Haiku, Senryu - Seeing

 

EXTREMELY SMALL POEMS BY PAM

 

Madam Many-chins
Insists on salad, and eats
Her husband's last chips

(Grand Hotel 14/07/01)

Thunder on Mountain -
The superior woman
Has sold her TV

Paint in words the rich
Smell of ripe red nectarines,
Fill the room with rot

Watery life hides:
the crab shelters, fish disguise.
The scorpion spies...

When all minds concur
The carp embraces his hook
And the horse his spur

When all words are one,
A saint may take up the sword
And a captive run.

one man breaks away,
His friends may ostracise him yet
conspiracy fails

Boy printing the turf
With stolen pieces of a
Stranger's name

(Folk Memorials on the Great Orme)

 

Silhouette on a
Path to Heaven, happy dog,
The sun goes to bed

Beach-ball -
Blue muscle of sea
Flexing

Larch lace emeralds
In April sun butterflies
Long lake of sapphire

(Llyn Geirionydd 22/4/4)

Spring mountains muffled
Crouch for warmth over wildfire -
Gorse-gold is stunning

(29/04/04-to Anglesey again, cold!)

The child is crying.
Look! Money in the window!
This is a cake shop...


Springtime, boys bounce balls;
Young men fancy tobacco -
Gulls a cormorant

(April 04)

Suddenly parallel
Racing along the skyline
Seven on horses

Between sky and sand
One flying line of dark script
The sentence of death

Far from the causeway
Film framed in a car window
One minute and gone

(leaving Lindisfarne at 12h30 on the turn of the tide 2/06/04)

''Organic meat
One mile ahead''. The road bends -
A gift of flowers

(4/6/4)

In Chester, grey, alone,
He eats with orchids, folding
Maps of the New Forest

(21/07/04, - Thai restaurant)

 

Flying ants -
Behind her lightweight suitcase
Small girl struggling

(21-22/07/04)

 

Her vast brown cleavage,
Wild places full of fireweed
Grab the attention

(leaving Crewe station 3/09/04)

Snow on the pansies -
the people who always sent
birthday cards are dead

(16/04/05)

 

Home from a fun-fair,
Clutching hot dogs, huge prizes,
Rude balloons

stretching one small wing
in sunlit quartz and fuschia
a sparrow preening

(IOM 16-18/06/04)

 

 

Later on a bridge
The same two white vans having
A conversation

(29/06/04-leaving  Gillingham)

 

Huddling weather;
Cloud-smoke low in the forest
Breath of nereids

(Conwy valley 15-16/10/04)

 

Through twin trees, harebells -
Carrying clouds shoulder-high
The Ben broods on blue

(7-8 Aug 2005 Loch Eil)

Pen dipped in gold
Riding a river of light
Mountains and rainbows

(12/11/2005)

 

Cordylines and frost
Lone mermaid remembering
Seashells live and die

(19/11/05)

 

One wet pink rose bends
To watch me with the green hose
At dusk moths and frogs

Everything sparkles
Slowly the mountains shrink as
The town approaches

May:  clout-casting time
North winds killing the lilacs
My sons are strangers

Fecund, her feet arch
Like Manet's Olympia
In scarlet satin

(Aug.5th 2007-the harpsichordist-Theatre by the Lake)

The purple woman
Leaves rustling bustling
Bursts of plastic rain

(Coniston 7/8/2007)

 

Goldfinches lunching
Sharp starlings March wind twirling
Sparrow carousels

Enormous women
Browsing tiny spring outfits
Visiting pigeons

mad March air hot cross
mums battling british aisles
the buggy grand prix

(Easter 2008)

 

 

Carnival season -
He picks over the golf balls
Like Mum checking spuds

Twin pram, one baby,
Lone Dad smiling - did the bears
Get the other one?

Jenny, eleven,
Barks at dragons in the sun
Shrieks of the children

(Extravaganza 5/5/08)

 

Weighed down by penguins
And remorse, Mrs. BigBag
Drowning with dolphins

(May 2008-WAA shop)

 

 

Step into the voice
Behind her bent teeth, drab hair,
Live the deep truth there.

(Hull housewife meets the Duchess of York. ITV 19/05/08)

 

Mayday! the child's plane
Dives - our heroes flying home
Remember Munich.

(M/c United win UEFA cup in Moscow-'this one's for Munich'. 21/22 May 2008)

 

Time in reflection
Mirrors that face each other
Scales fall from our eyes

(18/06/08-the maths of infinity)

 

People without words
Fake snakes behind hungry eyes
Begin to tell lies

('Clever Monkeys'.BBC2 25/11/08)

Poor little Mum's boy
Since Death cheated you of praise
Willies and tombstones

('Imagine' Richard Serra, steel sculptor, BBCl 26/11/08)

You sell your whole life
To keep him from death. Fish with
Blood on their faces

(The postcode drugs lottery. 22/12/08)

 

 

The Fall, changed world, then
Slow blood, breath snatched, old cold bones
The dead of Winter

(Feb 2nd 2009 - nithering!)

Slowly, lovingly
Nature grew this bird, this bean -
Handle them gently

(Chicken-chucking, ASDA 13/03/09)

Capital frozen
Bare markets cold turkey pm
Scotch on the rocks

(26/3/09 - Gordon Brown insecure in wintry economical & actual climate!)

 

Curtains. We have hurled
Our whole lives headlong into
A virtual world

(24/06/09 - Pluto in Capricorn - state of the world a total mess.)

 

Queuing in Barclays
One - two - three - four blue ladies
In hoods. No more pens!

(September 2009)

 

 

Ambulance on call

Beating in perfect time wings

Soaring and falling

 

(9/9/9 - amid crowds on the Prom)

 

Wind over water
Principalities, Powers
Danger to shipping

(8/06/2010 -Too many wind-farms out at sea)