the old hands keep an old lamp light shining...cold wind
--Ken Sawitri (Blora, Indonesia)
* * *
mushroom clouds
my early memories
of black and white tv
--Isabella Kramer (Nienhagen, Germany)
* * *
the island
haven for business nomads--
antenna tower
--Anica Marcelic (Zapresic, Croatia)
* * *
driving into the office
to take zoom calls
day moon
--Joshua St. Claire (York County, Pennsylvania)
* * *
she rests her feet
in the enamel basin
he pours hot water in
--Padraig O’Morain (Dublin, Ireland)
* * *
sweet haze
melons are bursting
in the hot summer
--Minko Tanev (Sofia, Bulgaria)
* * *
anthropocene--
the goldfish bowl
each left to the other
--Herb Tate (Jersey, U.K.)
* * *
drought days…
tension of a water strider
on the standing stream
--Kyle Sullivan (Kaohsiung, Taiwan)
* * *
rocking
of the MRT train…
biting his upper lip
--David Cox (Beijing, China)
* * *
Welcoming
fleet of world athletes
River Seine
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)
------------------------------
FROM THE NOTEBOOK
------------------------------
sparrow drinks water
from the air conditioner
sultry afternoon
--Stoianka Boianova (Sofia, Bulgaria)
The haikuist called out climate warming. Farah Ali observed the formation of a pecking order in Brighton, England. Kanematsu awoke before the city parks groundskeeper.
drinking fountain
siblings rearrange
in height order
* * *
Morning walk
fountain in the park
still asleep
Exiting San Jacinto Boulevard, Agnes Eva Savich found solace on campus at the University of Texas at Austin.
in the sound
of a fountain
traffic noise fades
Tony Williams rushed to find a public lavatory in Glasgow, Scotland. Archie G. Carlos wished for some relief in St. Louis Park, Minnesota.
afternoon heat--
a lazy fountain
relieving itself
* * *
July heat
a child drops some coins
in the fountain
In today’s column, poets bemoan malfunctioning air conditioners, googling digital news, defrosting freezers and having to return to work in an office, but seem nostalgic for refreshing footbaths, getting print newspapers, cooling ice blocks and watching vintage black and white televisions.
When the water heater broke, Amoolya Kamalnath knew it was not a good time to talk about marriage.
just when the air conditioner
breaks down, the geyser too
father-daughter bond
David Greenwood’s white noise was disrupted on the campus at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.
cicadas’ shrieks
echo in the still hum
of central air
Alan Maley’s high tea ended abruptly in Canterbury, England.
three days of summer--
then last night’s storm washed the plates
we’d left on the lawn…
A rain forecast kept Mary L. Leopkey indoors watching television on Texada Island, British Columbia. Kanematsu eagerly awaited the morning newspaper.
the weatherman
in sunny short sleeves
talks about rain
* * *
Approaching
paperboy’s footsteps
morn’ glories
Charlie Smith wrote something for statisticians to chew on when temperatures surpassed 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) and humidity soared to 100 percent while he graded year-end exams on the campus of North Carolina State University.
today’s forecast
chew the air before
you breathe it
Patricia Carragon smiled at a well-punctuated haiku-like message left on a sidewalk in Brooklyn, New York. Savich felt aghast.
kitty paw prints
catitude goes Hollywood
on fresh cement
* * *
hot sidewalk
businessmen sidestep
a pair of dirty feet
Masumi Orihara’s modern refrigerator automatically makes ice cubes, which drop down “to the freezer box with sporadic clatter… a symbolic sound of summer.”
ice cubes
clatter down the fridge
summer’s passing
Amoolya Kamalnath couldn’t help stealing a bite from a sweet flatbread made in Pondicherry, India.
neighbour’s sugar obbattu
the refrigerator ice melts
when moving house
Kanematsu noticed that the shinshoku--the person responsible for the maintenance of a holy site--had left with few worldly possessions.
The priest gone
his temple garden
rewilding
Tsanka Shishkova left this poetic line about wishing she had never left: colony of swallows under the eaves of my home long ago
By happenstance, Anne-Marie McHarg looked out of her kitchen window in London, England, and saw a pink moon.
