Tag: haiku

Moving

IMG_9960

Moving

(for BKB)

Our kitchen clock has ticked,
time to pack up,
time to clear out,
cardboard boxes,
still life on the living room floor.
A full-stop.
Another paragraph written.

This house has done its work.
Candles burnt.
We were here,
a joint composition,
major and minor keys,
melody,
atonality,
dissonance,
harmony.
Unfinished symphony.

More than poetry.
Infinity of haiku
silent rooms between
characters.
On this stage,
we voiced parts,
fashioned scripts,
co-authors.

I’ve written my way through this house,
stepped beyond the deck,
out into a backyard
to trees and stream
underneath snow.
(Memories in parentheses)
Our kitchen, hearth of home,
chairs, a shrunken table,
furniture that made space grow.

Chicken noodle soup from a can,
potato chips,
grapes,
milk from a carton,
silver spoons,
our last supper.
I don’t know where we’ll eat tomorrow.

Never known the next phrase,
the sentence to come,
the chapter after this,
the story’s conclusion.

Like a hummingbird’s nest,
where we eat, drink, love, grow, sing,
shall we weave together twigs,
plant fibers,
bits of larch leaves,
shall we thread spider silk to bind our nest
together
and anchor
to another forked branch.

To select poems for a reading requires courage

I’m feeling the fear.

I have to decide which poems to read on Friday evening in Ennis County Clare.

I introduce the reading in Poet’s Corner at 8pm.

By then, I must reject most of the poems – especially several with which I’m besotted.

Sitting in my kitchen in Cork, staring at pages, wielding a scissors,

reluctant to plunge pretty poems into recycling

– I need to procrastinate.

Crowd-source the problem.

Ask the opinion of others.

Be open-minded.

Let the Universe decide.

Out-source the angst to my Guardian Angel.

Wish I had only 13 poems fit for human ears.

Maybe I’ll drop a pile of pages over the bannisters – and pick those that land on top.

How the hell can I tell which ones the audience might love?

I’m not going there to please the audience – surely?

It’s not as if I have a book to sell.

[Let them go to Kindle Store]

Integrity, authenticity, veracity

I am an artist – that means I must ignore the urgings of others.

I must purge myself of any impulse to avoid personal responsibility.

I must be true to my self.

Welcome indecision, welcome mixed feelings, hug the living daylights out of discomfort.

Think of all the brazen bastards who’ve never held a haiku, nor snogged a sonnet.

Maybe I’ll crumple 50 into a sack and get a blindfold woman to sink her fingers in?

Trust anything other than myself.

At least it’s only Tuesday.

I thought I had a plan.