The Water's Way
Look into the shallow and winding stream. Water over stone, water over sand – what shall resist it? Light dances hither and thither on an eddy, now shimmering like spangles or sparkling like diamonds, now lancing the eye like a fine dagger.
A butterfly may be a creature of the wind – blown this way or that. Drawn now to this flower and now to that flower, settling here and flitting there – ever yet a butterfly. Are women not also as graceful and subject, at times, to a greater power? The sturdy oak snaps in the wind but the slender willow bends easily and survives a storm's whims. In resistance, one discovers one's weakness. In submission, one's strength.
Have not famous men considered the water's way and dreamt of butterflies?
Stir the water with your hand and muddy the stream. Be patient. The mud settles and all is clear. Let the water pursue its own path, effortlessly. It attains its end, even where granite would bar its way.
To look into the water, do nothing. Eventually, one's vision, too, will clear. Men of ancient times sought perfection so and aspired to immortality.
the butterfly of
a beautiful dream
and no other
Out of Season
My light jacket out of season – today an abridgement of yesterday – sun ensnared by nearly naked branches, barely a glitter on the winding brook that parallels my footpath – a tuft of grass solitary, forlorn and shivering – only in the gathering dark, a lingering past, like a lengthening shadow, or a foreshortened future to reflect upon? – precious little now for water to capture and convey – kneeling, nevertheless, to cup my hands at a bend in the brook...
coming to taste it
this late in the day
the water is clear
• Jeffrey Woodward lives in Detroit. His poems and articles appear widely in periodicals in the USA, UK, Canada and Asia including, most recently: Asahi Shimbun (Japan), Bottle Rockets, Contemporary Haibun Online, Envoi (Wales). The Hypertexts, International Poetry Review, Kokako (New Zealand), Lines Review (Scotland) Mainichi Daily News (Japan), Modern English Tanka, Modern Haiku, Nisqually Delta Review, Noon (Japan), (Australia), Paper WaspSouth by Southeast and tinywords. His haiga, in addition, have appeared in The Green Leaf Files (England) and Haiga Online. (IS&T will be publishing some of his haifa later this summer.)
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Tuesday, July 31
Two haibun by Jeffrey Woodward
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 31 Jul 2007 09:36 AM BST
Monday, July 30
Multimedia poetry - Class of by Rikki
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 30 Jul 2007 02:49 PM BST
Sunday, July 29
Two new poems by Geoff Stevens
by
Charles Christian
on Sun 29 Jul 2007 11:46 AM BST
SELF-INVESTIGATION
INTRUSIVE & OTHERWISE Thickening pan of beef stew hallucinations brain-clouded thermal mud spluttering to let methane out a bulb in bakelite holder hung from a faulty flex immersed in its stickiness and glowering like a cyclops while winking recognition to a diet of light meals only until the barium meal test comes back and then who knows it could be consomme through a straw breath sucked in cold a sudden sharp blow to the solar plexus. DISILLUSIONED 1 Marjorie's got one of those white nylon-fur fireside rugs and an imitation log fire he thought to himself as he sipped a fine sherry broke open a packet of cigs. He had fourteen quid in his pocket which was more than the toolsetters get. Why had she stood him up? Why couldn't she have said no instead of having him wait twenty-five minutes for nothing? Everything seemed fine last time with her pressing her body soft and scented against him but she had said that you can't get everything you want at once and he remembered that. Make that a double whisky. • West Bromwich-based Geoff Stevens is a poet and publishes the Purple Patch poetry magazine. Friday, July 27
A. D. Winans is giving up
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 27 Jul 2007 11:49 AM BST
In these two poems, Beat Generation survivor A.D. Winans explains why he is giving up on certain things...
GIVING UP ORGANIZATIONS The one thing I notice about my former COSMEP friends Is that they haven't changed over the decades They still publish and have love affairs With each other or with themselves They have become small town politicians Or Midwest college professors But put them in a room together And you see how boring they really are They don't drink They don't gamble They don't smoke dope But they talk a lot Mostly about themselves And things they know little about It's time to put them out of my life End all organizational ties These tiny ants who gather at picnics Begging for small favors (COSMEP = the San Francisco-based Committee Of Small Magazine Editors & Publishers) GIVING UP POLITICS 9/11 has gutted my political will I can no longer pledge allegiance To the flag of the U.S. and all it represents The Patriot Act be damned I will not wrap myself in old glory And everything it no longer stands for I will not bow down to Corporate America And its radical religious right I can't accept your moral bankruptcy Your green back god buying and selling lives On the Stock Market Exchange. I will not bow down to a country where Assassins Determine the course of history Whose Papal Church has its own bank Where Ka-ching, ka-ching Has become the holy mantra America you are one big insane asylum Your manic depressive innkeepers Waging war on the masses Your henchmen standing proud On your purple majestic mountains Kissing the cold stone faces on Mount Rushmore Looking like a Mafia Don with the Cold kiss of death on his breath Thursday, July 26
Schubert meets poetry in Suffolk
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 26 Jul 2007 09:04 PM BST
The Suffolk Poetry Society has just released a CD recording of its annual Schubertiad event, which took place at the Old Granary Studios near Beccles, Suffolk on 26th May. The event combined the piano playing of Holger Aston with readings by seven local poets. The 2 CD set has a total playing time of 1 hour 38 minutes and costs £5.50. For more details mail Fred Ellis of the Suffolk Poetry Society at 7 Haylings Grove, Leiston, Suffolk IP16 4DU.
