danger on peaks

travel poetry. haibun style. his use of common speech patterns, either u like it or u don't.

Loose on Earth

....
Humanity,
said Jeffers, is like a quick

explosion on the planet
we're loose on earth
half a million years
our weird blast spreading –

and after,
rubble - millennia to weather,
soften, fragment,
sprout, and green again

Heron's Nest 2007

Hmm. Felt a bit let down by this much vaulted collection. The selection here is pretty uneven, sometimes leaning towards mediocrity. The winners, expectedly, do measure up.



buffalo bones
wind less than a whisper
in the summer grass

— Chad Lee Robinson


circle of lamplight —
I complete the baby quilt
begun for me

— Carolyn Hall



silted river
an old doe turns
to face the flow

— John Barlow

Gotta..

I got to kickstart my writing again. Somehow, it's difficult for me to switch from work mode to writing mode and back again. A clear mind and a relaxed setting are missing crucial elements right now. A 5-day work week is too much for me. Kudos to the forking French for picketing their way to a 4-4.5 days-more-reasonable work week.

Black & White

There's something about black and white photography that gives portraits so much depth, ambiguity and opens up to a whole lot of possible meanings and interpretations. Very haiku-like.

Before Banksy....

there was Blek le Rat, probably the father of pochoir - stencil street art - in the graffiti world. And who says grafitti is only for young punks. This guy has been around for more than 30 years, and is still going on strong. He also brought poster art into the graffiti world, mostly because he needed to get past the police.

Tango in Paris -
his breath, warm
on my parted lips.

softness of her satin dress
on my inner thigh










That lamb, everywhere...
wintry sidewalk
in New York.

a note on Tanka

I am still exploring this form and trying to acquire more knowledge about it. Compared to its shorter cousin haiku, tanka lags far behind in terms of international popularity and general appreciation of it. Tanka in English also does not possess as long a history as haiku, although many haiku poets do dabble in tanka on the side and this has probably created greater awareness of its presence in the Engish language world. The Tanka Society of America, I found out, was only established in 2000; haiku is celebrating its 100th year anniversary in the West.

Acorn No.20 Spring 08

Woo hoo~ Spring is in. Can't wait for the Autumn issue!

There's something about Tanka....

Hmm. Tanka doesn't really work for me. It's longer form is supposed to allow more space for development of the poet's emotions but I just feel that I have too much space to play with. I wonder if it's usual to find it difficult to switch between tanka and haiku? Haiku and Senryu, yes. Haiku and Haibun, yes. But somehow, tanka is harder to grasp. And I still enjoy the rigorous discipline of objectivity that haiku demands.

Anyhow, Sir (I just gave him that title) Makoto Ueda has again done an excellent job in producing this work. His translations pay much attention to nuances and the unsaid. His Japanese sensibilities are very much sharper than his peers'.

Iron Press

Collection of haiku entries for one of the largest haiku events staged in the UK. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Random Stuff

Memory getting fried. Cannot remember to do stuff that I just remembered a while ago (like 30 secs ago). Operating in sort of a zombie-like state. Forwarding stuff that I shouldn't be (this is the worst part). This general feeling of sian-ness settling in slowly.


Shipment of books arrived, from dear Silvanus and also random ones from Amazon, Acorn, red moon press, brooks books etc. Got a lot of reading to do. I am tired, I have no time, I don't feel settled.