Some random non-traditional haikus

A dewdrop sparkles
the sunshine smiles on it
the dewdrop disappears

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The first shark of summer
took its prey, one swimmer's
summer's final day

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Hand to hand, the one-armed man
applauded wildly
with his one-armed friend

[ The sound of one hand clapping... ]

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The sound of one hand slapping
enlightened her
enough for her to leave

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There was a pin-drop silence
after he asked
the obvious question

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A multitude arrives
but few survive,
Darwin's favoured season

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In your cake, you found
a lucky coin -
that Christmas was your last

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Ants carry a butterfly's wing,
summer's beauty, stored as
winter's food

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What did your face look like
before you were born-
again, Christian

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I can't complete the puzzle
a piece is missing: I am missing
you

Adrift

This is another one from a few years back...

Drifting

Drifting is easy
Driven by winds,
Or borne along by currents
Not resisting
Rudderless
Going in any direction
Going nowhere

A day of drifting
the swirling eddies
sweeping you along
innocuously

A week,
a month of drifting
Not a care
in the world
Then a year
A decade
A lifetime

Drifting to that
other shore
having gone
nowhere

Like Magic

This poem is about the same girl I wrote about in Naked Beauty (though some of the imagery reminds me a little of the fiddler in Celtic Woman, who danced barefoot as she played.)

Like Magic

There was a touch
of the houdini
in her

while those around her
settled in the snug, smug comfort
of their strait-jackets

she escaped
dancing her
wild freedom
singing her
wild joy

they couldn't understand
seeing their
strait-jackets
as life-jackets
protecting them from
doing what they feared
(and even deeper down:
desired)

yes, there was a touch
of the houdini
in her
and even more so
when she shed
her last restraint

and disappeared.

Snowflakes

This one again is from a long time ago and is kind of 'rhymy', as well as a bit cliche...I guess the only original aspect of it is the marrying of uniqueness and transience together...plus it's almost in sonnet form!

Snowflakes

I've never seen a snowflake
I've heard that no two are the same
which means when one has melted
that its like is never seen again

It's frozen lace will turn to drip
a trail along the frosted glass,
we'll hardly even notice it
before it spiderwebs its last.

And so it is with those we meet,
the snowflake lives, that on the street
pass by, are never seen again,
a transient uniqueness then

evaporating in life's heat,
as evanescent as the sleet.

One sentence summary

To sum it all up in one American Sentence:

After I put my foot in my mouth,
I ended up kicking myself

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Evictus

This poem is about the same thing as The Road to Hell, but the more I think about it, the more I think that sometimes something has to be completely demolished and the rubble cleared away for something better to emerge. But demolition and clearing take time and even then maybe nothing will end up being built...

(and notice how the rhyme scheme is different in the 2nd last stanza vs the rest of the poem!)

Evictus

It started as a house of fun
But rooms just vanished, one by one
Till we were trapped in one small room
As dark and airless as a tomb

We stepped on toes, it was so small
Until we barely spoke at all
Until one day as I had feared
That room completely disappeared

It was just like when it began
A cold and empty piece of land

One day perhaps we could rebuild
Make something good from something ill
A place with much more elbow-room
But not right now, nor even soon

we need to stretch, we need to see
what happened didn't need to be
each needs to cut the other slack
to cautiously find some way back

   Things ended with such bitterness
   that silent text-and-email fight,
   perhaps I hope too much I guess
   that I could somehow make things right.

A vacant lot remains it seems
with broken glass of shattered dreams
weeds overgrown, and the flowers dead
from things I wish I'd left unsaid.

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University poems using random words

By popular demand (by friends I used to work at the University with) here are some of the little poems I wrote when I worked there. When things were light on and we were bored, my friends would send me a little list of three or more unrelated words and I'd make up a poem using them...

Here are two of the better ones:

#1:

Word list: Einstein, Lady Godiva, equator, saliva

Einstein was quite impressed
When he saw Lady Godiva
His eyes were bright, his tongue hung out
all coated with saliva

And tho' the Lady knocked him back
He knew he couldn't hate her,
because he was so taken with
the sight of her equator

#2:

Word list: antelope, elope, chocolate, feathers, elusive

A rooster loved an antelope
He wanted her to wed
But she said to him: "We can't elope,
because we have no bed"

Nor chocolates, nor flow'rs, nor jew'ls
Would ever change her mind
It 'twas a bed or nothing
for that daft elusive hind.

And so the rooster plucked himself
With feathers to construct
A bed which would enable him,
His antelope to f**k

But his new strange appearance
Made the antelope quite sick
A naked chook? No second look
She gave that cock the flick.