Haiku Dialogue

HAIKU DIALOGUE – Poet’s Choice – Gourmet Gallery – touch

 

Welcome to Poet’s Choice

Let’s talk about haiku!

For this series, each poet may send one haiku on the week’s theme, and it will be included in the blog post. There is no selection process. The haiku appear in the order in which we received them.

Submit an original unpublished poem via our Contact Form by Saturday midnight on the theme of the week, including your name as you would like it to appear, and place of residence. (If you send more than one poem, only the first one will be posted.)

Please note that by submitting, you agree that your work may appear in the column – neither acknowledgment nor acceptance emails will be sent. All communication about the poems that are posted in the column will be added as blog comments.

next week’s theme:  GOURMET GALLERY – food & the sense of taste

The deadline for this theme is midnight Pacific Time, Saturday 02 November 2019.

I look forward to reading your submissions.

Poet’s Choice:  Gourmet Gallery – touch

Here are the submissions for this week:

kiwi fruit…
slipping off
like a fish

Lakshmi Iyer

 

small portions –
the taste of food
without cutlery

vincenzo adamo

 

bus stop
a paper cup of coffee
warms hands

Serhiy Shpychenko
Kyiv, UA

 

he uses gourmet words
on his first date
she swallows without tasting

Anjali Warhadpande

 

homecoming
the flour on mom’s hands
now on my cheeks

Vandana Parashar

 

chill in the morning hot chocolate

Debbie Scheving

 

hot chestnuts
and burnt tongue
a quick kiss

Ljiljana Dobra
Sibenik Croatia

 

Autumn wind
That sublime touch
on the chips

Vento d’autunno
Quel tocco sublime
sulle patatine

Dennys Cambarau

 

Autumn evening
Pomegranate seeds
tender and good

Sera d’autunno
Chicchi di melograno
teneri e buoni

Agnese Giallongo

 

big pear
my fingers tell me
it’s juicy

Goran Radičević

 

puffed puri
rising up in oil – reeling
into my fingers

Radhamani sarma

 

how many caresses –
our hands sink
in shortcrust pastry

quante carezze –
le nostre mani affondano
nella pasta frolla

Angela Giordano
Italy

 

snow on snow –
I sink my hands
into the bread dough

Giovanna Restuccia

 

first cold day
hard to the touch
the avocado skin

Olivier Schopfer
Geneva, Switzerland

 

chocolate pudding
on my tongue
sweet caress of velvet

joel

 

touched
by his flute notes
poets’ feast

Jackie Chou
Pico Rivera, CA USA

 

blobs of red
on a white bib
cold jelly

Christina Chin

 

fruit tingle lolly
tongue tango
with teeth

nancy liddle

 

first bite
the pull of taffy
takes off her crown

wendy c. bialek
prescott valley, az usa

 

unwrapping
the cold slippery pudding slips off my hand

Nuky Kristijono
Indonesia

 

in mouth a bone…
the dog’s path
inside the nettle

Francesco Palladino

 

mom’s saree border
the stain of
grounded spices

R.Suresh Babu

 

stale Lorna Doones
crumble
in my hand

Judith Hishikawa

 

first tiff
her eating rice with hand
not hubby approved fork

Vishnu Kapoor

 

scattered shells
the taste of salt
on soft lips

Anitha Varma

 

a sip of nouveau –
first kiss to
fiancé

Teiichi Suzuki

 

hot morning
a popsicle froze
my tongue

Slobodan Pupovac
Zagreb, Croatia

 

ice cream freeze
drilling from tooth into skull
the dentist’s soft touch

john hawkhead

 

cotton candy spun
into fine, blue silk cocoons
sticky fingers spread

Sherrod Taylor

 

crème brulée
poached pear
shortbread
probes pending…

Mark Gilbert
UK

 

the baby’s cheek
sticky from mashed bananas
rests on my shoulder

Sari Grandstaff
Saugerties, NY

 

pollen drift
October bumblebee
touches down

Peggy Hale Bilbro
Huntsville, Alabama

 

