After Midnight

Leaf 295 – Homeward Bound

 

For about a year or so, when I was around the age of nineteen, I had a job as a barman on the other side of town. When I finished my evening shift, after midnight, I often used to walk home. It was a long walk of several miles. I’m not sure now why I never caught the bus. I certainly took the bus there sometimes. It might have been because the buses had stopped running by that time of night, or possibly I preferred to save the bus fare, and more likely get some fresh air after working all evening in a smoky pub. Whatever the reason was, one night in particular sticks in my mind. Because on that night, when I was walking down the deserted High Street, I found myself following a fox. The fox had glanced over its shoulder at me momentarily, but was clearly unconcerned and simply carried on walking ahead of me. The hidden claws of her feet clicking on the metalled road while she walked. Anyone looking out of a window might have thought I was out walking my dog. It was a magical moment of nocturnal connection. At the end of the High Street the fox slipped into the trees by the bridge over the river, where I turned and followed Bridge Street onwards to home. It was only after I wrote the following poem and re-read it that I realised it could easily be read in a different – perhaps, more risqué and seedy – sort of way. But I assure the reader, my hometown wasn’t that kind of place, nor am I that kind of person.

 

 

After midnight –

through the empty town

following a fox.

 

 

 

 

Photograph by Tim Chamberlain (adapting an original artwork by an unknown artist)

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)

Beneath the Bridge

Leaf 101 – Reflections

 

We often talk of water passing under the bridge as a metaphor for the passing of time, either swift or slow. But if the bridge is a sufficiently old one, then there is probably a lot which can be plumbed in those dark depths under its arches, given the unnumerable generations which it has spanned and carried over the passing of centuries – keeping count like a metronome. 

 

 

Beneath the bridge

– shade

on still water.

 

This haiku was first published in still 5: three (2001).

Photographs by Tim Chamberlain

First Glimpse of Fuji

Leaf 48 – Looking Back

 

Kawase Hasui - Fuji-san, seen from Kawaguchi-ko (1935)

My first glimpse of Mount Fuji close-up was breathtaking. Sitting on the bus, barrelling along the highway, winding gently around mountain passes, in and out of tunnels. When all of a sudden, rounding a bend, there was Fuji-san – framed in the steep cut of a ravine, with the winter sun, shining ever so brightly, directly overhead in a clear blue sky. Covered in snow, shining pearly white and rose gold through a slight haze. Everything that people have said about it is true. It has an elegance and a grace which is supernaturally serene.

 

 

First glimpse of Fuji

– a pile of diamonds,

glinting in the sunlight.

 

 

 

Photograph by Tim Chamberlain

Lonely Wing

Leaf 36 – Looking Back

 

In 2003, I spent a crisp, cold Christmas Day on my own, idly wandering around the temples at Kamakura. Engaku- ji is a Buddhist temple in Kita-Kamakura which features in several noted works of Japanese literature, such as ‘Mon’ (1910) by Soseki Natsume, and ‘Thousand Cranes’ (1952) by Kawabata Yasunari. I believe Soseki also spent time here on retreat, studying Buddhism and writing haiku.

 

 

On a lonely wing

– the cry of the kite

over Engaku-ji.

 

 

 

Photograph by Tim Chamberlain

Hotel, Midnight

Leaf 25 – Reflections

 

Sedigheh Zoghi - Daily Life, No.158 (2019)

Hotels are curious places. Oddly anonymous way-stations where strangers constantly come and go. A weary traveller arriving alone. The anonymity of individual existence, transitory. People sleeping in close proximity, yet rarely ever interacting. Perhaps an imperceptible nod of the head when emerging from the lift on the way to, or from the breakfast room. Corridors lined with closed doors, like a uniform matrix of wax-sealed hexagons in a honeycomb. Though the place seems empty, it quietly hums. Inside the same, each room’s mirrored contents: a bed, a desk, a chair, a cupboard, a bathroom, a box of tissues, a telephone, a TV, an ersatz painting on the wall. In the morning, a tray by the door with the remnants of last night’s room service. Awaiting the intervention of house-keeping, wiping the slate clean for the next anticipated anonymous arrival. While the one departing wheels a suitcase through the lobby. Leaving in a taxi, never to be seen again?

 

 

 

HOTEL, MIDNIGHT

 

A pair of shoes,

left by the door

– awaiting another shine.

 

 

 Many thanks to Sedigheh Zoghi for very kindly giving me permission to illustrate this poem with her very beautiful artwork. Please take a look at her website.

Liberation

Leaf 18 – Remembrance

LIBERATION

After all this time

only now –

finding the face

of my grandfather

behind the second

officer’s shoulder.

 

This haiga was first published in dew-on-line: two (2002)

Photograph: Private Collection (Tim Chamberlain)

Grey Seals

Leaf 6 – Looking Back

 

In October 2020, during the short respite between the Corona lockdowns in the UK, I managed to visit Cornwall on a short holiday with my parents. The weather was autumnal, but warm. And one day, sitting on a cliff overlooking the sea while eating fresh-caught crab sandwiches and drinking from a flask of hot tea, we saw two grey seals. A male and a female, clearly having fun in the bubbling surge and swell of the surf.

  

Seen and unseen,

white foaming waves

– a grey seal’s face.

