Moonless Tide

Leaf 293 – Reflections

 

Anne Packard - Rowboat on Blue (1976)

I’ve always enjoyed tales of pirates and treasure islands, of tall ships and smugglers haunting out-of-the-way river inlets and rugged coves. This poem attempts to evoke something of the spirit of such tales, especially as I encountered them when I was a child holidaying in Cornwall each summer.

 

 

MOONLESS TIDE

 

A lone lantern –

listens for sculls slipped

in a shadowy cove.

 

 

 

 

from 'A Cornish Smuggler' by Captain Harry Carter (1900)

Full English

Leaf 292 – Looking Back

 

The place where I lived in Stoke Newington, above a shop on the High Street, was in the heart of the local Turkish community. I used to love eating in the Turkish restaurants there, where the food was always wholesome, healthy, and heartily generous – as well as surprisingly cheap. But at weekends, there was one place which I always liked to go – just for a change.

 

 

Eating

a Full English –

at the Bodrum Café.

 

 

 

 

Photograph credit: Time Out/Pinterest

Walthamstow Marshes

Leaf 291 – Looking Back

 

While living on London’s Stoke Newington High Street, some twenty-five years ago now, nearby Walthamstow Marshes was the place where I would go to get some rugged refreshment in the form of a long walk and a lungful or two of fresh air at the weekends – whatever the season, and whatever the weather.

 

 

WALTHAMSTOW MARSHES

 

Crunching gravel

along the Lea –

weathering the winds

rippling through reeds

on the low-lying marshes.

 

Metal wheels grind and

screech along the viaduct,

rattling rails; slow trains

slinking out of the city,

while birds take wing.

 

My foot thuds echo back

along the boardwalk;

the breeze slowly lightens,

heading homeward –

with a heart refreshed.

 

 

 

 

Photograph credits: N. Chadwick/Geograph

Clissold Park

Leaf 290 – Looking Back

 

Clissold Park - The Lake

There’s something especially enchanting about long summer evenings. Wherever I’ve lived, I’ve always enjoyed them. Finding a nice spot to do so has always been something I seem to have automatically done – largely because, ever since leaving home at the age of twenty-one, I’ve never been lucky enough to have my own garden. When I lived in Stoke Newington, Clissold Park was always a favourite place, particularly by the ponds. There are two ponds in the park: Beckmere and Runtzmere. Named after Joesph Beck and John Runtz, two public servants and philanthropists who managed to save the park for the local population back in the late nineteenth century. I have lots of fond memories of sitting by Beckmere after a day at work, watching tortoises basking in the sun, while a tern flapped over and fished the waters below. It was always a very peaceful spot. I often found it hard to tear myself away and head home for dinner.

 

 

CLISSOLD PARK

 

Summer evenings –

a book and a bench

by the pond.

 

 

 

 

Rio, Dalston

Leaf 289 – Looking Back

 

Marc Gooderham - Rio Cinema, Dalston

Following on from the leaf posted previously, this poem is the second in a series of verses to follow, which look back to when I was living in London’s Stoke Newington at the turn of the century. That’s a strange phrase! – In my mind, that really means the turn of the nineteenth into the twentieth century. Or, at least, that’s what it always used to mean, I suppose. Perhaps it would make more sense for me to have said ‘the turn of the millennium,’ or ‘Y2K.’ – It was a good time to be young. Life was challenging in a lot of regards, but I look back on it now with a large degree of fondness.

 

 

RIO, DALSTON

 

Strolling home

from a summer matinee,

under peach-hued clouds.

 

 

 

 

Marc Gooderham - Rio Cinema, Dalston

Poems in Print - 2025

Occasional Leaves 1

 

Sano Seiji - Shining in Early Summer (2002)

Last year was the first time I have submitted my poems to haiku magazines in almost twenty-five years. Amid the falling surf of rejections, collected here in this retrospective survey are the favoured few which managed to crest the wave and make it through to publication.

 

 

folding into itself –

each furrow turning

the field anew

 

The Haiku Foundation - Haiku Dialogue (10 December 2025)

 

 

***

 

pondering a leaf

placed under

a stone

 

Autumn Moon, 9:1 (Autumn-Winter, 2025-2026)

 

 

***

 

a ripple         passing through         the leaf litter

 

OneLineOctober 2025 Anthology

 

 

***

every star

outlasting

all our ills

 

Chrysanthemum, #35 (Fall, 2025) 

 

 

***

 

curtains

breathing

in and out

 

Chrysanthemum, #35 (Fall, 2025)

 

 

***

 

ivy –

alive with

birdsong

 

Tiny Words [blog] (August, 2025)

 

 

***

 

a white egret

in the rice field,

upside down

 

Mainichi Daily (4 September 2025)

 

 

***

 

lightning in a bottle

I keep the cork

as a memento

 

Failed Haiku, Vol. 10, #111 (August, 2025)

 

 

***

 

heavy with rainwater,

the blossom head

breaks with the breeze

 

Fresh Out

 

 

***

 

returning to the same

lotus leaf

– a dragonfly

 

Mainichi Daily (14 August 2025)

 

 

***

 

the hour too late

for a country bus

– moonlight and

the long road

 

Hedgerow, #149

 

 

***

 

over the yellow field,

the barn owl’s slow wing beats

– early morning mist

 

Wales Haiku Journal (Summer, 2025)

 

 

***

 

a hand waving –

the last leaf

at the top of the tree

 

Fresh Out

 

 

***

 

a bare bough –

why am I troubled

by the wind?

 

Failed Haiku, Vol. 10, #110 (June, 2025)

 

 

***

 

quiet Sunday afternoon

– wife and I

pleating gyoza

 

Asahi Shimbun (12 June 2025)

 

 

***

 

sweet scent of fried fish

– a cat’s closed-eyes smile,

beside our table

 

Asahi Shimbun (6 June 2025)

 

 

***

 

the rainy season begins

– and so, I add ice

to my evening whisky

 

Asahi Shimbun (6 June 2025)

 

 

***

 

Kurashiki’s canal –

memories burnished

in two bizen-ware cups

 

The Haiku Foundation - Haiku Dialogue (4 June 2025)

 

 

***

 

green leaves

beneath my window

– whispering

 

Wee Sparrow Haiku Nook (May 2025)

 

 

 

Maeda Koichi - Spring (2006)

 

I also had a longer narrative poem titled: 'The Returning Wave' featured in, and was interviewed by, Oatleaf Poetry Magazine in July, 2025 (see here).

Turkish Tea

Leaf 288 – Looking Back

 

This poem is about a friend of mine from long ago, whom I only knew briefly. She was a real ray of sunshine. When we first met we could hardly speak a word of each other’s languages, but somehow we seemed to connect.

 

 

Sweetening

a glass of Turkish tea

– Nihal’s smile.

 

 

 

 

Photograph credit: Igra/Pexels