haiku hit

Want a quick hit of haiku?

I am currently participating in a Junicho lead by Ashley Capes and was asked to submit three haiku for a summer verse. Here are the poems I submitted:

      still dawn
      every cloud is
      a dead lamb

                                              kissing
                                              behind a stand of pines
                                              the sun slips

      lightning
      sky to sea
      and back again

To see which one was selected head over to Issa’s Snail. There are some mighty fine verses waiting for you!

To a girl, swimming

My heart is your sky
and the sun is the only
gold we need.

Tidal Notes

I

drinking cask wine
and smiling at her
I inhale the warm summer perfume
of her dress
II

light purrs into the grass
on days like this
I see all men
as brief as birds
III

dusk feathers the day
into vague bits of dream
while the pulse in my neck taps
trouble          trouble
IV

naked night swim
our drunken limbs
fumble over moons
of flesh
V

softening skin
our bodies
dance in time with
the river’s heartbeat
VI

skipping stones
across a glass river
each bounce
shatters silence
VII

bird song lost
in the air of morning
we drift home with
the outgoing tide

 

* this poem was written collaboratively with Cindy Keong. You can view more of Cindy’s work here: http://clk27.wordpress.com/

Everything is Sky (part 4)

                   (Day Four: Carnarvon Gorge, Boolimba Bluff)

 

 

Those dark moments before dawn
standing by the river, its skin like
the wrong side of satin sheets.

*

wrens settle like rain on the tree fern

*

Five hundred stairs up Boolimba Bluff
the kookaburras start laughing.

As we reach the plateau, a wedge-tail cuts
through the sky, polished as opal.

Everything is Sky (part 3)

                   (Day Three: Carnarvon Gorge, Wards Canyon and back)

ferns shimmer chest deep on the Eastern Grey

*

Rainbow Serpent arches
through paintings of boomerang
and vulva, disappears
into the history
of stone.

*

in the amphitheatre
the honeyed-orchestra
of bees

Everything is Sky (part 2)

                   (Day Two: Roma to Carnarvon Gorge)

a black snake pulls
heat from the bitumen

*

Out here, grass flowers red
and roos line the road
their ribs sprung open.

We drive, smiling
in the sun’s early gravity
cattle grids flooding our heads
with thought’s rhythm.

*

At Baloon Cave
a cluster of ancient
handprints reminds me
of the impression we make.

*

two butterflies circle
each other
in the heat of love

*

Late afternoon breeze brings comfort to us.
I can feel in the dragonflies’  crimson vibrations the coming storm.

Everything is Sky

(Day One: Brisbane to Roma)

driving west, the road is
everything, until it’s sky

*

The crows have stopped to bathe
flitting like conversation
in and out of the irrigation ditch

*

admiring the sunset
a galah empties its eyes
into the windscreen

*

At night, silence rushes in
assaults our tired ears.

We sit in bed, weighted
down by heavy tongues.

Outside a curlew cries and again
we find that basic need for language.