EarthRise Rolling Haiku Collaborative 2018
Welcome to the largest collaborative poem on the internet. The Audubon Society has designated 2018 as the Year of the Bird (does this come as a surprise to anyone?). Plan to share one poem or many in the world’s largest collaborative poem — bird poems are welcome! Please add your poem(s) in the Comment box below, ideally at dawn at your location, but any time that you are able. The timeline for this begins at 12:01 A.M. on April 17 on the International Date Line (which is why it seems to have started the day before, for many of us). Your poem(s) can respond to the “seed” poem:
its ghostly cry
falls from the sky, invisible
skylark
— Ampū (? – ?)
or to any of the poems posted in the Comment box, or you can even start a new thread. You may participate as often as you like. All we ask is that you respond to the theme of birds.
Enjoy!
crow attacks
the heron… escaping by
two flaps of wings
slow down, my friend
hummingbird, I can’t follow
your rapid flight!
beside the road
a white-necked heron
half-lifts its black wings.
five hooded plovers
at the water’s edge
don’t see me walk by
autumn moon
a raven calls mournfully
from the pines
Sorry, there is supposed to be a space between these 3.
.
.
circling
around cone-heavy pines
goldcrest song
.
David J Kelly
Shamrock #27 (2014)
.
.
starboard marker buoy
the cormorants pass
on either side
.
David J Kelly
cattails (Sept 2014)
.
.
bittersweet winter
a squall of snow buntings
passes overhead
.
David J Kelly
A Hundred Gourds – 4.1 (2014)
.
.
DMZ
the daily battle
of birdsong
.
David J Kelly
Modern Haiku 46.1 (Nov 2014)
.
.
rook … rook … rook
all along the fence
one peck apart
.
David J Kelly
Blithe Spirit 25: 4 (Nov 2015)
.
.
high in a tree
playing hide and seek
chick-a-dee-dee-dee
.
David J Kelly
The Bamboo Hut (Spring 2016)
.
.
this evening rain
falling into pools
of blackbird song
.
David J Kelly
Acorn #37 (2016)
.
.
river phoenix
a swan slowly grows
its neck back
.
David J Kelly
7×20 (October 2016)
.
.
carpe carp
a static heron studies
swirling water
.
David J Kelly
cattails – September 2016
.
.
owl pellet …
the unpalatable business
of death
.
David J Kelly
Stone after Stone (Haiku Ireland anthology, 2017)
.
.
at the village shop
some retail, some retelling
chatter of sparrows
.
David J Kelly
Failed Haiku – Jan 2017
.
.
chick’s first meal
the taste of freedom
egg tooth
.
David J Kelly
Kokako #26 (2017)
.
.
a small bird’s song
the weight of the world
lighter
.
David J Kelly
European Quarterly Kukai – Spring 2017 – 3rd place
.
.
behind the pigeon
a folded falcon
unfolding
.
David J Kelly
The Heron’s Nest XIX #4 (Dec. 2017)
.
.
in a reedbed
by the artillery range
booming bittern
.
David J Kelly
Ardea #7 (2017)
.
.
a louder silence
the blackbird’s pauses
between phrases
.
David J Kelly
The Cicada’s Cry (autumn 2017)
.
.
effervescence
dippers duck into
the river’s riffles
.
David J Kelly
Akitsu Quarterly (Spring 2018)
.
.
old teahouse
a swear word from
the green parrot
*
Saturday soccer
sparrows pecking crumbs
behind the net
*
geese cry out
an ancient chorus
returning home
Carol Raisfed
midnight moon
the owlet peeps
then hoots
summer’s slow dusk
crow shadows
skimming rooftops
two crows
flying into dusk
my ill-wishes
Summer’s end
the last of the swifts
angles away
swimming –
a flock of seagulls around
the day moon
*
a shrike yelps
on the sleeping cat –
sultry afternoon
*
slow down, my friend
hummingbird, I can’t follow
your rapid flight!
*
Anna’s hummingbird…
goes to sleep together
with flowers
*
morning light –
a hummingbird changes
his colors
*
high autumn sky –
a crow attacks a buzzard
who doesn’t mind
*
a warbler’s song
from the bank of the lake—
I swim toward it
*
Tomislav Maretić
two free no need to fit in:
liberal wings
out-fly origami —
too free to ever fold
😎
Michael, son-song of Virginia Ruth — two fly as one in UniSon
we don’t need wings with the Miracle Lift
beakeye headback wings
tailcheekbreast legsfeet
painting Chinese bird
beakeye headback wings
tailcheekbreast legsfeet
Chinese painting bird
By Sydell Rosenberg (submitted by Amy Losak)
“The Thornless Perch” (sequence), Frogpond, 1984
Unfortunately, when I submitted this sequence, the format was not retained, FYI! I tried. Best, Amy Losak
a blue heron . . .
I’m taken beyond the the lens
beyond words, beyond myself
.
Hi Carol,
I like, but this one flies w/out “beyond words, beyond myself”
a blue heron . . .
I’m taken
beyond the lens
Michael
Thank you, Michael.
Much appreciated…:-)
Carol
wings folded —
hawks and doves
share the sunset
for the birds
wings
(haiku-poem as epitaph)
remembering Mr. Tom Petty’s “learning to fly”
(always hearing my brother’s voice freed from the soundboard)
I’m no bird
I don’t need wings to fly
over my worries
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=267&v=yxXBhKJnRR8
😎
Michael, son-song of Virginia Ruth
with the Miracle Lift
we don’t need wings to arrive There
low clouds-
a drone gets confused
among white geese
————————————–
on sunflowers
the shadow of the crows in flight-
waning sun
————————————————
thick haze
a young nightingale
he trains singing
April 19th
haiku after party
still rolling cyberly
😎
Michael – here comes the son-song of Virginia Ruth
with an answer
for everything
the tree of crows
Wild Plum Haiku 2/28/17
.
every octave
of his morning voice
mountain raven
Cattails 9/2016
.
a feather hangs
from a crow’s tail
afternoon heat
Cattails 9/2016
.
Tse-chu* sunrise
long-horn trumpets compete
with birdsong
.
*Tse-chu: Spring mask dance festival
.
Otata March 2017
.
where the lammergeir calls
prayer flags wear
the hue of silence
.
Failed Haiku (haiga) June 2017
.
waiting for a friend —
a pigeon struts up and down
the wet pavement
.
Shamrock 23 2012
.
full moon gathering storks on the river bank
.
A Hundred Gourds 4:1 December 2014
thrush thrums snail’s shell din-dins
(World Haiku Review, Volume 7, Issue 2, August 2009)
so many haiku
on birds . . .
don’t we just love them
white winter shield
stork flies along direction
of the. sea currents
We do, Ingrid.
.
endless rain
yet with what joy
yellow-eyed babblers duet
A friend of mine, David He, was unable to open the Foundation’s website, but wanted to participate in the EarthRise Haiku Collaboration. These are his haiku:
spring breeze
a lark follows kite flying
into white cloud
.
.
.
early morning
a pigeon flies high
clearing the stars
.
.
.
brisk wind
sparrows gather millet seed
in haste
.
.
.
purple clouds
swallows dip low
over parched meadow
.
.
.
fallen rose leaves
bounce on waves
a gull’s cry
.
.
.
David He
Zhuanglang, China
Nice ones, David! Thank you Tzetzka for helping him participate!
into stars,
the bone white belly
of a seagull
***
***
seagulls
making a racket . . .
hazy moon
***
***
dead sparrow
ruffling its feathers . . .
summer wind
***
***
the length of
a pigeon’s shadow . . .
my last dollar
***
***
dusk gathering seagulls gathering dusk
***
***
the birds
never seem lost . . .
autumn sky
***
***
setting sun
four or five birds?
six or seven
***
***
two crows
cleaning themselves—
fresh snow
***
***
winter sun—
i practice talking
pigeon
***
***
dusk—
the blackbird sings
even louder
***
***
(a few bird poems from my last collection A Book Of Seasons)
her brood kept close . . .
at the swoop of a kite
she has them covered
.
.
migrating swallows –
we share the distance
between us
.
.
closing into port
pristine gulls
on muddied water
.
.
full house —
frozen wren
beneath the coconut
.
.
trimming the hedge
the shears
expose the robin’s nest
.
.
with eyes on our picnic boat
white gulls bob up and down
Mexican wave
.
.
swallows
skim downriver . . .
my meandering dreams
.
.
busy highway
curbside birds
race after insects
.
.
glass shard-topped wall—
not even sparrows
trespass
.
.
rare bird . . .
man behind lens
twitching
summer breeze
skimming my haiku page
swallow shadows
.
.
Egyptian vultures
search carrion
fingers outstretched
.
.
egrets, brilliant beside the effluent
.
.
the joy of free fall —
tumbler pigeons
(Uganda)
Aka.. Mike Keville.
high noon
on the upper most perch
the sweetest threat
.
eating out…
my cat separates robin
from its shadow
.
song thrush
adding the missing notes
to a wind chime
g’day Mike! 🙂
.
All brilliant but love these phrases:
.
“my cat separates robin
from its shadow”
.
.
and
.
“adding the missing notes
to a wind chime”
.
.
Highly memorable! 🙂
.
And great use of negative space with this one:
.
high noon
on the upper most perch
the sweetest threat
.
Mike Keville
.
.
Negative Space in haiku:
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/negative-space-in-haiku-writing-poetry.html
Thanks very much for your time Alan… I know that are only so many hours in a day, but, I do miss you on FB
Thanks Mike.
I find FB a bit too aggressive for me. Would much rather meet up with people in person when possible. 🙂
But you still have friends there, Alan… I miss you too 🙁
My local haiku group will be speaking about negative space in haiku at our next meeting. Your article is their “homework.”😉
Wow! Cool!
.
I’ll be fascinated what conclusions and examples are given. Also be keen, with permissions, to reproduce any quotes and examples of haiku too.
.
Fantastic! 🙂
.
warm regards,
Alan
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/negative-space-in-haiku-writing-poetry.html
I’ve read your article again, having read it awhile ago. Good reminders. Now if I can just figure out how to *do* it!
Thanks Peggy! 🙂
.
One of my students had what I call an embedded haiku that could contain three definite articles that are essential to its ‘bridge of nuance’. If she submits it and it’s published I’d love to feature it. I love exceptions. 🙂
.
warm regards,
Alan
black cockatoos
the distant rumble
of Harleys
The Heron’s Nest June 2007
Haiku Dreaming Australia June 2007
Creatrix Haiku Journal June 2010 and June 2012
stormy sky
a flash
of rainbow lorikeets
Famous Reporter 2009
moonless night
the slow wing beats
of a barn owl
early spring walk
a blue fairywren hops
through the grass
traffic drone
the sudden song
of a shrike thrush
passing train
emus stampede
through the desert
mowing the lawn
the laugh of
kookaburras
Oh, I wish I could go back and fix the line breaks!!!!!
Dear Maureen,
.
The editors of the anthology will do that for us. 🙂
.
.
black cockatoos
the distant rumble
of Harleys
.
Maureen Sexton
The Heron’s Nest June 2007
Haiku Dreaming Australia June 2007
Creatrix Haiku Journal June 2010 and June 2012
.
.
stormy sky
a flash
of rainbow lorikeets
.
Maureen Sexton
Famous Reporter 2009
.
.
moonless night
the slow wing beats
of a barn owl
.
Maureen Sexton
.
.
early spring walk
a blue fairywren hops
through the grass
.
Maureen Sexton
.
.
traffic drone
the sudden song
of a shrike thrush
.
Maureen Sexton
.
.
passing train
emus stampede
through the desert
.
Maureen Sexton
.
.
mowing the lawn
the laugh of
kookaburras
.
Maureen Sexton
Thank you. 😊
Too good not to display them a certain way. 🙂
Wow Wonderful Poems Everyone!!! Kanpai
******************************
stealth moon
the hush preceding
a night hawk’s shadow
Kanpai! 🙂
.
.
night-tide
the rook takes back
its moon
.
Alan Summers
Acorn #31 2013
Pushcart Prize Nominated 2014
.
Article: The Moon is Broken: Juxtaposition in haiku article Scope vol. 60 no. 3 (FAWQ magazine April 2014)
.
Features: Brassbell Spotlight July 2014; Charlotte Digregrio best of haiku feature
.
.
sunflower heart
the chiffchaff sings
its name
.
Alan Summers
tinywords 13.2 2013 (ISSN 2157-5010)
eJournal/eMagazine San Mateo, CA : D.F. Tweney : El Camino Press
.
.
lost childhood cars moonlight a rookery
.
Alan Summers
Blithe Spirit 25.4 (November 2015)
From the haibun “The Beat Is Back” featuring Jack Kerouac
From someone who attended my Ginko event last Saturday. Given by permission:
.
.
Westie, all snow-peak
Ears and tail, the beat of
Swan’s wings on water
.
Peter Cox
Stamford, Lincolnshire, U.K.
https://twitter.com/CardinalPeteCox
.
.
I really love the language, and musicality of this too!
.
Alan
moonstruck woods
rushing wind of wings
childhood fears
More to caw about…
.
.
day moon
a crow slices
half of it
.
Alan Summers
The Eight Assassins haibun
moongarlic issue 5 November 2015
.
.
crow-flecked
the jack of all moons
rising rising
.
Alan Summers
Scope Vol 62 No 1 (The magazine of the Fellowship of Australian Writers (Qld) Inc February 2016)
.
.
petrichor
a scent of leaves
in the crow call
.
Alan Summers
Scope Vol 62 No 1 (The magazine of the Fellowship of Australian Writers (Qld) Inc February 2016)
.
petrichor:
noun: The pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a dry spell.
.
.
slow-drifting clouds
out of the lebanon cedar
a discussion of crows
.
Alan Summers
the Icebox inbox – 33 (Hail Haiku Group, Japan, October 2014)
.
.
mist haze-
a crow cleans its beak
on a rooftop aerial
.
Alan Summers
Azami 38 (Japan 1996)
.
.
fresh breeze mixing up the crows with T-shirts
.
Alan Summers
.
.
senko incense-
twig-carrying crows
after the floods
.
Alan Summers
Scope vol. 60 no. 3 (FAWQ magazine April 2014)
Alan, I’ve followed you throughout the day and stand in amazement at the richness and beauty of your contributions, and your generous encoursgement of your fellow poets. In my next life I want to be Alan Summers!
