Free Rain

Leaf 334 – Senryu (or witty, tom-foolery)

 

Sarah Brayer - Bi Bop Puddle Hop (1994)

I realise some people think a pun is the lowest form of wit, but personally I think they are a lot of fun.

 

 

Given

free rain

running puddles.

 

 

 

Harry Wingfield - Wellington Boots

Standing on Ceremony

Leaf 333 – Looking Back

 

There is something about a solitary heron which always puts me in mind of the character of Mr Flay in Mervyn Peake’s ‘Gormenghast’ trilogy (1946-1959). This poem was inspired by a heron which I saw and photographed several years ago at Granchester meadow, near Cambridge, UK.

 

 

Standing on ceremony

amid the fen –

a frock-coated heron.

 

 

 

Photographs by Tim Chamberlain

Soba and Tatami

Leaf 332 – Looking Back

 

Takahashi Hiroaki - Country House at Negishi (c.1936)

Revisiting a restaurant, alas – in my mind only (see, Leaf 41).

 

 

Warm scent

of soba and tatami

under thatch.

 

 

 

Paint Pots

Leaf 331 – Art Inspired

 

Rudy Burckhardt - Jackson Pollock holding a can of paint (1950)

A late addition to my previous poems on Jackson Pollock (see, Leaf 134 & Leaf 135).

 

 

Pots, paint

and brushes –

mixing a mind.

 

 

 

Constructing the Quays

Leaf 330 – Art Inspired

 

Norman Garstin - A View of Mount's Bay with the North Pier (c.1920)
Penlee House Gallery & Museum

This poem was inspired by Norman Garstin’s painting of the building of the north quay of Newlyn harbour in Cornwall. As a child, I spent all my summers in Newlyn, and so the harbour was a place I knew well – a haven in so many senses of the word.

 

 

Two arms –

enfolding calm

waters within.

 

 

 

Newlyn, Cornwall (c.1906) National Maritime Museum

All These Worlds

Leaf 329 – Art Inspired

 

Eimei Machida - When We Arrive at the Jupiter ... (2003)

As with Leaf 111, this is another poem inspired by the work of science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke. I’ve written in greater depth about my fascination for Clarke’s scientifically optimistic and oddly mystical visions of the far future on my other blog, along with my first, slightly hair-raising reading of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ (1968) during the first Coronavirus lockdown of 2020 (see here). I’ve since read all the other books in the series as well. I think the following haiku/senryu, which was actually prompted by seeing Eimei Machida’ s print, ‘When We Arrive at the Jupiter ...’  (2003), perhaps manages to go some way towards distilling that enormous and ultimately unfathomable sense of possibility which comes with a profound and prolonged contemplation of astronomy.

 

 

All these worlds

are yours –

[watching the cursor wink …]

 

 

2001 Image Source Credit: IMDb

Ordnance Survey

Leaf 328 – Looking Back

 

This linked sequence of verses is a meditation on maps, partly inspired by a geography field trip to the Chiltern Hills, which I went on while I was at school. Maps have always fascinated me. We are very lucky in the UK to have very good maps of the country, provided by the unceasing work of the Ordnance Survey, who have been mapping the landscape since the late 1700s.

 

 

ORDNANCE SURVEY

 

Following a fingerpost –

ascending the path

to Ivinghoe Beacon.

 

Tracing coloured lines,

along contours and

converging coordinates.

 

Folding in on itself –

trig’ points and squares

translating landscape.

 

Making sense

of maps and minds,

charting our course.

 

Glancing up in awe

– compassing the

view’s high vantage.