B.T. Joy, UK (Scotland)

 

 

Haiku   one flank too fast or too slow a Y of geese     teahouse of the beggar poets no money for admission     still no one on the path he decides to look again at his stamp collection     the steroids don’t work the ring she never removed slipping off     catholic thespian practising his act of contrition     same old obsession the spider spinning a new web     no death poems to write the violets withering     an empty cocoon by the high-school they talk about prom     knowing I’m being watched concentrating on looking Zen     low rice fields forgetting their Burmese gospel songs     back to the buffet the cane toad chooses a bee from the hive     along the fence a magpie walks tightrope     Cherita   1. reincarnation again the old dark obsession rises in us a garden butterfly drifts openly between the rocks     2. a lasting glimpse of bliss then waking again to unconsciousness and on route to the welfare over and over I lose my grasp of the way     3. gaps between wheel-spokes the play of breathing through a reed-pipe this moment occurring in all the time before and all the time after     4. an arrival I give a part of myself to the air I take a part of the air for myself even the memory of recent pain is a comfort through this peaceful night     5. after heated dreams wriggling from my sleeping bag in the cool grass of the camp lawn, a butterfly