Wednesday, July 25
Two taiga by Pamela Babusci
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 25 Jul 2007 03:29 PM BST
  • Pamela Babusci is an American poet and artist living in Rochester, New York. She has illustrated several books, including Full Moon Tide: The Best of Tanka Splendor, and Taboo Haiku. Pamela was the logo artist for HNA 2003 in New York City and is the logo artist for HNA 2007 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She also makes and sells jewelry and hand painted cards and framings. In leisure time she listens to jazz, her new-found love. She describes 'taiga' as made-up term for combining tanka with art, in the same way that a haiku + art becomes a haiga. Both these taiga originally appeared in Simply Haiku (see favourites for link). Monday, July 23
Conker Season - new prose by Kris Humphrey
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 23 Jul 2007 11:02 AM BST
Conker Season
It was about seven years ago, before the drifting apart had even started, and Filby and me were over at Harewood House looking for conkers. The season was pretty much over but we weren’t ready to give up. We’d talked about it on the way over; there was still time to find a good one, a big bastard to rival the ones people were bringing down from the woods up on Stickheath. So there we were, either side of the path, wading through leaves in search of the telltale shine. The pickings were slim. Kids had been combing the place for weeks and all we were turning up was flat or mouldy ones. About half way up the path we stopped to compare. That’s when the old man showed up. It was impossible to tell if he was in the process of moving or just standing there doing nothing; that’s how slow he looked. Probably shuffling home after a coffee morning at the House. Filby was showing me this conker he thought might be all right and we barely even noticed the man until he spoke. He asked if we were collecting conkers. I looked at Filby; a question like that was asking for sarcasm. But the man was so old he could hardly move, so we just told him yes. He smiled, or at least the lines on his face shifted round. His black dot eyes didn’t register a thing. It made me wonder if all old people ended up with stone cold eyes like that. Then he started telling us where we should look for conkers. He had a stick and he waved it in the direction of the tennis courts. He said they would all have rolled down the banks into the ditch around the courts. Filby and me shared a glance. The man was right. We said thanks and headed off towards the slope. As we reached the top I peered back the way we had come and saw the old man hobbling off down the path. His progress was tortuous and he leaned heavily on his stick at each step. He really was pitifully frail but as I watched him shuffle away the lustreless black of his eyes hung strangely in my mind and somehow I was relieved to see him go. We slid into the ditch and kicked through a foot or so of dead leaves, skirting round the edge of the dilapidated courts to the patch we thought would give the highest yield. No one played tennis in winter and the place was empty. The clubhouse was locked up too, and along with the tall row of conker trees it shielded us from view from almost every angle. The strategy paid off instantly with even the briefest rummage through the leaves turning up a handful of bright, fat conkers. We filled our pockets and laughed greedily at the fact that nobody else had been clever enough to look there. Then, after a minute or two of gathering I paused to rest my back and, for no good reason, I glanced through the mesh and across the courts to the one small section of pathway that was still visible between the trees. The old man was there. A jolt leaped through my chest. I’d thought he was gone. But he was there gripping tightly to his stick and looking back in our direction. I stared at him, for what seemed like ages, and he stared back. I couldn’t tell if he was smiling or not but I knew those eyes of his were pointed at us; like little glass beads. I carried on staring, and from the quiet behind me I could tell that Filby had stopped his searching too. We stood there, up to our shins in fallen leaves, unmoving until the man was gone from view. Walking home we took a different path, past the clubhouse and across the field to the main road. Neither of us mentioned the old man, just delved our hands into the pocketfuls we’d come away with, wondering what it was we weren’t talking about. • Kris Humprey lives in the South-West England and work as a cinema projectionist. Saturday, July 21
Two phone messages from Roddy Williams
by
Charles Christian
on Sat 21 Jul 2007 10:11 AM BST
phone call
i did not hear the phone. therefore i did not answer it. i did not register your question as a serious one. therefore i answered it with a lie. i did hear the phone but i chose not to answer it, my motives in so doing being far too complex to relate in this, answered, phone call. if you knew why i did not answer the phone it would not alter your or my life to any measurable degree. so why did you ask? you need not answer that question for the reasons listed above. message left on voicemail i won’t be in today i’m full of it i think i’m coming down with a dose of fascism. i’m feeling right pompous. i’m hoping it’s just a twenty-four hour thing but i’d best not come in… in case it’s catching. the doctor says if i take the moral high ground he prescribed and have a good sleep i’ll be fine by Wednesday. • Roddy Williams lives and works in London. A radical atheist, his Haiku Diary of Common Sense can be found at http://hairybloke.blogspot.com/ Friday, July 20
Two haiga by Robert Wilson
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 20 Jul 2007 12:24 PM BST
  • Robert Wilson is the editor of Simply Haiku - there is a hyperlink in our favourites list. We asked him about his haiga and he replied "I am an artist and a poet....blending the two was a dream come true. I was introduced to haiga years ago in the 1960's. art and haiku combined illustrates the unsaid i a powerful way, creating multiple levels of interpretation without telling all. Thursday, July 19
In Question by Tish Davis
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 19 Jul 2007 07:18 AM BST
In Question
Can you build a house on memories a foundation of wishes, hopes dreams Can you patch a roof top with apologies - Or will it rain anyway? • Tish Davis lives and works in the US. Current publications include haibun that will appear in the October issue of Contemporary Haibun. |
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