Haiku & Senryu
Pam Crane
HAIKU & SENRYU
by Pam Crane
Copyright 2017 Pam Crane
Thank you for downloading this free ebook.
CONTENTS
Tiny Scribblings of a Virgo Soul
Wandering, and Seeing -
Switzerland and Italy
North Wales
Yorkshire
Lancashire and the Lakes
Extremely Small Poems
Images of Pain
For Those Loved and Gone
Boxes – 19 Senryu
Views from the Path
Snapshots of a Crane’s life
About Pam Crane
TINY SCRIBBLINGS OF A VIRGO SOUL
My Haiku to you
Are three dry lines of private
Washing in public
Tales tall as bamboo,
Media streams, music groves,
Zip - and are Haiku
Thinking of Haiku -
Dandelion parachutes
Tickle my eyelids
Haiku
Are catching - I sneeze
A small drama
My attention span
too short for frivolity
I make Senryu
I read books backwards
Of course I write
Haiku
America sleeps
Dewdrops on the web, Haiga
A site for sore eyes
Arranging pebbles
Trapping fire in a raindrop
Crafting Senryu
Inner life uncorks
Showering tiny poems
Over the kitchen
Back to Top
WANDERING & SEEING
Photographs in Words
SWITZERLAND AND ITALY
Great grey lake, your hills
yawn from long excursions, towns
wet with souvenirs
( Lake Maggiore 14/7/01)
Volcanic dusk falls
swallows towns flies dark swift feeds
clover's tiny lamps
(by the pool 14/07/01)
Cloud-copying peaks -
Vesuvio, Verzasca,
Veils of Everest
(journey to Milan 19/7/01)
Buffeted, sprayed, joy
Braced for wind over lake - look
How bamboos curtsey!
(Isola de Brissago, on 'Capriola', 20/7/01)
Back to Top
NORTH WALES
The land is getting
Tall. Mountainous trees. Sheep kneel,
Clouds greet ripe heather
(into Snowdonia August 16th 2002)
Betws, Christmas frost
Moonlight over Mercedes
What dizzy arcades!
(18th December 2002 after magic drive!)
Blaenau late - rain, slate,
sleet, waste shale,train hail, Wales wheels
blindly through blue tales
Jigsaw cows, fierce gold
Furze banked high on speedwell sky
The pied house is sold
(Anglesey,Spring 2003)
Silent moor so high
We bump our heads on the sky
If we fall, we die
(returning from Ffestiniog over Migneint, autumn 2003)
Through my eyelids red
Glows then amber then green - dark
Follows. Going home.
(18/06/04-coach from Liverpool)
Winter filigree -
Stack, tree, plant, pylon; by night
Palaces of light
(Runcorn from the M56)
Huge gold sun cloud-crowned
Behind twinkling Runcorn
Crowding birds wing home
(20/01/06-driving back from Liverpool)
Trail-blazing at dusk
Flights west grazing my mountains.
Below, slow lights home.
(20/01/06-driving back from Liverpool)
Wales wild under cloud
Sprinkled with sheep, splashed with cows
Green green grass of home
The frisky sea
BMW sport
White horses
Eyes tuned to rogue stone,
Rock ribbed, curls in cleft strata -
Mind the dragons' teeth!
(Great Orme)
Boy printing the turf
With stolen pieces of a
Stranger's name
(Folk Memorials on the Great Orme)
Silhouette on a
Path to Heaven, happy dog,
The sun goes to bed
Beach-ball -
Blue muscle of sea
Flexing
Larch lace emeralds
In April sun butterflies
Long lake of sapphire
(Llyn Geirionydd 22/4/4)
Spring mountains muffled
Crouch for warmth over wildfire -
Gorse-gold is stunning
(29/04/04-to Anglesey again, cold!)
Bright silhouettes
Succumbing to pier pressure
Small ices dripping
(28/3/04-Llandudno pier)
North, peacock ocean;
Turning South - mountainous Wales
In shimmering waves
(28/3/04-Llandudno pier)
Huddling weather;
Cloud-smoke low in the forest
Breath of nereids
(Conwy valley 15-16/10/04)
April - the colours!
Bluebell sky, Great Orme gorse-lit,
In such peacock sea!
(15/04/05)
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YORKSHIRE
Sheep back to back
Not speaking.
Beware of lambs!
Through the windscreen
A postcard of Ingleborough
No need to stop
Going away -
Watching the evening news
In another room
(27/5/04, Askrigg)
Foxgloves are spotted inside -
Next to the
Couch potatoes
The rapture of May !