Wow, Peggy, thank you so much! Although I’d never recommend anyone be Alan Summers, even me! 🙂
cold moon
a crow shifts into
its shadow
*
Blithe Spirit 26., 2016
*
*
rooftop pecking order shuffling apostrophes
*
UtB 2015
Yanty’Butterfly Anthology 2016
*
*
turning crows
the distance smokes
a yellow tractor
*
Sonic Boom 3, 2015
Yanty’s Butterfly Anth. 2016
Re-virals, THF 2018
*
*
our argument…
a robin in the birdbath
breaking ice
*
Blithe Spirit 27.1, 2017
UtB 2017 (Personal Best)
*
*
darkening
the crow’s weight…
winter deepens
*
European Quarterly Kukai 2017
*
*
colouring
a leafless bough…
robinsong
*
Blithe Spirit 26.1, 2016
*
*
origami sky
how you fold clouds
into starlings
*
Haiku Vol.2 anthology 2017
Haiku University (Tokyo)
*
Good to see you here, and with the “old yeller” too! 🙂
Thank you Alan..yes!!☺
cold moon
a crow shifts into
its shadow
Enjoyed all of them Brendon, but this is a stunner. 🙂
Thank you Dick!! ☺
Good ones, Brendon!
Thank you Terri!! ☺
These are wonderful, Brendan!
Just seen your comment, thank you Peggy! ☺
seeking inspiration …
all the birds
in the sky
sweltering heat
all the sparrows take
a dust bath
One of my earliest haiku was about sparrows taking a dust bath but they did give it back. 🙂 Fewer sparrows in England, but Chippenham, and my road, has plenty! 🙂
Yes, I’m sure you’ve mentioned those Chippenham sparrows before, Alan 🙂
rejection letter
the willy-wagtail
flicks its tail
🙂 🙂 🙂
Sorry, I should have included publication details:
Famous Reporter 2007
Haiku Dreaming Australia 2008
Creatrix 2012
Ah, my Queenslander had its willy wagtail angel, even helped me babysit some mudpie larks, as we got surrounded by Kookaburras. Watched one almost take down a sparrow hawk so Kookaburras were sensible not to push their luck. 🙂
teetering
on the edge of the cliff
rockhopper penguin
Almost comical, Carol! 🙂
I agree, Marion, it does have a humorous element.
never missing
a wingbeat
migrating geese
our old gander
feebly flapping its wings
geese’ calls from above
Diogen magazine Best Autumn Haiku 2012
on the longest night
flitting from nest to husk
even in her dreams
the language of birds
never left to rest
more of a senryu:
.
a wild goose chase
in the publishing world
I lose another feather
.
~ Cyndi Lloyd
shining cuckoo in transparent absence
Wow, Hansha!
startled kingfisher rainbow trail
a tui
chimes descant to
its shadow
a twitter of insignificance from the cygnet
haiku poets
proud peacocks displaying
fine feathers
the monal pheasant
how its hues compete
with rhododendron blooms
Hi Sonam,
Ah, I love the comparison here between the beautifully plumed male with colorful blooms. It does seem to be a competition!
Cyndi
bare branches
a raven weighing
moonlight
Claire Vogel Camargo
British Haiku Society Members’ Anthology 2017 – EKPHRASIS
******
typing dad’s obit
by the kitchen window
the woodpecker’s tap
Claire Vogel Camargo
THF, Haiku Windows, January 10, 2018
******
aimless penguin
his courtship calls unanswered
no egg to care for
Claire Vogel Camargo
Morose Penguin Review, February 2018
Hi Claire,
I love “bare branches.” What a unique perspective!
Cyndi
*
a soft feather lands
on the marble floor
memorabilia
*
*
white egrets
dot the roosting tree
moon lake
*
Enjoyed both!
Thanks so much for reading and feedback, Alan! So pleased you like!
I’m so sorry I missed this. I should check my settings.
My best wishes to you and Karen. 💟
the Anima on the wing
freed from the avian
ribbed cage
the lull without a bye
Michael, son-song of Virginia Ruth
cool and clear –
a streamlet catches
the magpies’ tune
.
(Honourable Mention, AHS Autumn 2018 Haiga Kukai, 2018)
.
– Lorin
Ah, very beautiful, Lorin!
from my balcony…
a bird’s eye-view
of birds
***
peer pressure —
this flock of crows insist
I can fly
grrrr…
*insists*
Nice Robyn!
Love these, Robyn!
train whistle…
last feather of the last
passenger pigeon
.
Shamrock Haiku Journal, #34
.
.
white swan feather—
in a rowboat
we drift
.
Presence #53, Winter 2015
.
.
waning winter moon
a duck quacks
across the sky
.
European Quarterly Kukai #12 Dec. 2015
.
.
a hummer’s wings—
the softer sounds of your words
fluttering in my ear
.
cattails, April 2017
.
~ Cyndi Lloyd
I remember this. Good to read it again!
a hummer’s wings—
the softer sounds of your words
fluttering in my ear
.
cattails, April 2017
.
~ Cyndi Lloyd
Thank you, Sonam!
Enjoyed!
swallow inlet…
a skitter of gnats
circling clouds
(cattails, Fall issue 2016)
.
gathering shadows
under a lily pad
moorhen croaks
(Daily Haiga, 20 August 2016)
.
cool change
oystercatchers taking
shorter steps
(In the haibun ‘Southern Passage’, Akitsu Quarterly, Summer Issue 2016)
.
a flock of sparrows high in the sky an unexplained roar
(In the haibun ‘Otherhood‘, cattails, Sept 2015)
.
winter migration
petrel bones scattered along the shoreline
we walk
homeward
in silence
(The Cherita, Issue #7, December 2017)
.
Sorry, formatting slightly off in one poem. It should be:
.
winter migration
petrel bones scattered
along the shoreline
we walk
homeward
in silence
.
(The Cherita, Issue #7, December 2017)
shall we call this senryu-noir:
on the playground bars
a murder of crow
auditioning for Hitchcock
(take 2)
on the playground bars
a murder of crow
ready for its close-up
Michael
clinic window blind
I follow the rise and fall
of a bulbul’s song
.
news of her suicide
the sibia’s plaintive cry
echoing at dawn
.
Dzong ruins
a raven in the tower
watching the peaks
Dzong (Pron. Zong) monastery-fortress.
.
stained to the iris depth
what does a bee know
of the cuckoo’s absence
.
Otata 26 February 2018
she moves
deeper into the cuddle
an owl calls
.
sunset
same as it ever was
the bird’s mantra
.
no words
among the leaves
a sparrow’s song
.
out of the mist
the gossip
of a murder
.
from the mist
the song of a cockerel
I’d like to strangle
“from the mist
the song of a cockerel
I’d like to strangle” – Mikeymike
.
🙂 I know the feeling. This has me smiling, Mike.
.
– Lorin
Thank you Lorin… its been a while since I’ve read your work… As I don’t get out much these days 😛
AKA… Mike Keville
storm clouds …
a sea eagle’s shadow
sweeps the treetops
Haiku Presence Award 2013
Commended
. . . and this, written just now. I was amused to see this ‘White Ibis’ (they have dark heads as if they’re wear a hood over head and neck and dark tails!) on tv news fairly recently:
.
Prince Charles in Darwin –
leading the motorcade
a strutting ibis
.
– Lorin
‘strutting’ seems so apt here.
Like this, Lorin, you have set a humorous situation, and I can only imagine HRH saw the funny side.
Hahahahsha!
the long night ending –
figbirds in the fig tree
whistle up the sun
.
(Presence #45, Jan 2012)
.
the white dove // a fugitive witness
blue // in a stained glass eye
.
(Bones #1, December 2012) (J.E.C’s zip form… I don’t know how to format it on this thread, though)
.
– Lorin
moon rise . . .
fairy penguins track
towards a silvery sea
Ron C. Moss
Tasmania, Australia
Wow. All that data jammed together. My apologies
Bryan put a full stop in where you want the line spaces
Too late now! Haha
after the storm
a rainbow rides
the hummingbird’s throat
Atoms of Haiku 3
up to their knees in spring egrets
Atoms of Haiku 3
the wash line full
of sparrow song –
Easter Sunday
HSA Members’ Anthology 2016
after the storm
a rainbow rides
the hummingbird’s throat
.
Atoms of Haiku 3
.
.
up to their knees in spring egrets
.
Atoms of Haiku 3
.
.
the wash line full
of sparrow song –
Easter Sunday
.
HSA Members’ Anthology 2016
backroom chatter…
hedge sparrows voicing
the world’s concerns
.
Alan Summers
.
backroom banter…
house sparrows solving
our world’s problems
.
Alan Summers
more peace talks…
a monal hen startled
by our approach
.
Shamrock Issue 32 2015
Darn those peace talks, can’t do just one, and walk away. I wonder which whisky the moral hen would promote? 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FZuNALKt_0
Thanksgiving Day–
A murder of crows
Takes flight
from the haibun “Conflicted Expectations”
Contemporary Haibun Online, October 2013, V.8, N.3
Bless us, we humans call crows “a murder” when we must be the greatest killing machine on the planet. 🙂
.
I like to think they are ‘the comfort of crows’ as they look out for each other and don’t like humans who are plain wrongdoers. 🙂
.
.
dark news
the comfort
of crows
.
Alan Summers
tinywords 15.1 (March 2015)
Yes I love crows
.
birdsong
the comfort
in caws
.
Blithe Spirit 26.3
street violence
the dead raven’s eye
still looking at me
Yes, crows have a comforting sound to me, and I missed them when I moved town. But they are around here and there being gothic on the church towers etc… here in Chippenham. 🙂
I like your new term. “A comfort of crows”….works for me.
Thanks Peggy! 🙂
There is a backstory to this, as one particular crow saved my life:
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/dark-news-story-of-crows-and-how-simple.html
A comfort of crows—I love that! Reading a book called “Grief is the thing with feather.” grief is portrayed as a crow. Crows get a bad rap, kind of like black cats.
Yep, this strange thing about crows, I guess it’s us projecting onto them. They really are the caretakers of the world, just like flies, we’d die without them. And Red Kites hunted to almost extinction in Britain until they found out they were needed. Humans create such waste on a huge level, and most countries don’t burn waste to create more energy.
.
Just like 13, black cats have been captured as both good luck and bad luck but bizarrely we focus on bad luck, when all it is Fake News [sic].
on the topic
of political correctness:
kookaburras
.
(Failed Haiku, Volume 2, Issue 20, August 2017)
.
Spangled Drongo
the mall boys strut by
in all their bling
.
(paper wasp, vol. 16, no. 3, Winter 2010)
.
bellbirds –
half a dozen stubbies
clinking in the creek
.
(Famous Reporter, June 2010)
.
the whipbird
this side, that side. . .
fogbound wattles
.
(Famous Reporter, June 2010)
.
telling the story
in a chainsaw voice –
lyrebird
.
( Stylus Poetry Journal, July 2009 )
.
blackbird decibels
the cat steps out
pianissimo
.
(Prospect #5, December 2015)
.
ibis gliding the calm after corellas
.
(POAM, June 2008)
.
the spring
in a wattle spray
. . . silvereyes
.
(paper wasp 12.4 , Spring Nov. 2006)
.
moonrise
the black swan’s white
flight feathers
.
(paper wasp 12.4 , Spring Nov. 2006)
.
wing beats
of a pelican
our sails catch the breeze
.
(paper wasp 12.4 Spring Nov 2006)
.
shimmering heat …
the satin bowerbird
tends his blue décor
.
(The Heron’s Nest, Volume XVII, Number 1: March 2015)
.
blackbird’s song . . .
I come back from climbing
hazy mountains
.
(Presence# 59, 2015)
– Lorin
Nice, Lorin!
hard frost-
the snail-hammerings
of a song thrush
.
Alan Summers
Runner-up, The Haiku Calendar Competition 2015
Publication Credit: Muttering Thunder, an annual of fine haiku & art ed. Allan Burns with Ron Moss vol. 1, 2014; Miriam’s Well: Poetry, Land Art, and Beyond ed. Miriam Sagan (February 2015); The Haiku Calendar 2016 (Snapshot Press, 2015)
hotel coffee room––
starlings sounding out
the partitions
.
Alan Summers
awesome
Hi Bee Jay,
The starlings?
I remember thousands in the sky when a youngster but not now, in cities at least. But it was fun and mysterious to hear so many starlings as if they were in the partitions of the coffee lounge: http://best-western-plus-angel.wiltshirehotels.net/en/#photo
dark fields
tightly the vee of birds
into pockets of forest
.
Alan Summers
otata 11 (November 2016)
.
.
cool morning
birdsong
light on a distant cloud
.
Alan Summers
Modern Haiku (1999)
.
Other publication: Birmingham Words Issue 3 (Autumn 2004)
.
Anthologies:
Azami Haiku in English Commemorative Issue (ed. Ikkoku Santo, Osaka, Japan, 2000)
Haiku Friends Vol. 3 ed. Masaharu Hirata (Japan 2009)
.
.
thirteen ways
to wear a pencil skirt . . .
the blackbird’s outline
.
Alan Summers
Brass Bell (August 2014)
.
.
train whistle
a blackbird hops
along its notes
.
Alan Summers
Presence #47 (2012): THF Per Diem (September 2012): The Elements
Pencil skirt—love it!
Thank you!!! 🙂
A CAWrous of Crows
.
.
dark news
the comfort
of crows
.
Alan Summers
tinywords 15.1 (March 2015)
.
.
powdered snow –
a crow’s eyes above
the no parking sign
.
Alan Summers
Joint Winner, Haiku International Association 10th Anniversary Haiku Contest 1999
Publications credits: The Mie Times (Japan 1999); Haiku International magazine (Japan 1999); Watermark: A Poet’s Notebook – Crows (2004);
Pamphlet: The In-Between Season (With Words Pamphlet Series 2012)
Collection: Does Fish-God Know (YTBN Press 2012)
.
.
a teaspoon of spice
crows bottle the wind in caws
and then release it
.
Alan Summers
8th Yamadera Bashō Memorial Museum English Haiku Contest Selected Haiku Collection
(July 2016)
.
.
Invisible crow
the lebanon tree utters
a call of three caws
.
Alan Summers
Honourable Mention, Only One Kagoshima Tree Haiku Contest (Japan 2015)
.
.
night crows
the haystacks lose
their moonlight
.
Alan Summers
Publication Credit: Wild Plum 1:1 (Spring & Summer 2015)
Anthology Credits: Haiku 2016 ed. Scott Metz & Lee Gurga (Modern Haiku Press, 2016); Behind the Tree Line ed. Gabriel Sawicki (2015)
spring drumming the sparrows out of this world
.
.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign
Wouldn’t go down well in this household they are valued tenants in our eaves. 🙂
gold rush…
sparrows tumble out
of our eaves
More like fat balls?
https://www.haiths.com/suet-for-birds-and-fat-balls/
The birdseed isn’t on trend this year as such. 🙂
Gold rush- the rush of all grain to gold aka ripeness. And the rush of birds to the gold seed 🙂
corn moon
the jackdaw shifts
its iris
.
