Photo/Illutration(Illustration by Mitsuaki Kojima)

  • Photo/Illutration

moonless night a black cat closes his eyes and disappears
--Mario Massimo Zontini (Parma, Italy)

* * *

Meltdown
a feline yell
turns into purr
--Dagmara Wieczorkowska (Warsaw, Poland)

* * *

Halloween...
the neighborhood fills up
with monster spiders
--Isabella Kramer (Nienhagen, Germany)

* * *

Halloween night…
vampire fangs get stuck
in a spiderweb cake
--Paul Callus (Safi, Malta)

* * *

a shimmering pumpkin
slips below the horizon
mesmerizing sunset
--Margaret Ponting (Victoria, Australia)

* * *

A queue of pumpkins
and a sign along the dried-up garden:
“Take whichever you like!”
--Yutaka Kitajima (Joetsu, Niigata)

* * *

A witch, I
cook for his return
frosty dusk
--Yoshiho Sugitani (Tokyo)

* * *

The moon full
Beasts at the watering holes
drink their reflections
--Zoran Antonijevic (Mladenovac, Serbia)

* * *

a party ends…
the old year’s broth
in moonlight
--Ranice Tara (Delhi, India)

* * *

an owl hoots
bending the stars
across the highway
--Ruth Esther Gilmore (Lower Saxony, Germany)

------------------------------
FROM THE NOTEBOOK
------------------------------

solitary stroll--
shrouding the naked trees
autumn fog
--Hifsa Ashraf (Rawalpindi, Pakistan)

The haikuist went for a walk alone. Francoise Maurice coyly toyed with an image in Draguignan, France.

Autumn equinox
the slow strip-tease
of the apricot tree

Barbara Anna Gaiardoni dolled up for a night out in Verona, Italy.

lizard leather clutch
texture matching the evening
Halloween party

While window-shopping for change-of-season fashions in New York, Laila Brahmbhatt saw dressmaker’s models in various states of attire. At the end of a long day shopping, golden rays of sunlight made her long for home.

Heat wave--
even the mannequin
wears a hat

* * *

Indian sunset
turmeric stains
on mother’s saree

Masumi Orihara wasn’t particularly enthused about having to dress up as a conifer for her school play, noting “I had to sway behind a handsome prince.”

Disinclined
tree sways of the stage
autumn school festival

Senka Slivar laughed aloud while stirring a cauldron in Lipik, Croatia.

hot pumpkin soup...
hilarious ringing of bells
under black clouds

In Nagoya, Leah Ann Sullivan recalled when her grandmother got sick and the way the family came to realize it.

the strange taste
of Grammy’s pumpkin pies--
before the prognosis

Hands on his hips, Barrie Levine drew this line resembling a proud scarecrow in Wenham, Massachusetts.

arms akimbo the distance between seed and harvest

Fatma Zohra Habis shared a comforting moment in Algiers, Algeria.

bird stands safe
on mother’s old coat
on the scarecrow

Murasaki Sagano refit a yukata sewn by her mother years ago in Tokyo.

An indigo blue
cotton kimono sets well
the scruff of the neck

An influential samurai and politician, Saigo Takamori (1828-1877) disliked the elaborate Western-style clothing imported by foreigners around the time of the Meiji Restoration of 1868, preferring instead to hand-stitch his own straw sandals and to wear a casual kimono on his portly frame of 182 cm. Junko Saeki stitched these two lines in praise of the hometown of the Satsuma Rebellion’s leader.

Kagoshima, the farthest spot from Shogun
Satsuma, the gateway to the world

Gaiardoni paused to watch a poignant death scene play out in the historical drama television series “Shogun.”

leafless branch…
Lady Mariko’s message
an original haiku

While practicing tai chi with a group of friends in Stanwood, Washington, Gary Evans “noticed some leafless cottonwood trees blowing in the wind. It seemed they were moving in time with the wind and we were moving in time with them.”

fresh breeze
bare cottonwood trees
waving hands like clouds

Jennifer Gurney held tight to a tree in Broomfield, Colorado. Jackie Chou was blown by winter winds that came from every direction toward Pico Rivera, California.

tall cottonwoods
leaning into
fall

* * *

not knowing
which way to lean
windswept trees

Carl Brennan admitted to playing hooky in North Syracuse, New York. Joseph Elliott may have been looking for a final resting place in Kingston, Ontario.

We skipped Catholic school
We loved Vikings, dragonships
...found his grave online

* * *

gust of leaves
no more room
in the cemetery

Zahra Mughis shuddered as an October breeze swirled leaves around Lahore, Pakistan. Levine looked everywhere for something to sweep the leaves from the veranda of his home.

trick-or-treat
going around the block
maple leaves

* * *

a frayed corn broom
missing from the attic
October night

Inwardly hoping it “was just the shadow of next door’s cat!” Herb Tate cringed at the sight of a ghoulish shape in the night on Halloween in Jersey, U.K.

grimalkin
threatening the sky
with a broom

Dennis Lagura’s home has become noticeably quieter in central Hyogo Prefecture. Hisako Nishikawa noted that as soon as temperatures cooled down in Osaka, the winds began to swirl and churn the still-warm Pacific Ocean.

creaking wooden floors
chilly gusts of autumn wind
windows and doors shut

* * *

a little cooler
now a typhoon is coming
prepare carefully

Charlie Smith watched Hayao Miyazaki’s 2001 Academy Award winning animation about a sulky 10-year-old girl who wanders into a scary world ruled by gods, witches and spirits.

last fireflies
follow torch lights
spirited away

Raj Bose read quietly on Halloween night in Honolulu, Hawaii.

fall evening
from the leaves of dad’s diary
the scent of his cigar

Teiichi Suzuki felt as though he left his soul behind in Eiheiji, Fukui Prefecture.

