Happy Hour Again

Leaf 305 – Senryu (or, witty tom-foolery)

 

A genuine haiku moment if ever there was one! – Just the other day, ordering a beer in a bar without knowing …

 

 

My beer,

minus 200 yen

– happy hour.

 

 

 

 

This senryu was originally posted on Bluesky.

Her High Heels

Leaf 304 – Art Inspired

 

Henri Cartier-Bresson - Martines Legs (1968)

Another of my “art inspired” haiku – this time drawing upon an image created by the famous black and white photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson.

 

 

Sound of her

high heels, leading me

a merry dance.

 

 

 

 

Belinda Carlisle - Belinda (1986)

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

Standing Stone

Leaf 303 – Reflections

 

One of the things which has always fascinated me about Cornwall in the far southwest of Britain is its geology. The scent of stone and vegetation carried by the sea air is delicious whatever the weather’s mood might be (see, Leaf 219). From dusty iron-stained slate to rugged grey granite, seaside cottages with stout and sturdy walls built of the latter and roofed with the former, all the way back to the prehistoric dolmens and stone circles, to the moorlands dotted with boulders and tors, and beaches heaped with round, sea-smoothed pebbles – stone in one form or another seems to be everywhere in Cornwall. The following poem was written with a standing stone, known locally as the Blind Fiddler, in mind. Gazing closely at its pitted surface, splashed with dry, encrusted colours like a painter’s neglected palette – it appears like another world, tropical and alien; like some other, far-away planet defined in microcosm. It’s impossible not to think of time, in terms of its unfathomable span, whether pondering relatively recent prehistory or winding the cycles of the Earth’s geological clock back far farther still, as something beyond our ken, but intimately akin to all that we are: stones and stardust, or bones and boulder-rust, transmuted by slow time.

 

 

A close bond

etched over centuries –

lichen covered rock.

 

 

 

 

Photographs of the Blind Fiddler by Tim Chamberlain

Wild Flowers

Leaf 302 – Reflections

 

Illustration of leaf and flower morphology for
Ophrys apifera (left) and Ophrys fuciflora (right)

A few years ago, given the worrying decline in the bee population in the UK, my parents decided to let their front lawn do its own thing for a change. The result was almost as if the universe had decided to reward them.

 

 

Leaving the lawn unmown –

a bee orchid

amid the wild flowers.

 

 

 

 

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.