Milk - by
Your custom often
/ when the house was still
/
/ to brew milky coffee
/ and reminisce.
/
/ Child care experts would have frowned
/ on my late hours,
/
/ The bitter…
poems on postcards
from A hyakuin renga in summer - by
shrivelled little figs
/ that never made it
/ to the table
/
/ swirling a late cup of milky tea
/ what she’d like…
A Child’s Calendar of Feasts - by
September
/ Peel some hazelnuts while they’re still green. Our grapes can hang another day.
/
/ October
/ Take these walnuts next door. Tell them we…
The Picnic - by
In a little rainy mist of white and grey
/ we sat under an old tree,
/ drank tea toasts to the powdery mountain,
/ undrunk…
Grandpa’s Soup - by
No one makes soup like my Grandpa’s,
/ with its diced carrots the perfect size
/ and its diced potatoes the perfect size
/ and its…
Clone Machine - by
What if we could make clones of ourselves?
/ You wouldn’t have to go to school
/ You could just send your clone
/ All you’d…
Pushing forty - by
Just before winter
/ we see the trees show
/ their true colours:
/ the mad yellow of chestnuts
/ two maples like blood sisters
/ the orange beech
/ braver than…
in hospital - by
I like seeing nurse frieda knitting
/ as I like watching my wife knitting
/ as I liked watching my mother knitting
/ though she was…
Foundation - by
‘What would you put in the foundation stone
/ for future generations?’ ‘A horseshoe,
/ a ballet shoe, a horseshoe crab, a sea-horse,
/ a sheriff’s…
The Voyage - by
And if or when the people’s surge subsides
/ to tourist trickles from this present spate,
/ do not relax or quietly desiccate,
/ do not…
Scotch Astrology - by
Omen
/ In the gloamin.
Charlotte - by
C is like an egg cracked in half for a cake
/ H is like a ladder climbing up to a fire…