Autumn Smiles

Leaf 301 – Looking Back

 

Every now and then, I like to set myself challenges. A few years ago, I decided to see if I could go for a whole year without buying any bread. Instead, I would bake my own. Most often I would make a white loaf, but every now and then I would treat myself and make a walnut loaf instead. Nothing beats the smell and the taste of freshly baked bread, especially when it is comes from the hard work of your own two hands.

 

 

Autumn smiles –

toasted walnut bread

dipped in honey.

 

 

 

 

This poem was originally written and posted on Bluesky in response to a #dailyhaikuprompt (walnut).

Photograph Credit: Marta Dzedyshko/Pexels

In Clover

Leaf 300 – Reflections

 

Mana Aki - South Wind [南の風 Minami kaze] (2000)

I think this poem speaks adequately enough for itself …

 

 

Content

with three leaves –

in clover.

 

 

 

 

This poem was originally written in response to a #dailyhaikuprompt (clover) on Bluesky

Photograph credit: Jaded in Japan

Kitchen Window

Leaf 299 – Looking Back

 

Brynhild Parker - Interior (1930)

This is a poem about my old flat in Stoke Newington (see, Leaf 288 to Leaf 292). Of all our senses, I think sound, scent, and sometimes taste, have the power to convey the most evocative echoes of the past. The chimes mentioned below now hang by our front door, here in Tokyo.

 

 

Recalling the soft sound

of wind chimes, hanging

in my old kitchen window.

 

 

 

 

Homeward, Harrow

Leaf 298 – Looking Back

 

Harrow in Prose and Verse by Warner (1913)

Suffice to say this poem is about my hometown. More than that I cannot really say, other than it seems to make sense to me. Although what it’s actually attempting to say, I’m not really 100% sure.

 

 

Heading back to Harrow:

 

            A sky –

askance

a spire.

 

 

 

 

St. Mary's, Harrow - seen from Kennet House (1948)

Question Unanswered

Leaf 297 – Looking Back

 

Archibald George Barnes - The Red Lacquer Cabinet

How many of us are forever haunted by a single moment of indecision?

 

 

9^th FEBRUARY 1995

 

Asking a question

I never answered

that could have

changed the course

of both our lives.

 

 

 

 

“Qui de nous n’a eu sa terre promise, son jour d’extase et sa fin en exil?” – Amiel.

Before Sunrise, 1995

Leaf 296 – Art Inspired

 

Before Sunrise (1995) IMDb

When the film ‘Before Sunrise’ (1995) came out, I deliberately decided not to go and see it. And I’m glad I didn’t. I only saw it for the first time a few years ago, and it is now one of my favourite movies. I’ve seen it several times since. The reason I chose not to see it at the time was simple. It sounded far too close to the life I was living at that moment. A close friend and I used to haunt London’s Southbank together. Idly wandering along the Thames and across the city. In and out of pubs, cafes, art galleries and cinemas. Killing time by sharing our idle thoughts in idle chats. Randomly roving wherever we wanted to go. Following our feet, following our whims. We were both students skipping lectures just to be together. She was an artist and I was a poet. We were filled with all the dreams and aspirations of two frustrated kids going nowhere with hardly any money. Watching ‘Before Sunrise’ now takes me straight back to those long and endless lazy days, right in the middle of the 1990s. Before the internet, before mobile phones. I can hear the two of us mirrored in those wandering, aimless conversations; caught by the movie in that cherished moment of time. It could so easily have been written about us. I’m so glad I saved that film for now, for the nostalgia. Thinking of all the lives we could have led, I’m glad that for a short moment at least, that was exactly the one we were able to live together. Even if it wasn’t to last.

 

 

BEFORE SUNRISE, 1995

 

Going round and round in circles:

 

            idle days

            idle thoughts

            idle chats.

 

 

 

 

Alexandra Buckle - Southbank Puddles (2018)

After Midnight

Leaf 295 – Homeward Bound

 

For about a year or so, when I was around the age of nineteen, I had a job as a barman on the other side of town. When I finished my evening shift, after midnight, I often used to walk home. It was a long walk of several miles. I’m not sure now why I never caught the bus. I certainly took the bus there sometimes. It might have been because the buses had stopped running by that time of night, or possibly I preferred to save the bus fare, and more likely get some fresh air after working all evening in a smoky pub. Whatever the reason was, one night in particular sticks in my mind. Because on that night, when I was walking down the deserted High Street, I found myself following a fox. The fox had glanced over its shoulder at me momentarily, but was clearly unconcerned and simply carried on walking ahead of me. The hidden claws of her feet clicking on the metalled road while she walked. Anyone looking out of a window might have thought I was out walking my dog. It was a magical moment of nocturnal connection. At the end of the High Street the fox slipped into the trees by the bridge over the river, where I turned and followed Bridge Street onwards to home. It was only after I wrote the following poem and re-read it that I realised it could easily be read in a different – perhaps, more risqué and seedy – sort of way. But I assure the reader, my hometown wasn’t that kind of place, nor am I that kind of person.

 

 

After midnight –

through the empty town

following a fox.

 

 

 

 

Photograph by Tim Chamberlain (adapting an original artwork by an unknown artist)