ASAHI HAIKUIST NETWORK/ David McMurray
November 21, 2025 at 08:00 JST
November winter--the endless drizzle wears down the sleep
--Claudia Brefeld (Bochum, Germany)
* * *
lighting up
a cheap cigar
with a 100 dollar note
--Rosemarie Schuldes (Mattsee, Austria)
* * *
humanitarian
crises…we know how
to ignite
--Roberta Beach Jacobson (Indianola, Iowa)
* * *
glamping--
over the gas grill
endless war stories
--Richard L. Matta (San Diego, California)
* * *
volcanos erupt
Hephaestus forges
weapons for war
--Sherri J Moye-Dombrosky (Liberty, South Carolina)
* * *
rotating lines
between hero and villain
kaleidoscope views
--Masumi Orihara (Atsugi, Kanagawa)
* * *
ancient perfume
in the shadow of the stars…
jasmine
--Giuliana Ravaglia (Bologna, Italy)
* * *
Eyesight test…
guessing which way up
clear autumn
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)
* * *
moonless night
the skeletal remains
of a church
--Bona M. Santos (Los Angeles, California)
* * *
winter leaves
the crackling
of knee joints
--Alexander Groth (Neuenkirchen, Germany)
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FROM THE NOTEBOOK
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Reunion
scent of mushroom dish
endless talk
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)
The haikuist met with old friends for an autumn meal and chance to recall childhood memories. Mushroom picking in the lowland woods of the Moslavina region in Croatia, D.V. Rozic was surprised by the sight of a “smiling snowy-white moustachioed man with red cheeks.”
an old fogey
wriggling amidst a swirl
of dry leaves
In today’s column, haikuists spill so much salt that you will be tempted to throw it over your shoulder. Poets added a pinch of salt to their haiku about: first dates, snowy sidewalks, tropical drinks, beachside walks, painting outdoors and festive foods. Lorelyn De la Cruz Arevalo went on a hot date in Bombon, Philippines. Urszula Marciniak had a word at the tip of her tongue in Lodz, Poland. Archie G. Carlos was feeling a little over the hill in St. Louis Park, Minnesota.
blue sky
first date
with spicy ramen
* * *
snow in her hair
looking for the right word
for it in Scottish
* * *
son’s hair now
more salt than pepper
more snow
Sipping a bright orange-red fruity drink from salt-rimmed glass, perhaps a tequila sunrise, at a cafe terrace in Paris, Eleonore Nickolay couldn’t help but overhear a rather drab conversation going on at the next table.
Summer cocktail
he laments
his bland life
Mike Fainzilber was frustrated by searing weather in Tel Aviv, Israel. Pegah Rahmati Nezhad went shopping in Tehran, Iran.
too impatient
scorch marks
on the first camellias
* * *
winter scented air
she writes pink camellia
on her shopping list
Julie Ann Lebitania inhaled ocean spray in Sorsogon, Philippines. Zdenka Mlinar dipped her brush in hues of purest white halite, pinkish iron mineral salts, and blue-green rock salt in Zagreb, Croatia.
midsummer hush
salt in the throat
sea mists drift
* * *
colors of summer
on canvas
salt mine
Sailors are known to use salty language: they were literally covered in salt and spoke coarsely. Raj Bose washed off salt at a beach in Honolulu, Hawaii. Glenn G. Coats noticed a vestige of last summer, now rusted by brine in the Carolina Shores area, North Carolina.
volcanic ash falling on shore
waves shampooing the rocks
leaving salt crystals behind
* * *
dusky sunset
the maroon of a lost
bicycle
Murasaki Sagano threw cooking salt into the mix in Tokyo. Groth perspired at the beach. Mariola Grabowska walked away.
Fruity miso
rice, soy beans and salt
summer love
* * *
evening sun’s glow--
I still taste
the salt on your skin
* * *
ending of vacation
the wave takes his name
from the sand
Nicoletta Ignatti threw open her kitchen cupboards in Castellana Grotte, Italy.
jars full
of dried tomatoes--
end of summer
* * *
yellow peppers
in a bain-marie--
endless scents of summer
Rushing because she missed her wake-up call and Tex-Mex breakfast, Claire Vogel Camargo could have stopped for an egg topped with cheese at a corner cafe in Austin, Texas, but this haiku series culminates in what she was really hoping to eat.
scent of tortillas
and quesadillas heating
my alarm clock
* * *
in a hurry
egg and cheese breakfast taco
corner cafe
* * *
breakfast fare
for Texans and country folk
biscuits and gravy
Isabella Kramer said good morning to a companion across the kitchen table in Nienhagen, Germany. Eva Limbach is vacationing in Spain.
