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

Fallen Log

Leaf 287 – Reflections

 

Felix Edouard Vallotton - Evening on the Loire (1925)

This poem pairs neatly with Leaf 286. I suppose in some ways it acts as a kind of photo-negative mirror image of that poem. A slightly different sort of meditation, focused more on when things cease to flow, because there are always moments in time when – for whatever reason – we get left behind, or choose to let things part around us and pass us by.

 

 

Fallen log

lodged in the

stream’s meander.

 

 

 

 

Long Fronds

Leaf 286 – Reflections

 

Utagawa Hiroshige - Seba from The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Highway (c.1830s) British Museum

I’ve written about this before. I like staring into deep water, especially flowing water. I think I had the river at Grantchester in mind when I wrote this poem (see, Leaf 9), although it could be any number of rivers in which I’ve seen long, ribbon-like fronds of weed trailing in the flow. I find this mesmerizing. The mirror-like surface of the water makes it seem like I’m looking into another world, which in reality it actually is. Another realm that in some senses can seem quite mystical, wondering what it might be like to live in another element. A world in which all frames of reference are utterly different and consequently transformative.

 

 

Long fronds

swaying within

the dark stream.

 

 

 

 

Coming of Age

Leaf 285 – Art Inspired

 

I recently watched the film ‘Empire of the Sun’ (1987), which is based on J.G. Ballard’s book of the same title. It’s a film I watched many times while I was growing up, but it was only when I was much older that I actually read the book. Later still, I even went to several of the locations in and around Shanghai that feature in the book, which is actually a semi-autobiographical novel. 

Norman Rockwell - Freedom from Fear (1943)

I find it fascinating to see all the subtle nuances which Steven Spielberg managed to weave into the movie. The symbolic mirroring and foreshadowing. It really is a masterpiece of motion picture film-making. It must be quite a challenge to make a very good film of a very good book. Often, they end up being two distinctly different things. But, in this instance, there’s a lot in the book which is very deftly hinted at in the film – even if it is not shown exactly as it is described on the printed page. The two poems posted below are a reflection upon that aspect of the book as it is very subtly suggested in the film; of things seen and unseen; of things felt and experienced, but forever unspoken.

 

 

COMING OF AGE [I.]

 

A potato in his pocket?

 

Under cover of darkness

a secret self –

making new discoveries.

(after J.G. Ballard’s ‘Empire of the Sun’)

***

 

COMING OF AGE [II.]

 

Death’s radiance rises in darkness:

 

Watching Mrs Victor’s

soul ascend –

into bright white light.

 

(after J.G. Ballard’s ‘Empire of the Sun’)

 

'Empire of the Sun' (1987) film stills: IMDb / Norman Rockwell painting: Wikipedia

Harvest Fiesta

Leaf 284 – Art Inspired

 

C.F. Tunnicliffe - Sparrows Raiding Corn

This poem was originally written in response to a #dailyhaikuprompt on Bluesky to write a haiku using the words ‘harvest’ and ‘sparrow.’ This Ladybird book illustration by C.F. Tunnicliffe immediately sprang to mind.

 

 

Harvest festival

soon becomes a fiesta –

sparrows amid the barley.

 

Septimus Scott - Harvest Mouse (1949)

This poem was originally written and posted on Bluesky in response to a #dailyhaikuprompt: 'harvest', 'sparrow.'

Time's River

Leaf 283 – Homeward Bound

 

Heraclitus said “no one can ever step in the same river twice,” but there’s nothing like a sense of place to help jog the memory. Especially when the place is your hometown.

 

 

CHENEY FIELDS

 

Returning to the river

of our childhood adventures

– forty years hence.

 

 

Photograph by Tim Chamberlain

Handy Pine

Leaf 282 – Garden Poems

 

Maruyama Ōkyo - Pine Trees in Snow, left folding screen (1786) Mitsui Memorial Museum

Similar to Leaf 281, this poem was written during my second trip to Japan back in 2003. I wrote it during a visit to Rikugien, one of Tokyo’s remaining Daimyō Gardens (see Leaf 108). The way pine trees are so carefully sculpted here in Japan, to my mind at least, means they sometimes seem to resemble hands or umbrellas even, which sometimes can be quite “handy” …

 

 

Feeling the cold –

I stand under a handy pine bough

and warm my head.

 

 

 

Kawase Hasui - Pine Trees in Clear Weather after Snow (1929)

Primping the Pooch

Leaf 281 – Looking Back

 

This is a poem written during my first or second trip to Japan back in 2003. I’m pretty sure it was something I saw whilst wandering around the Asakusa area of Tokyo. I took the accompanying photograph only a year or two ago in Yokohama.

 

 

Primping the pooch

in her handbag,

the lady stops

to adjust its little coat.

 

 

 

 

Photograph by Tim Chamberlain

First Date

Leaf 280 – Looking Back

 

One of the things I’ve discovered from having been married for a fair few years now, is how small and seemingly insignificant memories come to acquire a kind of patina of warmth, which one treasures all the more intimately within the everyday rhythm of one’s heart – much in the same way that diamonds are formed from uncountable layers unseen, accrued so quietly and serenely over unfathomable stretches of time. In that sense, I suppose, some depths of feeling attain something of the eternal – an abiding resonance felt far down, deep within our souls.

 

 

Happily.

 

Following her footsteps

all these years –

 

Remembering

the boots she wore

on our first date.

