Haiku & Selected Poems Volume I Read online


Copyright

  Haiku & Selected Poems Volume 1

  Copyright Richard Kay 2014

  Revised 24/2/17

  Richard Kay asserts his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998 to be identified as the author of this work.

  Cover photograph by Richard Kay

  Cover Design by my good friend Robert Baines

  www.designbybertrude.co.uk

  Dedication

  To my daughter Eleanor

  Through your eyes I see the world anew which is a precious gift, thank you.

  Contents

  Haiku

  Tanka

  Selected Poems

  Haiku

  the journey

  travelling along a curved path

  departing, returning

  *****

  the path,

  now a stream

  flows

  *****

  yellow stars

  in a field of green,

  the night sky

  *****

  wriggling droplet

  water merging, separating

  down the window

  *****

  black of night

  a flash of white

  susurration, rumble

  *****

  black branches sway

  brown earth and russet leaves

  the emerald green shoot

  *****

  heavy morning mist

  half of Hallamshire Hospital,

  gone

  *****

  eye pressure high

  sight could be lost,

  how vivid the snowdrops

  *****

  the spring wind

  leaves twisting rapidly

  lime, emerald, lime, emerald

  *****

  sun on its surface,

  meandering through the sward

  a thousand blinding stars

  *****

  fat wood pigeon

  evergreen branch bent low

  whistling wings depart

  *****

  the log burns away

  moisture rises darkening cloud

  young sapling

  *****

  slug trails,

  across the kitchen floor

  raiding the fridge once more

  *****

  in the darkness,

  I turn on the light

  the sun shines forth

  *****

  sun shining in an azure sky

  hail falls bouncing ahead

  where is the hailbow

  *****

  ducks grazing,

  bottoms held high

  waggling feet

  *****

  rain on the water

  scattered concentric circles

  sliding over the fall

  *****

  new growth,

  on the swaying trees

  celadon buds ready to unfurl

  *****

  asphalt path

  pink carpet of blossom

  the aroma

  *****

  the young leaves

  buds on the swaying trees,

  make me sneeze

  *****

  blue sky ahead

  black clouds behind,

  rain receding

  *****

  droning bees,

  in the trees

  blossoms drained

  *****

  a vivid pink cloud

  in a blink turns grey,

  wonders of early day

  *****

  pink petals

  falling from the blue

  no tree

  *****

  I don’t want to

  powerful words

  in the mouth of a toddler

  *****

  her father has died,

  one day too

  my daughter will feel this

  *****

  my daughter brings me

  a delicious cherry pie,

  a turtle mould full of sand

  *****

  the car slid sideways

  darkness, a wall looming

  in the back, we locked eyes

  *****

  as I pass, pounding, grating

  the jackhammer scrapes the asphalt

  my teeth ache

  *****

  a large lady in a tight dress,

  strides confidently past

  people smirking behind her back

  *****

  scurrying in the rain

  heads bent low

  the faster, the wetter

  *****

  prisons more like schools,

  schools more like prisons

  the home a fortress

  *****

  the tinted world

  slides sideways, then drops

  oh my lens

  *****

  her mini skirt floats

  on the spring breeze

  as does my stomach

  *****

  I realise I am dreaming

  landscape so vivid, great joy

  I decide to fly

  *****

  in suits and ties

  so serious talking, talking

  a job

  *****

  the kitchen in summer

  bowl adorned with Christmas penguins

  abandoned and forlorn

  Tanka

  stars light and heat

  could strip me of all my meat

  but without its glow

  shinning on, naught could grow

  beating down, naught would flow

  *****

  one job

  two jobs, three jobs more

  the more jobs I do

  the more jobs it seems there are

  drowning, drowning evermore

  Selected Poems

  Dreams

  Realising it’s a dream I become lucid,

  I reach up to a cloud shaped like cupid.

  A rush of excitement - joy courses through me,

  I scoop a handful, close to see.

  So fluffy and soft, feeling calm,

  I hold it gently in my arm.

