Haiku & Senryu

HAIKU & SENRYU

by Pam Crane

 

 

Published by Shoestring at Shakespir

Copyright 2017 Pam Crane

 

 

Shakespir Edition, License Notes:

Thank you for downloading this free ebook.

Although it is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and therefore may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Shakespir.com, where they can also discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

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[]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

 

 

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[]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)

 

 

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[]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,

Hugged 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 Capricorn -

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)

 

 

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[]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)

 

 

There is too much pain

To put into words. I weep

For broken China.

 

(17/5/08-5 days after the Szechuan earthquake)

 

Broken promises -

The pied piper of Szechuan

Came for your children

 

(18/5/08-6 days after the Szechuan earthquake)

 

Sweet girl, sleep softly -

Rock pillows, concrete coverlet

Be my lost embrace

 

(18/5/08-6 days after the Szechuan earthquake)

 

Break time, the end of lessons,

No more school.

Screaming.

 

(18/5/08-6 days after the Szechuan earthquake)

 

May ’08 – crunch time.

Walls fall, roofs and men cave in,

Little lives aborted.

 

(1000s of children lost in Szechuan,

the Commons pass the Embryology Bill. 19/05/08)

 

 

The eye of Heaven

Sees you, mean strawberry thief,

And the drowned thousands

 

(18/5/08-a fortnight after the Burma cyclone)

 

 

Threatening thunder

Red mist blood on the carpet

The clash of antlers

 

(Men at war – Oct 2nd 2008)

 

Thursday – Betws train.

Snow printed, child pacified.

Haiti in ruins.

 

(14/01/10 – solo excursion to get snow out of my system;

Quake mag 7 Jan 12th wrecks Port au Prince killing

tens of thousands)

 

 

The 42nd

Mother’s Day without a card

Or a daffodil

 

 

coma – I’m inside

my locked home, not answering,

waiting for daylight

 

(6/06/10 – after Richard Hammond & Stirling Moss

compare race-car crashes)

 

 

too hot and too high

only time runs out – what’s left

burning and crying

 

(Fire at Pudding Lane 1666 – 2/07/2010)

 

 

interviewing pain

in 17 syllables

safer in prison

 

 

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[]FOR THOSE LOVED AND GONE

 

 

Strangely configured

My parents’ old furniture -

Continuity

 

(13/12/2013 looking around my room)

 

 

No more blue snow

Next to people who loved him

Our fox chose to die

 

(A melancholy month – I had to cut down our old Ceanothus;

and the fox I used to watch running at night curled up under

our Fuschia bush by the lounge wall and left this world

without a sound.)

 

 

‘Zach’s back!’ Joyous the

Conference of Star-Fathers

We cannot attend

 

 

Old hands breaking the

Last of the Ospringe bayleaves

Pavarotti died.

 

(6/9/07)

 

 

Sidereal Mars -

My splitting head, the bombed plane,

Your tears on my phone

 

(Lockerbie bomb)

 

 

Stretchers passing me;

Young blood runs with mine in a

Theatre of war

 

(Royal marines bomb)

 

 

American friends

Hang in the Kentish air

Healers are coming

 

(M2 coach crash

 

 

Eleven a.m.

Mourning yesterday, today stops

I have just started

 

(House-hunting 12 Sept 2001)

 

 

Under the carnage

A front page ad for the car

Soon closing my road

 

(M6 tragedy -Weekly News

Thursday October 23rd 2008)

 

The grief of children

Heart-breaking.The naked trees.

The wreaths. The black cars.

 

(The Funeral, November 4th 2008-

Our Lady Star of the Sea-Noon)

 

The spirits who made

These bodies beautiful are flown

We weep over bone

 

(November 6th 2008)

 

 

Led to the last seat

I stood by your side; your grave

Received my red rose.

 

(Fr Frank’s funeral)

 

 

No-one remembered

It was my fun friend who died -

I have stopped singing

 

(Janet, departed)

 

 

We walked, and smiled…

In Folkestone tunnel my husband

Picked up your pieces.

