Book of the Week: A Ragbag of Haiku

Brian Tasker was the leading British Zen-inspired haikuist through the 1990s, editing a beautiful if short-lived journal (bare bones) during that time, and self-producing books such as this one from 1996.

Do you have a chapbook published 2009 or earlier you would like featured as a Book of the Week? Contact us for details.

All haiku in the Book of the Week Archive are selected by Tom Clausen, and are used with permission.

the temple bell sounds;
a woodpigeon pauses
to fill the silence

sudden heart beating
wings of the pheasant
breaking cover


after the rain the stars

all my expectations
my lover letting down
her hair


summer storm:
on an old radio
jazz crackles

after she's gone
unwinding
a long hair from my pillow


first cold morning—
on the bathroom heater
dust burns

in and out of our argument a butterfly


at the rest-home
slowly I wake my father
dreaming of the past

another day without work
early morning mist
drifting


the smiling doctor
waves me into his room:
the grey afternoon light

high tide
over and over
the shifting shingle


a light rain
into the evening mist—
woodsmoke