Haiku #98

Fucking, "Down Under",
loses so many road signs,
stolen by tourists!

Haiku #97

Sleepy, not asleep.
Grimace, smile to order, please -
the new style face lift.

I am the man who corralled the wolf (& Haiku #96)

Back in early February I posted a poem entitled I am the man who swallowed the boy. In fact it was one of a pair. At the time I did not feel ready to loose its companion on an unsuspecting world, but here it now is:-

I am the man who corralled the wolf,
hunted it down and baulked at the kill.
I am the man who thought that to name it,
thought that to shame it, would weaken its will.

I am the man who nurtures the wolf,
nurtures the wolf, supposing he must,
must either nurture or slaughter the wolf,
but cannot hate it enough.

I am the man with a knife on his belt,
the knife that was meant for its heart,
the knife that remained in its leathery sheath
when I chose the less difficult part.

I am the man who placated the wolf
(having hunted it down and baulked at the kill),
who corralled it safely away from the crowd -
since when it has eaten its fill.

I am the man with a wolf for a friend
who has lived with its lusts and disdain,
who with horror discovered it part of him,
whose fear of it kept it enchained.

I am the man who baulked at the kill,
who baulked at the death of the beast,
who thought he could handle both it and the thrill -
was invited to some of its feasts.

I am the man in the anti-wolf guise,
despising the thing that it is,
steeling myself to its wayward charms
as it proffers its Judas kiss.

I am the man with a thorn in his side,
a devil that pricks at his pride,
a wolf that's knocking all night at his gate -
at an ego he cannot deflate.

I am the man with the wolf in the fold,
aware of the damage it's caused,
how innocence bleeds from the teeth of the wolf
and the love that was there is grown cold.

---

Haiku #96

From big business come:-
debt, dysfunction and dissent.
(Football's present state.)

Haiku #95

Virgin Galactic
completes its maiden voyage -
anyone for space?

Haiku #94

Regrettably, I will be out of cyber-circulation this weekend, but expect the haiku to keep coming. See you Monday.

Posthumous attempt -
Muriel Spark shortlisted
for the Booker Prize

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.

Please don't drink and doodle!

Last Sunday we celebrated our daughter's 44th birthday with a family meal at The Anchor, Witley. It is a favourite spot with canal boats, canoes, a lock gate and much activity on a fine sunny Sunday - which it was. The Anchor had a fine menu to go with the day - and more to the point, some equally fine wines and beers. I took the photographs after the meal, which was a mistake.

(My budget statement is below)

Haiku #92

The Budget Statement :
the convincing bit for me
came after he said

Haiku #91

For twelve hundred years
they've been eating more and more -
the twelve disciples.

Haiku #89 and #90

The uncut Google
available in China -
 look on the top shelf.









Establishment Hughes -
now he's made Poets' Corner.
Still changing landscapes? 

Haiku #88

Blackbirds are in song.
   Life span three years maximum -  yet they keep singing.

Haiku #87

A boy's new windpipe -
they're growing it in situ
from his own stem cells

Babes in Arms

One time this would have been a holiday:
hardly a soul about; few staff, no kids;
an empty playground, drive and car park,
myself, a telephone and piles of paperwork.

This is no holy day, the children are at war,
their papers came and off they went.
Only the men and women left to hold the fort.
(An ageing population, all too old to fight.)

An hour has gone, no sign of movement,
even the sun on hunger strike, black
as a black cloud, in lieu of clouds
precipitating rain - a dirty rain,
to catch the feel of altered memory.

It might be nothing more than memory -
a single, half-forgotten recollection
half-wiped from some computer,
which in the wiping found itself
beyond salvation, buggered, bound for hell,
somehow diverting to the here and now.

Dan, obsessive dresser-up, born
actor-out of childhood's fantasies,
never plays himself. Today
A turban for his head has slipped across
his eyes - seen closer though,
it is a bandage flecked with blood.

Dan and Peggy
(never before so aptly named),
an amputee, are led by Steve,
face hidden by a plastic mask -
the surgical variety, concealing burns
and missing skin.

The end of the procession
and an ancient tractor
wheezing through its tall exhaust
hauls in its wake two trailers
piled high with bodies. (Whether
wounded, dead or dying
is difficult to tell.) Trailed behind
the trailer on a long rope
to his ankle, bumps a half-
familiar figure (fallen from a pile?)
from whom a blood-stained puttee,
gravel-torn, unravels in the rain.

The brain consults its image store
and holds the closest match
up to the boy: a pair of images,
which even as we look, converge,
fuse to a single shot: a Tudor criminal
hung, drawn but not yet quartered,
then gutted for his crime.

Haiku #86

Vernal equinox.
Early migrant birds get worms -
and prime building sites.

Haiku #85

Too few blog hits, friend?
Start an agony column -
you will not look back.

Haiku #84

Of planet Corot-9b
we wonder... temperate climate...
Know what I'm thinking?

Haiku #83

A world of Misery-lit:
child abuse, rape and mourning -
Orange Award judge.

From the "Digital Doodle" Sketchbook

Tangled branches

The Promenade at Night

Cactus

Haiku #82

Michael Foot's passing:
they just aint got what he had -
today's orators.

Award

For this Beautiful Blogger Award I am indebted to Gwei Mui at take away thoughts.
With my grateful thanks.

For my other awards please visit here