Andrejev sejem –
nežna spojitev ustnic
s sladkorno peno

Andrew’s fair –
gentle union of lips
with cotton candy

Ivanka Kostantino
Slovenia

 

after three
we pull with our pinkies
a doughnut oh

simonj
UK

 

a big knot
shaping dough into a loaf
family reunion

Eva Su
Indonesia

 

crispy roast
grandma’s eyes eating
wonky dentures

Franjo Ordanic

 

midnight pantry raid –
I feel my way
to the cookie jar

Michele L. Harvey

 

her half-swallowed shriek –
red beets
touching white potatoes

Laurie Greer

 

just enough give
through the leathery skin
ripe avocado

Kathleen Mazurowski

 

sweet and sticky
cinnamon rolls
eagerly licked fingers

Linda Ludwig
USA – Florida

 

greasy fingers
dipping french fries
one by one

Rehn Kovacic

 

glass of beer –
the foam in his fingers
for a moment

bicchiere di birra –
la schiuma fra le dita
per un istante

Angiola Inglese

 

fresh jalebis
the only way to end
the talks

Neelam Dadhwal
India

 

my disabled stray –
how it picks up chunks of meat
from claws to mouth

Ingrid Baluchi
Ohrid, Macedonia

 

back home
the warmth
of desi roti

Hifsa Ashraf
Pakistan

 

mudpie –
a warm rain cleans
my fingers

Pris Campbell

 

christmas eve
cookie crumbs
stuck to my feet

Rich Schilling
Webster Groves, MO

 

p e a c h

Adrian Bouter

 

hot chocolate
maybe they will be quiet
for some time

Dubravka Šćukanec
Zagreb, Croatia

 

soft fog…
children’s fingerprints
on risen dough

Elisa Allo

 

old ‘Gold Rush’ campsite
kids crumbling biscuits, testing
if weevils are fake

Sheila Barksdale

 

soggy baklava
I lick the syrup
down my hand

Madhuri Pillai

 

ice drips
from the stick –
sweet orange taste

il ghiaccio cola
dal bastoncino –
dolce gusto d’arancia

Maria Teresa Piras

 

sushi bar…
the salmon
slips away

Steve Tabb

 

grilled sanma
a tiny bone stuck
in my throat

Tomoko Nakata

 

the empty cup:
still thirsty for his hands

la tazza vuota:
ancora sete delle sue mani

Giuliana Ravaglia

 

autumn
hollowing the pumpkin
we save the seeds

Barbara Tate

 

late autumn
tasting from the ladle
smooth pumpkin soup

Janice Munro
Canada

 

kiwi such a soft touch

Marilyn Ashbaugh

 

The food of the heart
and a seanse of touch
on the riverbank.

Refika Dedić
Bosna I Hercegovina

 

turmeric –
mother’s fingerprints
on the cookbook

arvinder kaur
Chandigarh, India

 

When I was little
I was afraid of jello
Moved when I touched it

Margie Gustafson

 

finger’s food…
back
to the origins

Rosa Maria Di Salvatore

 

lines for free samples
I pick my teeth
with toothpicks

John S Green
Bellingham, WA

 

naked in the bathtub
with a ripe mango
mama’s childhood

Kath Abela Wilson
Pasadena, California

 

second thoughts –
reaching out to gut the fish
I touch a rainbow

Susan Rogers

 

tongue strokes soft meat off
every bone – red cooked oxtail
swims in unctuous sauce

Guy Stephenson

 

formal dinner…
aaargh! these damned poppy seeds
stuck in my teeth

Mark Meyer

 

satisfaction
dipping toast soldiers into
uncapped soft boiled egg

Paul Geiger

 

healthy bread
from the mother’s hands –
soft as a soul

Zdenka Mlinar
Croatia

 

touching their warm food
before tasting
mosquitoes

Charles Harmon
Los Angeles, California

 

fingerpainting
mustard stain dessert sunset
server keeps her place

Ron Scully

 

alphabet soup
your name
so hot

cezar ciobîcă

 

tongue touches the sweet
sweetness melts in the mouth –
delicious

Aju Mukhopadhyay
Pondicherry, India

 

morning muffins
our bodies pressing
on a hotel bed

Anthony Rabang

 

Lori Zajkowski is the Post Manager for Haiku Dialogue. A novice haiku poet, she lives in New York City.

