train bomb
parts of him watch
parts of him burn
yajushi (Ramvinodh
Marella) IN
*
London blast—
the crying girl looks like me
when I was that age
Origa (Olga
Hooper), US
*
code orange—
canna blossoms above
purple waves of leaf
Nancy Stewart Smith, US
Note: Written just
after the London attacks on 7 July 2005. My orange cannas are in bloom
over their purple foliage but 'purple waves of leaf' also faintly echoes
the lines of the US patriotic song, "O beautiful for spacious
skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties. . ."
Since the London attacks the US has been under the highest alert: code
orange...Purple is often associate with both royalty and mourning.
Elegy to a Poetess
I Have Never Met and I Shall Never Ever Meet Now
Susumu Takiguchi, UK
Dedicated to a
Russian poetess whose intellect, beauty and poetry were cruelly
terminated by early death.
smiling beauty
downloaded cruelly from
the electronic universe
your lips just,
just about to say
something
I shall never know
your complexion
symbolising everything
anathema to death
your eyes seeing
through
the positive’s dominion
over the negative
how can I believe
that this fine human
specimen
is no more?
and yet
she will be buried
today…
Vagankovskoe
instead of crying,
Russian poets six-foot
under
will rejoice
vodka, perhaps not,
but the Russian poets
will dance,
welcoming this beauty
poets across the world
mobilise their good
imagination
to join the Russians
instead of lost years,
haiku poets celebrate
the 39 years
of her precious life
not mysterious, but
your smile as profound
as
that of La Gioconda
so your life
snatched away
physically, but
not your SELF
what a SELF is there
that defies human
frailty,
but shines!
the SELF,
that genuine SELF
Immortalised
am I glorifying her,
she whom I know
not?
am I wallowing
in the grief over
someone
who is a stranger?
but she is not
a stranger to me, any
more than
she is to anyone else
why, why, why?
I know Olga, and Olga
knows her!
which is enough,
enough to know the
enormity
of her loss
the fact
that I didn’t know her
makes it
even more…
even more ‘relevant’
that I mourn for
someone
I do not know
for what does it mean
to know somebody, or
not,
at human levels?
do I know
Mona Lisa? Or,
Komachi?
herein lies the puzzle…
a puzzle between “loves
me” and
“loves me not”
were she alive,
I would have lent her
my ten fingers
to write to her friends
my ten fingers are
idle,
writing idle words and
phrases,
not reviving her
but is she really dead?
what does this mujo
no sekki*
mean?
the poetess
I know not will be
buried
Today
in a cold Moscow
cemetery,
she will be buried
today without
any haiku poets present
if I hold any haiku
meeting
in the country she
comes from,
I shall dedicate it to
her
[Note
1] The word ‘poetess’ is used to transcend political correctness.
[Note
2] ‘mujo no sekki’ is an old Japanese phrase to mean death.
Long Haiku Cycle: The Morecambe Bay
Cockle-Pickers Tragedy 08 February 2004
Susumu Takiguchi, UK
This is a story about
illegal Chinese immigrants in the UK who were driven into becoming
cockle-pickers for survival at their peril, which came tragically true
a pebble on the beach
washed by the winter sea
alongside cockles
I am not
even worth the pebble
on this cold beach
only February,
many thousands miles
away from home
all I do,
picking cockles in the cold
all day long
this Morecambe Bay…
not a place of work but
an open-air prison
ten pence an hour, picking
cockles just to survive below
the subsistence level
wind-swept expanse…
not a land of milk and honey
as I was lured to settle
acute pain
in my chapped hands and feet,
still picking cockles
to avoid fainting,
I scoop some seawater
into my mouth
the disgust
of the seawater
keeps me going
my thoughts
on the memory of my family,
sharing spring water
from the bent position,
I squint to see the gang-master
record something
orange-coloured sacks
stacked high on the sands,
fat with cockles
to forget hunger,
we sing folksongs of home, faint
and blown away by the gale
cold water seeping
from nowhere, making our ankles
ache like burn
the sun still there,
but I feel gloom gathering
in this vastness
my melancholy
and the atmospheric darkness
mingling in the void
sack now full,
strangers and I carry it
to a collecting point
stacks of sacks,
nearly as high as my height,
half submerged
we move
to a new spot, still
picking cockles
now the water
welling up to our knees,
I glance at the supervisor
in gathering darkness,
the gang-master looks away,
flashes of fear in my mind
now virtually impossible
to go on picking cockles,
we stop defiantly
neither working
nor going home, we are stuck
in the rising tide
to our horror,
we realise the sacks of cockles
and the gang-master, gone!
with mounting fear,
we struggle against the rising tide,
cold moon now looking on
in panic,
we become total strangers again,
wading waist-deep for safety
exhaustion
and empty stomach add to
my poor sight
conserving my energy,
I slowly advance toward
the increasing lights
lights on the shore
looking near with their reflections
on the rippling waves
wading in and wading in
still vast water, the distance
looks unchanged
the cold sea water
now chest high, my hopes
begin to sag
all I can do: checking
the direction with the shore lights
and the moon
I half walk and half swim
through what now looks like an eternity,
the near full moon above
my strength finally exhausted,
the game is up, I succumb to the waves
my last letter to home
unwritten