Her buttercup thighs spread wide
Swaledale receives us
The Yorkshire Dales -
Dry stone, wagtails, copper beech,
Cow Parsley. Squashed rabbits.
May - white bridal dream,
Ferns, green overarching green,
Gifts of clotted cream
(the Dales, May 2004)
In birthday pink
Great flat drifts from haven to
Heaven of sweet thrift
(Lindisfarne causeway 31/5/04)
Above Glossop
The heavy swell of the moors
Space to stretch the soul
Into the mountains,
Asking the way - the farmer
Stinks of cigarettes
Undulating dusk -
Childhood journeys returning
Village by village
(18/02/05- 17h30, nearly @ Scarborough)
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LANCASHIRE & THE LAKES
Ferry in the rain
Catbells a cauldron, Lodore
And time in spate
(Derwentwater 12/08/04)
Driving through country
In which I long to stand still
And root with the trees
Suddenly drive through
A Simon Palmer painting,
Cathedral of trees
On Bowland summit
Sheep grazing in cloud
Into the unknown
(August 9th 2004)
Honister sunswept
Studded scarlet with rowan
Awe is redefined
(September 23rd 2004)
The poet returns,
Hugge
d by mountains, rain-rapt, past
Roped to the future
(Keswick Aug.5th 2007)
Untame everything -
park to Wilderness, soft ride
to battle-hard sole
(Cumbria 6/8/2007)
Dangerous corner,
Ice-cream van ready to pounce,
Cones all down the road!
(Cumbria 7/8/2007)
youth oblivious
treks Lakeland, grey knees crack,
real folk farm in wonder
(Cumbria 7/8/2007)
Over the high fells
Every hill has its own cloud
Every tree its shade
(to Ullswater 9/8/2007)
We leave. The fells weep.
Keswick goes on without us.
My heart is breaking.
(11/8/2007)
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EXTREMELY SMALL POEMS
The oyster and I
Needing some grit in the shell
Her story my pearl
Madam Many-chins
Insists on salad, and eats
Her husband's last chips
(Grand Hotel 14/07/01)
Thunder on Mountain -
The superior woman
Has sold her TV
Paint in words the rich
Smell of ripe red nectarines,
Fill the room with rot
Watery life hides:
the crab shelters, fish disguise.
The scorpion spies...
When all minds concur
The carp embraces his hook
And the horse his spur
When all words are one,
A saint may take up the sword
And a captive run.
one man breaks away,
His friends may ostracise him yet
conspiracy fails
The child is crying.
Look! Money in the window!
This is a cake shop...
Springtime, boys bounce balls;
Young men fancy tobacco -
Gulls a cormorant
(April 04)
Lindisfarne
Suddenly parallel
Racing along the skyline
Seven on horses
Between sky and sand
One flying line of dark script
The sentence of death
Far from the causeway
Film framed in a car window
One minute and gone
(leaving Lindisfarne at 12h30 on the turn of the tide 2/06/04)
''Organic meat
One mile ahead''. The road bends -
A gift of flowers
In Chester, grey, alone,
He eats with orchids, folding
Maps of the New Forest
(21/07/04 - Thai restaurant)
Flying ants -
Behind her lightweight suitcase
Small girl struggling
Her vast brown cleavage,
Wild places full of fireweed
Grab the attention
(leaving Crewe station 3/09/04)
Snow on the pansies -
the people who always sent
birthday cards are dead
Home from a fun-fair,
Clutching hot dogs, huge prizes,
Rude balloons
stretching one small wing
in sunlit quartz and fuschia
a sparrow preening
(Isle Of Man 16-18/06/04)
Later on a bridge
The same two white vans having
A conversation
(29/06/04-leaving Gillingham)
On the seaside train,
Racing the straight seaside road,
A passenger waves
(27/06/05-going to Coventry)
June water-meadows,
Many-coloured horses drinking,
My life flashing past
(27/06/05-approaching Rugby)
Through twin trees, harebells -
Carrying clouds shoulder-high
The Ben broods on blue
(7-8 Aug 2005 Loch Eil)
Pen dipped in gold
Riding a river of light
Mountains and rainbows
Cordylines and frost
Lone mermaid remembering
Seashells live and die
Big as the Sun
Slow in the evening mist
One balloon, setting
(Holyhead train 21/09/08)
The echo of rock -
Hoof on shale on stone - Fissure:
Blinding citadels!
