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 (see also, Leaf 135). 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)

-----------------------------------

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)

Windjammer

Leaf 128 – Reflections

 

The Shoal Fisher, Newlyn (Penlee House Gallery & Museum)

This poem is perhaps a coda to the triptych of poems I wrote and posted here previously, inspired by three well-known paintings: by Friedrich (Leaf 125), Turner (Leaf 126), and Waterhouse (Leaf 127). Although this poem was written without reference to any particular painting or other work of art. Instead, it took a word as its inspirational motif. 

“Windjammer” was a slightly derogatory term for a sailing ship which was predominantly used in the last days of sail as the nineteenth century transitioned into the twentieth century. I’m not sure if this short poem is necessarily any more optimistic than the self-reflective melancholy that’s characteristic of the Romanticism which certainly tinges all three of my previous poems, but it is perhaps not so pessimistic in the simple point of fact that it wonders if, at some point in the future, a return of sorts might perhaps be possible. I shall leave it up to the reader to decide …

 

 

White sails,

darkened with soot;

– one day,

the windjammers

may well return.

 

 

 

 

 

Weltschmerz

Leaf 127 – Art Inspired

 

John William Waterhouse - Miranda, The Tempest (1916)

Weltschmerz (German, noun), literal meaning: ‘world-pain’; denoting a feeling of melancholy or world-weariness; a literary term associated with Romanticism, reflecting a deep sadness arising from the realisation that lived reality can never satisfy the expectations of the mind.

 

There is a lot about the current times in which we live that I find utterly unfathomable. I came of age around the time when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. I still cherish the optimism which was born out of that “wind of change” which quickly transformed Europe. Evidently, such idealism has proved too difficult to sustain. Long since supplanted by political corruption and self-interest. But somehow, I continue to nurture those high hopes for a better and more harmonious future; despite the all too disappointingly parochial and increasingly polarised global trends toward the opposite. We now live in an era of witless farce and tragedy which saddens me to my core. Hence, this poem – reflecting upon these tempestuous times:

 

 

WELTSCHMERZ

 

Waiting, waiting for this tide

to turn; so our ailing ship

can right its keel again.

 

Looking, looking for landfall

on Caliban’s coast –

searching for Prospero.

 

Nursing a deep bitterness

for books unread, and spells

cast, but insubstantial:

 

Who will brew hellebore

– and help to heal

this unending madness?

 

 

 

 

 

Losing the Fight

Leaf 126 – Art Inspired

 

Turner - The Fighting Temeraire (1839) National Gallery UK

Not so long ago, Turner’s painting, ‘The Fighting Temeraire’ (1839), triumphantly topped the list of candidates for “the nation’s favourite work of art” as voted for by the British people. It certainly is a luminous work of art. And it is one which is steeped in symbolism. A symbolism which, I think, speaks to the mood of a nation in decline. The Romantics were right to feel wary about the onset of a rapidly industrialising modernity in the nineteenth century. They could see how easily that onset could gather enough momentum to become an onslaught. They seemed to sense how the wondrous mechanistic marvels of that new age would destroy as much, if not more, than they would ever create. A revolution that would decisively shift us out of our natural orbit. Divorced from nature, no longer beholden to the regular, rhythmic cycle of the seasons. Human nature would begin to tip the scales of environmental equilibrium. Inevitably succumbing to its own self-serving pride, becoming over-confident in its increasingly god-like powers – they could foresee how we would inevitably morph into a collectively corporeal Frankenstein’s monster. The Shelleys, Keats, Coleridge, Wordsworth and company, each in their own inimitable way, expressed this melancholy using a palette of words, finessed by rhyme and metre. Turner did the same, but with brushes, oil paints and a genuine palette of suitably mixed emotions. They did so staring into a reflection of a future from which we are now staring forlornly back at them.

 

 

Sailing close to the wind,

heading toward a horizon

– black as soot.