Katherine Munro lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and publishes under the name kjmunro. She is Membership Secretary for Haiku Canada, and her debut poetry collection is contractions (Red Moon Press, 2019).

This Post Has 48 Comments

  1. not just very sentimental ….but the layers between the words….to me show how generation’s pass on….. transfer non-verbally… behaviors, customs and ways of showing warmth and care.

    Vandana Parashar’s

    homecoming
    the flour on mom’s hands
    now on my cheeks

  2. in my mind……included in the sense of touch….is also texture…and feeling, hot….cold, and everything in between, etc. ..that it is not limited to hand/ contact….
    anything making contact with another thing
    slimy
    gritty
    glossy
    soggy
    slippery
    e n d l e s s textures

  3. Not all of this week’s haiku cover what I would call touch … here are three that did that I liked –
    .
    big pear
    my fingers tell me
    it’s juicy
    – Goran Radičević
    .
    how many caresses –
    our hands sink
    in shortcrust pastry
    – Angela Giordano
    .
    midnight pantry raid –
    I feel my way
    to the cookie jar
    – Michele L. Harvey

    1. A visual representation of mine can be found here -https://twitter.com/MarkgZero/status/1190665257779441667?s=20

      1. Hi Mark. I was able to get your visual link to work before, but not this week. Tried again today with no luck. But I caught your Per Diem, congrats.

  4. touching their warm food
    before tasting
    mosquitoes

    Charles Harmon
    Los Angeles, California

    *
    This one is a different slant as it approaches the theme of touch
    using insects.

    However, Charles….i believe the poem itself would be stronger if
    it were written about only one hungry insect . A tighter macro lens.

  5. mom’s saree border
    the stain of
    grounded spices

    R.Suresh Babu

    love this, the feel of the texture of fabric trim…could be embroidered silk trim….being stained with the grounded spice…
    shows the intensity and focus on the preparation of the dish to be simmered/sauteed….i see the stain, i smell the stain, i am brought into, lured into this image, in this place of creating the dish

  6. fun, yes, Debbie Sheving.

    in ref. to:

    he uses gourmet words
    on his first date
    she swallows without tasting

    Anjali Warhadpande

    i add this….
    i would say, it’s deeper than food appreciation…..for me this shows a total story of contrast of personality textures of the soul… and though the characters are on opposite sides of the scale, who knows it could be the first of many dates…and the stimulating gel that attracts them for life.

    he could be hung up…in his head with practiced, shallow words….and she just might be the courageous “frog” who jumps into the deep water of an unknown pond.

  7. Unable to comment on all, Alan where are you?, a few that I enjoyed the image as well as sentiment were:
    *
    homecoming
    the flour on mom’s hands
    now on my cheeks
    .
    Vandana Parashar
    *
    mom’s saree border
    the stain of
    grounded spices
    .
    R. Suresh Babu
    *
    second thoughts –
    reaching out to gut the fish
    I touch a rainbow
    .
    Susan Rogers
    *
    hot chestnuts
    and burnt tongue
    a quick kiss
    .
    Ljiljana Dobra
    *
    Representing wintery days to me after the gentler warmth of summer:
    *
    first cold day
    hard to the touch
    the avocado skin
    .
    Olivier Schopfer
    *
    Fun use of slippery Ss:
    *
    sushi bar…
    the salmon
    slips away
    .
    Steve Tabb
    *

  8. This one is great!

    the empty cup:
    still thirsty for his hands

    la tazza vuota:
    ancora sete delle sue mani

    Giuliana Ravaglia

  9. a big knot
    shaping dough into a loaf
    family reunion
    .
    Eva Su
    .
    Notes…
    I always hope for more juxtaposition – the knot and the family are a great analogue.
    Breadmaking is an enoyable experience, but the family reunion seems more significant, so might be better placed as the first line, although shaping dough/into a knotted loaf works as an opening as it pulls the ku into two parts instead of what reads like three.
    In terms of haiku brevity, dough and loaf are tautological, but the extra word is worth the assonance.

    1. This one stood out to me as well so thought I would add on here instead. I imagined the gathering around the bread shaping, but the knot in the first line set me up for maybe a complicated family reunion. But then most are.

