Photo/Illutration(Illustration by Mitsuaki Kojima)

  • Photo/Illutration

waiting for your love Haleakala silversword
--Tejendra Sherchan (Kathmandu, Nepal)

* * *

unrequited love
biscuits in a blue box
from the sky in June
--Murasaki Sagano (Tokyo)

* * *

This new day opens
with some of us wrong-footed
while Druids count nights
--Philip Davison (Dublin, Ireland)

* * *

subway platform
the poverty of a singer
elongating…
--Nicholas Klacsanzky (Seattle, Washington)

* * *

bus station madonna
pregnant alone eating beans
mouth pricks red
--Guliz Mutlu (Ankara, Turkey)

* * *

Cowering alone
in the corner of the nest
a swallow chick
--Yutaka Kitajima (Joetsu, Niigata)

* * *

pushing her way past
all acceptable conduct--
spring’s flooded river
--Becka Chester (Santa Barbara, California)

* * *

cliche
women waiting
at the window
--Barbara Anna Gaiardoni (Verona, Italy)

* * *

play the game
or slay the dungeon
master
--Jerome Berglund (New Orleans, Louisiana)

* * *

lover leaving
a brief flare
in the Martian sky 
--LeRoy Gorman (Napanee, Ontario)

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

The wedding highlight...
lumber-carrier chants
dispel the spring blues
--Yutaka Kitajima (Joetsu, Niigata)

The haikuist belted out a worker’s song (kiyari). He first heard it as a boy at a summer festival in the timber-rich mountains near his hometown. Since his generation, it seems people are waiting to marry later in life. In Split, Croatia, Dunja Pezelj read a Chinese classic about making changes.

I Ching courtship
From the balcony smiles
a blue tulip

Rosemarie Schuldes waited all night long for a magical moment in Mattsee, Austria. Preeti Sharma attended a wedding in Delhi, India.

ascending
morning mist
lifting a bride’s veil

* * *

long-awaited
garland
made of marigold

Angela Giordano heard wedding bells in Avigliano, Italy.

once in a lifetime--deluded about eternal love

Patrick Sweeney taught tectonic theory to bright grade 6 elementary school students in Aomori Prefecture. His haiku juxtaposes that act of drifting apart with a legal term recognized by divorce courts as grounds for separation.

irreconcilable differences
have nothing to do
with continental drift

Yoko Arimoto, Jason Ray and Rose Smith, respectively, chaperoned students visiting Kagoshima Ikueikan High School from Nacogdoches, Texas.

Raindrops
became diamonds
from America

* * *

Blended together
town and university
stirs friendship

* * *

young college students
across the sea, yet the same
the same buzz is here

Leon Tefft was mesmerized by a cloudy swirl in an ice-cold glass of water with a sugar cube and silver spoon resting on its rim.

absinthe drip
the fortune teller waits
for silence

Slowing down to listen to a rhythmic rainfall in Camano, Washington, David Cox couldn’t quite catch a clandestine whisper. Water droplets percolating lines of raked sand resembled moonlight on the sea at the silver pavilion in Kyoto, according to Charles Smith.

Spring rain…
the tulips guard
their secrets

* * *

Ginkaku-ji
moss absorbing the sounds
of wet tourists

Lee Nash’s gated property in Poitou-Charentes, France, is in dire need of repairs.

paint peeling
from the mansion gates
windfall apples

Eva Limbach in Saarbrucken, Germany, and Jacek Margolak in Kielce, Poland, respectively, waited for paint to dry.

freshly painted
the tiny spot
no one notices

* * *

a hair--
caught
in fresh paint

Maxianne Berger waited for the sun to shine in Outremont, Quebec.

purse umbrella
ready to become
a parasol

Deborah A. Bennett got soaked in Carbondale, Illinois. Mutlu prayed she would be on time for the bus.

missing every bus
on the way to work--
summer rain

* * *

bus station clock
stops at 11:11
every prayer gets stuck

Laila Brahmbhatt froze, while waiting at Myrtle-Wyckoff Avenue Subway Station in Brooklyn, New York.

frost warning
she waits at the empty station
with the tick of the clock

Anna Goluba waited ominously in Warsaw, Poland.

Blind date
Wall clock ticks
Louder and louder

When storm clouds gathered over Tempe, Arizona, Brandon Favre felt giddy about getting some rain in the desert. The haikuist soon realized that he was just imagining the feeling of rain on his skin.

dark clouds thunder
across desert skies
Schrodinger’s raindrop

Floods dampened Nash’s spirits who reported “the wildlife is disoriented, but help is at hand...”

