For Tanka Tuesday Poetry Challenge No. 66, Exploring Haiku, Melissa has invited us to write haiku that are a little edgy, a little offbeat. We can even call them “micropoetry” if need be. You don’t need to use a kigo. Have fun. Experiment.
Form: Haiku (5-7-5)
Three Haiku
showered, clean shirt on roast lamb with herbs and gravy gravy not on plate
impulsivity oh what a superb bargain I’ll take it back
more, more she cooed shameless seductive pedal sirens closing in
Tide quietly lapping the rock, birds momentarily at rest, no wind worth noting. In this stillness I sit silent, outwardly easy, inwardly not so. No longer hoping the mantra will hold, just rolling with my breath, letting the deep inner self retire just for a second so that nothing is the goal, nothing takes hold. Learning to absorb all the non-verbals of bark and leaf, rock and water, petal and sand. Their example humbles.
I sit here at Flat Rock becoming tide and resting birds inwardly.
I have nothing I can say or want to say.
thinking not thinking nothing here to remember gladly losing mind
For Tanka Tuesday Poetry Challenge No. 61, Sisterly Love, Yvette invites us to write a syllabic poem where we focus on sisterly love. Yvette says – I realize that not everyone is blessed to have an amazing sister like I do, so for those of you who do not, broaden your idea of sisterly love. It could mean sisterhood, friendship, or support of all women.
We share the same madness, rapid repartee, humour sometimes dark, social justice bent, a jaundice for Brady Bunch dreamers, yet a hope in the goodness of human kind. Sis is unstinting in her warmth and care, her concern is for others not least me. Her love is never measured, always unconditional, string free.
She is unselfish giving all of herself to the world. She is forgiving to a fault. She is loved by all, not least myself, and she loves all, and we know it, look forward to it. My world is better for her presence without which dark clouds would stay.
life of the party healer of all misery sis brings joyous life
Image: A 19th Century illustration showing Don Quixote after his fight with a windmill. Found at stablediffusionweb.com
A Fool Indeed
How long is April Fools Day? Just a day? Seems longer to me. Perhaps it’s because there are so many fools to contend with, it seems more than a day. On reflection it seems like it’s been running for a long time. In fact (checks calendar) April Fools day began on January 20, 2025. That’s when history inverted, when the world’s worst jester became pretend king. The pranks have been running non stop for thirteen months with no end in sight. And the pranks are exponentially growing, becoming more bizarre on a grand scale. The jokes are fairly pathetic, he’s ended eight wars that didn’t exist, he received a gift that didn’t exist, he claims a faith that doesn’t exist, a heritage that doesn’t exist. A fool indeed. But there’s a fool who trumps even him, even greater is the one who believes the likes of the fool who would be king.
Ignobel Quixote Saves world from his fantasies Windmills of his mind
Note: if you’re not familiar with Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland you might not make the connection. At the Mad Tea-Party the March Hare offered wine to Alice when he had none and the Dormouse was asked to tell a story which included a treacle well, and Alice concluded that a sole diet of treacle would make one ill!
Discombobulator’s Ball
Well there I was watching the headlines. Have you ever watched a hare come out of a rabbit hole, especially in March? That’s exactly what happened as I watched day after day. I was offered peace, but there was no peace, I was offered hope but there was no hope, I was offered many things but nothing transpired. Just as the hare had no wine for Alice, he had no wine for me. First he was winning bigly while losing badly, then he was defeating Iran when he wasn’t, then he was getting a big present when he didn’t, they were begging him for peace when they weren’t. Beware the Ides, beware the hare, he’s the world’s greatest liar. He wasn’t in the files but he’s on every page, he’s a little in the files while he’s mentioned the most, he never went on the plane when he’s everywhere in the log book, he never knew Jeff but they spoke often. It was as if I were reading One Flew Over The Whitehouse, for sure it was a psych ward, and like Alice, I turned off the headlines, knowing I wouldn’t go back today, after all – it was the stupidest interaction ever and nothing good came of it.
It was the treacle what made them so very ill thick sticky deceit
What matters is matter. We don’t know what dark matter actually is but it fills the universe to eighty per cent, apparently it’s the glue that stops planets from whizzing off further into universe. Maybe it stops me flying off to unknown destinations. Like negative space in art works, it helps to shape that which it surrounds, albeit invisibly, understated and mimicking the form. Substance and form working together, well, there’s always a first time.