  10. Will leave comments after work but wanted to correct my monoku that should have been all lower case so first and last words are the same. I was apparently in a rush to leave town for a much needed holiday.
    *
    chill in the morning hot chocolate
    .
    Debbie Scheving

  11. Andrew’s fair –
    gentle union of lips
    with cotton candy
    Ivanka Kostantino

    The raucous energy of a crowd at the fair hovers around this delightful observation of silently appreciative lips discovering the unique texture of cotton candy. Mmmm!

  12. he uses gourmet words
    on his first date
    she swallows without tasting

    Anjali Warhadpande

    love the character contrast he’s smooth and she’s rough and raw.

    1. Fun to read the different views. My first read was she was too nervous to really enjoy the gourmet meal. If it was a huge difference in food appreciation this date may be their last!

  13. just enough give
    through the leathery skin
    ripe avocado

    Kathleen Mazurowski

    yes! shopping by touch! why i must do it myself.
    ready for guac!

  14. christmas eve
    cookie crumbs
    stuck to my feet

    Rich Schilling
    Webster Groves, MO

    Good follow for theme….and the answer to: Why does Santa wear boots?

  15. soggy baklava
    I lick the syrup
    down my hand

    Madhuri Pillai

    I relate well to your “baklava” experience.
    every baklava i have ever devoured …was capable of dripping its syrup (citrusy honey) down my hand… and my arms.
    So….i question the “soggy” need to be there.
    yes…in other cultures they may make it dry and crispy….but then there is nothing to drip at all.

    1. Thanks Wendy for your comment, my perfect baklava should retain its crispness, without the pastry getting soggy with too much syrup. Well, in the end, each to her own taste.

      1. we are on the same page, Madhuri…..the crispy is in the filo/ phyllo dough layers
        i add the syrup to top layer only, after baking. this way the dough doesn’t absorb it….but it can still drip off from the top….without the inside getting soggy. if your portion is soggy perhaps too much oil or butter/ghee was used to bake the dough.

        what i was trying to say, is that there are two sensory items in your poem….and that the sticky drip is enough for me….and that is the one i associate with this pastry delight. focusing one to me make it more powerful.

  16. The food of the heart
    and a seanse of touch
    on the riverbank.

    Refika Dedić
    Bosna I Hercegovina

    *
    romantic and mysteriously intriguing

  17. turmeric –
    mother’s fingerprints
    on the cookbook

    arvinder kaur
    Chandigarh, India

    tenderly touching me softly!

  18. second thoughts –
    reaching out to gut the fish
    I touch a rainbow

    Susan Rogers

    love the image here, Susan….
    love it even more with just the to last lines:

    reaching out
    to gut the fish
    i touch a rainbow

    1. “two” not to.

      talking about two…..
      shortly after i submitted this week’s poem for the theme of touch,,,,
      i got two emails from amazon….with ads for salt water t – – – y….
      my poem was not protected by using microsoft explorer browser to enter the haiku foundation’s form. this never happened when i used mozzilla firefox! Has anyone experienced this as well?

  19. Dear Lori Zajkovisky and Kathrine Munro,
    Many thanks for including mine. Privileged indeed. One of my favorites, the following, takes us into many a read into the haiku.

    finger’s food…
    back
    to the origins

    Rosa Maria Di Salvatore

  20. Many good ones here, but I liked Arvinder Kaur’s ‘mother’s fingerprints’ the most…
    Anitha.

  22. Sacred bread, almost universal in importance. There were several poems this week about the feel of dough, and I liked Vandana Parashar’s especially, setting the scene in the first line, and the following two for the warmth of greeting through touch, feeling and love.
    .
    homecoming
    the flour on mom’s hands
    now on my cheeks

    1. Thanks, Ingrid, for appreciation.
      A wonderful selection of poems as usual. Absolutely loved Arvinder’s turmeric marks.

  23. So many great ones! I’ll focus on my three favorites:
    midnight pantry raid
    I feel my way
    to the cookie jar Michelle L. Harvey Great image, I can see this happening
    mudpie-
    a warm rain cleans
    my fingers Pris Campbell This one just feels so good!
    turmeric-
    mother’s fingerprints
    on the cookbook arvinder kaur A very loving touch on a well-used cookbook. I still have my mother’s favorite old cookbook…

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