 

  

 

London Tug at Work (1931) Hulton-Deutsch

Mont Ventoux

Leaf 125 – Art Inspired

 

Caspar David Friedrich - Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818)
Kunsthalle Hamburg

This is the first of a loosely-linked triptych of poems, each inspired by a well-known painting (see, Leaf 126 and Leaf 127). The triptych begins with Caspar David Friedrich’s ‘Wanderer above the Sea of Fog’ (1818). But this first one is also influenced even more directly by a fascinating television documentary series which was first broadcast on British TV in the late 1980s. Written and presented by John Romer, it was a history of the Bible as viewed through the lens of Biblical archaeology. It was called ‘Testament’ (1988), and, at that time, it had a tremendous effect upon me. It still resonates in a number of different ways, and not least because of the beautiful poetry of John Romer’s words which manage to plait together the lucid threads of ordinary expression with mellifluous verbal-strands of the purest spun gold. The last episode, in which Romer describes the poet, Petrarch, as the first truly modern man – because of his reflections upon Petrarch’ s remarkable ascent of Mont Ventoux in 1336 – has always stayed with me. So much so, in fact, that some thirty years or more since first seeing and hearing Romer recount it, I found myself penning the following tanka poem about it – this trek up a mountain in a fruitless search for God, viewing the divine instead as something which is found within the soul, something which is actually reflected deep within the very heart of earthbound nature. This is the essence of the Romantic ideal: the fact that we are at one with God and the world, if only we can open our eyes and see things as they truly are.

 

 

MONT VENTOUX

 

A letter written, ink scripted

straight from the poet’s soul;

this trip up a mountain –

in search of God, finding

all that’s hidden, in our hearts.

 

 

 

 

 

The Leap

Leaf 124 – Reflections

 

I’ve only ever seen penguins at zoos and aquariums, so this poem was inspired by watching the awe-inspiring natural history documentaries of Sir David Attenborough. It’s interesting to see how the ease and fluidity of an animal’s movement can be radically transformed by the element to which it is best adapted. In this respect, penguins are similar to seals (see Leaf 6).

 

 

An ungainly leap

from an ice-shelf ends,

in a graceful glide.

 

 

 

 

Photograph credit: WWF-UK

High Jinks

Leaf 123 – Reflections

 

When I was researching my family history I visited a cemetery in East London. Here, amidst the tumbledown array of old headstones, I happened upon a family of foxes. They seemed slightly startled by my sudden appearance, but after a few moments of staring, they simply carried on with their rough and tumble games, regardless. It was nice to see them, unafraid and enjoying their own little world. I kept thinking about them long after I left that rather forlorn-looking burial ground, and, in my mind – when penning this poem – the scene somehow transmuted into a nocturnal one. This was perhaps because on all of the occasions when I’ve seen foxes before, it has usually been in the deep quiet of night.

 

 

Cavorting in the cemetery,

spirited high jinks afoot

– moon-shadowed foxes.

 

 

 

 

 Photograph credits: PickPik

Poems in Process

Leaf 122 – Essays on Haiku

 

‘Poems of the Late T’ang,’ translated by A.C. Graham (Penguin, 1988 [1965]), was almost certainly the first book of East Asian poetry which I ever bought or read. And it remains one of my absolute favourites. I recently re-read it once again after a neglectful pause of more years than I care to count. It was a book, which when I first acquired it during my early teens, I read and re-read over and over again. I even managed to memorise some of the verses it contains and I still find fragments of its lines echoing in my mind even today. Recently re-reading its introduction, I found it far more insightful than I must have done when first reading it more than three decades ago. Since that time, my subsequent study of the Japanese language, I now found helps me to better understand some of the nuances of translation (from Chinese) as Graham describes them. Likewise, my efforts at penning poems of my own and studying the craft of writing short verse which aims at both versatility and subtlety, in order to help me better understand poetic sensibilities and the virtues of diction, have had an effect too.

 

In essence, I realise I’ve come to see and appreciate this book in a new light. Certainly, with each renewed re-reading, a favourite and familiar book (such as this one undoubtedly is for me) seems to change, just as we change, with age. This morning, as I sat reading once again through Poems of the Late T’ang, all these thoughts and reflections began to coalesce. While I slowly leafed through the poems collected in this book, I realised that (like many paperbacks do) its pages – which had been freshly printed when I first bought it – were now distinctly yellowed with the passage of time. Hence, I found myself pondering writing a poem upon these thoughts and associated feelings. But, while some poems – particularly haiku – simply seem to spring from a moment such as this and often require little or no tinkering, others need a bit more labour.

 

And because these processes are usually unfathomable (even to us ourselves as poets), they often remain unseen. Not least because we almost immediately discard the mental drafts we make as we go. And, likewise, we tend to quickly dispose of whatever aborted versions we scribble down while en route to the finished article. So, on this occasion, I thought I would save mine and share them here. What follows, I hope, might help to illustrate how a thought, a feeling, a sentiment, a reflection, all come together and slowly begin to cohere and combine through a process of convolution. Constricting and stretching. Shifting shape and twisting dynamics, until they seem to consolidate into a final form – or a series of semi-finished forms from which we can perhaps choose the one (or ones) which seem to work best.

