Weekends
It looks like rain. Your throat hurts. The prawns are off. The cheese is bland. The wine is past its best. I get my period. You burn your arm. The promised sunshine never comes. We lose the planning appeal. The Aberdeen Angus steaks are rancid. I shout. The TV loses its sound. In the middle of the night the alarm goes off. Your throat still hurts. It rains. The mango is rotten at the core.
break
in the rain
birdsong
frogpond - Volume 31:2, 2008
break
in the rain
birdsong
frogpond - Volume 31:2, 2008
Little Brother
My brother is five years old again. ‘Do you want to go on an adventure?’ I ask him. I have money in a plastic envelope, bags of sweets, our thick coats. He looks out of the window and says, ‘But things are going to get worse.’ He’s right. The moon shivers across the dark sea as we look out at the lines of rising surf, our hands pressed to the glass. When the storm comes I feel it pound against the chalet’s thin wooden walls, through the veil of my dream.
a little boy stares
at his fists full of sand
sails on the horizon
He is 44 this year and has children by three different women: a daughter of eighteen who has lived in the States for the past ten years, a boy of eleven whose mother disappeared with him when he was only a few months old, and Morgan, his baby son with Manuela. The invitation to their wedding arrived this week. 'This time,' I say to myself, 'things will work out.'
warm wind
a man lifts his hands
from the handlebars
My sister and I taught him how to play cards in a caravan on a rainy afternoon in Devon. His hands were so little he struggled to hold them all and when he dropped one, and crawled under the table to fetch it, we spiked the remaining ones, giving him the four Jacks that would easily win him the game. His eyes widened and a grin spread across his face as he picked up one card at a time. When he finally realised we’d set him up, he looked at us and said, ‘You scrumptious girls.’
crowded promenade
a little boy jumps
the long shadows
Dover Beach and My Back Yard
British Haiku Society Haibun Anthology 2007
a little boy stares
at his fists full of sand
sails on the horizon
He is 44 this year and has children by three different women: a daughter of eighteen who has lived in the States for the past ten years, a boy of eleven whose mother disappeared with him when he was only a few months old, and Morgan, his baby son with Manuela. The invitation to their wedding arrived this week. 'This time,' I say to myself, 'things will work out.'
warm wind
a man lifts his hands
from the handlebars
My sister and I taught him how to play cards in a caravan on a rainy afternoon in Devon. His hands were so little he struggled to hold them all and when he dropped one, and crawled under the table to fetch it, we spiked the remaining ones, giving him the four Jacks that would easily win him the game. His eyes widened and a grin spread across his face as he picked up one card at a time. When he finally realised we’d set him up, he looked at us and said, ‘You scrumptious girls.’
crowded promenade
a little boy jumps
the long shadows
Dover Beach and My Back Yard
British Haiku Society Haibun Anthology 2007
Fast Train
When the 17.22 heads out of Victoria and begins to pick up speed I start thinking about seatbelts, or the absence of seatbelts, and how in an emergency I might be thrown onto the woman opposite, cracking my head against hers, or puncturing my face on a corner of her open hardback book. But then I notice her breasts which are packed beneath a bib of pink frills, her tiered paisley skirt rumpling in waves over plump knees, her curly hair the colour of hazelnuts, her milky skin, which takes me back to her breasts which are pendulous, generous. And I’ve forgotten about seatbelts, as I shift my knees to one side to get a view of her feet, the shoes she’s wearing which I know will make all the difference to whether she’ll scream and push me away as I fall, or cradle my face away from her book, those wonderful breasts receiving me like a tumbled duvet.
not knowing
how to hold her
my mother at eighty
Frogpond 2007, Vol XXX, No 3, and
dust of summers (Red Moon Press 2008)
not knowing
how to hold her
my mother at eighty
Frogpond 2007, Vol XXX, No 3, and
dust of summers (Red Moon Press 2008)
For Summer
bathtime
for once she wants
to keep her socks on
bedtime
suddenly she's learned
how to hop
Planet 2007
bathtime
for once she wants
to keep her socks on
bedtime
suddenly she's learned
how to hop
Planet 2007
Blow
the silence of rain
through double-glazing
the tick of a clock
‘It doesn’t matter anymore,’ he says with his back to me.
He was looking out of the bay window when I got out of the car and waved and I thought he hadn’t seen me. ‘Dad, I thought about calling you back,’ I say, ‘but it was late when I got in and I didn’t want to wake you.’
He parts the net curtain as if something in the street has caught his attention.
‘Look, I’m sorry. If I’d known it was such a big thing I would have called.’
He turns round at this. ‘A big thing? I’m not “a big thing”…’ and his voice breaks.
When did my dad get so old? He walks in small tight steps, wears two cardigans to keep warm. He calls me if his newspaper is late.
I walk over to him and put my arm around his shoulders. ‘Dad, c’mon,’ I say, ‘you know I love you. You know that.’ He trembles like a child caught in the rain.
When I was little he always had a hankie for me. He’d press the smooth cotton to my nose and say, ‘Blow’. I search in my bag and hand him what he needs for now.
dad’s slippers
shuffle along the path
windfalls
Blue Tattoo November 2007
through double-glazing
the tick of a clock
‘It doesn’t matter anymore,’ he says with his back to me.
He was looking out of the bay window when I got out of the car and waved and I thought he hadn’t seen me. ‘Dad, I thought about calling you back,’ I say, ‘but it was late when I got in and I didn’t want to wake you.’
He parts the net curtain as if something in the street has caught his attention.
‘Look, I’m sorry. If I’d known it was such a big thing I would have called.’
He turns round at this. ‘A big thing? I’m not “a big thing”…’ and his voice breaks.
When did my dad get so old? He walks in small tight steps, wears two cardigans to keep warm. He calls me if his newspaper is late.
I walk over to him and put my arm around his shoulders. ‘Dad, c’mon,’ I say, ‘you know I love you. You know that.’ He trembles like a child caught in the rain.
When I was little he always had a hankie for me. He’d press the smooth cotton to my nose and say, ‘Blow’. I search in my bag and hand him what he needs for now.
dad’s slippers
shuffle along the path
windfalls
Blue Tattoo November 2007
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