As a glue I prefer dark matter to be around me. I don’t want the type that resides in the heart, that dark matter which darkens my mind, my view, my mood. That’s a different negative space, one that is of poor substance and shifting form. This is the ego driven shadow, unable to empathise or truly love. It is no glue, it divides the heart and relationships. It doesn’t prevent us spinning off, it accelerates a destructive trajectory. I prefer the dark matter that that is the glue between people.
dark matter unseen connective glue protects me as resin in trees
Photo: taken in 2022 in the Wooditjup National Park, the Karri canopy.
Form: Haibun
Grounding
Sometimes an aromatic herbal smudge will be my thing, sometimes an invocation, meditation, there are times when earthy tribal music is my go to, other times I turn to my journal and writing. When my internal seasons are not aligned I feel out of whack, when my soul is in winter I need a thaw, too much summer and I’m running hot, the polarity of passion and melancholyneeds a shift.
Lots of rituals and practices at my disposal, but my real cleanse is to go out into the forest and soak up the air, the smells, the colours, the sounds, to just be – to relocate my centre. Being in nature brings me a sense of balance. If I take off my shoes the circuit is complete and energy courses through me, cleansing, recharging me for life.
humous and dry leaves soiled feet below canopy ground of deep inner cleansing
Photo: found on Twitter. ICE on ice, seems to me that both need to go.
Being Salt
When I was all of five my parents encouraged me to clear snow from the driveway for a few pence. Naturally, they were trying to occupy me, and given my age, it was a mammoth task. I had fun, got distracted, messed about. The snow was easy but its cousin was a little more tricky. Ice, once formed, was like steel and so slippery, so I turned it into a slide much to my mother’s consternation. Water will break it down. Salt is still used in many places to help turn it to slurry (though this is an environmental risk).
Around Candlemas or Imbolc people look for signs that a thaw is coming. A variety of methods are used, some more scientific than others. Groundhogs – shadow or no shadow, badgers on the move, certain birds returning. We always looked for the first buds on trees and shrubs with a sense of hope that spring was indeed coming.
Right now I’m not looking to groundhogs or badgers. Maybe salt is the only way. If we as people of the world gather with a view to compassionate action, if we become as salt, the flavour of compassion in our communities, then ICE and its cousins across the West will slowly but surely melt. Right now we need an early spring, and fresh life, vitality, creativity, hope. We all need an end to the evil that is ICE whose winter is symptomatic of the political moral collapse, principally in the US, but also across the world. The buds are showing and I’m optimistic.
buds appearing now the new spring offers fresh blooms pig sty cleaned ready
Colleen Cheseboro (Tanka Tuesday) has invited us to write syllabic poetry focussing on the Japanese micro seasons as laid out below from January 1 – February 3. The phrase in the third column must be incorporated in the poem.
As this is the last one, so I have included the whole suite which will also link with Tanka Tuesday via Mr Linky.
With thanks to Colleen
January 2026 Japanese Micro Seasons
January 1–4
雪下出麦 Yuki watarite mugi nobiru
Wheat sprouts under snow
小寒 Shōkan (Lesser cold)
January 5–9
芹乃栄 Seri sunawachi sakau
Parsley flourishes
January 10–14
水泉動 Shimizu atataka o fukumu
Springs thaw
January 15–19
雉始雊 Kiji hajimete naku
Pheasants start to call
大寒 Daikan (Greater cold)
January 20–24
款冬華 Fuki no hana saku
Butterburs bud
January 25–29
水沢腹堅 Sawamizu kōri tsumeru
Ice thickens on streams
January 30–February 3
鶏始乳 Niwatori hajimete toya ni tsuku
Hens start laying eggs
Haiku 7
Form: Haiku, Kigo phrase – hens start laying eggs
ice thickens then thaws
brazen rooster prowls the coop
hens start laying eggs
Haiku 6
Form: Haiku, Kigo phrase – Ice thickens
ice thickens on streams last tentacles of winter spreading everywhere
Haiku 5
Form: Haiku, Kigo phrases – Butterburs bud, Long Great Cold
when butterburs bud her love heals my aching heart through the long great cold
Haiku 4
Form: Haiku, Kigo phrase – when pheasants start to call
did you feel that sound the moment of hope is when pheasants start to call
Haiku 3
Form: Haiku, Kigo – spring’s thaw
my weary hard heart tempered with love’s compassion melts like warm spring’s thaw
Haiku 2
Form: Haiku, Kigo – ice leaving
frogs not yet singing the ice is ready to leave soon parsley flourishes
Haiku 1
Form: Haiku – Kigo word is snow
wheat sprouts under snow life is perfectly calm here my safe cubby house
parallax 