 

I am still as yet undecided as to which of the following haiku I feel is the most suited to the sentiments I was aiming to capture and express, but I think it is likely to be either one or other from the first or later drafts as presented here in chronological sequence of composition. Thinking and reflecting upon these drafts as I walk myself through them, hopefully, it might help to elucidate which of them might rise to the fore – solvitur ambulando! [–  it is solved by walking!]

 

Let’s begin:

  

[#1]

Sunshine and silence,

with a pot of coffee

and an open book.

 

This first attempt basically sets down the four solid elements that make up the subject and set the scene; simply: sunshine, silence, coffee, book.

  

[#2]

Early morning sunshine,

silence – coffee and a

well-thumbed book.

 

The second draft attempts to begin crafting these words into ideas which are expressive or suggestive of a certain amount of (for want of a better term) ‘sense-feeling.’ That is “early morning sunshine,” coffee and quiet (relaxation) with a book which is “well-thumbed,” – i.e., a familiar favourite tome (one which has been read and returned to repeatedly over time).

 

[#3]

Early morning sunshine,

quiet, coffee – slowly

leafing pages left.

 

The third draft attempts to whittle down some of the wordiness – but, perhaps paradoxically, also with an eye to aiding further elaboration. This version is definitely not aiming at being a finished article, but instead it aims at serving as a cognitive or conceptual bridge, a stepping stone to the next version.

 

[#4]

Early morning sunshine,

quiet, coffee – leafing

pages slowly read.

 

The fourth draft simply presents what looks like a very minor tweak, but that change is more than superficial. It is the start of a bigger change that is now beginning to take shape in my mind.

  

[#5]

Morning sunshine stilled,

warm coffee scent – turning

pages browned by time.

 

The fifth draft makes a bolder leap. It starts to flesh out that change of thought into something more appealing to the senses – the smells and the textures of the moment, elements which essentially give flavour to the ideas of stillness, contentment, and the idea of an appreciation (both of, and for) time passing.

  

[#6]

Morning sunshine stilled,

warm coffee scent – leafing

pages browned by time.

 

Draft six simply plays upon the direction of a single brushstroke: ‘turning’ becomes ‘leafing’ once again. Both gerunds suggest a temporal shift, but the second intends to add an image allied to seasons changing while still suggesting the action of turning an actual page.

  

[#7]

Morning coffee-scented sunshine,

stillness settles – sifting again

pages warmed brown with time.

 

The seventh draft makes a last strive to home in once again on the visceral element of the feelings evoked by the ‘here and now’ (the present time and place) prompting reflections on past times and places having shifted through the course of one’s lifetime, or an acceptance of that process of shifting as a deeply personal reflection – the fact that our ‘here and now’ evolves and changes with us (it ages as we age), and so our life is both unchanging and changing in the same unending instant which we perpetually perceive – both are one and the same.

 

This seventh and final draft seems to have successfully condensed all of the elements I was originally aiming for, but which I was only hazily aware of at the start of the process of penning this particular poem. Yet it still seems a little too wordy (and perhaps worthy) for a haiku. There is always an inclination to over-think a haiku, attempting to cram too many ideas and/or images into it. But this is only natural. The simultaneity of thought and feeling tend to encourage this. What we experience as but brief and fleeting moments are in fact filled to the brim with thoughts, ideas, feelings and sensations. Hence, we can’t help but succumb to the temptation to over-egg the pudding and elaborate, when what we should be aiming for is the opposite. We need to pare back. Haiku don’t necessarily need to be simple or spare, but they do need to be short. In this regard, haiku should always aim for brevity and concision. And so, walking back through the various iterations of the potential poem above, the second draft may well be the best version in terms of its size, its openness, and its likelihood of appealing to other readers as something essentially universal, and hence something they could probably relate to easily.

 

The seventh draft certainly captures the manifold elements of the scene as they applied to, and were felt by me as the poet; but, by the very nature of that precision (in addition to it being overly wordy), it is probably too ‘point specific’ to be a truly versatile haiku. Put most simply, both versions are suitably reflective, but #2 suggests, whereas #7 presents or records. As such, the former is perhaps better ready to leave home and make its own way in the world; while the latter should perhaps best remain content to stay at home with me and enjoy its long-laboured for, and well-earned retirement, knowing it has successfully exorcised its aim.

