Suburbia

Waiting in his car
a timorous husband
looks at his watch
and sighs.

Death

Shrouded in a doorway
he watched her pass
and followed like a shadow.

Debts

She smiled when I encouraged her
but she would not pay the ferryman.

Gone

I found the bath empty:
someone must have committed
arachnicide!


17 October 1986

Nightmare

I bent over the coffin to kiss him
but he turned his head away.


20 October 1986
 
  

I have never been the biggest fan of the haiku. I like the idea of the haiku. I like koans. I like proverbs. I like concision. And, for me, poetry is all about that. As I’ve got older I’ve found myself producing slightly longer pieces but nothing you couldn’t fit onto an A4 page with breathing space. Why, in 1986, I decided to write a handful of, what I called at the time, “haikus” I have no idea. These days I admit to writing one haiku (#996) —although even that one doesn’t stick to the rules—and regard the above handful as nothing more than short poems. ‘Nightmare’ was published in Inkshed #19 in the spring of 1990.