Mostly Haiku

Yesterday we drove to Verwood near Bournemouth to visit our son and daughter-in-law for their autumn family B.B.Q.. The journey would normally take about 75 minutes, but yesterday, with everyone heading for the Beaches, The New Forest and the West Country beyond, it took nearly three hours. I recorded the event thus:

Cars backed up for miles
but suddenly the road clears -
who gave the order?

Traffic news breaks in
interrupting the music -
poor news for someone.

On the car ahead
written in the dust SHIT YOU!
and through the rear screen
a small boy pokes out his tongue -
nothing else to see for miles.

Cerulean blue
with white chalk playground scribble
a Gordian knot -
the sky's wild loops and hatchings
fading slightly as we look.

Journey's end at last:

Sun and clear blue sky
smoke rises from the barby
triggering low cloud.

No problems driving home

Sun warms the far hills
picking out each bush and tree -
headlights here a must.

I am submitting this post in answer to Mary's Poetics prompt Autumn at dVerse Poets.

Triple Haiku and Tanka

blackbird and robin
feeding beneath the rose bush -
tit-bits on the path

small birds above them
chomping among dead petals
for hidden insects

rose petals falling
confetti on the bride and groom
as they fly away

---

Like choir boys of old
scratching their names on the pew,
donors to the roof
can see their particulars
as part of the church fabric

fish and mash

the rhododendrons
footprints lead to them     paws return
metamorphosis

my "aunt's" lost purse
found some weeks later by a friend
safely guarded by a fox
in its shoe box laid among
chewed gloves wet papers and old coins

Tanka #5

Folk gathered in rain
to discover each new word
but now it's been scrapped -
the world's most testing exam
The All Souls One Word Paper.

Tanka #4

Betting sensation
(roars The Sun): decimal odds.
(Despair on courses.)
Bookies offer 3.50
instead of seven to two...

My Hungry Hand and Sleepy Foot

The other day I overheard a young man holding forth on what was obviously a pet theory of his. It was that portraitists concentrate too exclusively on faces, when in fact hands and feet are better indicators of a person's personality.

On the off chance that he had hold of a grain of truth I offer the following as updates for my personal profile
(you may need to click on the images):-

Tanka  #3



Apologies to those who cannot stand the original beautiful game!

Dying on its feet
(twenty20's all the rage):
what was long-cricket.
Quick results, dramatic ends
loads of cash - they matter now.

Tanka #3 : Haiku #99 and Haiku #100

So how did they know,
canny toads of l'Aquila,
to get the hell out
five days clear before the quake?
Smelling radon or ions?


Bikes too dangerous
(for postmen), but Londoners
will get them French-style.

Now is the winter
of our discontinued spring
glorious with snow.

Tanka #2 & Haiku #93

To whose advantage?
Our long lost Russian forebear
spills her D.N.A.
leaves it as our legacy
in some Siberian cave.

Geoffrey Hill, poet,
difficult, divisive - up
for the Oxford job.

Tanka #1

I have been thinking for some time that I might throw in the occasional tanka, just to relieve the monotony, so here is the first:

Saint Valentine's Day
starts the year of the tiger
for star-crossed lovers -
the lunar and the solar
calendars are out of synch.

Happy Valentine's Day and New (Chinese) Year to you all!