Poems to remember from 2011 - Final day(day 9).

between sun and shade
a butterfly pauses
like none I've seen -
whoever falls in love
with someone they know?

Michael McClintock

The final few in my list of this year's best. Not sure why I like them... I don't even want to try! All that i know is I'll keep coming back to them.

Dear Malvina
It's been a long time since we It's already autumn here...
lonely evening

Rafal Zabratynski





lonely is a place
inside
the call of a loon

Francine Banwarth




yoshino cherry tree -
it was never a question of
if

Johannes S H Bjerg

Thanks to all of you, my friend and readers, for stopping by and commenting. You make all this worthwhile. Here's wishing you a glorious new year and hope to meet you here again soon.

Poems to remember - Day 8, medley

I know I had promised some longer poems, (for those of you who like longer poems). I had planned to feature poems on some more themes.I also needed to do a post totally devoted to haiga, if I were to do justice to all the beautiful haiga i have read this year. But being time-strapped as I am, these posts would have to wait probably till some time in next year. Today I bring you a few poems which definitely are among my best of 2011, but which I had missed somehow... and even then I'll be missing many more!

in ten summers
the convict's first visit
dragonfly

Johny Baranski





1 from a bridge
2 with a bullet
that kind of a family

Eve Luckring




Father's day
his wheel tracks
in the carpet

Michelle Schaefer






tree stumps
father never needed
poetry

Glenn Coats





towing
a rainbow
baby duck


Carlos Colon




today slips
into the room hungry
on tiny paws

angie werren

(this one as a haiga with a beautiful image on Tinywords, issue 11.2, 19th October, 2011)




rushing thoughts...
the speckled breast
of this thrush

Kirsten Kliff





the documents
all signed
winter rain

Roland Packer






crashing waves -
almost believing
it's forever

Svetlana Marisova







outside :
a war, inside:
a death,
and you want me
to choose...

Kirsten Kliff

Interview on Red Dragonfly

Melissa Allen had interviewed me for her series Lives of poets on Red Dragon fly in December, 2011. You can read the interview here.

Poems to remember - Day 7, memories

I've this memory -
riding my father's shoulders
into the ocean,
the poetry of things
before I could speak


Michael McClintock

I am not sure how to describe the theme of today's group of poems. Should it be 'memories', 'parents' or 'loss'? The above poem by Michael McClintock kind of captures the mood.

where my father fished...
I drop a line
into the sky


Gregory Hopkins






eggshells fragments
what I know of the mother
I've never known

Melissa Spur





far-off owl...
the phantom scent
of father's pipe

John Hawk




charcoal on my fingers
mother explains the plan
for her ashes

Aubrie Cox




soapsuds -
mother tells me how
she'd like to die


Margaret Dornaus





twilight
father asks
if I hear
the chimes

Glenn Coats





bathing in its own light
the moon
...those who are gone

Steven Carter

Poems to remember from 2011 - day 6, flowers and blossoms

"The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks." ~Tennessee Williams

So shall we go picking the blossoms and flowers today? (Though I must admit to a personal preference for the wildflowers!)

abandoned building site wildflowers in progress

Melissa Allen




every spring
a little more alone
wild violets

Melissa Allen




old sage's desk...
just enough space
for violets

L.Costa




the old hurts
resurfacing -
bluebell sky


Sandra Simpson





night blooming jasmine
some prefer whiskey
to chamomile tea

Marian Olson





pear blossoms...
which one of these houses
was yours?

Laura Garrison




plum tree
only
when it blooms

Alegria Imperial





mellowing...
the slam dunk of blossoms
through the rusted hoop

Claire Everett





another biopsy -
plucking at the flowers
of my hospital gown

Cara Holman




snowdrops
or butterflies
every place
every season
is perfect

Christina Nguyen

I know I am missing many other lovely haiku here, especially because I'm yet to go through the latest issues of NFTG and AHG fully. This only skims the surface of my memory.

North star obscured...
wild honeysuckle somewhere
in the dark

Peggy Willis Lyles

Poems to remember from 2011 - Day 5, snow and solstice

Starting right where I left off yesterday...with Issa's poem about night snow...perhaps it would be fitting to have "snow and solstice" as today's theme. Such wonderful haiku have been written in the past year on snow that i had a hard time picking only a few. The last one by David Cobb, however, was written much earlier.

snow
flake by flake
bending bamboo

kris moon




trying to forget...
the ridge line sharpened
by fresh snow

Harriot West

Solstice breeze
in the cedars
crows becoming fog

Rebecca Lilly





winter solstice
cradled in between
the north and south of him

Karen DiNobile

drip by drip
the moonlight lengthens
in the icicle

David Cobb

Poems to remember from 2011 - Day 4, dusk

Twilight, dusk, night.Haiku poets, since the time of Basho, have always reveled in this period after sunset.The poems I bring you today are based on this theme - "dusk".

open window
a mockingbird song
the length of twilight

Christopher Herold




beer and wine
a summer night
with my sometime thing

David Caruso





sparrows at the edge
of summer dusk ...
how will I remember her

Francine Banwarth

(I am not sure this one could be called a dusk haiku though!)

closing time
winter dusk slides down
the book drop

Roberta Beary





whispering the darkness between fireflies

Laura Garrison





blue razor
on the tub's edge
winter dusk

Joyce Clement





threading the needle
one star pierces
the night


Michelle Schaefer









sound of the ocean
north of the fence...
night snow

Issa, 1803

Poems to remember from 2011 - Day 3, birds

A bird sang, everyone listened. The sermon is preached, said the master. Thus goes a zen saying.

So shall we have""birds" as today's theme?

