Haiku from Issa's Snail

Today kipple samples some of the great poets contributing to interactive renku site Issa's Snail (see link to the right)



two worn Oxfords
all that's left of father
in the wardrobe

~

a heron's meal
interrupted by
a teenage jet-ski

~

one strand
carries a spider
weightless


Joseph Mueller



trying her name
ending with his -
the pen runs dry

~

Christmas Eve -
stepping into
a stranger's footprint

~

heat haze
she runs up waving
a fan shell


Sandra Simpson



rainforest –
should I listen to bellbirds
or the currawong?

~

the stray tomcat
tries a kitten’s voice –
winter dusk

~

winter fly –
my death poem
unwritten


Lorin Ford

Two Haiku - Gina

a little cloud
drifts from its mob –
sheep on the hill


~


the cat’s reflection
nods back –
empty fishpond


Gina
http://blumoon13.wordpress.com/
First Published in Gean Tree Press

Separation - Stuart Barnes

Separation

As if echoing feverish
prayer, she held the black comb
to her temple, fought to drag it
through the knots
and ampersands. She
stopped, stared into the glass,
and cracked my eyes,
and cried, "Tomorrow!" -
touched the baroque pearls
wetting her neck, and stepped into
crisp new blacks.

Stuart Barnes
http://www.pool.org.au/text/stuart_barnes/the_fourth_floor

Bite - Graham Nunn

Bite

how close a minute ago had been
young girl in the sand
pulling off wet clothes
red on white
beautiful but for the horror of the moment
the frenzied tide
pulling out and around
as the people piled up
a simple example
of twenty-first century fascination
the screaming hell of flesh
humanity's reaching arms
sand sticks to everything.

Graham Nunn
http://grahamnunn.wordpress.com/

The Measure of All Things - Ros McFarlane

The Measure of All Things

Man has made himself
the measure of all things.

Stars are measured by the distance
from him.
Mountains are conquered
in feet.
Oceans are only as deep
as his ships can travel down.
Sunlight is dissected
into manageable portions
of sleeping, waking and working hours.

Animal intelligence
is compared to his.
Infrared and ultraviolet light
to colours visible through his eye.

Women measure their intelligence,
assets, education, prospects,
by his ideal;
and find themselves lacking or overachievers.

Man has even made himself
the measure of love
with “normal” (heterosexual)
“aberrant” (homosexual)
and “erotica” (hot lesbians).

But when man has even
measured God in relation to himself
(an outdated, primitive concept)
what is there left to measure up to?

Ros McFarlane

Your Mother's Hands - Vanessa Page

Your Mother’s Hands

In the kitchen

you are slicing fruit

with hands

that remind you

of your mother


Deliberate,

and lined

they betray you


So too,

these beginnings

of crow’s feet

and pursed lips


as you hover over

autumnal hued

laminex


Careful, for

the influence

is catching


First the hands,

second, the

confused diplomacy


a tapping foot

closed gestures

the economic effort


We are all reinventions;

skin, papered

over skin

Vanessa Page
http://www.ipswichpoetryfeast.com.au/2008/winnersother_4.htm#hc4

Gone, with the Wind - Ian C Smith

Gone, with the Wind

Like the wind we find a way
past prised planks. It pierces gaps
in the copper roof left by thieves.
The patin a of verdigris was our landmark
the colour of a lime milkshake.
Broken glass stains the aisle, soaked and still
all these years after that day’s excess.
Puffed-up pigeons gossip in the groins.
Before the altar the massive organ
has been overturned in a puddle.

They war, enemies without and within.
They conceive, are bereaved, never cede
victory despite the constant counting.
Sex is one bare luxury, extra rations
on a Saturday night after standing
in the double-decker to The Gaumont
to see Margaret Mitchell’s lurid fable.
‘Frankly, I don’t give a damn’
seems a throwaway line to savour
passing the air-raid siren, Dad as Clark Gable.

Ian C Smith
http://www.cordite.org.au/poetry/ian-c-smith-your-hair-was-so-yellow