 

(My dead poet)

 

 

Rewind time – the friend

Distraught, steps, the broken head -

God, give back Nancy

 

 

No telegram -

Among the ashes

Only her plastic smile

 

(Ann Crane died at 99)

 

 

Immaculately

Turned out now in watered silk

At God’s beck & call

 

(Stella’s ashes scattered in Duddon Valley

Sept.04 – 30/09/04)

 

 

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[]BOXES – 19 SENRYU

 

Boxes everywhere

Closed, open, inside, outside

Empty, full of air

 

 

Inbox outbox mail

Pillar to post redacting

Filing shredding us

 

 

Think out of the box

Where you can cut to the chase

And other clichés

 

 

Beware of the box

Lest sprung free grimacing Jack

Give you a heart attack

 

 

A box on the ear

Damaging but in the groin

Saving your lunch box

 

 

Junction boxes or

Box junctions – you enter them

both on pain of death

 

 

Serve your penalty -

Finally out of the box

Hope springs eternal

 

 

Into the black box

Secret thousands of Xes

Kisses or crosses

 

 

Orange in the rocks

Not human debris this time

Witness the Black Box

 

 

Box … box … box this lap

Don’t kill the lollipop man

Win from the pit lane

 

 

One green Ferrari

Parked F1 Hybrid never

Leaves its box

 

 

At the theatre

Poor folk sit up in the Gods

The Queen in a box

 

 

Raising the Tempest

Needs a taller Prospero

Fetch an orange box

 

 

Get on the ladder

Choccy-box cottages tick

Box after perfect box

 

 

In your Jewel Box

Nothing to match the cluster

Of heaven’s diamonds

 

 

Shoe-box cigar-box

Gift box squirreling treasures

Nothing is wasted

 

 

Next to the toy box

A dressing-up box – watch out

For teddies in drag

 

 

Without the one man

In the box trains crash queens die

And no Dr. Who

 

 

In front of the box

Watching your world go by – soon

You will leave in one

 

 

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[]VIEWS FROM THE PATH

 

 

O Lady – sapphire

Amid birds and bells – hold high

Your golden thunder

 

(Madonna del Sasso 15/7/01)

 

 

In thrilling palms, live

Lightning carries the holy

Word down God’s mountain

 

 

Thunder over Lake -

Men, fireworks, no sleep. No sleep!

Dawn storm! God’s are best!

 

(Locarno 15/7/01 …. dawn)

 

 

Gold Sun God, O laugh

out loud as you net the heart’s

highway with free light

 

(Atenolol for G! … 8/9/01 21h40)

 

Mountain Seraphim

Hymn in opalescent fire

A Holy sunset

 

(Menai Strait, spring 2003)

 

 

The storm of Heaven

So flooded my spring with Love

Even the Sun drowns!

 

(week of prayer for Christian unity)

 

 

Man whose skin fell off

Under the scourge of karma

God whose skin fell off

 

(‘the boy whose skin fell off’ CH4 25/3/04 9h00 pm)

 

 

The Passion

 

Beaten back across

Time raw passion bred of life

Dyes history red

 

Beyond the gate his

Blood spatters a rising moon

The world shatters

 

Sunset bloody moon

Crosses out Love, all square now

Until the next time

 

Skinned alive, the Lamb

Imploring me beyond sobs…

I cannot save you

 

 

Gospel

 

A few red letters

Weigh down millennia with

Clarifications

 

A few red letters

Millennia

Of footnotes

 

Christmas is over -

Supermarket hot cross buns

Scent the New Year

 

A tear falls.

A pearl forms.

A prayer rises.

 

 

Five lines in the blue

At C sharp the Sunday sun

Feast with an octave

 

(jet-trails over Holy Trinity

Ascension Sunday 23/5/04)

 

 

Whether to join in -

Murder in the Cathedral

Salve vagina

 

(29/05/04-10 yrs of women priests @ Durham)

 

 

Even a whisper

Rings too loud. Hushed by Cuthbert

Our old lives steal back

 

(28-29/5/04 Durham Cathedral)

 

 

Only God is perfect.