Saintes outing
goldfish swimming
in the car park

Stuck in traffic, Raj K. Bose may have misspoken because he was more hungry than angry, in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Flooded road
slows down traffic…
child’s paper boat

* * *

dinner date
both arrive late
stomachs growling

* * *

coffee dripping...
should have held my breath
dark thunderclouds

Padraig O’Morain had felt sure of himself in Dublin, Ireland.

in my mind’s eye
a row of beehives
where none have ever been

Lori Kiefer was anxious to get through the main gates on Royal Hospital Road for the Chelsea Flower Show in London, England.

flower show--
waiting in line
the bees and I

Antonio Mangiameli held onto the summer solstice in Lentini, Italy.

high noon--
the kite’s shadow
hangs by a thread

Tsanka Shishkova held her prince charming’s gift of florescence in Sofia, Bulgaria. Jacek Margolak walked by fluorescence in Kielce, Poland.

midnight date
silhouette of flying Pegasus
on the flower moon

* * *

midnight rain...
the blue light from the shop
soaks into the street

Stoianka Boianova arrived at Sofia Central in Bulgaria.

railway station--
my heart beats wildly
before the train stops

Perhaps Randy Brooks hadn’t planned to go, but he seriously felt in need of prayer at a cemetery in Taylorville, Illinois.

fresh cut bleeding hearts
in a fast-food cup
her grave visitor

Zoltan Pachnik waited for a bite in Kaposvar, Hungary. Justice Joseph Prah blew smoke rings in Accra, Ghana.

the first fish
smaller than smelt
spring waters

* * *

seashore harvest
calling tune after tune
an old man puffs a pipe

Subhash Roy Choudhury waited in line for street food at an “overcrowded evening food stall” selling savory fried dumplings with potato and pea curry in Cuttack, India.

Iran, Israel, U.S.
dahibara aloodum
street fight continues

Dieting, Alexander Groth had been looking forward to a little more to eat today in Berlin, Germany. To relieve stress, Bennett ran in circles.

cheat day
the disappointed look
of my cat

* * *

hunted by the cat
the cat tail surrenders--
summer night

Sandra St-Laurent stocked up on supplies for a long break in Whitehorse, Yukon.

last day of school
raiding for our summer’s loot
the local depanneur

Patrick Sweeney envied an antelope’s lyre-shaped horns at an expensive zoo in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

a nyala staring straight through me and my nine-dollar pretzel

Sagano waited to see the masterstroke of an artisan glazing grilled rice crackers at a Ginza department store.

once, twice, thrice
soy sauce brushed senbei
smell of rain

Hifsa Ashraf welcomed the scent of rain in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. An earthy aroma caused Jacek Margolak to shed tears in Kielce, Poland.

preparing bed
for the wild rose cuttings
petrichor

* * *

packing bags
first heavy raindrops
on the itinerary

Rob Scott waited for the sky to clear in Melbourne, Australia.

high fly ball
a passing cyclist
slows to a halt

After she lost her father, Soumya Mukherjee revealed that “for a long time, I used to see (or imagine, I still don’t know) a firefly sit on my mosquito net every night” at her childhood home in Tribeni, a small town in West Bengal, India.

Father’s Day
I still see a firefly
stuck in the mosquito net

Herb Tate watched fathers and sons plant potatoes on family farms with south-facing steep inclines on the warm and sunny island of Jersey, U.K. It took a lot of work, but he noted that this crop of Jersey Royals will get into “shops and supermarkets long before other new potatoes.”

cotil ploughing--
the veins that stretch
from him to me

Jennifer Gurney recalled a childhood memory in Broomfield, Colorado. Viv Frawley lined up in Seattle, Washington.

Saturday morning
walking through the woods with dad
Egg McMuffins

* * *

in constant
need of kintsugi
broken shake machine

Maley was inspired by a statue of Matsuo Basho standing while leaning on a bamboo walking stick in Hiraizumi, Iwate Prefecture. The father of haiku recorded in his diary “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” (Oku no Hosomichi) that he was there on June 29, 1689.

