Three Questions - Tobacco Road

Just to let you know I have answered Curtis Dunlap's three questions and I am featured on the Tobacco Road blog this week.

If you haven't answered the questions yet yourself, why not give it a go?

dead in the folds
of the dry washing
a dragonfly

the late film
I wake
for each subtitle




published Blithe Spirit 18:1

down country lanes -
at every bend
jackdaws




first appeared in slightly different form in Shamrock #5

Limboland in Lynx

Hey, remember my MS sequence "Limboland?"

It has just been published in the latest edition of Lynx

by way of a prologue:

football match
we speculate the nature
of the symptoms

small children crowding round
suddenly I become
the moth expert

indian summer -
across my desk
a butterfly shadow



published Blithe Spirit 17:4

new windows
on every pane
a tiny spider

look away now if you're squeamish

the sound of my blood
squirting into the tube -
the phlebotomist and I
share a silent smile

Elvis costume
the circle of pavement
round the busker

welcoming the wait -
the gentle rhythm
of the clock shop

Shamrock 11 online

The latest issue of Shamrock is now online. Shamrock is the online journal of the Irish Haiku Society. It has a couple of pieces by myself that have previously featured on this blog.

A feature of Shamrock that I particularly like is it's haiku tour of Europe, featuring work by prominent poets and potted histories of featured regions. This issue focusses on the Benelux countries.

Work by Adri van den Berg, Marc Hendrickx, Werner Lambersy, Bart Mesotten and Ida Gorter caught my eye in particular and a fascinating history of Dutch haiku has been provided by Max Verhart.

It's also pleasing, given that the Irish Haiku Society is still relatively young, that Irish writers are starting to dominate the content.

Shamrock 11 is available at http://shamrockhaiku.webs.com/currentissue.htm

first day of term -
an earthworm inches
across the playground

September dawn -
resting in the dead rose
a dead bee

Prune Juice resurrected

Good news for Senryu lovers, after being ditched by Modern English Tanka Press, the journal Prune Juice is now under the editorship of Liam Wilkinson (also "curator" of Three Lights Gallery).

Prune Juice will be a web-only publication from now on and it's online home is at http://prunejuice.wordpress.com

Submissions are currently being accepted for Issue 3 which will be published in 2010.

Notes from the Gean - Issue 2 now online

Just a note to let you know I have five pieces in Issue 2 of Notes from the Gean - just published and available at: http://www.geantree.com/indexcover.html

That's it - I'm off to Croatia for a week and a bit. I hope my web of nerves will stand the temperature. My favourite seasons are autumn and spring which is probably why I write more summer haiku than for any of the other seasons. It's a reactionary thing, I guess.

Currently planning a chap-book, which may come to something, or it may not.

Here's a few of my summer haiku that have been published in the past:

oppressive heat
from the block of flats
a tuneless song

scent of car wax
resting on the bonnet
a ladybird

heat haze...
slumped with their ice creams
the firemen

fading tattoos
he hauls her wheelchair
from the beach

(oppressive heat, scent of car wax and heat haze were first published in Blithe Spirit, fading tattoos was first published in Presence)
(the first three inspired by London: Hackney, Stoke Newington and Hornsey respectively. The last one was written in Swanage, Dorset)

Before I go, excuse me while I plug my other blogs:

Dave's Magical Brain is my Multiple Sclerosis blog
phase - one is my general diary-style blog that I have only just started - it's early days, so be nice to it.
I also have a twitter presence, so I can be checked out there too - no haiku but general observations, remarks etc.

If I get web access while on holiday, no doubt I'll post something. In the meantime I am packing a notebook and pen.

August 2006

taking Mum the long route
back to the hospice -
the heather in bloom

carku (?!?)

in the old car
an old man and
an old dog

The beauty of an in-car notebook is that you can jot down ideas, random observations and proto-haiku while at traffic lights, in lay-bys etc and then forget them. Until one day (today in my case) you decide to take it out and trawl through for anything worth working on.

here's a few more...

long day -
my car's central locking
clunks it's welcome

later
on the same road
the dead crow
still points the way

mizzle
dotted across the moor
the backs of sheep

hospital car park
a woman with a neck brace
reversing

[...or should it be gnisrever? - as awkward to read as it is to manouver]

driving the line
between green and blue
spring hilltops

By way of explanation - I drive a hundred miles a week between work and home through the hills and back lanes of Derbyshire. It is one of those rare occasions that I find myself alone, so driving familiar routes away from the rat runs gives me space to think. I also think I need a camera living permanently in the car.