Linear Mandala

(Leaf 135) – Art Inspired

 

This poem is another attempt to synthesise my fascination for the paintings of Jackson Pollock (see Leaf 134). There has been a lot of speculation about what first sparked Pollock’s creative “breakthrough” and his subsequent pursuit of his famous drip paintings – was it simply accidental, staring down at his paint spattered studio floor, or a more carefully considered painterly synthesis of Navajo artistic designs and Buddhist sand mandala techniques, or something else entirely? 

 

Jackson Pollock - Summertime: Number 9A (1948) Tate Modern

 

Brush tipped,

a linear mandala

falls.

 

 

 

Is he the greatest?

(Leaf 134) – Art Inspired

 

Jackson Pollock - Blue Poles (1952) National Gallery of Australia

This poem is an attempt to synthesise my fascination for the paintings of Jackson Pollock. I first became interested in Pollock around the time that the biopic, starring Ed Harris, was in the cinema (Pollock, 2000). I went to see it at the Barbican in London. I also read a book about Pollock’s works, borrowed from my local library in Stoke Newington around the same time, which really grabbed a hold of my mind and has stayed with me. This poem riffs off of the famous article about Pollock from 1949, published in Life Magazine, which asked: ‘Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?’ – I find it curious how so much of modern art in the West is based upon a kind of cult of personality. It seems to me that inherent talent often needs to be refracted through a prism of personality before it can attain any sort of permanence. Common cultural outlooks tend towards a systematic second-order need to categorise and compartmentalise, a priori or a posteriori – but there is something in the structured vs. erratic mix of expression which characterises Pollock’s most famous works, and those of prominent jazz musicians with whom he was a contemporary, which I think manages to wink at this and simply content itself with doing its own thing, regardless. And that’s what I like most about Pollock, Coltrane, and Davis. For me, at least – it’s more about being guided by feeling, and less about thinking.

 

 

Is he the greatest?

 

Blue Poles

Blue Train

Kind of Blue.

 

 

 

John Coltrane - Blue Train (1958)

Miles Davis - Kind of Blue (1959)

Hans Namuth - Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner (1950)

Night Rain

Leaf 133 – Reflections

 

One of the things I like most about living in East Asia are the humid rain showers and thunder storms, particularly those which come at night. I’ve experienced remarkable torrential downpours in Shanghai, Seoul, Singapore, and Tokyo, which have lived on long afterwards in my memory. However, I’m not such a fan of the typhoon season, which can be quite scary given their destructive potential. The following tanka is my attempt to capture the lingering echo of an intense tropical summer storm which recently passed by high overhead.

 

 

All that’s left after the rain;

the low rumble of clouds

slowly departing; hulking

shapes, barely discernible,

bearing a dark humid night.

 

 

 

 

This poem was written in response to a writing prompt posted on Bluesky: #SenseWrds Prompt 90: Sight Remaining Thunder (inspired by, but not using these words).

 

Photograph credit: PickPik

Morning & Afternoon Post

Leaf 132 – Art Inspired

 

Robert Ayton - from 'The Ladybird Book of the Weather' (1962)

This tanka was partly inspired by an illustration from ‘The Ladybird Book of the Weather,’ drawn by Robert Ayton, which was first published in 1962. It reminded me of the days when I was younger, when we used to receive two postal deliveries a day. It’s hard to imagine this now in our modern digital age, but there used to be more deliveries than that. Amongst our family memorabilia, we have a small bundle of letters written between my great grandparents, several of which – as the postmarks show – were delivered back and forth in a single day, almost with the same sort of speed with which we now send emails or text messages!

 

 

Misty mornings and

sunny afternoons, each

bringing glad tidings –

borne back and forth,

in a postman’s satchel.

 

 

Wooden Tennis Racquet

Leaf 131 – Art Inspired

 

My closest family members have never been particularly sporty, but the one sport which I think we all share an enjoyment of – both to watch and play – is tennis. In early summer, when I was growing up, Wimbledon, during its two-week run, was always on television every afternoon. After which, during the summer holidays, while the weather remained clement enough for it, we’d sometimes play tennis ourselves at our local park, or at the same tennis club which my mother used to go to as a child. Seeing this evocative photograph of the tennis court at Bletchley Park, by Shibui Shashin, immediately took me back to my memories of that old tennis club in the suburbs of Northwest London, where I grew up. It’s no longer there sadly. Built over with houses. But back when I was growing up, it was still somehow imbued with echoes of its heyday in the 1930s and 1940s, much like my old primary and middle schools. And so, it made me think of my mother’s old tennis racquet – bringing back recollections of drinking Robinson’s barley water, while listening to the thwack of tennis balls going back and forth on a hot summer’s afternoon.

 

 

Loosening the wing nuts,

holding my mother’s

wooden tennis racquet.

 

 

 

Many thanks to Shibui Shashin for very kindly giving me permission to illustrate this poem with their wonderfully evocative photograph of the tennis court at Bletchley Park. Please take a look at Shibui Shashin's profile on Bluesky.

Unable to Sleep

Leaf 130 – Reflections

 

A famous haiku about sparrows by Kobayashi Issa (see below)

Sometimes when I write haiku, I kind of half-think them simultaneously in both Japanese and English. It can be a curiously head-muddling process. In this particular instance, the English version beat the Japanese one to the finish line. And so, this is really another of my attempts at translating a free-form haiku written in English back into proper 5-7-5 Japanese. As always, with my beginner’s Japanese, I’m not sure how effective it is, or if it works properly …

 

 

Unable to sleep –

a chorus of sparrows

start their day.

 

Or:

 

夜が明ける外で雀を合唱寝ない

よがあける | そとで すずめを | がっしょうねない

Yogaakeru | soto de suzume o | gasshō nenai

Dawn breaks | outside the sparrows | singing together I can't sleep

Seiko - Sparrow and Red Flower (1895)

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Photograph (top) & translation (below) credit: Project Haiku

我と来て　あそべや　親のない雀

ware to kite asobeya oya no nai suzume

Come to me / and let’s play / little orphan sparrow

- Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828)

Tokyo Rainbows

Leaf 129 – Reflections

 

This haiga poem captures a scene which I saw in the narrow lane behind where we live during the rainy season here in Tokyo. Immediately after I took this photo from our balcony, I looked down and saw two strangers walking along the lane. They both stopped and stood side-by-side. In unison, they each took a photo of the rainbow with their smartphones, while trying not to get wet in the rain. Just for a moment, they’d come together and were joined. After about five minutes more, the rainbows had faded and looking again, so too, the passers-by were gone as well.

 

 

Two strangers,

tilting umbrellas

– taking in a rainbow.

 

 

 

 

 Photograph & Haiga by Tim Chamberlain (Tokyo, 26 June 2025)