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.