Basho sits waiting
for the frog to take the plunge--
the plop still echoes

Randy Brooks sat on a stone lost in thought in Taylorville, Illinois. Perhaps he crouched with a hand to the chin and right elbow to the left knee in the way Auguste Rodin cast “The Poet” (now called “The Thinker”) in 1884.

glacier field stone
behind the barn
think on it

Alan Maley awaits the summer solstice; June 21 is the longest day of the year where he lives in Canterbury, England. Helga Stania’s soul flows in Ettiswil, Switzerland. Eugeniusz Zacharski left Darlowo, Poland.

the lake sleeps, silent
in a duvet of dawn mist,
waiting for the sun…

* * *

a long look
at the waterfall
the flow of silence

* * *

summer solstice--
departure
in full bloom

Marshall Hryciuk wondered why caterpillars and blossoms were taking so long to climb his neighbor’s tree in Toronto, Ontario. Nicoletta Ignatti has been seeing flowers since the Ides of March in Castellana Grotte, Italy. Mauro Battini heard woodcutters approaching Santa Croce Sull’Arno, Italy. Mick Mc Gann Jones waited to see which deer would run to Caragh Lake, Ireland.

so, where did that horde
of dusky emperors
disappear to?

* * *

seeing trees blossom
where none exist
tulips red and yellow

* * *

deer’s bellowing--
the trees in the woods
marked in red

* * *

twilight encounter
four sika does
staring match

What was it that Stania saw in Ettiswil, Switzerland?

March wind…
white petals in the air
snow or butterflies

* * *

spring dew
I see the blue butterfly
which isn’t one

Deirdre Hines read correspondence in Letterkenny, Ireland. Ashoka Weerakkody got a delivery note in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

cabbage white
on a purple leaf--
butterfly letter

* * *

candled but unlit
ready for pickup
birthday cake

Sagano composed a haiku on Fortnum & Masons kraft paper. She also replied to Yosa Buson’s (1716-1784) ink-brushed letters on washi paper at a temple in Kyoto where the master poet and artist was buried. Spring rain filled Lilia Racheva’s haiku with exciting contemplative emotions.

running up the steps
to Konpuku-ji temple
fallen peony petals

* * *

temple,
the rain draws layers
of history

Doc Sunday can’t wait to travel along the Setouchi Shimanami Kaido scenic route from Onomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture, to one of the world’s largest suspension bridges that stretches across the Seto Inland Sea.

carrier ship
marine spring light haze
giant bridge

Shishkova could forward poste restante (waiting mail) to an abandoned post office on the Seto Inland Sea islet at Mitoyo, Kagoshima Prefecture. That Missing Post Office has become a sanctuary for undeliverable letters and a place for people who are not yet ready to deliver a final goodbye to the lost or dead. Govind Joshi sang from the heart in Dehradun, India.

unreceived letters
around a collapsing house
forget-me-nots

* * *

swallow nests
around the crumbling house
family gathering

* * *

mother’s eye surgery
nurses in the waiting room
listen to her folk songs

Natalia Kuznetsova’s compatriots left pastures to fallow in Moscow, Russia.

spring in the war zone
waiting hopefully for peace
farmers’ unplowed fields

Wieslaw Karlinski and Marek Printer, respectively, found hope in the rewilding of Poland.

sometime after…
in the enemy tank
a finch nest

* * *

tank wreck
someone stuck forget-me-nots 
into the barrel

Alan Summers noted how “birdsong can never be totally eradicated” in Wiltshire, England.

despite
the tear gas a birdsong
so blue

Sanjana Zorinc didn’t have time to point, nor did Silvana Medac have time to measure growth spurts, respectively, in Bjelovar, Croatia.

just as I see it
the wind carries it off--
a white butterfly

* * *

youthful laughter...
the future takes root
with a pine sapling

Mario Massimo Zontini had no time to prepare for a visitor in Parma, Italy. Frawley frowned. Pitt Buerken used a laptop to check in with his boss in Munster, Germany.

hospital:
the sunset enters my room
unannounced

* * *

the scars
after stent surgery
golden arches

* * *

fast food
a man working
on his waistline

Maley and Jackie Chou, respectively, took all the time in the world to order fast food.

McDonald’s at dawn:
plastic tables and cold light--
just two customers…

* * *

eternal yellow
of the golden arches logo
a long day

Charlie Smith in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Louise Carson in St-Lazare, Quebec, respectively, take one day at a time.

pink sunset
beneath wisteria
pastel illusion

* * *

retirement condo
view
of the setting sun

Ian Willey found an answer in Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture.

asked if I believe
in an afterlife--
a cicada’s husk

Tom Bierovic need wait no longer in DeLand, Florida.

haiku anthology--
still looking
for my name

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Read what you’re just waiting to do at http://www.asahi.com/ajw/special/haiku/. The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear July 3, 17 and 31. Readers are dared to try composing a haiku juxtaposing truth with deceit, honesty against deception, or reality to delusion, on a postcard to David McMurray at the International University of Kagoshima, Sakanoue 8-34-1, Kagoshima, 891-0197, Japan, or 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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