Alan Summers
Asahi Shimbun (International Haiku Day 2015, Japan)
.
.
царевична луна
чавката помръдва
ирис
.
Haiku by Alan Summers from English to Bulgarian:
Maya Lyubenova, Tzetzka Ilieva, Vessislava Savova
диви люляци ~ wild lilacs
I remember this one! 🙂
🙂
An artist was also inspired to create an image from it but can’t locate it on the internet.
.
Alan
the gospel:
according to
a wren
And they are both great survivors in the U.K. and boy, can they overpower a microphone that a bird three times larger cannot. 🙂
Love it!
in and out of lavatera
gang of hedge sparrows
to the birdfeeder
.
Alan Summers
Blithe Spirit, Vol. 7 No. 3 (1997)
.
.
little sparrow
I regret nothing
flowers in the wind
.
Alan Summers
Publications credits: haijinx volume IV, issue 1 (2011)
.
.
summer wind
a sparrow re-rights itself
at the peanut cage
.
Alan Summers
Anthology credits: Wing Beats: British Birds in Haiku (Snapshot Press 2008)
Haiku Friends Vol. 3, ed. Masaharu Hirata (Japan 2009)
Inking Bitterns (Gert Macky Books, December 2013) ISBN-10: 0992678315 ISBN-13: 978-0992678319
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/summer-wind-sparrow-haiku-artwork-haiku.html
.
.
all the demons
are in mourning
sparrowsong
.
Alan Summers
.
.
turn in the weather . . .
a house sparrow sings
like buddha
.
Alan Summers
(Amaravati Poetic Prism 2016)
.
.
steamy windows
the spiral of sparrows
across our shadows
.
Alan Summers
hedgerow, a journal of small poems #111 ed. Caroline Skanne (2017)
.
.
dead sparrow
how light the evening
comes to a close
.
Alan Summers
Haiku Canada Review, vol. 11, no. 2, (October 2017) ed. LeRoy Gorman
https://haikucommentary.wordpress.com/2017/10/14/alan-summers-sparrow/
empirical owls
the doors made
into sand
.
Alan Summers
Bones – journal for contemporary haiku no. 14 (November 15th 2017)
fading photos
a goldfinch tugs again
at the spiderweb
.
Alan Summers
Blithe Spirit
.
.
lapwings
rounding up clouds
left in the water
.
Alan Summers
Haiku Society of America Members’ Anthology: A Splash of Water (2015)
ed. Catherine J. S. Lee
old world sparrows
two homeless men reading
one Proust
🙂
Nice!
👍
half deaf
she enjoys the silence
of birdsong
There are some important things that we will hopefully always be able to feel.
This one reminds of a haibun I’m getting published about my sister going deaf.
Hi Terri,
I hope your sister meets deaf people at least half as amazing as the Deafpoets and Deafcommunity people I worked with on renga; tanka; and haiku. It was quite an education being the ‘disabled one’ but made welcome at the same time. 🙂
.
Although there has been much Sign Language poetry including haiku, I think I might have been the first to help create the first SLrenga, or at least BSLrenga. 🙂
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/world-1st-british-sign-language-renga.html
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/bsl-renga-on-youtube.html
.
BRITISH SIGN LANGUAGE HAIKU FESTIVAL – University of Bristol
Saturday 29th & Sunday 30th July 2006
Venue: Centre for Deaf Studies
.
This two-day event is aimed to encourage Deaf people to create “haiku” poems in British Sign Language.
.
The Festival Organiser is Michiko Kaneko.
British Sign Language Haiku Festival
.
Within a relaxed atmosphere there will be workshops on haiku/BSL haiku on the first day from Michiko and myself, with encouragement from the other panelists & BSL interpreters.
.
The BSL interpreters are Talking Handz’s Robyn Palmer Harris, and University of Bristol’s Sarah Haynes.
.
On the second day is a picnic and a short “haiku walk”.
.
There will also be a haiku competition with prize-giving on the second day, back at the Centre.
.
There will be no shortage of tea & biscuits, and “fun” activities as well (games, a small competition for inventing a BSL sign for “haiku”) while the panelists deliberate over the haiku competition entries!
.
The festival venue:
Centre for Deaf Studies,
University of Bristol,
.
Panel includes:
Paul Scott (BSL poet)
Johanna Mesch (from Sweden) BSL poet & Ph.D., Lecturer in Sign Language. Research interests: tactile sign language, interaction, corpus, comparison of vocabularies & poetry
Richard Carter (Deaf Poet)
John Wilson (BSL poet and Deaf Arts officer for Shape and star of channel four’s Vee TV drama, Rush)
Paddy Ladd – (video message only) Deaf communities, history and culture, minority cultures, anthropology, cultural studies, post-colonialism: Centre for Deaf Studies.
Alan Summers (Hearing Poet)
Michiko Kaneko (Festival Organiser)
.
The public event is at another centre:
Bristol Centre for Deaf People
.
This festival is sponsored by:
University of Bristol; Centre for Deaf Studies; The Dorothy Miles Cultural Centre; Japan 21; The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation.
.
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2006/07/british-sign-language-haiku-festival_22.html
.
.
It might just be useful for your sister to pick up sign language in another way as well?
.
.
one-eyed
the finch at my feeder—
left behind
enough birdsong on hand Sabbath morning
Glorious!
Beautiful, Dan.
Easter Sunday
a For Sale sign leans
into birdsong
.
Alan Summers
tinywords ISSUE 16.1 | 25 MARCH 2016
.
.
zigzagging…
the meadow buttercups
into a robin’s song
.
Alan Summers
Blithe Spirit
.
.
skittish clouds
the lightning tree
grows a crow
.
Alan Summers
Presence #56 October 2016 issn 1366-5367
Alan summers! Luv these, luv the way the way you’ve used your verbs in these 3. Wow!
Thanks Bee Jay, I’ve been discovering verbs can be more overt in haiku, and lend both atmosphere and a sense of subtle fun. 🙂
I love how you’ve described the silhouette of the tree “growing” a crow, Alan. Inspired writing!
Thanks Marion!
Here’s a photo I took with an iPhone from a distance, then zoomed and cropped and made this logo for the ginko I run: http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/crows-corvids-caretakers-of-world-and.html
birds songs
and glass wind chime –
summer sounds
birds
pockets full of
seeds
.
Tsanka Shishkova
boats —
seagulls that go
seagulls that come
October 18, 2017 (Mainichi Japan)
Antonio Mangiameli
tree fort –
in the window
bird nest
.
Tsanka Shishkova
the red bird has arrived
without a green card
Spring
😎
Michael, son-song of Virginia Ruth
Ah, and here we had a government trying to secretly betray the Windrush people. Sometimes politicians think they have far too much time on their hands. What’s that saying about the Devil and idle hands?
border control search . . .
a crow riffles through
parchment white orchids
“riffles” is a great word, Sonam.
Yes!
👍
the thrum
of a hummingbird’s wings
first crush
~ Cyndi Lloyd
cattails, Jan. 2016
Love it!
Thank you, Alan!
And now for something silly,
Listening to the Radio:
spring field the crow pecks at its shadow
spring shadow a murder of crows
spring caws the shadow knows
I thought it was “A Murder of Humans”? 😉
Yes!
autumn dawn …
the call of quails
dad and I
.
(The Asahi Haikuist Network– October 20th,2017)
.
low over the grass
flight of robins …
year is ending
.
(The Asahi Haikuist Network – December 29th, 2017)
.
singing school
on the windowsill
a nightingale
.
(Failed haiku – May 2017)
.
winter rain …
in the puddle the blackbirds
sip the sky
.
(The Mainichi – March 2nd, 2018)
.
deep night …
without appearing one owl
hoots to the moon
.
(Otata – October 2017)
.
sunset over the lake…
a heron refolds
the wings
.
(Otata – December 2017)
.
autumn wind …
one magpie swings
among the rushes
.
(Otata – December 2017)
.
on old walls –
climbing roses
and a nightingale
.
(Stardust – April 2017)
Wonderful work!
Thank you, Alan!
Cry of seagulls.
In the slit of sky
the rising sun.
Stoianka Boianova, Sofia, BULGARIA
“In the slit of sky
the rising sun”
.
That’s an amazing phrase!
Thanks! Very touching!
Thank you from heart!
evening clouds—
a moment of meditation
as birds return
Minko Tanev, Plovdiv, BULGARIA
Love it!
Thank you, Alan!
In a toyless cage
the parakeet discovers
a feather to twirl.
…
By Sydell Rosenberg (d. 1996, Amy Losak’s mother)
…
https://haikucommentary.wordpress.com/?s=Rosenberg
…
http://www.haigaonline.com/issue16-1/issue.html
…
I believe “Toyless cage” was first published in The Blue Print, Winter 1968-69
Cool!
Aw – the poor parakeet!
first snow
how easily the geese
become the wind
::
caravan
all of the snow birds
heading south
::
buoy bell
the best of the ocean
in the gull’s wing
::
marbled godwits
at the wave breaks
my scattered thoughts
bottle rockets #23, August 2010
molten sunset. . .
a black-bellied plover
on the inlet beach
Daily Haiku, September 5, 2010
Hi Deborah!
.
Great to name the specific birds!
.
I’ve added dots so people can see the two haiku better, as they deserve to be. 🙂
.
.
marbled godwits
at the wave breaks
my scattered thoughts
.
Deborah P Kolodji
bottle rockets #23, August 2010
.
.
molten sunset. . .
a black-bellied plover
on the inlet beach
.
Deborah P Kolodji
Daily Haiku, September 5, 2010
(Sorry, I didn’t realize I needed to put a period or something to keep the spaces. Here they are again in a more readable format):
.
.
marbled godwits
at the wave breaks
my scattered thoughts
.
bottle rockets #23, August 2010
.
.
molten sunset. . .
a black-bellied plover
on the inlet beach
.
Daily Haiku, September 5, 2010
Thanks, Alan, I guess we were simultaneously fixing it together from two sides of the world!
🙂
👍
intermittent rain I shed another crow
.
Alan Summers
Frogpond autumn 2013 issue (36:3)
.
.
lily-filled snoozing ducks the river is sky
.
Alan Summers
Presence issue #59 (November 2017)
.
.
a river surreptitiously the heron
.
Alan Summers
otata 11 ed. John Martone (November 2016)
.
.
moonlighting crows in other colors
.
Alan Summers
Journal Credit: Frogpond (39:1) Winter Issue 2016
Anthology Credit: 2016 HSA Member Anthology Full of Moonlight
.
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
.
第二份夜工烏鴉以其他顏色顯現
.
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
.
第二份夜工乌鸦以其他颜色显现
Chinese by Chen-ou Liu
https://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Alan+Summers
Hi Alan,
“lily-filled snoozing ducks the river is sky”
^^ prompted me to –
where river meets sky lilies & snoozing ducks
“moonlighting crows in other colors”
^^ prompted me to –
crows moonlighting in other colors
in the spirit of haiku-making
😎
Michael
0
Delightful!
Hi Alan,
I remember the first time I read “moonlighting crows in other colors” – still so much resonance!
~ Cyndi
Thank you Cyndi! It was seeing Van Gogh’s painting right up close, within a millimetre or two quite literally, as the museum (with permission):
.
Wheatfield with Crows, Auvers-sur-Oise, July 1890 Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890)
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/auvers-sur-oise-van-gogh-wheatfields.html
We could put together an anthology with all of these crow haiku and call it “the Comfort of Crows!”
Terri
I would love that!
.
When I did research for my Thoughtful Raven haibun I was shocked as to how much this family of birds is maligned.
.
I would love to get people to switch from ‘Murder of Crows’ to ‘Comfort of Crows’!!!
.
That would be a brilliant idea! There are so many fine crow haiku that people have posted! 🙂
.
warm regards,
Alan
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/crows-corvids-caretakers-of-world-and.html
on the wings
of black-necked cranes
first snow
A Hundred Gourds 1:2 December 2011
.
.
feathering of clouds —
bulbuls circle and call
to fly south
Presence 47 2012
.
.
dozing in the sun —
the cat’s ears follow
sounds of birds
Mainichi, 29 May 2012
.
.
the shaman’s song
crying to the harvest moon
a black-necked crane
Asahi November 2012
.
.
silent cry of the hornbill on my Nikon
Multiverse 2012
.
.
a bush lark’s song spills maize-scented dawn
Under the Basho Inaugural issue 2013
.
.
Delhi rape –
a crow struggles to perch
on the swaying oak
Haiku News January 2013
.
.
after the storm
with crisscrossing stitches
house martins sew the sky
World Haiku Review August 2013
.
.
anniversary
he counts the holes
in abandoned dove cots
Chrysanthemum 16
.
.
a bomb scare
grounds flights in the valley –
how loudly birds sing
Under the Basho Spring/Summer 2014
.
.
first snow
crows explode shadows
in the still grove
From the haibun titled, Did you Call? AHG 4:2 March 2015.
.
.
exams month —
a crow fledgling drops
another worm
Prüfungsmonat —
ein Krähenjunges läßt wieder
einen Wurm fallen
Chrysanthemum No. 17. April 2015
.
.
wind-shaped gorse
the rise and fall
of a lammergeier’s call
Frogpond Fall 2015 issue
.
.
dusk
dissolves into whiteness –
first black-necked cranes
Shamrock Issue 24 2013
.
.
prayers at nightfall
a thrush crushes snail shells
on the temple step
Shamrock Issue 32 2015
.
.
wildlife park
the barbet’s song
drowned by traffic
AHG 5:1, December, 2015
.
.
rain-bombed
silence between furtive calls
of a barred owlet
Otata December 2016
.
.
New Year offerings
at the mountain shrine
lammergeier hovers overhead
Otata April 2017
.
.
coming to roost
ravens in the temple grove
compete with the gong
.
.
Otata April 2017
.
.
singing bowl
echoing in the temple ruin
a coppersmith barbet’s call
Otata July 2017
.
.
border control
yellow-eyed babblers gather
both sides of the checkpoint
Otata July 2017
.
.
why do
the yellow-eyed babblers
nest in the bamboo thicket
where the cobra visits
Otata July 2017
.
.
petrichor
as if in a rush of recall
pale-footed warblers duet
From haibun, ‘When the rain goddess visits (Monsoon notes)’ Otata September 2015
.
.
dusk wood
scattering the leaves
a monal hen disappears
From haibun titled ‘Painting Memories’, Otata 22, October 2017
.
.
filling the eaves
after the house martins
hiss of night wind
Otata December 2017
.
.
Scops owl calling
in the towers of pine
stars crystallize
Otata 26 February 2018
Wow!!!