crinkled bindweed
the smile you offer
over breakfast
* * *
first cold spell
I spread more butter
on morning toast
Marek Printer poured sunflower oil.
hot day
I rub oil into
my new frying pan
Sagano sprinkled a dash of salt and pepper, waited, then sneezed “atchoo!”
quicker and quicker--
chopsticks dance on the pan
scrambled eggs
* * *
ten long minutes…
waiting for steamed rice
boiled with mushrooms
* * *
boiling tofu
with rolled-up sleeves
high-necked sweater
Teiichi Suzuki bit his tongue while waiting for his turn to get an influenza shot in Osaka.
a slight cough
from a masked neighbor
hospital lounge
Beach Jacobson knows how she will say grace when her family sits down around a festive table on American Thanksgiving Day. Be careful not to spill the salt-shaker when you reach for a dish on the haikuist’s table, though, it could tempt the devil. That is why throwing salt over your left shoulder will blind him.
praying
to stop two wars
at once
* * *
dinner table
exchanging our ideas
how to end war
Sagano seasoned rice and covered it with slices of red tuna, orange salmon, white fish, cuttlefish, octopus and scallops. Topping the display with yellow eggs and green parsley (mitsuba), her holiday dish was a sight to behold on a clear autumn day. A friend presented the haikuist with a bottle of shoyu from a family business that dates back to the time of Matsuo Basho.
a dash of blue sky…
colorful chirashi-sushi
on Thanksgiving Day
* * *
this soy sauce
established 1688
tea blossoms in Edo
In 1688, the master haikuist enjoyed eating sashimi at an inn while watching the autumn moon rise so much that he stayed a second night: izayoi mo mada Sarashina no koori kana
the sixteenth moon too
I’m still here at this hometown
of Sarashina…
There were only two calories in Monica Kakkar’s cup of spiced black tea.
sliver of cinnamon
steeping in my tea...
winter thin
Hands trembling from shock, David Greenwood poured a second wee dram of Scottish whiskey.
my cold wife runs in
and gulps down my cuppa--
not tea, but Laphroaig
Nuri Rosegg served refreshing appetizers in Oslo, Norway. Kakkar’s hands and pockets overflowed in South Riding, Virginia.
chilled strawberry soup
making summer last till
Thanksgiving
* * *
cornucopia…
in the letting go
collecting acorns
John J. Han seems to be hibernating in Manchester, Missouri.
cooking noodles
for one
winter seclusion
Garth Talbot passed through a security check at Ben Gurion airport in Israel.
Eye scanning
body searches, guns
tension soars
Noting tonight’s moon phase overhead Rhinelander, Wisconsin, Brent Goodman’s referred to a type of submachine gun of Israeli design.
waxing crescent
an elite rescue unit
uzis three hostages
Junko Saeki felt this year’s wage hike to over 1,000 yen in Tokyo didn’t attract many laborers, noting that in Washington, D.C., the minimum wage is nearer $18. She felt that comparison rubbed salt into the foreign workers’ wounds who did come to Japan.
minimum wages--
at the end of the season
$8 an hour
Writing from Tehran, Iran, Pegah Rahmati Nezhad recalled the moment she spotted a camouflaged movement. John Richard Stephens swatted flies in Maui, Hawaii.
falling leaves
a leaf-tailed gecko
flinches
* * *
cloud of buzzing flies--
if only I were
a frog
Artur Zielinski spotted a bird clinging to a cattail reed beside a pond in Gdynia, Poland. Luciana Moretto exhaled in Treviso, Italy.
Coppery sky weighs
on the raven’s wing--
the silent reeds
* * *
forest bathing...
temporary peace
mid-autumn
Marshall Hryciuk narrowly escaped being hit by an acorn in Toronto, Ontario.
face to face
with a chipmunk
on a branch right overhead
En route by train from Palermo to Messina in Sicily, David Cox comfortably read the newspaper. A story about a Palestinian woman and her pet inspired his haiku. Nicoletta Ignatti snuggled up to warm fur in Castellana Grotte, Italy. Did Groth really fool his pet?
lucky cat--
she holds it close
when the bombs fall
* * *
early winter--
the cat curls up
on my lap
* * *
winter evening
the cat warms itself by
the digital fireplace
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The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear Dec. 5 and 19. Readers are invited to send haiku related to sleep, or a long winter’s nap, 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).
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