President

 

Epiglottis

George Washington got his

stuck in one of history’s what-ifs

 

Undetermined

Jimmy Carter turned the page

or was it simply old age

 

Processes

by which American presidents

met pressured ends

 

Assassination

dismissed by shotgun

how the West was won

 

Expletive

one after another or in noxious groups

foul mouths on permanent loops

 

Cardiac

not ones to wear their heart-on-sleeve

exited without a by-your-leave

 

Library

calm where scholars are wont to go

with the eternal, well what do you know?

 

Dementia

their gold rhetoric turned to garble

verbal cues for losing of marbles

 

Vanity

gone as the glowing face breaks up

from suffocating make-up

 

Airliner

filled with Qatari gilding

flying into a building

 

Pedestal

toppled having ignored all portents

died of unimportance

 

Ghostwriting

or at the least on the shelf

not feeling too good myself

Seventy

  

[Seventy]

 

“may haiku seventy”

 

nothing to say for itself

seventy

then this word torrent of years

 

leaves and hailstones then raindrops

seventy

at a time fall from the skies

 

so many books to read at

seventy

so few hours in the day

 

at the birthday party for

seventy

old talk turns to falls units

 

the world is not seven but

seventy

times seven awesome with age

 

were simeon and anna

seventy

when the child confirmed their hopes

 

while in news just to hand see

seventy

is the age when life begins

 

people also ask: how do you spell

seventy?

what’s the word for 70?

 

blood thinners beta blockers

seventy

gout inhibitors aspirin

 

the bedroom study kitchen

seventy

the bathroom laundry garage

 

what journeys to recall at

seventy

names and faces remembered

 

cities of gold in time’s light

seventy

buried in the mind to mine

 

could you take from all your words

seventy

that said all that need be said

 

seventeen in a haiku

seventy

in a psalm about to end

 

to hold to all the past at

seventy

or pass on to the future

 

unknown obscure empty

seventy

yet known true full, to oneself

 

we are meant to understand

seventy

but we don’t, altogether

 

 

 

Objects

 

[April]

 

“haiku april object”

 

emptied of undreamt refuse

wheelie bins

left yawning in dawning streets

 

pop-up theatre of old

roller-door

plays morning’s mini-drama

 

shorts or pants shoes or sandals

cardigan

or not the day cold or hot?

 

perhaps install white wooden

venetian

blinds on sun-facing windows

 

autumn comes early to the

computer

upgrades downloads old versions

 

train faces silent in thought

audio

wired to pocket podcasts

 

rushed some give a second glance

clocktower

but most don’t have a minute

 

tradies make up new storeys

scaffolding

comes to grips with construction

 

bike helmets walking frames ring

ceramic

coffee cups at street cafés

 

the present moment includes

cameras

distracting from the present

 

the pope dies elections pass

newspapers

flatten their worlds to an inch

 

prune plum-trees to improve heat

reduction

of buildings and the spring buds

 

so much depends upon the

secateurs

left in the old wheelbarrow

 

95% rain meets

overheads

runs then drops to long dry earth

 

night reads too much into the

standard lamp

window glowing in darkness

 

unfixed constellations of

satellites

leave transitory flight charts

 

dreaming so far that even

eiderdown

is faraway memory