Hi Sonam,
What a great selection!
~ Cyndi
Thank you so much Alan and Cyndi for taking time to read.
My pleasure! 🙂
I remember I had a lammergeier in my Beggar King haibun that I performed at the Bristol Old Vic. It’s too long to submit to a magazine as it’s a 20 minute performance piece. 🙂
.
BTW are you coming to England at any time this year? 😉
.
Love the social commentary in your work!
cloudshifting
the robin’s song
between sobs
.
Alan Summers From the “Paper Tears” haibun
Narrow Road Literary Magazine of Flash Fiction – Poetry – Haibun Vol. 2, August 2017
.
Flash Fiction Editor: Rohini Gupta
Poetry Editor: Raamesh Gowri Raghavan
Haibun Editor: Paresh Tiwari
https://issuu.com/narrowroad.mag
.
.
secret garden
a clue to everything
lies with the crows
.
Alan Summers
Mainichi Shimbun (Japan) July 2016
I’m going to start paying more attention to crows!
Great, Terri!
.
I missed my crows that used the great Lebanon tree in front of my small apartment block when I moved to another town. And the new gang of three, just adolescents, doing just what boys and girls would do at a similar age phase. 🙂
.
But the new town’s high street had something similar, with a little gang enjoying being gothic, and posing on Church steeples etc… 🙂
splitting the sky
a kingfisher lifts a branch
off the breeze
.
Alan Summers
Award Credit: Best of Mainichi Shimbun, 2014 (Japan)
.
.
rain ceases
as I leave the sycamore…
one more kingfisher
.
Alan Summers
Blithe Spirit vol. 14 no. 4 (2004)
.
.
I’ve been lucky to see almost every kind of kingfisher, while in Sri Lanka, but the European River Kingfisher is still so darned cool.
juniper the tether end of larksong
.
Alan Summers
Lake District, Cumbria, England, U.K. September 2015
.
Published:
Poetry & Place anthology issue 1 ed. Ashley Capes and Brooke (Close-Up Books, April 2016)
ISBN-10: 0994528922 ISBN-13: 978-0994528926
.
.
the mountain ash birdsong lichens
.
Alan Summers
Lake District, Cumbria, England, U.K.
Blithe Spirit 26.1 (March 2016)
.
Larksong by Williams:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR2JlDnT2l8
climate change
dawn chorus altering
with the light
It’s such a shame. I remember, although living in a city, that we were so close to nature all the time. Now it’s being killed off, it seems. A truly magical time.
One day nature will reclaim her domain, 🙂
sprinkler turned on
the sparrows
start to sing again
Frogond 30.3, 2007
the black sky
a flight of bats –
figs fall
Brass Bell (May 2017)
Antonio Mangiameli
childhood summers
the weight of a
goldfinch
……
Honorable Mention
Peggy Willis Lyle’s Award 2017
Great, and not just because I’m Summers. 🙂
reading Kerouac…
wild geese
overhead
.
(Modern Haiku 44.2, 2013)
puddle –
a robin pecks
its shadow
Otata 16(April 2017)
Antonio Mangiameli
all that shines
in a magpie’s nest . . .
morning frost
.
Presence 59
.
.
twilight
every bird
a crow
.
Under the Basho 2016
.
.
Dave Read
Gotta love the crow one! 🙂
.
And I feel magpies, even solitary ones, so uplifting.
.
Alan
Great ones, Dave!
moon-faced owl
the silence of snow
rising
::
sudden storm
a raven glides on
shades of thunder
::
broken wheat
a sand crane dancing
alone
::
Wow, wow, wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you Alan. So good to “see” you again!
Oh, I’ve been around a lot, just not on Facebook. Too busy, and they don’t pay me. 🙂
canna lilies
the zip, zip, zipping
of hummingbirds
(Stardust, April 2017)
Great!
fuller’s teasel
lapwings call out
to a stray cloud
.
Alan Summers
Presence #53 2015
.
.
dandelion wind swallows spin a chimney
.
Alan Summers
Presence #53 2015
.
.
the whistle of red kites haymaking tractors
.
Alan Summers
.
.
Has anyone ever heard the haunting hunter’s whistle of red kites as they swoop in and around tractors, for mice? It’s quite eerie. A little bit like Negan’s Saviors’ whistling in The Walking Dead!
Yes, Alan, I have and it never fails to amaze me. A truly wonderful experience.
Another is the amount of seagulls that appear, from nowhere, when cultivations of any kind take place, a vision I can only liken to the Alfred Hitchcock film ‘Birds’
I think you must be one of a few haiku poets that have heard that eerie whistle red kites make.
.
Ah yes, Birds, I’m only spooked sometimes.
.
In Australia during September, that’s the time to be attacked by birds, such as their magpies and the willy wagtails. I had a magpie chase me for a mile so I had to stay in a small forest. They are persistent and they’ve wised up the drawn eyes on the back of our hats. 🙂
I think many have heard the whistle, Alan, but haven’t associated the sound with that wonderful raptor, always pleasure to see them circling the fields.
I can only visualise your encounter, such a humorous tale 🙂 And an incident you enjoyed, no doubt.
Actually being attacked even by a single bird is terrifying. Even scarier than the big magpie birds is the small willy wagtail. When came out of nowhere on a Brisbane roundabout just before a YHA. I thought he’d drill through my head. 🙂
Hooded lapwings are great ‘divebombers’, too, Alan. They nest on open grassy areas. One sits, while the other patrols. Neighbours had a nest on the median strip of their driveway. They took the bus to work for a while.
Gosh, I’ve seen our “British” lapwings, but they were too chilled sorting out a small cloud to bother us. 🙂
🙂
I’ve seen a willy wagtail bully a magpie off the top of a playground slide and take its place (king of the castle), while the magpie walked grumpily around in the sand below.
.
spring flurries –
the postie’s bike helmet
versus the magpie
.
(Windfall #3, Jan. 2015)
.
mindful walking
a superb fairy wren
in my face
.
(Failed Haiku, Volume 2, Issue 20, August 2017)
.
– Lorin
.
I’m wondering now if the willy wagtail that attacked what I thought was a sparrow hawk (Queensland farmland, near Ipswich) was in actual fact a Brown Goshawk. Whichever bird it couldn’t defend itself. I’m amazed I survived the willy wagtail attack on a Brisbane grassy roundabout on my way to the YHA just yards away. It was more scary than the bigger birds attacking me out in the sticks. Of course September is that month for drawing eyes on hats, but it rarely works.
I haven’t, Alan – but I’ve seen TWD so know what you mean!
Yes, the first couple of times that whistling was really spooky, even the very last time they do it, if you saw the last episode just last Monday. So Red Kites give this strange almost shepherd’s tune. It’s not a hunting tune, not like Jaw’s signature theme music. Perhaps it’s deliberate that it’s almost a short lullaby?
Auvers-sur-Oise
the crows changing
into their colours
.
after Vincent van Gogh
.
Alan Summers
Credit: Area 17, Ekphrastic haiku, (September 2015)
Love it.
Thank you!
banditry of titmice
the longtails fleeting
through the air
.
Alan Summers
“banditry” is a collective noun for titmice
.
Longtailed titmice:
http://www.moorhen.me.uk/iodsubject/birds_-_other_tits_02.htm
This makes me smile, Alan. Banditry
One of the nicer collective nouns. I could never understand ‘murder’ for crows, as they are very friendly to all sorts of animals including humans, unless they do something evil. 🙂
at midnight
a mockingbird’s call
rouses the rooster
poacher trap
another song
lost forever
European kukai Spring 2017
Powerful!
blossoms scent
wafts through temple, bell tones
carried on the wind
dawn mist
crows pick at the offerings
in the temple courtyard
.
Modern Haiku , 41.3 Fall 2010
Hi Alan and fellow devotees of the haiku-poem
Because it was posted earlier, I’m lifting by relinking Alan Summers 6:48 AM entry,
and my word of Thanks in response
https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2018/04/16/earthrise-rolling-haiku-collaborative-2018/#comment-76847
I hope when I post, the link is hyper for immediate access
And Thanks again, Mr. Summers
A wonderful IHPD to every one
“and the eagle flies with the white-wing’d dove” — CSNY & S. Nicks
Sincerely,
Michael, son-song of Virginia Ruth
Cool, and I hope others are inspired to add their voices to the feature. 🙂
I’ll now provide some apropos soundtrack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98LaApCB4l8
Amazing how a small form can cyber-globally unite:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vd6zYQPCgsc
on a palm translator
p o e m simply translates
s o n g
b I r d
connotes
s o n g
Michael Virga, son-song of Virginia Ruth, born to be an audiovore
“If you got ears, you gotta listen.”- Don Van Vliet
listen to the indiscriminating song(s) of the mockingbird
I hear the call of the nightbird
I know what it sounds like when doves cry
It sounds like the white -wing’d dove — lyrics from S. Nicks w/ influence of Prince
Cool, although I’m more of a Trance or Ibiza Dance music fan, but love Kate Bush and Aerial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAtsRFZ_2VE
bare branches
a raven weighing
moonlight
British Haiku Society Members’ Anthology 2017 – EKPHRASIS
——–
typing dad’s obit
by the kitchen window
the woodpecker’s tap
THF, Haiku Windows, January 10, 2018
———-
aimless penguin
his courtship calls unanswered
no egg to care for
Morose Penguin Review, February 2018
Wow! Love that first one too!!!
war moon
the flickering of humans
at birdsong
.
Alan Summers
First Publication Credit: Asahi Shimbun (Japan 2015)
the blood moon issue, Oct 2 for the eclipse of 9/28
.
Anthology Credit: Heart Breaths: Book of Contemporary Haiku ed. Jean LeBlanc
This is brilliant Alan!
Thanks Dave!
.
Asahi picked it up in under twenty minutes, and I feel that slowly slowly readers are getting the haiku. It’s a little different I guess. 🙂
👍
three white-faced heron
turn
and are lost in blue
.
Alan Summers
Commission: The Beggar King performance haibun (Bristol Old Vic Theatre, England 2003)
unnamed night
the aviator’s goggles
shaking feathers
.
(after “Untitled (Dark Owl)” 2013 by Peter Doig)
http://www.twopalms.us/artists/peter-doig/editions_3/7
.
Alan Summers
Ekphrasis: The British Haiku Society Members’ Anthology 2017 ed. Iliyana Stoyanova
ISBN-13: 978-1906333089
Not sure if there are any copies left of Ekphrasis: The British Haiku Society Members’ Anthology 2017 ed. Iliyana Stoyanova ISBN-13: 978-1906333089
.
Here’s the book and other ekphrastic poems.
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/ekphrasis-poetry-and-art-and-when-haiku.html
behind the ship
seagulls touch the sea and
again fly off
.
Tsanka Shishkova
in and out
of storm clouds
gulls’ call
sunroof is open –
before dawn
a song of a blackbird
.
Tsanka Shishkova
snowfall . . .
just traces of birds
outside my door
Tsanka Shishkova,
Wild Plum Haiku Contest 2018
snow forecast
a certain shrill
in the raven’s call
The Thoughtful Raven – haibun (haiku+prose) – after Ted Hughes and The Thought Fox & Kurt Jackson and The Thoughtful Raven (Charcoal and ink sketch 2007) – ekphrastic poem | haiku | haibun
.
.
The Thoughtful Raven
after Ted Hughes, and Kurt Jackson
.
The raven grows out of swift strokes in a moment of midnight:
.
Corvid, sublingual,
in sixty-five vocalisations of its kind,
.
from worms to whales; battlefield and gibbet;
to an excarnation platform;
the raven’s thought of food is foremost.
.
The requiem bird is a shark of the wind.
.
the fox’s bark
for a moment
after echoes
.
There are stars and stars and stars
and the raven thoughtful in its field.
.
The bird is glossed in purple, green and blue,
its call blunt with primary colour;
wind and rain; and hourglass grains
.
escaping
.
.
cemetary stone
digger bees emerge
from letters
.
.
as stars lose focus in morning light
God is in the detail of ripples of silence
inside the caw
.
a knuckle in blue jeans ripped
while a smell of white forms
out of granular dark
.
the writer is chugging ink
from a forearm to fingers to nib,
the raven is done for the night.
.
.
rabbit dusk
goldfinches vibrate
across teasels
.
.
Note:
The haibun is influenced by:
.
Ted Hughes
The Thought-Fox
From The Hawk in the Rain 1957
.
and
.
Kurt Jackson RWA
Thoughtful Raven, November 2006
Pencil and ink (25cm x 24cm)
.
The Thoughtful Raven©Alan Summers
Publication Credit: Blithe Spirit 26.4 winter issue haibun
Anthology Credit: The New English Verse: An International Anthology of Poetry ed. Suzie Palmer ISBN: 9789385945694 Cyberwit 2017
.
.
The Thought Fox: http://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/thought-fox
The Thoughtful Raven: https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/lot-images.atgmedia.com/SR/10042/2894227/66-201416163158_original.jpg
the writer is chugging ink
from a forearm to fingers to nib,
the raven is done for the night.
.
Quite an unforgettable imagery, Alan. Fabulous!
Dear Sonam,
.
Thank you!
.
The Thought-Fox stayed with me since school even though I didn’t understand it, and it took decades. I’ve seen a lot of Kurt Jackson paintings on display at the Victoria Art Gallery in Bath (U.K.) covering Bristol, Bath, Bradford on Avon and Wiltshire areas, and the two artists, and my love of all things crow, just came together while doing my Masters. A few years later and it became a haibun. 🙂
its ghostly cry
falls from the sky, invisible
skylark
— Ampū (? – ?)
* * * ***
how to cross
the bridge of the bar-do
a blue thrush whistles in the rain
Otata 25, January 2018
Gotta love that line!
.
“a blue thrush whistles in the rain”
.
wow!
lost in dense fog
the fox finds the body
of a migrating crane
as the day ends
the poacher returns home…
a broken V formation
winter sky
a crow
without a murder
© Jennifer Hambrick
(The Other Bunny, 24 April 2017)
Yes!
jazz brunch
birds flying around
everywhere
© Jennifer Hambrick
2018 Golden Haiku Competition, Judges’ Favorite
🙂
rush-hour traffic
a goose honks
overhead
Jennifer Hambrick, USA
once again
so tenderly
mother falcon’s beak
.