Now I know why

I never finish the wall-papering

 

 

Rosslyn in the rain

Lightning indoors, magic lace,

Beauty & breath caught

 

 

In my old habit

Sitting on warm stone to hear

The Word I gilded

 

(Lindisfarne Abbey 2/6/04)

 

 

So near my old cell

Tears well for another wake

Disturbing the lake

 

 

How will Mind create

Heaven in our image without

Murdering the world?

 

 

Butchered Judas tree

Kiss goodbye to your cold crown.

Have I betrayed you…?

 

(pruning Forest Pansy 22/11/08)

 

 

Cybele’s lion

Wounds me Once Felicia

Offered violets

 

(28/3/09 – after dream on 24/3 showing me

past life, followed by Web research)

 

 

Vast lawns? Cropped heather.

A cell, not gold. Bright foxes.

God’s dance in my heart

 

(12/04/09-big dream c.07h30 )

 

 

Trapping the Nightmare,

Naming it, I nail its rage

To Love’s mighty Cross.

 

(20/04/09-big nightmare – Pluto Asc, etc.)

 

 

Wheel to wheel

God’s fingertip from Adam

Inseparable

 

 

Years of ecstasies

Then you arrived and I stopped

Writing poetry

 

 

Having Aspergers

Isn’t the end of the world:

Invert selection …

 

 

Every living soul

The perfect inflorescence

Of one bud of God

 

 

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[]SNAPSHOTS OF A CRANE’S LIFE

 

 

A man goes whistling,

A woman without tea; numen shines,

House-light is happy.

 

(21/12/1971!)

 

 

In a cheesenet trapped,

Twelve little dark fishy things -

Their name escaped me!

 

(Anchovies at lunch)

 

 

Nettle-fume that curled

from webs has met its Angel

in an opal Heaven

 

(Ospringe garden 14th August 2001)

 

 

Low-slung sun, god-gold

I.D. disk swings in my eyes,

Aten remembers me!

 

 

All my life I was

A winter child; my spring comes,

Full moon melting snow

 

 

Why, why, why? -

Swale & Wales

Pam Pam Pam!

 

 

Red May

Her second brood

My two duvets

 

 

Under my toes

The new gravel

Last year’s begonia

 

 

Seaside G&T

‘‘Listen – a cuckoo!’‘

It is two o’clock

 

 

Looking for heaven

I move, and dream of moving

Mountains and thunder

 

(12/08/04-after Keswick)

 

 

Under my window

Chattering, laughing, fighting

People and sparrows

 

 

The pink taste – rosehips,

luminous quince, clear bright beads

of pomegranate

 

 

Under a full moon

My frogs croon – our dreaming doves

Mourn transfigured loves

 

 

Wet cave, frog peeping,

Elephant washing – my pool,

My piece of heaven

 

 

Song

Of a light plane -

Summer high

 

 

My garden Buddha

Crowned with a summer goldfinch

Now I can meditate

 

 

Our friend’s funeral -

One butterfly in the sun

And purple flowers

 

(29/06/04- Gillingham)

 

 

In the twelfth autumn

Preparing quinces; the breeze,

My mother’s perfume

 

(October 14th 2004)

 

 

Autumn.

My hair is falling.

 

 

Nearly sixty-two,

Bemused by bone, dying stars,

Dumbfounding I Am

 

 

All wrapped up -

The first winter drifts

Whiten the hall floor.

 

 

At sunset, grateful

To have been part of this brief

Human miracle

 

 

Spring tinnitus – rain

over lunch, plans, muzak, all

Falling on deaf ears

 

 

Cold May, clouts not cast;

One experimental rose

Amid the bird scraps

 

 

Painting the Chapel -

Yet another Monday gone

Without Tai Chi

 

 

Drowsy rituals -

Scrabble, Astropocket -

Unread magazines

 

 

Am I eating soap?

Goat’s yoghurt and strawberries

This odd June evening

 

 

Bluebells! eleven

Under my quince – the loved Sun

Blessed with a halo

 

(23/4/08-another sun rainbow!)

