HAIKAI 2000-2019
Anthony Weir



Stormy winter night;
in between the isobars
last breaths of the old.

*

A winter morning:
the soap is crenellated
by the teeth of rats.

*

Snowflakes dancing down
on the men who are digging
another mass grave.

*

The summer dahlias...
The autumn chrysanthemums...
The world full of bombs.

*

Disliking people
I enjoy the cheerful caw-
cawing of the rooks.

*

Puma in the zoo-
bleak world of her cage - and Spring
is worse frustration...

*

Feeding my sadness-
there is no other meaning
to my existence.

*

Sixty-two years old!
Shall I now start going out
to dance with the moon ?

*

My rural dwelling:
anywhere I choose to piss
resplendent with plants.

*

A piss before bed
looking up at the night's bright
navel in the sky.

*

Every bedtime
I look forward to dying
even with my dog.

*

A snakeskin dangling
in a cobwebby window -
another poem.

*

Butchery-counter:
I am reminded of dying
red camellia flowers.

*

Relentless blue skies:
the smug sameness of
hundreds of haikai.

*

My mother: her grave
and the neglected churchyard
sprayed with Paraquat.

*

Fantastic offer -
Western Values:
two for the price of one.

*

Moonlessly,
no more leaves fall.
I'm sitting in the dew.

*

A small dark cloud
blocks out the sun.
Everything has changed.

*

Always chained up
the dog can do
nothing but bark.

*

Amphisbæna:
making love is not an act
- but an animal.
.

*

Sa vieille maison;
le loup-garou derrière
arrosant une pens�e.

*

*Orchids! The most liberating
admission: that you don't
really like sex.

*The name of these flowers derives from the Greek for 'testicle',
which their bulbs resemble. Similarly, the Mexican Nahuatl origin of the
word corrupted by the Spaniards to
Avocado ('pear') meant 'scrotum'.


Floods in October.
I don't ever want to read
another haiku.

 

 

Small smile in the sky:
the cosmos is amused by
the planet of pain.

*

Gazing at blown leaves
perhaps I will understand
what haikai don't say.

*

Watching my dog shit
I learn that content is more
essential than form.

*

Winter promenade.
The little bag of his turds
briefly warms my hand.

*

Stunning sunset ! Stoned,
I've put on my pyjamas
back to front - again.

*

The moon in a veil
as if it had coldly evolved an ego.

*

Writing sensitive trash
about moonlight
is no kind of art.

*

Horse-fly's shopping-trip:
from dog-turd to me, and on
to someone's dinner.

*

In the naked silver birch
I see my own old age.

*

Like the great poet
Kobayishi Issa

I say to my spiders
Don't worry, I keep house
very sympathetically.

 

 

Mothering Sunday. No forget-me-nots.

*

I wake up from a noontime nap; only tired shadows.

*

The black storm swept - or smeared - the sky blue.

*

Shipwreck. Only a boat can raise a boat.

*

Behind the grave is better than before.

*

The wind is what haikai don't say.

*

Just above the sea the swollen moon like a great golden stoma.
Or do I mean 'hernia' ?

*

A fig cracks a big smile. Voluptuous true love.

*

My shadow is even less lonely than I am.

*

A pebble in my sock, I think of oysters.

*

My pipe has gone out. Loneliness rarely arrives.

*

The summer acupuncturist pricks my conscience.

*

Long and transparent like a bottle he was fond and died of it.

*

Some nights the snoring sea seems to dream.

*

Red leaves on the ground. My foot-warmer awaits.

*

The wind is coughing in the windswept night.

*

Falling leaves refresh the blue of the sky.

*

Boats cuddle frantically in the winter squall.

*

Park in autumn. Abandoned swings. Naked boughs swaying.

*

Just above the dope-dealers the moon not only loiters - it hangs about.

*

Alone, not lonely, the last leaf.

*

Eternally-fading laughter from the tabloid girl lining the wardrobe.

*

When I see the new moon I am slightly joyful in my cold sliverness.

*

Slightly deaf, slightly lame, slightly sociable : I live quite slightly.

*

Long-dead leaves cover my newly-dead dog.

*

Gazing at dead leaves I am rustily happy to be not worth knowing.



next
page

top of page