.
new dawn–
dinosaurs still roam
the fowlyard
Yes!
crumbs
from the funeral tea. . .
sparrows, too
block watch?
watching eagles
case the crow’s nest
rooftop midden
the bones and shells
of feasting seagulls
spring breeze
the open wings of eagles
in every tree
Enjoying all your haiku! 🙂
Alan
stirring the pot
a magpie starts
the kerfuffle
Akitsu Quarterly Fall2017)
*
lengthening shadows
a crow’s dirge swells
in the dusk
(WHR August 2017)
*
unraveling a memory
a babble of lorikeets
lighten mother’s face
(Blithe Spirit Vol.27 No.4)
*
starlings
on the hem of the horizon
gathering dusk
(Wild Plum Fall & Winter 2016)
*
breaking dawn
dew drops meld
into the bird song
(Wild Plum Spring & Summer 2016)
*
lapis lazuli
the dusky hue
of a crow’s flight
(Akitsu Quarterly Fall 2017)
*
empty park
a lone ibis and I
measuring time
(Stardust Haiku April2017)
*
bird trill
a wish to bottle it
for winter listening
(The Heron’s Nest March 2016)
*
swinging upside down
from a grevillea branch
a wattlebird’s perspective
(Cattails April2018)
*
what’s left of the sun the mourning dove
(Otata Dec.2017)
*
eventide
murmur of pigeons
fold the night in
***
Audubon clock
a new birdsong
on every hour
from the fence
a dead crow warning . . .
lambing time
what does it know
a blue thrush whistling
in the bamboo thicket
Otata April 2017
spring time
sparrows renew
their disputes
The Heron’s Nest, Volume XIX, Number 2 : June 2017
Dear Mohammad Azim Khan,
.
Good to see you post here. I don’t do FB at the moment so I miss seeing your work there, but do catch up in places like Heron’s Nest, as above. 🙂
Nice!
drip-drip . . . chirp-chirp
the faucet and a bird
harmonize
Valentina Ranaldi-Adams – USA (Haikuniverse 08/07/17)
clipped wings—
how we become
earthbound
last sunset
of the summer
the slow flapping of its wings
as a swan
flies away
(Presence 57, March 2017)
crow
on the arm of a scarecrow
chuckling
borrowing
from the scarecrow
a crow takes its hair
delayed train
a raven arrives
on Platform 1
.
Poetry for Public Transport #18, March 2018,
.
.
train cancelled
the kookaburra begins
to laugh
.
Poetry for Public Transport #18, March 2018
dawn —
I wake to the birdsong
alarm clock
*
kjmunro
Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada
I can relate to this. Wonderful 🙂
two stars, then one
a crow flies across
twilight
spring dusk
the fairy tern returns
to a cracked egg
(Presence, Issue 60)
Ouch! But fine haiku.
Alan
Thank you, Alan!
the underside of vultures
catch fire at sunset
slack wind
wing tip of a gull
scooping sea
Yes!
sudden breeze
one feather out of place
strutting peacock
spring thaw
the sound of birds
warming up
pebbled path
the killdeer fakes
a broken leg
solace—
searching for music
in the caws of crows
child’s drawing
all the birds
below the sky
(Failed Haiku November, 2016)
hmmm, the spaces did not show up between the haiku–sorry!
Terri, put * at the end of each haiku
Terri, I find it best to use a word.doc first and put in all the dots.
.
e.g.
.
.
spring thaw
the sound of birds
warming up
.
Terri French
.
.
pebbled path
the killdeer fakes
a broken leg
.
Terri French
.
.
solace—
searching for music
in the caws of crows
.
Terri French
.
.
child’s drawing
all the birds
below the sky
.
Terri French
(Failed Haiku November, 2016)
Thanks Alan! Hope you are doing well. 🙂
Hi Terri,
Extremely well, and very busy. I avoid FB and only tweet a few times a week. But doing lots of things Call of the Page behind the scenes, as well as now haibun editor for Blithe Spirit. 🙂
morning star
last sweep over the field
night owl’s foray
Thanks Alan, didn’t think of word. doc. I will try that.
Thank you 😊
I learnt the hard way over the last couple of years on this blog side of the moon. 🙂
Blog side of the moon…Great phrase, Alan
🙂 I used to be so wrapped up with the THF forums that I’d forget this side of THF, but now eagerly await each daily feature. 🙂
a vulture circles
over a dusty crossroads —
the distant drone of a drone
.
Published on http://www.Haikuniverse.com Mar-17 (part of my poem ‘drones’)
Great!
ripening sumac
the cardinal carries on
his summer song
Wow!
drifting mist
a swan swims
from cloud to cloud
Martha Magenta
Creatrix September 1 2016
……..
the rhythm
of her knitting needles
sedge warbler
Martha Magenta
Blithe Spirit Volume 27, number 3, August 2017
………….
crack of a gun
the thin cry
of a partridge
Martha Magenta
Blithe Spirit Vol 28, #1 February, 2018
…………
spring equinox—
a heron’s shadow moves
into summertime
Martha Magenta
Blithe Spirit issue 27.2 May, 2017
……………
rain on furrows—
a seagull lowers
the sky
Blithe Spirit issue 27.2 May, 2017
…………
wind in the woods
the conversation
of tawny owls
Martha Magenta
Brass Bell June 1, 2017
…………
morning chill –
a chiffchaff
brings in the spring
Morgenkühle —
ein Zilpzalp
bringt den Frühling mit sich
Martha Magenta
Chrysanthemum 23, April 2018
………….
tense confrontation —
a giant seagull stares
back at me
© Martha Magenta
Haiku in the Workplace September 27. 2017
………
critical job interview . . .
through the open window
blackbird’s song
— Martha Magenta
Haiku in the Workplace: December 5, 2017
…..
fading summer
white wings flock
on an airstream
Martha Magenta
Haiku Canada Review October 2016
…….
missing
from May
cuckoo’s song
Martha Magenta
Plum Tree Tavern September 2016
……
hunger moon
ducks land on
frozen clouds
© Martha Magenta
Haikuniverse February 23, 2017
……
window box
a tiny bird skeleton
among the leaves
© Martha Magenta
Haiku Windows, March 28, 2018
……….
gathering cumulus
the open wings
of a mute swan
hedgerow issue #118, July 1, 2017
……….
summer breeze
wheat ears bend
into birdsong
© Martha Magenta
The Heron’s Nest Volume XIX, Number 3 September 2017
……..
dunnock song
the newness
of the world
Plum Tree Tavern June 10, 2017
http://theplumtreetavern.blogspot.co.uk/
river mist —
the sound of wings
at twilight
Presence issue 60 March 2018
……..
nimbostratus
a black swan lands
on the lake
© Martha Magenta
Stardust Haiku Issue 11, November 2017
……
autumn crows
the sepia faces
in her album
© Martha Magenta
Wild Plum – a haiku journal 3:2 Fall & Winter 2017
……..
flying out
of a forgotten dream
wren song
© Martha Magenta
World Haiku Review August 2017
…….
birdsong
before the earth
falls silent
© Martha Magenta
World Haiku Review August 2017
a slight tremor
beneath the earth’s crust
the robin cocks his head
quake-destroyed shrine
a raven on the stone Tara
questioning the dusk
A Hundred Gourds 5:3 June 2016
without the aid of a safety net the magpie
a sea of blossoms –
will every bird
find its mate?
Agnes Eva Savich
The Heron’s Nest, Volume VIII, Number 3: September, 2006
Lovely!
winter’s pall
the shrouded song
of the currawong
*
(Blithe Spirit vol 27. Feb.2017)
*
oblique shadows
afternoon rests
on a wattlebird’s tune
*
(Heron’s Nest) Sept.2017
a lone swan’s calls
ripping the dusk silence…
love legends
wren
returning
again and again
btw this was published in Blithe Spirit 26/2 May-16 ….
war zone …
amongst the rubble
an empty birdcage
Acorn Issue #37, Fall 2016
canyon walls
the eagle drags
its shadow
Under the Basho, 2016 Issue
ominous clouds …
the wind fans
the raven’s tail
Under the Basho, 2016 Issue
🙂
sweet starling
how many hearts
fly with you
🙂
starling murmuration love comes and goes
Blithe Spirit 25.1
afternoon stupor
the silent gyrations
of a skylark
*
( Cattails Sept.2015)
*
yesterday’s rain
the swallow’s beak
dips into the puddle
*
(Creatrix )May 2016
Wonderful!
Thanks Alan.
rea
ding
again
st th
e gra
in a cr
ow’s win
gbe
at
– Bones #13
dead bird
beginning to believe
i’m made of paper
from Sonic Boom, Issue Eleven
Wow!
Stunning!
pigeon coos
comme ci, comme ca
the day unfolds
*
(Frogpond Vol.40:1)
on YouTube
a loom’s tremolo
her paws edge closer
(Hedgerow #54)
our different truths
the rusty underside
of a bluebird
.
Frogpond 40.1 (2017)
.
.
June heat
a catbird’s call
hangs in the air
.
Acorn 30 (2013)
.
.
gathering dusk
the unanswered call
of a dove
.
Frogpond 35:3 (2012)
strange clouds—
life changes shape
in a moment
(Presence 59, 2017)
water ripples . . .
a kite touches down
over the iris
(Presence 58, July 2017)
lake at dawn
a few stars in the sky
myriads on the water
(Otata, december 2017)
low tide …
children collect
sun and shells
(Under the Basho – Modern Haiku)
Flower Moon
with you in river
barefoot
(Modern Haiku, 48.3 Autumn 2017)
on the road…
the sun is a white circle
behind the fog
(Moder Haiku, 48.2 Summer 2017
perched
on a burnt stump
the crow’s dark caw
(Modern Haiku) 2016
hospital window
the chortle of a magpie
fills the car park
(Cattails Sept. 2016)
Great stuff! 🙂
.
I’m putting mine in a word.doc first, and adding dots.
.
e.g.
.
.
perched
on a burnt stump
the crow’s dark caw
.
Madhuri Pillai
(Modern Haiku) 2016
.
.
hospital window
the chortle of a magpie
fills the car park
.
Madhuri Pillai
(Cattails Sept. 2016)
twice as swift as my thoughts v-formations
– Won First Place in the Wordweavers Haiku Contest 2016
Belated congratulations!!!
late spring —
all the attention
a female house finch gets
(AHG, 2012)
🙂
Revised:
.
sudden hush
a hawk wing
slices the sky
a chick
fallen from the nest
noonday hear
a chick
fallen from the nest
noonday heat
plum blossoms—
an egg underneath
our dead chicken
+
Scope, 2015
Good one!
.
And why aren’t you taking over Scope’s haiku section?
.
I had to turn them down, as I can’t commit long term, and now being haibun editor for Blithe Spirit (just three issues) is enough for me, along with everything else. 🙂
sudden hush
the slice against blue sky
of hawk wings
***************
clarinet solo
in an upward spiral
meadowlark
**************
finally
in a flash
bluebird
************
Peggy Hale Bilbro
Fantastic!
.
You can also use dots to great effect.
.
e.g.
.
.
sudden hush
the slice against blue sky
of hawk wings
.
.
clarinet solo
in an upward spiral
meadowlark
.
.
finally
in a flash
bluebird
.
.
Peggy Hale Bilbro
Yes! Thanks for the reminder, Alan!
Thanks Michael. I hadn’t thought of dots. I so enjoy this annual rolling haiku event!
writer’s block
my desk shape-shifts
into a raven
– Otoliths, Issue Forty-six
Wow!
Thanks a ton, Alan! 🙂
Whether intentional or not a great response to Ted Hughes!
.
Here’s my longer response:
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/the-thoughtful-raven-haibun-haikuprose.html
.
warm regards,
Alan
summer night
on the baseball fence
a blue jay stretches his neck
(AHG, 2011)
I can feel that s.t.r.e.t.c.h!
🙂
pigeon necks –
answers that keep me
awake
– NOON: Journal of the short poem, Issue 12
first light
still waiting for that owl to ask
who-cooks-for you
(AHG, 2012)
🙂
cardinal tapping
at my window
another bird’s red-hot lover
from the corner of my eye pigeon’s flight
– Daily Haiku, Cycle 18
Daffodils in bloom
cause the birds to organise
Cats fake apathy
Saluting Magpies
as steam rises from teacups
Daily ritual
They are 2 separate ones , sorry the spaces seemed to have vanished
💗
Hi Lisa,
.
I use a word.doc to collect my poems, and also to place dots before I post.
.
e.g.
.
.
Daffodils in bloom
cause the birds to organise
Cats fake apathy
.
Lisa Marie Shepherd
.
.
Saluting Magpies
as steam rises from teacups
Daily ritual
.
Lisa Marie Shepherd
wintered spring
chestnut chickadee
baffled
Ah, that’s because of the disputed climate change. Thank goodness birds keep it simple around politics. 🙂
snow on All Fools’Day…
nesting birds and my dog
unimpressed
Great!
lost in translation wars and crows
– Failed Haiku, Issue 18
Ah, crows, our great Planet Earth caretakers. Despite the profit-engineered wars, they keep doing their clear ups.
Alan
So true, Alan!
the crow clings
to an updraft
20 minutes of happiness
Great!
a flicker of red
in multiplying white
spring snow
Wow! And great to see you, it’s been a long time. 🙂
.
Alan
Thanks, Alan, I never really go away!
🙂
migrating geese i leave my poem open-ended
– Failed Haiku, Issue 10
Excellent!
flying in the wind
the seagull’s cry –
suddenly april
vola nel vento
il grido del gabbiano –
subito aprile
***
oltre l’inverno
per chi prosegue il viaggio
canta il cuculo
Published in italian on the journal Le lumachine n°26 (Wanderer e Wanderung)
beyond winter
for those still on the journey
the cuckoo sings
***
between clouds –
connecting with the sky
a heron in flight
***
just a last ku
and then
the nightingale’song
Lovely!!!
.
I’d use dots, but use a word.doc first.
.
e.g.
.
.
flying in the wind
the seagull’s cry –
suddenly april
.
vola nel vento
il grido del gabbiano –
subito aprile
.
Anna Maria Domburg-Sancristoforo
.
.
oltre l’inverno
per chi prosegue il viaggio
canta il cuculo
.
Anna Maria Domburg-Sancristoforo
Published in italian on the journal Le lumachine n°26 (Wanderer e Wanderung)
.
.
beyond winter
for those still on the journey
the cuckoo sings
.
Anna Maria Domburg-Sancristoforo
.
.
between clouds –
connecting with the sky
a heron in flight
.
Anna Maria Domburg-Sancristoforo
.
.
just a last ku
and then
the nightingale’s song
.
Anna Maria Domburg-Sancristoforo
.
.
Wonderful!
Thank you very much Alan!