Let's start with this tanka.

reaching the age
of being ignored
what sweet delight
when a mockingbird
answers my call



Margaret Chula

I know i featured this next one in a previous post also, but this simply has to find a place among my best of 2011.

mehndi
from wrists to fingertips...
last of the swallows

Claire Everett



testing the water
through rings of raindrops
the egret's steps


Claire Everett




where creek willows weave the sunlight ducklings

Lorin Ford





how his day went robins at dusk


Jennifer Gomoll Popolis , Acorn, spring 2011





blue highway--
curve
of the blackbird's song


Bill Pauly (Modern haiku, winter 2011)




white sky
a cloud of blackbirds
erupts from an oak

Laura Garrison




scarecrow
birds
anyway


Michele L Harvey

And finally these two ,

day moon the little grebe's leap into light

John Barlow, 2010

all day long
this fever
hummingbird

Peggy Willis Lyles, 2010

Poems to remember from 2011 - Day 2, autumn

'Autumn', 'falling leaves', 'red leaves', these have always been favourite subjects of haiku poets.
Today i bring you 8 poems on this theme (I know i said 2 or 3 poems every day, but what can i do when so many lovely poems have been written on autumn leaves and i want to catch every single one of them?). Some from this year, some were written earlier.

So here we go.

not much
...and yet
my autumn

Gabi Greve
Editor's choice, December issue of World Haiku Review

leaves changing a language i can't fully grasp

-Polona Oblak

autumn leaves...
learning
I'm dispensable

-Francine Banwarth

one face
then the other...
falling leaf

-Mark E Brager



leaf
fall
i
keep
saying
no


Melissa Allen

autumn riff
aspen leaves a few notes higher
than the stream

Harriot West, Frogpond 32:1, 2009

into the afterlife red leaves   

     —Peggy Willis Lyles

And lastly, this tanka,

What is it you fear,
now that autumn is ending?
We two still have time
to bring in the last parsley,
and rake walnuts from the grass.

Jared Carter

poems to remember from 2011 -Day 1

Less than two weeks to go in this year! While i have been busy haiku-ing and haiga-ing, work has been piling up. Dust has gathered on the window-sills, there are cobwebs high up on the ceiling and soon there are going to be a couple more faces across the table and clamour for a few more dishes or dessert. Time to step back for a while , take a few deep breaths and get busy with the broom. And as i go about setting the house in order, i think it might be a good idea to go back over and share with you some of the beautiful poetry i have read this year. Like, I bring you here two or three poems everyday throughout the remainder of this month. Most of them will be haiku, maybe some tanka, and a few might be even longer poems.Not all of them will have been written this year (though the majority will be), only those i have READ this year.Many of you will have read them before, but there is no harm in going over them yet again and maybe it could help you make up your mind about which poems to nominate for the Touchstone awards, because as i said, a majority will be from the various journals and blogs of this year!

So shall we begin today?

Let's say today's theme is "love" or "love gone wrong", whichever way you'd like to look at it.

I start with a haiku/senryu from 'Frogpond'., 34.3, 2011

pinwheeling leaves
thirty-five years end
with the word amicable


Dave Baldwin

Vikram Seth, by his own admission, has been considered sort of a 'literary untouchable' because he writes poetry in rhyme and metre. But that has been no problem for me at least, and the next

poem, a slightly longer one, is by him.

Unclaimed


To make love with a stranger is the best.
There is no riddle and there is no test -


To lie and love,not aching to make sense
Of this night in the mesh of reference.


To touch,unclaimed by fear of imminent day,
And understand, as only strangers may.


To feel the beat of foreign heart to heart
Preferring neither to prolong nor part.


To rest within the unknown arms and know
That this is all there is; that this is so.

Vikram Seth

And finally, another one from Frogpond, 34.3 :

And yet
deep in the dewdrop
you



Michele Root-Bernstein

Vikram Seth is a noted poet, novelist, travel writer and the winner of Crossword Book award in 1999.

photo prompt

winter rain-

the old wharf still holds

the boat's shape

all that I want

all that I want
to tell you tonight...
glass bangles

Acorn,
Spring, 2011

Photo prompt by Carlos Colon

Before i start today's post, i'd like to thank all my 5 followers for joining my blog and giving me a patient hearing. There are some of you who visit and comment,(and how i value you) but haven't joined yet, and there are quite a few of you who visit regularly , but don't comment and hence i have no idea about your identity, but i am grateful to you. too.Please consider joining through the Google friend connect even if you don't have a blog as that would give this blog a healthy look (you don't want your friend's blog to look impoverished, do you?) and give me a legitimate excuse to post more.And if you do have a blog, i'll immediately return the favour by joining your blog, that is, if i haven't done so already!

So thanks a ton, Claire, Kirsten, Rick, Ted Zutphen and Don Wentworth.

Now to the post.

The last day(30th November) of Carlos Colon's prompt at NaHaiWriMo turned out to be very interesting. He provided a photo and we had to write a ku based on it. I found the picture really fascinating and you can see my response below.

through the looking glass -
the sunlit path
to home

But there were many other excellent responses.
For example, here is what Pamela Cooper felt.

the sun
skipping with
the tree's shadow

warm path buried knuckles clutch the walking stick

Terri L French

this calm day I brace for the storm

Angie Warren

bend over backwards or bow low anything to please you

Johannes S H Bjerg

This one was done in a very nice way, with the text bending with the branches, but i could not post the image here.




And finally this one which takes the cake, i think.

parents too
bend over backwards...
autumn winds

-Hansha Teki

Stella Pierides is the prompter for December and I am looking forward to another exciting month with her.