Sandymount Haiku - UG
Created | Updated Mar 3, 2005
Haiku are deceptive. People confuse "simple" with "easy". Haiku may be simple to write, but writing good ones is assuredly not easy.
Here are a selection of unusally good ones written by Chaiwallah during his walks on Sandymount Strand. They need no illustration, but Chai photographs as well as writes when he walks.
Two squealing magpies -
like a rusty barrow-wheel
in need of oiling
Two shrivelled dry leaves,
twisted, curled on the footpath -
like hungry bronze claws.
Gold moon rising full
over the silent water –
catches a heron.
A summer cloudburst
drumming down hard as laughter,
umbrella thunders.
Two grey crows peck bones –
They know that they’re dinosaurs.
They see I know too.
Looks like a smooth rock -
but up close the twisted beak
tells of feathered death.
Grey sea meets grey sky -
so seamlessly, cargo ships
hover in the clouds.
Razor shells clustered,
all perfectly parallel -
a single brushstroke.
Subtle shape-shifter!
yesterday a tall heron,
today just a stake.
If mating snails knew
how blind joggers mostly are,
they'd stay off the path.
Last days of August.
the scythe-wielding grey wind comes
singing summer's death.
White yarrow star-burst
galaxies the salt-burned bank
in bright nebulae.