🙂
terra incognita the world outlined in birdsong
– Failed Haiku, Issue 24
spring fever…
a mynah’s song
redoubles
– Haikuniverse
briny lagoon—
flamingos fly the sunset
to the east
(hedgerow: a journal of small poems Issue #46)
midtown fountain
the dancer pirouettes
with a pigeon
(The Heron’s Nest, 2017)
————————
crow on a cable
casting its caw
to the wind
or —
sultry spring day
the crow casts its caw
to the wind
_______________________
rainbow shimmers …
a peacock’s feathers
on damp ground
_______________________
sparrow
on a sign:
“No Parking Anytime”
_______________________
green garbage can:
the broad-winged crow’s
slim pickings
_______________________
catch of the day —
the bullwing
in the blue heron’s beak
________________________
Great!
.
I’d use a word.doc AND use dots.
.
.
e.g.
.
.
midtown fountain
the dancer pirouettes
with a pigeon
.
Amy Losak
(The Heron’s Nest, 2017)
.
.
crow on a cable
casting its caw
to the wind
.
or —
.
sultry spring day
the crow casts its caw
to the wind
.
Amy Losak
.
.
Love both of them, especially your sultry spring day version. 🙂
.
.
rainbow shimmers …
a peacock’s feathers
on damp ground
.
Amy Losak
.
.
sparrow
on a sign:
“No Parking Anytime”
.
Amy Losak
.
.
green garbage can:
the broad-winged crow’s
slim pickings
.
Amy Losak
.
.
catch of the day —
the bullwing
in the blue heron’s beak
.
Amy Losak
.
.
Great stuff!!!
Alan, thank you for your support and kindness. Amy Losak, Teaneck, NJ
No worries. I just find the asterisks or crosses or lines etc… detract from the poem. The dot is the smallest non-invasive species to use for spacing here. 😉
backlit by the morning star blackbird song
(tinywords, #17.1, 2017)
Wow, wow, wow!
Thank you, Alan! 🙂
scratching through litter
behind St Saviour’s manse…
apostle birds
(Paper Wasp, 22 (2), Winter 2016)
icy morning
a woodpecker
drums up a storm
Yes!
shrub bed —
scratching out a living
the sparrow
Yes! 🙂
dawn-misted lagoon
rocking lily pads track
the lotus bird
(Blithe Spirit #27.2, 2017)
crow rain the softening shadows of cliffs
(moongarlic, May 1, 2017)
hens crossing the road—
on the stone fence the fig tree
rests its fruit
Aaaah! Gorgeous!
So pleased that at last hens join the bird haiku!
egret at dusk—
looking for shapes
in the shadows
.
THN, March 2013
****
the sky trapped
between the mountain peaks…
a hawk’s cry
.
Mainichi best of 2017
.
****
the curve
of a swan’s neck . . .
waning moon
.
Daily haiku, cycle 16. 2013
****
black water pond
how deep
the crow’s eyes
.
A Hundred Gourds, issue 1.4, 2012
****
evening thrush…
what you said
what I heard
.
Blithe spirit, 28.1
****
crow feather—
before dusk
the feel of dusk
.
The Herons Nest, September 2014
‘crow feather’ is lovely, Sanjuktaa.
half orange
an oriole flush
with the sky
– Betty
Wow!
love letters
two doves fold and unfold
new wings
Brilliant!
chatting on the porch
two sparrows flitting
in autumn mist
.
Troutswirl, Haiku Foundation blog
Beautiful! 🙂
swaying branch
a grey feather floats
in the breeze
border patrol
a burrowing owl’s
soft hoots
– Betty Shropshire
Cool!
* * *
newly-wed couple…
building a nest
of love
—
soaking in the sun
a knot of sparrows
—
potted flowers
hopping in its cage
a sparrow
—
in my father’s
loneliness
bird chirps
—
i wake up
to the cock’s crows
beer bottles
—
knots of sparrow
the dry season
that’s inching in
—
bleeding-hearts
the nest supports
a clutch
—
the wind
that no longer blows…
homing pigeons
~ Willie R. Bongcaron
Manila, Philippines
2o18
Great!
Peacock
Crow or Raven
Same or different I don’t know
AH AH
nettle blossom—
the family of ducks nest
in a tractor tire
——-
Presence, #53, 2015
I can see it!
night stroll
an owl guides me
to the woods
——–
Acorn, October, 2015
Wow!
missing something . . .
the warbler’s song
at dusk
Haiku Scout Report, #1, May 17, 2015
Love it!
car wash
the sleek sheen
of a rook’s back
Presence #58. 2017
🙂
birdbath filled
with yesterday’s songs
dawn’s greeting
the Canada geese
shift and skein to wedge & nide
to plump & gaggle
.
Alan Summers
.
NOTE:
Geese, depending on whether they’re flying (skein, wedge, nide) or gathered on water (plump) or land (gaggle).
.
The delightful word skein is actually an abbreviation of the Old French escaigne, which meant a hank of yarn that, when folded back on itself, resembles the ‘v’ shapes with which geese transcribe the sky when locomoting long distances. That geese in flight are also referred to as ‘a team’ or ‘a wedge’ both reflect the graceful birds’ distinctive mode of travelling en masse.
.
‘An Unkindness of Ravens: A Book of Collective Nouns’ is published by Michael O’Mara. Another useful volume is ‘A Conspiracy of Ravens: A Compendium of Collective Nouns for Birds’, with illustrations by Thomas Bewick (Bodleian Library Publishing)
.
.
p.p.s.
Couldn’t resist another 575, brand new as of a minute ago! 🙂
egrets
overtake our yard —
pink surrender
Love egrets, having lived in Queensland, Australia! But those Sacred ones in urban parks are a bit scary. Ah pink surrender!
You were a lucky fellow, Alan, to be invaded by egrets. Ibises are the usual park invaders, at least in Sydney.
white ibises
invade a trash bin—
tipping point
(cattails, Haiku Section, September 2015)
Hi Marietta,
.
I think it was actually sacred ibis, my bad, getting my various egrets and ibises mixed up. As solitary or small groups Sacred Ibis look and appear cool. But not in a Brisbane park. 🙂
.
Alan
🙂
twilight
nightingale’s song
from the mist
Wonderful! I love that I can read that twilight anywhere is a nightingale’s song from the mist, if I so choose. But literally too, it’s break taking.
Alan
the scent of rain
birdsong stretches
as far as Mars
.
Alan Summers
.
Yamadera Basho Memorial Museum Selected Haiku Collection (Japan 2017)
.
Z-A of the best children’s poets from the UK and US ed. Liz Brownlee
mother’s house
the brightness of a robin
on burial day
.
Alan Summers
Presence #57 2017
.
.
Boxing Day
from grass they rise
the meadow pipits
.
Alan Summers
Presence #57 2017
.
.
half-blue sky…
black-headed gulls
cloud dipping
.
Alan Summers
Presence #57 2017
That first one is so well observed, Alan. Colours do seem heightened in times of grief – almost psychedelic, sometimes.
Different birds came up to the window in ones, including a goldfinch. It was a great set of French doors opening up onto the garden she designed.
tip of the storm
thunder fills the sky
with crows
Temps Libres 8/2017
for a moment
i am the heron
first light
Temps Libres 8/2017
the eagle until only clouds remain
Heron’s Nest Fall 2017
Hi Sandi,
Lovely!
NOTE: use the dots to space them out.
.
e.g.
.
.
tip of the storm
thunder fills the sky
with crows
.
Sandi Pray
Temps Libres 8/2017
.
.
for a moment
i am the heron
first light
.
Sandi Pray
Temps Libres 8/2017
.
.
the eagle until only clouds remain
.
Sandi Pray
Heron’s Nest Fall 2017
Thanks so much, Alan ❤️
an owl’s empire
the flecks of light
in snow
.
Alan Summers
Presence issue #59 (November 2017)
broken boats
the coastline tagged
with shearwaters
.
Alan Summers
Presence issue 56 (October 2016) issn 1366-5367
halfway to the sea
a seagull’s shadow
follows its cry
(Blithe Spirit 27.3)
Wonderful! Look forward to your haiku in the May issue of Blithe Spirit! 🙂
Alan
snow melt through the rushing traffic a wood pigeon
(Asahi Hakuist Network 17 February 2017)
Love it!
.
Please post more, but add dots to separate name and credits.
.
e.g.
.
.
halfway to the sea
a seagull’s shadow
follows its cry
.
Andy McLellan
(Blithe Spirit 27.3)
.
.
snow melt through the rushing traffic a wood pigeon
.
Andy McLellan
(Asahi Hakuist Network 17 February 2017)
long rainy season
another song thrush
returns to itself
.
Alan Summers
Acorn, 32, Spring 2014
.
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
.
漫長雨季
另一隻歌鶇
回歸原樣
.
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
.
漫长雨季
另一只歌鸫
回归原样
.
Chinese trans. Chen-ou Liu
fifth kind encounter
humans replace crows
as an idiom of murder
.
Alan Summers
Prune Juice : Journal of Senryu, Kyoka, Haibun & Haiga
Scifaiku feature Issue 21: March, 2017
they say
it’s a sad soul—
mourning dove
mourning dove
in mother’s guava tree
who are you calling?
.
Acorn Spring 2016
storm battered oak
I quickly sweep away
the birdsong
— Michael Smeer, April 17th, 2018
Enjoyed! The adverb and verb in the middle line are really effective.
Alan
.
Thanks, Alan! That means a lot!
.
Happy International Haiku Poetry Day!
A very busy International Haiku Poetry Day with a new influx of haibun for Blithe Spirit, and starting a new online course, with both regulars and a new name. We get really spoilt. 🙂
For Earth Rise Rolling Haiku
***********************
wood duck
the decoys never
do him justice
on the phone line
a voice there’s no mistaking…
red wing blackbird
swallow tail kite
for one fleeting moment
the world’s on a string
pileateds
speaking expressly
in consonants
spring morning
filling the feeder
with birdsong
wood duck
the decoys never
do him justice
************
on the phone line
a voice there’s no mistaking…
red wing blackbird
*****************
swallow tail kite
for on fleeting moment
the world’s on a string
********************
pileateds
speaking expressly
in consonants
***************
spring morning
filling the feeder
with birdsong
swallow tail kite
for one fleeting moment
the world’s on a string
hummingbird
at the window box
practicing my scales
published in Haiku Foundation’s Haiku Windows feature on Window Box theme
the next step I leave behind a bush warbler’s song
.
Acorn #29 (2012)
.
.
twilight trees
birds go in and out
of song
.
Acorn #26 Spring 2011
.
.
forest trail . . .
a cuckoo’s song leaves me
searching the trees
.
A Hundred Gourds 4:1, March 2015
.
.
wailing cuckoo
a street child at the junction
dances for us
.
A Hundred Gourds 2:4 September 2013
.
.
kingfishers peck
the tumbling river notes . . .
evening raga
.
A Hundred Gourds – 2:3 June 2013
.
.
the geese
land on their honks . . .
trembling pond
.
Frogpond 34:3 Fall issue 2011
.
.
a white cry shuttling across the sky cotton
.
Kernals online – COFFEEHOUSE summer # 2 , 2013
.
.
tower of silence
the cawing of
a hundred crows, not one
vulture
.
Kernalsonline # 2 Summer 2013
.
.
Coch Rhi Ben
.
.
nuclear winter
I only count
98 red balloons
.
There’s singing snow, and I try to catch its tune. A robin with the prerequisite red breast is keeping pace, flying and jumping from spade handle to outpost, dodging the bullets and the missiles. We make our final stand, and form a duet, defiant that we forget politics, and who killed his brother.
.
the snow
is stinging
and we both
join up
the red dots
.
Alan Summers
Blithe Spirit Spring 2018
.
NOTE:
The haiku refers both to the famous song “99 Luftballons” (“99 balloons”) which is an anti-war protest song by the German band Nena. And the old gods and folksong:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cock_Robin
One piece, therefore a haibun, with a haiku and concluding kyoka.
a hare’s moon
the few embers
that linger
.
Alan Summers
Icebox (Japan, March 2018)
night of small colour
a part of the underworld
becomes one heron
.
Alan Summers
Modern Haiku Vol. 45.2 Summer 2014
A marvellous visual, Alan.
Thanks Carol! 🙂
.
Delighted it appears in another anthology, especially as it’s a 575 haiku. 🙂
.
Poetry as Consciousness –
Haiku Forests, Space of Mind, and an Ethics of Freedom
Author: Richard Gilbert Illustrator: Sabine Miller.
ISBN978-4-86330-189-4 Pub. Keibunsha (2018, Japan)
http://www.keibunsha.jp/books/9784863301894_english.html
.
Richard Gilbert says this, regarding the (575) haiku:
.
.
night of small colour
a part of the underworld
becomes one heron
.
Alan Summers
.
Extracts from Pages 223 & 224:
.
This haiku is classified as mythopoetic reality. The mythopoesis [is] evident in the semantic twist of “small colour” of night, a part of which “becomes on heron.”
.
What lies between realism and imagination, between living and dreaming, [as] a particular form of sanctuary; a space of poiesis. It seems most most fragile and nuanced, insignificant and ephemeral—yet it calls or we call, in seeking deeper, more enriching, increasingly multiple, multifarious dimensions of knowing in psyche.
.
Wallace Stevens refers to this poetical process as “enlargement”.
So much to learn!
I’m constantly learning, and it keeps me on my toes, for life! 🙂
the names of rain
a blackbird’s subsong
into dusk
.
Alan Summers
river-moss the mallards feeding the day slowly
.
Alan Summers
Wales Haiku Journal issue one March 2018
blue heron
in and out
of the mist
magpies watch
squirrels play chase
in a field of daisies
we carry history
across our tongues
birdsong
.
Alan Summers
Asahi, Japan (Good Friday 2018)
an oxeye daisy
swinging overhead starlings
in metallic song
.
Alan Summers
Selected Haiku Collection,
8th Yamadera Bashō Memorial Museum English
Haiku Contest (Japan, 2016)
northern bald ibis
no longer returning
to Syria
those who stop —
ducks taking colour
from the river
.
Alan Summers
(brass bell, January 2017)
.
.
museum quarter
the midnight blue
of geese
.
Alan Summers
Modern Haiku 48:3 (2017)
.
.
.
.
Gwdihŵ
.
.
late deadline…
keeping owl hours
with the mice
.
an owl’s empire
the flecks of light
in snow
.
unnamed night
the aviator’s goggles
shaking feathers
.
night train
a window screams
out of an owl
.
five owls
the time it takes
to snow, slow
.
empirical owls…
the sheep gather quietly
into their own bones
.
Alan Summers
Wales Haiku Journal issue one (Spring 2018)
.
NOTE:
Gwdihŵ is Welsh for Owl
How you say it: Good-ee-hoo
.
.
I adore these, Alan!
That’s very kind of you to say.
warm regards,
Alan
.
.
book of birdsong
the compartments
in my body
.
Alan Summers
.
.
This made me think of Salvador Dali’s The Anthropomorphic Cabinet, 1936.
