an open field

Kissing Simon Cowell It is not as I imagined: abrupt, inattentive. It is eager and tender but, to be honest, a little too wet, although my heart still does its excited little somersault even if he is just toying with me to pass some time in this small hotel while the rest of our group are in their rooms preparing for the road-trip ahead, or maybe the hesitance I detect is a shadow of guilt for his girlfriend, the dark l’Oreal-haired woman I could never hope to compete with beyond the confines of this dream, and when he says he’s going to take a nap I still don’t know if he wants me to join him, even when he jokes about my unshaved legs and his smile reaches his eyes and he stops cleaning his teeth and steps into the hallway to call out about the efficiency of electric toothbrushes, or even when he goes down to reception via the front staircase and returns via the back, slowing as he passes my open door, a glass of water in his hand, his face as smooth as the stone linen shirt he is...

Martin Lucas, editor of Haiku Presence magazine and author of Stepping Stones, a way into haiku  has kindly allowed me to reprint his enlightening essay. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, for the way it makes me reflect on my own haiku writing practice and question what I'm doing and why. Haiku as Poetic Spell Haiku as an English-language form now has fifty years or so of history. There have been many trials of new approaches along the way, and much has been learned. At the same time, it’s probably true to say that only a minority of writers stay the course. For many, it’s an enthusiasm that burns brightly for two or three years – sometimes with brilliant results – and then burns itself out, as the writer comes to feel that s/he has exhausted either the potential of haiku or his/her own potential as a haiku writer. One consequence of this turnover is that although individual writers may make great strides very rapidly, the movement as a whole evolves much more slowly, a...

family dinner as night falls we rattle a few skeletons

the first ice-cream, because he's a guest, the 4-year-old tells me

remembering who we are as the sun goes down we swap stories around the table

unexpected gifts the paddling pool deeper after the storm

all day rain the edges of the playing cards start to curl