 

 

 

 

Photograph Credit: VII XI XXX/Rakuten & Randa/Rakuten

More Tired

Leaf 279 – Reflections

 

Federico Zandomeneghi - In Bed (1878) Palozzo Pitti

This is a recurring story from throughout the course of my life for as long as I can ever remember ...

 

 

Waking up –

more tired than

when I went to bed.

 

 

 

 This poem was originally published in The Asahi Haikuist Network, The Asahi Shimbun (2 January 2026)

Empty Mansion

Leaf 278 – Senryu (or witty, tom-foolery)

 

This is an odd little poem which I wrote a long, long time ago …

 

 

Knocking over the

soup tureen –

the empty mansion,

echoes.

 

 

 

Photograph credit: Pexels/Pixabay

Haiku Moment

Leaf 277 – Senryu (or witty, tom-foolery)

 

Spirited Away (2001) Studio Ghibli

‘Haiku Moments,’ as they are commonly referred to, often seem to come to me when I am travelling. In the past, this was always a problem if you didn’t have a notebook with you, or some other means of scribbling it down. Nowadays, of course, I usually have my mobile phone with me and so can note it down fairly quickly. However, I can recall many times in the past (during the “pre-mobile phone” era) when a haiku has presented itself to me and I’ve tried to remember it and write it down later on, only to find I’ve lost it somewhere in the inaccessible recesses of my mind. Hence, this poem.

 

 

Sitting on the train,

desperately trying

not to have a haiku moment.

 

 

 

 

Evening Light

Leaf 276 – Looking Back

 

Claude Monet - Fishing Boats Calm Sea (1868)

For a number of years, I lived in London’s Limehouse. I used to love walking by the River Thames, especially on warm summer’s evenings. This poem, written at that time, remembers those quiet evening walks when training dinghies from the sailing school at Shadwell Basin were out on the wide open-water, practicing.

 

 

River at high water,

gentle flap of sails

– evening light.

 

 

 

 

Savouring Samsara

Leaf 275 – Reflections

 

One of the things about living in Tokyo which never ceases to amaze me is how rapidly things come and go. I’ve seen so many seemingly thriving bars and restaurants disappear. Often, they are simply replaced – renamed and re-purposed, as in most other cities. But here too, buildings seem to go up and down with amazing speed. Navigating the city by such landmarks is hazardous. You can frequently be thrown completely off-course by such disappearances. Impermanence is everywhere. Here today, gone tomorrow. I suppose it simply teaches us that we shouldn’t get too attached to material tastes, but instead, we should always keep an open-appetite for the new ...

 

 

Where we used to eat

tatsuta-age oroshi daikon

– now heaped rubble.

 

 

***

 

 

Tokyo restaurants

come and go

– samsara.

 

Tatsuta-age oroshi daikon

 The first of these two poems was posted on Bluesky in response to a #dailyhaikuprompt (daikon), the second was also originally posted on Bluesky as a standalone poem. 

Photograph credits: Tabelog & Maruha Nichiro

Making A Day Of It

Leaf 274 – Looking Back

 

Ronald Lampitt - August (1958)

I have always loved watching birds. This linked verse poem (of twenty haiku, and one closing tanka) is an attempt to distil a day of avian activity in an English suburban back garden, hopefully incorporating a subtle feel for the seasons progressing from Spring to Autumn as well.

 

 

MAKING A DAY OF IT

 

Making a symphony

of the early morning sun

– dawn chorus awakes.

 

Making a grub

wriggle in its beak –

a wren checks its route.

 

Making a big splash

in the bird bath –

house sparrows.

 

Making an ungainly mess

under the bird feeder

– a wood pigeon.

 

Making a quick sortie

down to the lawn –

a blue tit bobs.

 

Making a menace –

a couple of shady crows,

calling to collect.

 

Making a dash

across an empty patio

– a pied wagtail passes.

 

Making quiet progress

amid the leafy hedge –

a dunnock on the hop.

 

Making its song heard,

top of the apple tree –

a great tit hollerin’ the blues.

 

Making a clean sweep

a couple of swifts –

scything the sky.

 

Making a blackbird

lose its mind –

ginger tom, unfussed.

 

Making the gardener’s fork

turn its advantage –

cock robin.

John Leigh-Pemberton - Bullfinches (1967)

  

Making a royal review

in plum-hued plumage

– a pair of bullfinches.

 

Making its descent

upside down –

a nuthatch knows.

 

Making a kaleidoscope

take wing – goldfinches

flocking through.

 

Making a racket

at the top of the conifers

– magpies conferring.

 

C.F. Tunnicliffe - Magpies and Larch

 

Making a flurry –

dust bathing

sparrows.

 

Making a stately visit –

two collared doves,

cooing.

 

Making a melody

crisp ‘n’ cleanly clear –

a chaffinch conducts.

 

Making the laundry line sway

– long tailed tits

simply passing through.

 

Making a runway

for Mr & Mrs Mallard –

the river over the fence.

 

Making a snail

come out to dinner –

a song thrush shells out.

 

Making a flash of colour,

quickly catching an eye –

a jay, fast moving.

 

Making no sound at all

– an owl (eyes shut)

awaits the moon.

 

Making light and dark

ripples through the air –

starlings moving as one.

 

Making all aware

of evening’s onset –

a blackbird clucks

again and again

again and again.

 

 

 

C.F. Tunnicliffe - Yellow Catkins