I’m glad you got something like that. Aren’t we all wonder rooms? 🙂
.
.
clocks leap forward-
so many wonder-rooms
come from us
.
Alan Summers
https://australianhaikusociety.org/2018/03/21/call-for-submissions-ahs-spring-haiga-kukai-2018-non-seasonal/comment-page-4/#comment-716
wonder-rooms:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_curiosities
Ah, I am intrigued by cabinets of curiosities, Alan! I didn’t know they were also referred to as wonder rooms. 🙂
Yes, I’ve got a long poem about them when I was doing my Masters. It’s how museums were created so the public could also get to see the wonders. 🙂
I have just referred to my favourite of your lovely birdsong haiku to a haiku group I’m in, Alan.
this small ache and all the rain too robinsong
.
Alan Summers
.
Publications credits: Modern Haiku vol. 44.1 winter/spring 2013
Wow, thanks! 🙂
.
Because I’d already mentioned subsong in another haiku, the previous year, I left it out, so really glad it still works. 🙂
.
Kala also anthologised it.
.
.
this small ache and all the rain too robinsong
.
Alan Summers
Publication credit: Modern Haiku vol. 44.1 winter/spring 2013
Anthology credit: naad anunaad: an anthology of contemporary international haiku ed. Shloka Shankar, Sanjuktaa Asopa, Kala Ramesh, India, 2016
(Haiku Society of America Merit Book Awards, Best Anthology [tie] 2017)
a poignant pause
the woodpecker typing
his memoir
Wonderful humour!!!
Thanks, Alan!
migrating geese
the touch of a feather
on my cheek
Beautiful!
breaking dawn
a robin sings harmony
with the wind chime
the birds
and her youth going
s h
o t
u
(Blithe Spirit 26.4)
.
mountain village
the endless solitude
of a lark’s song
(runner-up in the Museum of Haiku Literature Award – Blithe Spirit 27.3)
.
endless wheat fields
how to capture
the larks’ song?
a squall of wind
the origami flies away
with the birds
(Akitsu Quarterly, Summer 2016)
Brilliant poems!
.
.
Perhaps more dots?
.
e.g.
.
.
the birds
and her youth going
s h
o t
u
.
Iliyana Stoyanova
(Blithe Spirit 26.4)
.
.
mountain village
the endless solitude
of a lark’s song
.
Iliyana Stoyanova
(runner-up in the Museum of Haiku Literature Award – Blithe Spirit 27.3)
.
.
endless wheat fields
how to capture
the larks’ song?
.
Iliyana Stoyanova
(Akitsu Quarterly, Summer 2016)
.
.
a squall of wind
the origami flies away
with the birds
.
Iliyana Stoyanova
(Akitsu Quarterly, Summer 2016)
Iliyana Stoyanova
This is beautifully captured, Iliyana.
.
.
mountain village
the endless solitude
of a lark’s song
(runner-up in the Museum of Haiku Literature Award – Blithe Spirit 27.3)
on the stick
the refugee boy shares
his sparrow
Strong haiku! Very much back to basics.
.
It’s terrifying that the number of refugees that the Second World War (1939-1945) must have been quadruped by current wars and corporate profit chasing.
.
warm regards,
Alan
little gongs
awakening me
a birdsong
.
piccoli gongs
risvegliandomi
un canto d’uccelli
.
My Haiku Pond, IHPD Contest April 17th, 2018
Tanabata
the magpie bridge
I wish for us
.
Tanabata
il ponte di gazze
che desidero per noi
.
.
lovebirds . . .
nope, I cannot live
without you
.
inseparabili . . .
no, io non so vivere
senza di te
Love VideoAnthology February 2018, Chanokeburi.it
Wonderful! 🙂
.
I hadn’t heard of the Magpie Bridge before, or had forgotten.
.
The Magpie Bridge:
https://herschelian.wordpress.com/2010/08/25/chinese-valentines-day-and-the-magpie-bridge/
3 more . . .
.
heat shimmer
the kingfisher’s wings
answer the river
.
(Moonset 1:2 spring 2006)
.
mid-gargle the magpies’ dawn chorus
.
(Yellow Moon # 20,Dec. 2006)
.
the wind shifting a bittern as driftwood as bittern
.
( Frogpond 38.1, winter 2015)
.
I promise to stop now! 🙂
.
– Lorin
a blackbird
flies towards the moon—
cancer ward
+
Notes for the Translators, Dec 2012
morning twilight . . .
how clear the first song
by the blackbird
Beautiful, and blackbirds are my favourite birds too. 🙂
warm regards,
Alan
the constant call
of a black cockatoo
miscarriage
I know those blighters well, and a very powerful end line.
Hi Alan. Hope you’re well. Thank you for leaving a comment.
Pretty well, and stupendously busy doing ginko and online courses, and acting haibun editor for Blithe Spirit for the next three issues, plus exciting projects coming out later this year. 🙂
hummingbird . . .
despite the effort
she carries on
.
(For my youngest sister, Niamh, whose bravery amazed me)
I remember, Wonderful tribute!
Alan
Thank you, Alan, that means such a lot.
.
Niamh was excellent at all sorts of crafts which kept her busy. The winter before she died I had the pleasure of sharing a stall with her at a Christmas craft fair. She was very talented and kept going as long as she could, never complaining, although she must have been in such pain towards the end.
.
marion
I feel Niamh will continue to be a muse for you, and that’s not a bad thing.
This is a very touching verse, Marion.
Thank you, Carol. My sister had such an ability to multitask and was highly organised (totally unlike me 🙂 ) And she was always a cheerful and very positive person. Although in the time after her diagnosis her four children were relatively young, she still managed to find time for creative pursuits.
.
Thanks for commenting.
.
marion
Wow. This haiku is both beautiful and sad. It shows such inner strength and making the most of each day and creativity.
Beautiful and heart-felt tribute, Marion. She lives on in your poems.
Scraping in with 7 from over the years. . . my internet connection has been down today! – Lorin
.
split wheat sack
a steady trickle
of sparrows
.
(The Heron’s Nest Volume XVI, Number 1: March 2014.)
.
mackerel clouds –
silver gulls squabble
over the bones
.
(tinywords Issue 13.2 | 24 September 2013 )
.
black cockatoos –
a few quick brushstrokes
before the rain
.
(Paper Wasp vol.17. 3, winter 2011)
.
starlings thicken
between the chimneys
a deeper twilight
.
(Presence #37, Jan. 2009
.
drizzle and mud –
sparrows sinking deeper
into drab
.
(3Lights Journal #1, Jan. 2010)
.
bellbirds. . .
further and further
from the trail
.
(Famous Reporter #40, 2009 + A New Resonance #7)
.
clear water—
a magpie’s song drops
into the pond
(1st Prize Paper Wasp Jack Stamm Competition, 2005)
.
– Lorin
Wondered where you were, Lorin!
.
“starlings thicken”- just wow.
Thanks, Marion. (These days, I sometimes wonder where I am, too. 🙂 )
.
– Lorin
after the ceremony gossiping jackdaws
.
tinywords Issue 15.2 January 2016
Under the Basho 2017 – Poet’s Personal Best Section
Nice one 🙂
*
robins gorge on fermented berries
birdsongs
*
foraging toddy berries
—
upon the pavement
tipsy twitters
following
the boat leaving Piraeus—
seagull cries
daybreak . . .
gulls on the lough
replacing stars
(Revised from EarthRising 2015)
Cool! ‘replacing stars’ is wonderful. I know that special glint that seagulls produce at the magical ends of the day – very early morning, and between the golden hour and into dusk too. 🙂
Alan
summer solstice
the sky bursts
into sparrows
Better than Starbucks, Vol. I No. II, August 2016
Yes!
.
calm night
I can hear only a song
of the nightingale
.
cut tree
where is
the birdhouse?
no interest
in birdwatching
old cat
The instinct lies deep in some animals. 🙂
purpose built —
crow’s nest with a bird’s eye view
of the farmyard chicks
—-
riveted . . .
white egrets hitch a ride
on grazing backs
—
my cherry tree trembles with hidden crows
(Uganda)
Apologies … Reposting for an easier reading. . .
***
still lake
the breath of a swan
ripples the grey
—
un lago immobile
il respiro di un cigno
increspa il grigio
—
Akitsu Quarterly, Winter 2016
*****
cherry
here is the titmouse
and it’s pink chirp
—
ciliegio
ecco la cinciallegra
e il rosa del suo canto
—
The Asahi Haikuist Network, March 3rd, 2017
*****
framed
by the wind
a seagull moon
—
incorniciata
dal vento
luna di un gabbiano
—
cattails, April 2017
*****
love web
blackcaps braid
melodies
—
rete d’amore
melodie intessute
da capinere
—
Stardust Haiku, April 2017
*****
mist
soft blackbird chirps
along the path
—
la nebbiolina
lievi schiocchi di merlo
lungo il sentiero
—
The Asahi Haikuist Network, April 21st, 2017
*****
all this competition
each blackbird rushing
for the highest branch
—
tutto questo gareggiare
ogni merlo affrettandosi
per il ramo piú alto
—
Failed Haiku, #16, April 2017
*****
jazz concert
swallows improvisation
entwined with clouds
—
concerto jazz
improvvisazione di rondini
intrecciata a nuvole
—
7* place, European Quarterly Kukai, April 2017
*****
swallow’s flight
finally
my resilience
—
volo di rondine
alla fine
la mia resilienza
—
THF, Workplace Haiku, August 30th, 2017
*****
teenager daughter
green finch and me
go unnoticed
—
adolescente
il verdone ed io
come invisibili
—
Failed Haiku, # 23, November 2017
*****
empty cup
the liquid melody
of a robin
—
la tazza vuota
liquida melodia
di un pettirosso
—
EarthRise Rolling Haiku Collaborative 2018
*****
chirps on snow
maybe is this a stir
of hope
—
cinguettii sulla neve
è questo forse un senso
di speranza
—
EarthRise Rolling Haiku Collaborative 2018
*****
as if I felt guilty
for not getting up . . .
birdsong
—
come se mi sentissi
colpevole non alzandomi . . .
canto d’uccelli
—
EarthRise Rolling Haiku Collaborative 2018
*****************************
Happy IHPD to all !
Deeply thanks for choosing birds : such a lovely topic this year…..!
Lucia Fontana, Milan, Italy
Thanks, and gorgeous!
a heron
on the curve of river ….
your hands
The Mainichi 8th March 2018
ballerina’s exuberance
godwits arrive
on the mudflats
Well done, Limosa.
Love the juxtaposition, and bringing in godwits, great to have them appear in a haiku!
wow!
Dear Giovanna Restuccia, a wow for your haiku!
Thanks Alan
🙂
cormorants
between cliff and waves
our eyes
arriving home
into another season
calling chiffchaff
always last
to be picked for the team
black swan
maximum exposure
a cormorant’s wings
pulsing with light
Haiku Masters, January 2018
(in response to a photograph for monthly photo haiku contest)
watching the cormorant dive…
how long can I hold my breath?
Wild Voices 2
Glad to see you back in action, I have been really worried for you. Wonderful verse, and great that you see these iconic birds.
.
Alan
Thank you Alan. Have been quite unwell and hoped to be online more in Celebration of International Haiku Day but thoroughly enjoying reading through everyone’s submissions and comments.
Cool! I’ll keep my toes crossed too, what a pain for you.
still lake
the breath of a swan
ripples the grey
un lago immobile
il respiro di un cigno
increspa il grigio
Akitsu Quarterly, winter 2016
***
cherry
here is the titmouse
and it’s pink chirp
ciliegio
ecco la cinciallegra
e il rosa del suo canto
The Asahi Haikuist Network, March 3rd, 2017
***
framed
by the wind
a seagull moon
incorniciata
dal vento
luna di un gabbiano
cattails, April 2017
***
love web
blackcaps braid
melodies
rete d’amore
melodie intessute
da capinere
Stardust Haiku, April 2017
***
mist
soft blackbird chirps
along the path
la nebbiolina
lievi schiocchi di merlo
lungo il sentiero
The Asahi Haikuist Network, April 21st, 2017
***
all this competition
each blackbird rushing
for the highest branch
tutto questo gareggiare
ogni merlo affrettandosi
per il ramo piú alto
Failed Haiku, #16, April 2017
***
jazz concert
swallows improvisation
entwined with clouds
concerto jazz
improvvisazione di rondini
intrecciata a nuvole
7* place, European Quarterly Kukai, April 2017
***
swallow’s flight
finally
my resilience
volo di rondine
alla fine
la mia resilienza
THF, Workplace Haiku, August 30th, 2017
***
teenager daughter
green finch and me
go unnoticed
adolescente
il verdone ed io
come invisibili
Failed Haiku, # 23, November 2017
***
empty cup
the liquid melody
of a robin
la tazza vuota
liquida melodia
di un pettirosso
EarthRise Rolling Haiku Collaborative 2018
***
chirps on snow
maybe is this a stir
of hope
cinguettii sulla neve
è questo forse un senso
di speranza
EarthRise Rolling Haiku Collaborative 2018
***
as if I felt guilty
for not getting up . . .
birdsong
come se mi sentissi
colpevole non alzandomi . . .
canto d’uccelli
EarthRise Rolling Haiku Collaborative 2018
***
Happy IHPD to all !
Deeply thanks for choosing birds : such a lovely topic this year…..!
Lucia Fontana, Milan, Italy
godwits feeding at dusk –
a lacy shawl falls
to the ground
Lovely to see the godwits turning up, Limosa. I can’t help but wonder if you are/were up in the Mallee region? Though of course that’s not the only place they come to, it’s where I’ve seen them. 🙂
.
bushfires
the tide of godwits
turning
.
(The Heron’s Nest Volume XVIII, Number 2: June 2016)
A wonderful selection, Lucia. I would love to listen to these in Italian as I’m sure the sound will add a lot. Do the nice people over at The Living Haiku Anthology feature poets reading in their native language, I wonder…
Enjoy the recordings!
https://livinghaikuanthology.com/readings/haiku-readings.html
Alan
a wonderful IHPD to you
and Thanks,
generous of you
to provide the link
to haiku voices
Michael, son-song of Virginia Ruth 😎
Thanks Michael!
.
Deeply appreciated!
.
warmest regards,
Alan
footsteps of curious guests
echo beyond a thousand years
elusive nightingale
heralds luminescent sunset
hawk circles –
from the heart of the rock
silence
Incense Dreams 01-03-2018
love this !!
Me too!!
Me three!
eagle owl
he reads the words
in my eyes
***
her two hands fly
like a thousand little birds
finger-spelling
***
(From “D/deafku,” Magma 69, winter 2017)
wolf whistle
on my way to work
small starling
***
dusk
in the public garden
doves in a sculpture
***
(From “A gap in the crowd,” The Lampeter Review, Issue 15, 2017)
I love the fact that the starling is small, Lee – it gives him attitude!