Pink lollipop
In a summer robe
A blushing moon
Before the climate changed, most people changed their underwear once every 24 hours--but no more, suggests Mike Fainzilber in Rehovot, Israel.
summer in the city
the days
of three underpants
Feeling squeezed, Tuyet Van Do closed her eyes and stood on her toes in Melbourne, Australia.
crowded shop
jets of cool air
on my face
Pippa Phillips got stopped for a moment in Kansas City, Missouri. Savich wrote about the unrelenting heat.
chain link fence
I fit the sun
into a diamond
* * *
summer heat
a tree grown through
the fence
Govind Joshi had thought only his wife lived with him in Dehradun, India.
summer morning
meeting the spider
living under the sink
Realizing that “aging has crept upon me,” Yutaka Kitajima began rereading Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” (1916).
Night sweat...
not yet turned into
a co*ckroach
Bonnie J. Scherer is happiest vacationing at home in Palmer, Alaska.
our cottage garden
within city limits
staycation
J.D. Nelson almost got caught in a Denver, Colorado, downpour.
glad I caught the train!
if I’d waited for the bus
I would’ve been soaked
Barefoot and feeling carefree, Giuliana Ravaglia chased a young summer dream.
vintage feel--
wearing a bikini
worn by grandmother
Dina Towbin recalled former times in Brooklyn, New York.
Old water tower
Perched, peruses the city
Keeps its secrets
Lulled to sleep counting crickets in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India, Kanchan Chatterjee looks forward to celebrating Mountain Day on Aug. 12.
mountain lodge…
under the cot, one cricket starts
then another
Tossing and turning in his sleep, Dejan Ivanovic wrung his hands and rubbed his legs in Lazarevac, Serbia.
a loudmouth cricket
spoiling
the midnight silence
In the summer of 1820, surrounded by mountains in the Japanese Alps, Kobayashi Issa implored: yare utsuna hae ga te wo suru ashi wo suru (“Oh, don’t swat!” the fly rubs its hands, rubs its feet).
Ashoka Weerakkody passed through winding stone tunnels and slippery dark caves to reach the World Heritage city of Kandy, a sacred Buddhist site on a plateau surrounded by mountains in Sri Lanka.
sound of silence
meets light of darkness
black hole in rock
Giuliana Ravaglia kicked up her heels a small town in Italy’s Apennine mountains. Admitting that she has “always felt the need to go beyond the confines of home,” she never did.
party in the village--
rhythm of life
with tango steps
Florian Munteanu suggested that music can move mountains in Bucharest, Romania. The haikuist added that from a 10th-floor building in the city “you can sometimes see the Carpathian mountains after a cool rain.” A. Sethuramiah’s haiku might be referring to the Columbia river, the largest river flowing through snowy mountain ranges in Canada into the Pacific Ocean.
drop by drop
penetrates rock
the mountain spring song
* * *
snowborn river
rocks and rolls
to the Pacific Ocean
Sweltering in the heat of Medan, North Sumatra, T.D. Ginting dreams of seeing a white-capped mountain.
winter--far yet near
as I am watching the scenes
of the snowy t(r)ip
Simona Brinzaru rests assured in Transylvania, Romania.
no matter the big wave
Fuji sama will be
always there
Dina Towbin summed up a perfect day. Kanematsu’s daughter-in-law is coach of the Japan women’s rugby team.
Hudson shimmers silver,
Helicopters buzz by,
Laughter in the breeze
* * *
Athletes shine
gold, silver and bronze
in Paris
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shine at http://www.asahi.com/ajw/special/haiku/. The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear Aug. 16 and 30. Readers are invited to send haiku about never-ending wars or the Olympics on a postcard to David McMurray at the International University of Kagoshima, Sakanoue 8-34-1, Kagoshima, 891-0197, Japan, or by e-mail to (mcmurray@fka.att.ne.jp).
* * *
David McMurray has been writing the Asahi Haikuist Network column since April 1995, first for the Asahi Evening News. He is on the editorial board of the Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, columnist for the Haiku International Association, and is editor of Teaching Assistance, a column in The Language Teacher of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT).
McMurray is professor of intercultural studies at The International University of Kagoshima where he lectures on international haiku. At the Graduate School he supervises students who research haiku. He is a correspondent school teacher of Haiku in English for the Asahi Culture Center in Tokyo.
McMurray judges haiku contests organized by The International University of Kagoshima, Ito En Oi Ocha, Asahi Culture Center, Matsuyama City, Polish Haiku Association, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Seinan Jo Gakuin University, and Only One Tree.
McMurray’s award-winning books include: “Teaching and Learning Haiku in English” (2022); “Only One Tree Haiku, Music & Metaphor” (2015); “Canada Project Collected Essays & Poems” Vols. 1-8 (2013); and “Haiku in English as a Japanese Language” (2003).