 

 

Wind off Great Orme’s Head

History streams old eyes blue

As the Med in May

 

 

Just resting is good -

Horses nibble each other,

My costume waiting

 

 

Quince blossom, moonlight

I wait for his late white car

Ghostly, a seagull

 

 

Forty-four summers

Remembering your birthday

Forgotten pictures

 

(Rob sends my old prints!11/5/08)

 

 

Blown Ceanothus

Blackie is after my worms

Digging in blue snow

 

 

Down by the dead pool

Faded confetti – half-term

Pantomime wedding

 

 

The Sunday service -

Norman on organ, young Daz

On coffee machine

 

(8/6/08 @ Costa Coffee)

 

 

The dark is lighter -

Despite the mask, my skin

Feels silver with birdsong.

 

(3/7/08-a night poorly with no sleep)

 

 

Beside my window

The clutter of people’s lives

Passing at sunset

 

(Holyhead train 21/09/08)

 

 

Yesterday’s breakfast

Haunts me – Yes, it’s time I fell

In love with toothpaste!

 

 

Out in a hailstorm

Birds scattering seed. Indoors

I spill peppercorns

 

 

Two more tiny lights

And all the stars of the Plough

Burn in my bedroom

 

(Electrics on standby 26/11/08)

 

 

Saturn Ascendant.

Frost, Vick – too late for garlic.

I can’t hear my clock.

 

(miserable with the ‘man-flu’ 30/11/08)

 

 

Even in the sun

Prom white with frost, a new year

Crunching underfoot

 

(1/1/09-a week sub-zero by the sea!)

 

 

Diamond bare twigs

Full of nithering starlings

Nearly my birthday

 

(Hard winter – 15/1/2009)

 

 

I miss fluffy snow

Knee deep, still, muffling wheels -

I want my world back

 

(Unsatisfactory winter – 22/1/2009)

 

 

Unmoved by mountains

Theme-park snow, too far to touch

Winter is hearsay

 

(Unsatisfactory winter – 22/1/2009)

 

 

Brief reunions

Two leaves caught in an eddy

Floating and drowning

 

(Feb.15th 2009 – not heard from her)

 

 

My glorious wife

The golden face of my son

Histories later

 

(24/2/09 – mask of Tutankhamen

in fancy dress window)

 

 

Spinning a light line

I catch you with your bright tail

Plunge into your sea

 

(8/3/09 – conversing with RevPeter)

 

 

The light on the Orme

In my garden sapphire snow

Homeward donkey bells

 

(30/05/09-lovely holiday week!)

 

 

Early shift. First bird.

Still the blue lights, men searching.

My feet are freezing.

 

(12/09/09 at my window with cameras

from 04h45 for 2 hours:

Two fire engines & three police cars

at our crossroads. A firebug.)

 

 

Peeholes in the snow

our poor eyes puzzling head

and the heart dancing

 

(26/11/09 – migraine. Did Mum have it too?

We are so alike.)

 

 

So loud through my wall

The voices of the neighbours

Who never hear me

 

(21/12/09 – after 11pm trying to sleep)

 

 

Saturn square Pluto

Black ice on the road black ice

On my winter road

 

(22/12/09 – Ceres/Neptune under siege –

swine flu and a Nuisance!)

 

 

That suspenseful joy

Of not quite seeing the sea

Salt on a railing

 

 

Inside I am five

Crying to print virgin snow

The sea stole from me

 

(12/01/10 – the whole UK is snowbound except us.)

 

 

dancing with fiddles

Joyously stamping chiming

rhyming with fiddles

 

(Fiddlers Bid at Theatre By the Lake

Easter Sunday 4/4/2010. Ecstatic!)

 

 

Ageing I run down

More in my charging cradle

Than this well-worn palm

 

(8/06/2010 – don’t do evenings any more!)

 

 

Pruning – a loud car;

Their red balloon bounds by me.

Square Mars, Aries Moon.

 

 

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[]1ABOUT PAM CRANE

 

Pam has been a poet since she was seven years old; it was only when she joined her local Writers’ Club that she found she could also write short stories.

She has been a Christian astrologer for most of her life, is well known in that community, and is the author of two books plus many articles in the Astrological Association Journal (for which she compiles the regular Cryptic Crossword.)

You can find her website at http://revpamcrane.weebly.com.

 

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