Yes 😉
only snow –
the faint memory
of doves
(From “Four Seasons Haiku,” Storm Cycle 2015: The Best of Kind of a Hurricane Press, Kind of a Hurricane Press, 2016)
winter chill
a quacking duck
and I
the godwit’s cry:
managing a long-distance
love affair
Excellent Juxtaposition, Limosa.
So good to see you start your love affair with haiku, today.
Excellent, and yes, how on earth do people manage long distance affairs, or even relationships.
.
Here is your namesake!
.
Limosa limosa (Black-tailed Godwit):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmqtFdPRy9c
muddied snow
a dove’s coo
breaks the mood
~ Cyndi Lloyd
Presence #55, June 2016
white crows
granny sending postcards
from heaven
World Haiku Review, 10th Anniversary issue, March 2018
mountain lake
the night air fills the loon’s call
tinywords 27 August 2007
becoming light
a blackbird enters
my half-awakened mind
winter morning from white to white only the blackbird
persimmon sky
two blackbirds puff up
their silhouettes
.
The Heron’s Nest XIV.1
morning breeze
the curve of an egret’s shadow
medieval churches:
the godwit catches
mud crabs
Eurasian jay
the pupil grows larger
in the dusk
the crow
within its caw
Milky Way
harsh sunlight
a crow’s caw
cuts the ice
.
Runner Up, Shamrock Readers’ Choice Awards, 2015
Issue 33
glassy lake
flocks of snow geese
pull up the moon
.
1st Place, 2017 Autumn Moon Haiku Contest
***
cormorants . . .
we open our arms
to the sun
.
3rd Place, 2018 Jane Reichhold International Prize
***
snowy field
the owls we thought
were stones
.
HM, 2017 9th IHS International Haiku Competition
***
last campout . . .
sandhill cranes call down
the northern lights
.
HM, 2017 Robert Spiess Haiku Award
***
the whistle
of a wood duck . . .
her last breath
.
HM, 2015 Betty Drevniok Award
***
the curve
of an avocet’s bill . . .
sickle moon
.
Editor’s Choice, Cattails (April 2017)
***
cloudless sky
a pelican’s pouch
full of light
.
Editors’ Choices, The Heron’s Nest 18.2 (June 2016)
***
Thank you for sharing my passion for birds! Happy IHPD!
Debbie Strange
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Debbie:
Your biggest fan in the USA!
I’ve read every one of those before, and each is new in me, again.
.
Jan
Thank you so much, Jan. I will have sweet dreams tonight!
.
shine on,
Debbie
Breathless ! Stunning collection…. Love all of them Debbie !!!
Thanks kindly, Lucia! Sending birdsong wishes to you!
.
shine on,
Debbie
cold sky
sparrows mobbing
the feed block
itchy dawn
the cockatoo cackles
at me
in the bleak winter sky
a tiny spot of blue…
chaffinch song
(Golden Haiku Contest 2014, runner-up)
my Nile Valley Swallows
could be yours
this coming Spring
IRIS Honorable mention 2018
Wonderful!!! 🙂
Thank you, Alan!
🙂
fallen peacock plume —
I fail to smooth its pattern
back in place
The Mainichi 26.12. 2017
sudden waterspout
ten thousand starlings
drain into winter reeds
Akitsu Winter Quarterly 2017 Issue 14
in sync with the surf
a duvet of sandpipers
play tag
Akitsu Spring Quarterly 2018 Issue 15
moonflower
nattering crows
open the day
Love “nattering”, Carol.
Thanks marion 🙂
yep, good use of a strong verb!
noisy dawn
parrots in the bottlebrush
again
heat wave . . .
crows fly by
with open beaks
(Uganda)
rippled sky –
a Brahminy kite soars
towards the sun
NHK gallery, Jan 2018
placid lake –
a cormorant swoops
and misses
Chrysanthemum 16, 2004
morning clouds
the geometric flight
of cormorants
(Issa’s Untidy Hut : Wednesday Haiku #138, October 23, 2013)
haunting cries
from the banks of the Nile . . .
fish eagles
(Uganda)
African Greys
screech past my window . . .
would that all birds feel so free
Ingrid Baluchi (Uganda)
As they should !!!
Dad kept pet African Greys and loved them, but it always pains me to see caged birds.
.
.
summer sunset
a flock of black skimmer bank
descending to the sea
.
.
Earthrise Rolling 2018
.
Jan Benson
Lovely visual, Jan. I had to look these birds up – they mustn’t have them here! 😉
Thank you, Marion.
As you will have learned, they like the coastal seasides, and hunt at night, skimming over waters when fish are nearer the surface. Fishing by feel, rather than sight.
.
It’s a bit of toriawase, comparison jux…
Sunset/descending flock.
.
early walk
peacock’s track marks
on the ground
.
.
scudding clouds
under a bridge the fitful
flap of bats
.
Brass Bell
October 2016
.
Jan Benson
.
(In dedication to the congregations of infamous bats
under Congress Street Bridge, Austin, TX)
east wind
sparrow bobs its head
in the thicket
.
.
rimed forest
a nightingale
busks me home
Failed Haiku issue 28
.
.
I think I may have said it elsewhere, Jan, but the use of “busks” to describe the nightingale singing is inspired.
Ah, lovely of you to say so.
Thanks, Marion.
city life
only hearing the skylark
in a poem
morning commute. . .
a crow shrugs off
the rain
In the Company of Crows, 2008
beach nap
my youth
in the gull’s cry
In the Company of Crows, 2008
I love the crow’s indifference to the rain, Carole, and they do “shrug”!
🙂
too early for birdsong but the bats
Yes!
🙂
desert dawn
a raven’s kraa
lights the trail
Cool!
predawn dark
through the petrichor
a koel’s persistent call
angelee deodhar(India)
🙂
out too soon
a breathless fledgling
on the verandah
late morning
on the path to work
a small death
time to rise
the laughing kookaburras’
morning rumpus
neighborhood quiet
all of a sudden
red munias
.
Billy Antonio
Laoac, Philippines
last ray of light
in the distance
a loon’s echoing tremolos
“rumpus” is such a great word here, Barbara!
oh, to be wooed
wowed by this perfect bower…
all my blues gone
“not nature, Nurture”
the bird(s)
defies gravity
but not the grave
exceeding the sky limit eagle slowly soars to a swallow
early bird
caged by the skydome
never reaching Our Father’s kingdom
“no rest for the wicked”
no rapture
for the raptor
quarrel of sparrows
the first Java plum
falls to the ground
– Billy Antonio
Laoac, Philippines
over the cliff
the wetland awash…
with magpie geese
ah, yes!
.
– Lorin
Lawn mowers and cars,
a dog barks,
Above, flute of the magpie.
if only . . .
such beauty
in crows
.
Haiku Masters, December 2017
winter trees
only the sound
of the crow
winter wheat
crows answering crows
through the fog
.
Wild Plum 2.1
wet snow
a crow follows
the road
tinywords 31 January 2008
pair of herons-
blades of grass
slowly turn green
three tattered crows
shuffle not far away
kangaroo feast
dusk begins on cue
crow perched on scarred limb
showtime
silent spring-
old pond takes in
new birdsongs
on the mend . . .
this long afternoon
stitched by swallows
.
Tinywords
Issue 17.1 | 31 May 2017
Lovely, Marion.
.
Jan
desert pool
a passing crow
the empty sky
gull crying the length of melancholy
Panning for Poems, Issue 7, Winter 2017
You’ve captured that cry, Marion. Lovely verse.
🙂
sparrow’s line-
a closed fist
sowing rice seeds
the wingtips
of whooping cranes
black ink in my nib
(Wild Plum, Issue 2:2, Fall & Winter 2016)
migrating cranes
why won’t he settle down with me?
(The World Haiku Review, June 2016, second place, Shintai Haiku)
brief romance
the call of chimney swifts
in flight
(Presence 54, February 2016)
looking
for the other magpie
second honeymoon
(The Asahi Shimbun, 4 August 2017)
dusk in the valley
just enough light
to see the falcon soar
(The Heron’s Nest, December 2017)
first light
the falcon leaps
into its wings
.
(Mariposa 35, Fall/Winter 2016)
🙂
a blackbird
on the factory eave
heaven’s portal
(Otata, Issue 17, May 2017)
a few spots of rain
cockatoos showering down
wattle pods
(Kokako 28, 2018)
losing our way
a willy wagtail
here then gone
—hedgerow #120, 2017
church archways
whispering with swallows—
spring vespers
(cattails, Spring, 2017)
Love this!
Thank you, Liz Ann!
hoarse ness –
silence
my parrot
frail balance-
a hummingbird drinks
from a tubolar flower
owl cry –
heavy of empty phrases
the tonight moon
Otata 01- 03-2018
owl song
a moonbeam glides
through the pine trees
(Brass Bell, December 2015)
a blackbird snaps
imperceptibly —
the dark
Otata 30-11-2017
last blackbird song
before nightfall
over-steeping tea
(Brass Bell, May 2016)
shawls of rain
across the inlet
a black duck’s wake
(Asahi Haikuist Network, July 15, 2016)
a Hitchcock movie-
the dawn shouting
in the chicken house
Asahi Haikuist -March 2018
old vagrant his ring of sparrows
(tinywords 16.1, 2016)
Marietta,
Ah
Just so!
.
Jan
Thank you, Jan!
aircraft landing
a sparrow hops
aside
—Best of The Mainichi Haiku in English 2016
cold snap –
a sparrow flicks its tail
of snowflakes
.
—Marion Clarke, Shamrock No. 25
Shortlisted, Touchstone Awards, 2015
There is something perfectly right about sparrows, Marion. Yours captures that!
airport arrivals
a sparrow can’t find
its way out
.
Presence 59
marshy pool—
coot tails sharpen
the shallows
—British Haiku Society 2015 Anthology The Edge
chilly afternoon
a moorhen’s cry
ripples the shallows
.
Akitsu Quarterly winter 2016
Lovely sense of the cold marsh, Polona.
marsh wren’s cry
the sun ripples onto the mud
tinywords 14 June 2006
dead grey branch—
between the knotholes
a boobook
—Paper Wasp 21(2) 2015
beach pebbles a plover suddenly
—Under the Basho One-Line Haiku, 2018
late lambing…
wedge-tails akimbo
on a wire fence
fog wall –
from nothing to nothing
a magpie
Otata 01-08-2017
morning lark
frost on the grass
seems to sing
deep dive
into the rapids
kingfisher
Hi Christina
yours prompted me to an urban rendition:
deep dumpster
diving – the kinsfisher
in rapids
😎
Michael, son-song of Virginia Ruth
awakening
this light of the world
floating swan
on the Seine
the white swan undulates
through the weeds
the squeaking
of the cock vane-
noise at dawn
Asahi Haikuist -march 2018
the rusty creak
of a weathervane
scraping daylight away
(Presence 57, March 2017)
a collared dove
lands on a weathercock
faint thunder
.
2017 HSA Members’ Anthology
robin’s egg
on the ground
fractured sky
Akitsu Quarterly Fall 2017
distant thunder
ants inside
a broken egg shell
.
tinywords 12.1
knotted branches
the forgotten nest
of a heron
Under the Basho, Apr. 2018
“not nature, Nurture”
the bird(s)
defies gravity
but not the grave
exceeding the sky limit vanishes from sight
but the bird
caged by the skydome
never reaches Our Father’s kingdom
“to Thy kingdom come”
caged by the skydome
please excuse my premature post
which is still in the drafting stage
I don’t know how to delete it
If possible will someone – admin/webmaster – delter
Thanks,
Sincerely,
Michael Virga
Michael, don’t worry, once the submission period has ended, the final version will be formatted and our comments/errors edited out.
.
marion
Thanks, marion, kind of you to leave me this note
sincerely,
michael
river kingfisher
a splash of blue
in the cloud
71st Basho Memorial English Haiku Contest, 2017, Honourable Mention
ripples
out of the kingfisher’s beak
a wriggling stickleback
(Akitsu Quarterly, Summer 2016)
kingfisher’s dive the mountain wobbles
.
A Hunderd Gourds 4.1
bird song
she hums
her favourite tune
( Otata, Apr. 2018)
Monday blues –
the thrush stops to sing
between pecks
Shamrock Journal, Issue No. 22, 2012
breaking through
monochrome winter
the red trills of a robin
(Brass Bell, December 2014)
(NeverEnding Story, Butterfly Dream : Monday, December 11, 2017)
damp morning
a gray yard
before the robin
(NeverEnding Story, Butterfly Dream, November 29, 2014)
🙂
raindrops . . .
sparrows blend
with brown shingles
Valentina Ranaldi-Adams – USA
crying gull
another refugee arrives
with the tide
rumor
gulls fighting
over fish guts
(Scryptic 1.3, December 2017)
early bird
an oystercatcher
gets the prize
fighting over
the same leftover
a gull and a crow
seaside holiday
a photo of my sandwich
taken by a gull
nose up the sky
the birds’ song
before dusk
so much chatter
before bedtime
crow’s nest
no small talk between you crows
(Otata 24, December 2017)
how serious
tonight’s conversation
gathering rooks
rooks in the flight
loudly cawing…
winter serenity
swift nightfall
moving to their nest
urban birds
hanging out
under the street lamp
hooded crows
return from the sea—
a bird with a broken wing
in the fishing net
Cattails April 2017
**
winter garden
a caged bird whistles
jazz standards
**
her soft voice
cooing outside the window
a pigeon chick
**
migratory birds
key to the summer cottage
under the doormat
27th ITO EN Oi Ocha New Haiku Contest (2016) Sponsors’ Award (Haiku International Association)
**
first bullfinches —
blushing again
a hawthorn bush
the rooks sail
in the wind above a grove –
swaying nests
a pigeon
seeks refuge from the hawk –
backyard party /meguro, 2018
blackcap warbler…
bopping
to my guitar riff
the rooks sail
in the wind above a grove –
swaying nests
*
a pigeon
seeks refuge from the hawk –
backyard party /meguro, 2018
*
blackcap warbler…
bopping
to my guitar riff
cawing crows
the old plant chimney
subsides into the snow
The 127.th WHA Haiga Contest (02/2015)
cawing crow the tor guide
On the Edge (2017) Brambleby Books
waiting—
the fledgling green heron
pecks at a pine cone
pond reflections still waiting on a heron
the heron
and I
staring contest
Ha! Nice one, Olivier! 🙂
marion
Thank you, Marion!
returning home
regularly every year
the bald eagle
migrant birds
always return home…
Easter reunion