Haiku and Senryū

HAIKU
a hawk’s eye spies death
vibrating inside a mouse
dives to reveal it

SENRYŪ
beneath that swimsuit
the landscape of her body
unknown, unmapped, wild

Sense Memory

Sense memory - it isn’t fake.
Just look at Proust, he smelled a cake
and relived his whole life again.
A fancy cake, a madeleine
but even so, his dull book shows
the power of the humble nose.

The nose is a true time machine;
more vividly than things you’ve seen
a scent might jog your memory
and send you back in time to see
the moment when you smelled it last.
A vision of your stinky past.

Your chickens all come home to roost.
All you need’s a cake. Ask Proust.

Terzanelle

What do I want? What do you want?
To follow you into the dark.
What do I want? What do you want?

For me to say I felt a spark
and then to switch off all the lights,
to follow you into the dark?

For you and I to spend our nights
in whispered vows we’ll just be friends
and then to switch off all the lights?

I hope this feeling never ends.
Until it does, we’ll live in hope,
in whispered vows we’ll just be friends.

Two climbers tethered on a rope
both knowing that the line could fray.
Until it does we’ll live in hope

that we might spend one sunlit day
in peace. For now, it’s just word play.
What do I want? What do you want?
What do I want? What do you want?

Mad Love

Since I saw her, it is as though
I’ve somehow met my own shadow.
A recognition absolute.
Determination resolute,
all hid behind my cool ‘hello’.

I knew at once I had to know
who gave me this sweet vertigo,
why this mad love had taken root
since I saw her.

I know from mistakes long ago
I really ought to let it go
but Adam, in his birthday suit,
will always crave forbidden fruit
so I’ve been playing Romeo
since I saw her.

To Poets

The comet-tails of all your fallen tears,
the sorrows that you must not ever show,
the heartbreak and the sacrifice of years,
there’s nothing that I do not want to know.

There’s something here. I knew it right away
and now I want to know what lies beneath
the blemishes you gaze at in dismay,
the wounds and scars, the losses and the grief.

I’ll share myself with truth and without shame.
Down here, we’ll trade our secrets in the dark.
I’ll write and read and you can do the same,
just wistful dreamers breathing on a spark.

I’ll ask for nothing you won’t want to give
I’ll only ask that what you give is true.
I know for sure it’s where I want to live;
a hidden world of love and truth and you.

Paul Newman’s Eyes and Other Tricks of the Light

I write these lines in black and white,
just simple swirls of dark and light -
they’re monochrome and yet it’s true
these words can conjure any hue.

Let us start with an empty screen...






Paul Newman’s eyes!

See what I mean?
It only takes a word or two
for me to summon perfect blue;
out of the black and white of words
comes plumage bright as any bird’s,
though in this little verse today,
I’ll put my coloured words away.
I’ll stick to monochrome and play,
mix black and white and thus, make hay.

Limerick

A zookeeper in gay old Paree
set all the animals free
from the cages they hated
but, once liberated,
they just stared at her, ravenously.

Tanka

I was handsome then;
your brushstrokes captured me well.
My match touches oil
and the portrait starts to burn,
the last remnant of our love.

Night Time

It’s night time now.
I dream of you.
Endless hope
then less hope
I want it to be true.
There’s no hope.
It’s night time now.
Then no hope.
I want it to be false.
Endless hope
then less hope.
It’s night time now.
I dream of you.

Entanglement

Entanglement #1

Entanglement
somehow connects my heart to you.
Entanglement -
No phone calls, texts, no ‘message sent’
yet I’ve no doubt the contact’s true
just as I know you feel it too.
Entanglement.

Entanglement #2

Entanglement,
a physics word they use at CERN
“L’entanglement”.
I never knew quite what it meant;
it really wasn’t my concern
but now we’ve met and I discern
entanglement.


Entanglement #3

Entanglement -
Spooky action across vast space
Entanglement -
A butterfly flaps its wing in Kent,
a Vegas dealer deals an ace,
as what you feel makes my heart race.
Entanglement.

The Native

I struggle up, toward the crag,
calloused hands slippery on jagged
rock, my legs pulling me down, not
pushing me up towards the top.
Ten tonnes of nothing in my bag;
half rations and my little flag,
my blood type on a metal tag.
I must keep going, mustn’t stop.
I struggle up.

The wind throws up a jet black rag,
a hawk whose call sounds like a brag,
who does not fear the endless drop
but rides the wind of mountaintops
in lightning strikes, while I zigzag
and struggle up.

Sleeping Dog

A sleeping dog is left to lie
so, though we don’t see eye to eye,
I’ll leave you peaceful in our bed
and leave these ugly words unsaid
so when I’m gone, you’ll wonder why.

You’ll tell yourself I didn’t try
but know that’s it’s a whopping lie
You’ll live your life with dormant dread;
your sleeping dog.

I may not even say goodbye;
just take these pills, curl up and die.
You killed me when you coyly led
another man up to our bed.
I wonder if you’ll even cry,
you sleeping dog?