 

But, just before laying down my pen, I find myself pausing – still hesitating. I can’t help but hear the soulful voice of Jack Kerouac’s shade, looking wisely over my shoulder, whispering his old adage, that: “first thought, is best thought.” Hence, looking back one more time at #2, I see a last (and most-likely final) adaptation smiling back at me. It doesn’t say it all, but often that’s the very nub of the thing; and so – at last – draft #8 is born, and the umbilical cord of a thoughtful moment reflecting upon the re-reading of a favourite book is happily tied off. A very near return to my first thoughts:

 

[#8]

Warm morning sunshine

– coffee, quiet and a

well-thumbed book.

 

 

 

 

 Photographs by Tim Chamberlain 

Morning Haze

Leaf 121 – Reflections

 

Living in West Tokyo, we are extremely fortunate to have a largely unobstructed view of Mount Fuji from our balcony. Views of Japan’s most majestic mountain are generally at their best in Spring and Autumn. I find the seasons offer contrasting reflections. There’s often a soft, calm serenity to the early morning views seen in springtime, with the sun rising in the east, behind our home. In Autumn, at the other end of the day, the sunset views can be awe-inspiringly spectacular, watching warm reds and fiery golds rising from the mountain itself while the sun sets behind it in the west. I first fell in love with Mount Fuji long before I saw it with my own eyes. An exhibition, titled “100 Views of Mount Fuji,” curated by my friend and former colleague, Tim Clark, at the British Museum in 2001, really sowed the seeds of this fascination. It inspired me to try my own hand at painting the mountain (see here). Nowadays I still try to capture something of the mountain’ s likeness, but I do so more simply through my camera lens, imprinting directly from the palette provided by the living, shifting sky and the solidified mass of the sacred mountain itself. The view from our urban balcony always reminds me of a print by Hagiwara Hideo, titled “Biru no tanima ni,” which translates as: ‘In the Valley between the Buildings’ (c.1977-1986); a woodblock print which was used as the poster image advertising the exhibition at the BM. The following haiku is an attempt to capture something suggestive of that simple association.

 

Hagiwara Hideo - Biru no tanima ni (British Museum)

 

In the morning haze,

floating above the rooftops

– Mount Fuji.

 

 

 

 

 

Photographs by Tim Chamberlain

Lake Bled Quartet

Leaf 120 – Reflections

 

This quartet of poems recall a winter holiday in Slovenia, and a magical memory of a day trip to Lake Bled – a very picturesque location, which in this season has the Narnia-like feel of a fairy tale. Four haiku postcards penned out of an ice-etched enchantment.

 

 

Slow dip of oars,

echoing across the water

– snow falling over Lake Bled.

 

 

***

 

 

Words turn white –

hushed whispers crystallised

by Lake Bled’s quiet beauty.

 

 

 

***

 

 

White sky into

black water –

snow falling, soundless.

 

 

***

 

 

Crackle of ice-crystals,

sparkling the air of

mist-laden Lake Bled.

 

 

 

 

 

Photographs by Tim Chamberlain (2017)

Alhambra

Leaf 119 – Reflections

 

Childe Hassam - The Alhambra (1883)

This tanka poem follows on from Leaf 90, which inadvertently went somewhat awry. It’s another attempt at painting a word picture of a very beautiful place; distilling scents, sounds and sights into a short verse.

 

 

ALHAMBRA

 

Soft sound of water,

sweet scent of celinda,

under red brick arcades

– sunlight shimmering gold,

across amber and azure tiles.

 

 

 

 

Celinda (Philadelphus coronarius)

In Memoriam - Redux

Leaf 118 – Remembrance

 

Picasso - Dove of Peace (1949)

In Memoriam – Redux.

 

 

 

MAY 8 / AUGUST 15:

 

(un)lest we

               actually

                        remember …

 

 

 

Five O'Clock Chimes

(Leaf 117) – Reflections

Every day in Japan you’ll often hear at set of chimes ringing out at 5pm. The tunes vary from place to place, but ‘Auld Lang Syne’ is quite common. Where we live in Tokyo, our local tannoy – which is quite close to our house – plays a few bars of Dvořák. And it is always acknowledged by an unseen four-footed neighbour …

 

 

Five o’clock chimes –

somewhere a Jack Russell

barks back a challenge.

  

 

Editorial Note: my wife thinks our local four-footed friend (whom we only ever hear) is actually a Shiba Inu, like Hachikō at Shibuya Station, but to my mind and ear a Jack Russell seems more apt for this senryu.

This poem was originally written and posted on Bluesky in response to a #haikufeels prompt: challenge.

Photograph credit: Collsam Inc.