Territory is suburbia is an atlas of orange-bricked battlelines. Where driveway mouths spit mortar like broken teeth and cold wars cauterise domestic skin. This is where I have mapped you.
mango pulp
bruise-lidded sky
a storm hymnal
When the sky bleeds out of this heat blister, it will wash away nothing. Passionfruit will lay defeated by the fence. Territorial birds will remain the aggressors.
noisy miner
mynah bird, mickey
flick-flit dancer
I meet you at your depth and let your breath push blood around my body. We make an ampersand of arms and legs and you whisper “this is not a safe distance”.
first star
cicada thrum
open-mouthed kiss
I remember thinking that forever might feel like this – eyelid-crepe delicacy (my lips), ear lobe softness (your teeth). A cup of tea gone cold beside my shoes.
lights off
snap-blink greyscale
lips to cheek to neck to lips
Somewhere, a casement window bangs. First I taste blood then the thick blade of storm-metal. In the kitchen, AM radio makes leaf-litter conversation.
second innings
last session before tea
willow-faced tock
You leave the garden hose running in the afternoon rain. Yesterday, curled up in the letterbox. Leatherwood pleasure is folded in a pocket, in a dovecote, in a crowded space.
rain comes
arrhythmic shrapnel
tin-tin-tin
rain goes
downpipe-tick
melaleuca-drip
Territory is suburbia is an atlas of orange-bricked battlelines. Where cyclone wire fences protect us from nothing. Unsolicited mail keeps coming. I can always find your hand in the dark.
cane-toad skin
bitumen bite
evaporation
Oh, that first haiku is especially delicious.
Thank you so much Zenobia….:)
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Another gorgeous one Vanessa. I love the interwoven Haiku’s too. Really looking forward to hearing you perform it at the festival.
Thanks Susie. I found this arrangement was really great for building layers of textural context throughout Glad you enjoyed it!
the first time i saw this form was a couple of poems by Frank O’Hara
the poems ok and a step forward in a way! commentators
please refrain from calling the interstices
Haiku…the West uses the Haiku in a lazy non formula way i find most Haiku
written by Westerners a pure joke why not just call ‘em short poems if you
do not adhere to the rules of the Haiku!!!
other than that the poem above as a poem is ok
Fair comment Pete. When I wrote this poem I certainly didn’t consider these little text blocks to be real haiku! Haiku is a poetry form I have not worked with much, but would like to.
thanks Vanessa i’m pretty pedantik when it comes to using formula
in writing if you do a sestina you follow the model the reason anyone would bother to
use any of these straightjackets is to take on a challenge outside of
your normal writing i really have a beef with how the west has made the haiku
a short poem with a zennish feel to it! its just a short poem! so
if you adhere to the rules of the Haiku it is way more difficult
and worth doing in Japan the Haiku was something everyone should do once
in their life poet or lay-person a social thing that interests me great if everyone
wrote one good poem a better thing than seeing a poet tossing out formula
poems every coupla years in a book!
pete