Migrant birds--
forgetting something
at my old home

Tsanka Shishkova recited the lyrics of a playful song composed by Robert Schumann in 1848 for his three daughters.

burning sun
in the silence of the field
a reaper’s song

Tired of television ads portraying middle-aged women sighing over a cold can of beer, Saeki called out misleading “hell-bent” marketing of gender equality.

wines, spirits and beer
makers hell-bent this autumn
making women drink

To this day, John Hawkhead remembers the gut-wrenching moment of being caught for stealing in South West England.

scrumping apples
a small boy caught
inside me

Melissa Dennison cozily ate by candlelight in Bradford, England. Rosemarie Schuldes extinguished a glowing candle in Mattsee, Austria.

flickering candles
slicing into
pumpkin pie

* * *

military drones…
lights go out
in grinning pumpkins

Randy Brooks sneaked a peak in Taylorville, Illinois.

pumpkin patch
grandpa sneaks a kiss
from grandma

Dennis Woolbright dressed up in glittering a gold costume to celebrate his eightieth birthday in Kitakyushu.

A gold umbrella
heavenly orb shines brightly
waxing then waning

Easing his transition to retirement in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the pleasing sight of pretty ornamental bushes reminded Patrick Sweeney of calmly passing autumn mornings in Japan.

amidst the troubles of this world
dew on the plumes of maiden grass

Having watched trees grow for decades in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture, Yutaka Kitajima didn’t have the heart to trample on their fallen leaves. Monstrous 30 cm long leaves took their revenge, however, when the haikuist set out on a hiking trail.

A golden carpet
maidenhair trees spreading out...
slight hesitation

* * *

A sudden leafstorm
hits the clamorous hikers...
whitebark magnolia

M.R. Pelletier shook, rattled and rolled in the winds of Topeka, Kansas. Justice Joseph Prah waved goodbye in Accra, Ghana.

October gale
ochre-colored oak leaves
pitch, roll, and yaw

* * *

Southbound
fallen leaves carry the wind
perhaps to the afterlife

Doc Sunday observed the peculiar migration of scavengers in Hiroshima.

horsehair worms
hijack dead praying mantis’
waterside walkway

Sanjana Zorinc waited for a neighbor to help sweep leaves in Bjelovar, Croatia. Brennan feels closer to his neighbor.

strange witch--
a broom waits
at her door

* * *

Quarrels have vanished
with the frail fences that stood
and fell to the wind

Slobodan Pupovac sketched an autumnal scene of an imagined Japanese castle on a hill overlooking a lake.

Halloween
at the cottage window
pumpkin smile

Julie Ann Lebitania observed the world’s ugliest fish at an aquarium in Sorsogon, Philippines.　 Morgan Ophir awoke feeling upside down in Sydney, Australia.

Hokusai wave
a blobfish behind the glass
stares back at the boy

* * *

morning window
snail greets my fingertip
with his foot

Raj Bose partied in Honolulu, Hawaii. Late, Tracy Davidson got angrier when she was pulled over.

beach wedding
dancing with arms raised,
!crabs!

* * *

making the cross witch crosser
a speeding ticket
on her broomstick

Marek Printer feared finding a curse in Kielce, Poland, that has become a symbol for support of Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.

Zorro’s mark
on the neighbour’s fence
Halloween moon

Well-stocked with treats to handout in Bolingbrook, Illinois, Wilda Morris interpreted a haunting sound at her front door as an omen of death.

the owl
calling my name
trick-or-treat

While walking in Canterbury, England, Alan Maley recoiled at the sight of a ghastly grin of death.

a severed pike’s head
on the riverside path--teeth
bared even in death…

Maxianne Berger wondered how to keep up with the neighbors in Outremont, Quebec. Morgan Ophir had fun teasing his neighbors in Sydney, Australia. Dennison played a song by Rihanna.

harvest moon--
the neighbour’s lawn flamingos
in witches’ robes

* * *

vampire next door
BBQ stakes and wine
blood red

* * *

not diamonds
in the sky, but
witches!

Recalling yesteryears of trick or treating in North Syracuse, New York, Carl Brennan enjoyed “Cheez-its, Coke and ‘Star Trek’ in a dream that boy still smiles.”

Friday evening--
lying on the living room’s
wall-to-wall carpet

Silva Trstenjak watched a candle drip until daybreak in Strigova, Croatia.

a burnt-out candle
the dawn moves
into pumpkin’s eyes

With a nod to a master haikuist, Dennis Owen Frohlich in Catawissa, Pennsylvania, might have been inspired by the Disney film “Nightmare before Christmas.”

Basho’s phantom hut
a Christmas tree decorated
for Halloween

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The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear on Nov. 7 and 21. Readers are invited to send haiku about xenophobia or the fear of the unknown 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.

* * *

haiku-mug
David McMurray

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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