(14/03/10. the passage to Petra)
One wet pink rose bends
To watch me with the green hose
At dusk moths and frogs
Everything sparkles
Slowly the mountains shrink as
The town approaches
May: clout-casting time
North winds killing the lilacs
My sons are strangers
Fecund, her feet arch
Like Manet's Olympia
In scarlet satin
(Aug.5th 2007-the harpsichordist-Theatre by the Lake)
The purple woman
Leaves rustling bustling
Bursts of plastic rain
(Coniston 7/8/2007)
Goldfinches lunching
Sharp starlings March wind twirling
Sparrow carousels
Enormous women
Browsing tiny spring outfits
Visiting pigeons
mad March air hot cross
mums battling british aisles
the buggy grand prix
(Easter 2008)
Carnival season -
He picks over the golf balls
Like Mum checking spuds
Twin pram, one baby,
Lone Dad smiling - did the bears
Get the other one?
Jenny, eleven,
Barks at dragons in the sun
Shrieks of the children
(Extravaganza 5/5/08)
Weighed down by penguins
And remorse, Mrs. BigBag
Drowning with dolphins
(May 2008-Wales Air Ambulance Charity shop)
Step into the voice
Behind her bent teeth, drab hair,
Live the deep truth there.
(Hull housewife meets the Duchess of York.
ITV 19/05/08)
Mayday! the child's plane
Dives - our heroes flying home
Remember Munich.
(Manchester United win UEFA cup in Moscow-
'this one's for Munich'. 21/22 May 2008)
Time in reflection
Mirrors that face each other
Scales fall from our eyes
(18/06/08-the maths of infinity)
People without words
Fake snakes behind hungry eyes
Begin to tell lies
('Clever Monkeys' BBC2 25/11/08)
Poor little Mum's boy
Since Death cheated you of praise
Willies and tombstones
('Imagine' - steel sculptor,
BBCl 26/11/08)
You sell your whole life
To keep him from death. Fish with
Blood on their faces
(The postcode drugs lottery. 22/12/08)
The Fall, changed world, then
Slow blood, breath snatched, old cold bones
The dead of Winter
(Feb 2nd 2009 - nithering!)
Slowly, lovingly
Nature grew this bird, this bean -
Handle them gently
(Chicken-chucking, ASDA 13/03/09)
Capital frozen
Bare markets cold turkey pm
Scotch on the rocks
(26/3/09 - wintry economical & actual climate!)
Curtains. We have hurled
Our whole lives headlong into
A virtual world
(24/06/09 - Pluto in Capricor
n -
state of the world a total mess.)
Queuing in Barclays
One - two - three - four blue ladies
In hoods. No more pens!
(September 2009)
Ambulance on call
Beating in perfect time wings
Soaring and falling
(9/9/9 - amid crowds on the Prom)
Wind over water
Principalities, Powers
Danger to shipping
(8/06/2010 -Too many wind-farms out at sea)
Back to Top
IMAGES OF PAIN
Dragging me through the
Ultimate obscenity,
Ashes of voices
911
Ruin and Death are
Grey - bright life's shocked orange choir
Fled, all colour bled
(after the WTC twin towers massacre of 11/9/01)
Swastika dances -
Little girls carefully taught
To die as they're told
(watching 'Louis & the Nazis' at breakfast 23/12/03,
after the conviction of Holly & Jessica's murderer)
Crush bar, powder room,
Flop house, crash pad, broken home,
The earth moved for us
(50,000 die in earthquake as Bam collapses, 26/12/03 05h26)
A head rolls
In Iraq - at the Mirror
A head rolls
(Nick Berg, Piers Morgan, end of the line 14/05/04)
Baghdad
Fleet Street
Heads sacked
(15/05/04)
Unprotected txt
Junk males capital litter
Vowel cancer
(20/05/04)
Blackcurrant time, dusk -
Sky on fire, mountains on fire,
Leaves scream in the wind
(July 7th 2004-fierce & strange storm
sweeps UK from SW to NE)
This was your Rapture;
I hope you were satisfied -
Thousands in Heaven.
(7/01/05-after the Boxing Day Tsunami)
Noon, Saddleworth Moor -
Vistas to die for. Somewhere,
The bones of children
(20/02/05)
Gales and May blossom
I was killed again today
They bring cut flowers
(19/05/06-another school stabbing.)
Today is crying
Even the seabirds muted
Your face was yellow
(13/4/08 - close friend unwell)