*

Photographs and short films by Tim Chamberlain, 2020.

Black Cats

Leaf 4 – Looking Back

 

Edward Luper - London Dreams: Sleeping Cat and BT Tower

These are a series of watercolours which I painted as a present for a very dear friend of mine when she retired from the place where we worked together for ten years in 2001. She was very fond of cats, as am I. They were intended to be three lucky black cats. The back of each painting in this ‘haiga’ triptych was inscribed with the accompanying poem. We remained close and kept in touch, writing letters and occasionally meeting up for lunch over the years thereafter, but sadly my friend passed away in 2016. She is very much missed.

 

 

BLACK CATS

 

 

a patch of sunlight

– purring.

 

 

 

a pink tongue –

passing over milky whiskers.

 

 

 

jumping a soft paw

– the cricket is gone.

 

 

Two of the poems above were first published in dew-on-line: one & two (2002)

Plein Air Poems

Leaf 2 – Looking Back

 

When I was young my family would holiday every summer in Cornwall. We even spent a wonderfully warm and cosy Christmas there one year. In many respects I grew up there as much as I did in my hometown on the edge of London. But the first time I went and stayed there on my own was in the summer of 2000, when I was in my early twenties. It was strange to be there on my own. I was only there a couple of days and nights, having travelled down by train from London – a journey of something like five hours. I stayed at a bed & breakfast in one of those grand old Victorian villas not far from the seafront in Penzance. On my first night there I had a couple too many pints at the local pub my family always used to go to in Newlyn. Getting back to the B&B well after closing time, I found the front door closed and thought I’d been locked out, so I rang the doorbell and got the landlord out of bed. He opened the door in his dressing gown and told me the door was only on the latch; all I’d had to do was push it! – The next morning at breakfast I was profusely apologetic.

The main objective of my stay there was to walk the coast path from Penzance to a place where several generations of my family’s ashes are scattered, quite a long way further down the coast. The next day was bright and sunny. I spent most of it trekking up and down the rugged coastal path, zig-zagging in and out of hidden coves, fuelled by bottled water and Fairings biscuits. Taking photos as I went with a 35mm film SLR camera, pausing from time-to-time to jot down haiku and short poems as they came to me. Stopping in the late afternoon to cool my aching feet in the narrow, fast-running streams cascading down from the valleys into steep-sided coves which echoed with the sound of waves rolling in from the Atlantic. It was a wonderful walk, but when I reached my destination – having rewarded myself with an ice-cream topped with clotted cream at the Post Office/General Store in the nearby village, as had always been our family’s tradition – I found being there was oddly forlorn. Not the sort of homecoming I’d expected. Although sunny and warm, the place was furiously wind-blasted. I made my way back overland by road. My feet were really sore by the time I crashed into bed that night.

The following day I walked in the opposite direction, mostly walking barefoot to ease my blisters in the shallow salty seawater of the beach between Penzance and Marazion. I sat dozing on the rocks with a wonderful view of Saint Michael’s Mount, enjoying the sunshine and the sound of seagulls. In the evening, eating fish n chips on the promenade at Penzance. Visiting Newlyn Art Gallery the next day, where I first discovered the work of one of my favourite artists, Kurt Jackson. Sitting on a bench, sketching Mount’s Bay. Then reading Mervyn Peake’s ‘Gormenghast’ on the long train ride home. It was one of the first times I’d travelled on my own. The first time I’d properly tasted both the liberation and freedom of solo-travel, and its more melancholy aspects too.

These were some of the poems which I wrote at that time. They make very evocative reading for me now; memories etched more clearly than photographs perhaps.

Tim Chamberlain - View of Penzance & St Michael's Mount (2000)

 

 

PLEIN AIR POEMS

 

A collection of haiku and short verse written while walking the coastal path near Land’s End, Cornwall (c.2000).

 

kemyel path

 

long pine needles

turned bronze

on the cool earth.

 

 

* * *

 

narrow path

descending to the cove

beneath low boughs of fuchsia.

 

 

* * *

 

low clouds

moving over

the calm sea

 

 

* * *

 

water lapping

over pink rock,

green weed

and anemone

– the sound of barnacles

crackling all around.

 

 

* * *

 

merlyn rock

 

a deep pool of lapis blue,

fringed with salty fronds;

far below the calm rise and fall,

round boulders, stones and sand;

through a crevice in the pink rock

the lapis blue rising and retreating,

groaning like a walrus stirring

in the warm sun.

 

 

* * *

 

sailing boats

on the horizon

 

white triangles

weaving.

 

 

* * *

 

deep boom and

hollow echo –

clear water surging

through the chasm.

 

 

* * *

 

landfall

 

in the silent wake

of the storm –

the mariners’ maids

stand looking out

from the quay.

 

After a painting from the Newlyn School, seen at Newlyn Art Gallery in 1999.

 

* * *

 

driftwood

 

bleached white

and brittle as bone

beneath the bright sun.

 

 

* * *

 

white ghostly mops of hair

bobbing to the surface,

receding to the memories

of the coastline.

 

 

* * *

 

alacrity

 

inside the sea cave

–  wedged,

heavy sheet iron;

lifting brown flakes

to the salty wind

and white foam.