  Trine

  Not with sword and bow,

  did they defeat their foe.

  But with plank and box

  the enemy they did outfox.

  WWII

  The world’s second war.

  Chosen to fight,

  fighting fire.

  Bombs dropping from above,

  unexploded bombs below.

  City of Steel hard pressed.

  Collapsed buildings rumble,

  fires roar.

  Engines ring.

  The biting heat,

  then a flood of cooling balm

  quenching the terrible harm

  Bewildered people stagger

  from smoky ruins,

  tattered and torn.

  A helping hand

  reaches through the dark.

  You are not alone.

  Modern Warfare

  If you can operate this computer,

  you can operate this missile, it’s the future.

  We’ve made firing missiles,

  like a game, they travel miles.

  No more will you have to slip and slide,

  in the blood of your foe, as they try to hide.

  Grappling face to face sword in hand,

  this of you, we would never demand.

  Why all the war and destruction?

  Money, it acts like suction.

  Click, click – pause,

  boom, boom, canned applause.

  A soothing voice, ' you have now reached your . . ',

&n
bsp; 'destroyed your desti . . beep . . target' oh the gore!

  Banking

  We’ve made it easy

  when we give it to you,

  it’s just numbers on a screen.

  When we take it from you,

  just numbers from a dream.

  It’s so easy now,

  you’ll barely notice as it goes,

  on this and that and those.

  Are you sure you ever really had it?

  Who knows?

  Mobile Fun

  Pay as you go?

  We want you to pay,

  but we don’t want you to go.

  So we’ve made it slow,

  to pay on the go

  and so expensive to talk, what a blow!

  How about a contract instead,

  five hundred free texts,

  only thirty pounds a month on the head.

  You must stay with us for a year or more

  ‘I thought you said free texts?’

  Oh and we'll tie you into our store.

  But there’s more,

  you can surf the web for free!

  Only thirty pounds a month, maybe more.

  Then you can watch video clips online, not bad?

  You’ll like the one of our CEO on his yacht,

  it’s our new ad!

  Boo

  He went by the name of Boo,

  there was nothing more he liked to do,

  than to eat lots of badger poo

  Then when he came upon a fox loo,

  he just could not walk past that poo

  how he loved to role in doo doo

  When he came upon a dead bird

  what he would do was quite absurd

  to see it could make milk curd

  His idea of bath?

  Well that was quite daft

  For lying in a muddy river,

  he thought was rather clever

  For dirt and mess,

  Boo thought was the best.

  ###

  Dear Reader,

  If you enjoyed this book of poems, I would really appreciate it if you returned to the website where you downloaded it to add a review. As an independent author your positive reviews mean a lot to me.

  Thank you

  Richard Kay

  About the author

  The author admits that he did not really enjoy poetry all that much when he was at school except for e e cummings who he thought was great. He had a mental image of poets flouncing around in big frilly shirts and swooning over the beauty of buttercups and the like. This really did not draw him to this area of literature.

  However having recently read R H Blyth’s books on Haiku he felt the unexpected urge to give Haiku a go. The author enjoys the brevity of Haiku which can nonetheless portray vivid images, emotions and thoughts. Haiku explores the essential in the trivial and sees significance in the seemingly insignificant. Furthermore after listening to John Lithgow’s audio book on poetry the author even felt moved to give other forms of poetry a try. The author is currently searching online for flouncy shirts and quite likes snowdrops.

  The author lives in a universe, on a planet, in a country, in a city, in a house, in a body, in a universe . . . .

  Should you wish to contact the author his email address is [email protected]

  For more information about future projects and other publications please visit:

  www.richardhaiku.wordpress.com

  https://twitter.com/RichardHaiku

  About this book

  This book contains a selection of Haiku and other poems organised broadly by topic. Some are based on direct observation of the natural world, others are more philosophic in nature, some may be described as social commentary and some may even be described as humorous. The author was recently published in the Spring edition of the World Haiku Review.