Other Lives

Unopened letters on the floor in the hallway all afternoon. . A cold wind is scattering the cherry blossom – young newlyweds. . Black knickers flat in the dirt in the middle of the road. . Fly running all over a pile of dogshit. . Originally: Fly feasting on a pile of dogshit. . Ladybird on our bedroom ceiling all summer. . Unable to remember the word for squid in Italian. . Cold night – the warmth of my wife’s sleeping body. . rain bare branch two crows . Lonely night – enjoying the sound of my own farts. . Glimpsed from a train, an old woman in a blue dressing gown. . Winter sunlight, long shadows in the graveyard. . Keeping me awake at night – haiku. . Low-tide, gulls gather on the shoreline. . Even on my sickbed I am full of gratitude for the way. . Forgetting about the haiku I can’t remember, two more occur. . Old-looking homeless guy having a smoke on a sunny bench. . A young woman looks down at her breasts while talking on the phone. . The puttanesca sauce burns to the bottom o...

Here is a selection of haiku written over the holiday period, including the ground-breaking 'dogging haiku' that was deemed too risque for publication by the British Haiku Society. Christmas Presents Cold dawn… a car engine starting sends gulls screeching. . fox with the same face as me seconds before we hit it . How lonely outside the furniture shop our old sofa. . late home the moon the evening star . Dawn stillness… a heron practicing yoga by the river . Finishing the address, my father tears a page out of his notebook. . December cremation: my grandmother’s ashes settle on the windscreen. . My daughter plucks a pink rose from the wreath. . My wife walks across our bedroom, unties her nightgown. . Up before everyone – catching the first haiku of the day . Winter dawn… the postman’s red fingers squeezing envelopes. . Christmas Eve: Mrs Claus on all fours in the Asda car park. . Christmas presents: stripy socks; a different outlook. . Boxing Day walk – a strip of light along t...