Japan

 

Image of Senso-ji Temple in Tokyo by B. Harvey

 

“august haiku japan”

 

postcards no more just chat app

narita

send/receive yes have landed

 

earthquake early warning all

tsunami

network early morning call

 

tokyo together beats to

shinjuku

greets meets seats eats bleats repeats

 

wabi-sabi means lonely

wasabi

means sharing something spicy

 

slow boats in bucket seats view

shinkansen

streams hills slo-mo hokusai

 

O un-beleaf-a-bubble

suzuki

x-planes ink-ready-bubble

 

it’s pretty rainy upon

tsuruga

pretty and isn’t stopping

 

it is mist wild streams castles

nagoya

gold rooms walks and mist again

 

green mountain stream flute music

odori

up firm feet down drumming ground

 

flowing air and tangled cloud

nagashi

somen flow down bamboo chutes

 

waterfalls of butterflies

kyoto

computers do not compare

 

monkey tourists frolic at

kosan-ji

locals rabbit to frog guides

 

amazing amazingness

todai-ji

big buddha is still as stone

 

teatime in selected realms

osaka

expo pavilions

 

vast unseen but knowable

fujisan

under days weeks months of cloud

 

every fashion crosses

shibuya

stop look admire no time

 

cloud-surpassing towers where

nippori

radiates all directions

 

 

 

 

Ice (August)

Recently in a dream I looked behind to see Trump following me in a snowstorm. A round hole opened in the ice, into which he dropped without trace. This is not how I meet the Queen in dreams, reason to believe dreams are wish fulfillment. Last night I heard about school Geography. Next term is climate change. Because the melting ice in Greenland is not there to reflect the sun, the ground absorbs more heat, adding to temperature increases. Where will cities go when the sea rises? Are they asking, who photograph their ice-cream for their online friends, before absorbing?

Wattle (August)

August is cold Merri Creek, a black slow lucid surface of overhanging expanses, pockets of sky, irregular cloud. Those overhangs are gentle now, eucalypts clustering levels of leaves that pointedly accommodate the coming heat. Long trunks, that found a toe-hold on the grassy inclines, lean and lift with insistent authority, directly above slow coordinated water. Amidst this canopy of dull greens and fragile browns, foliage taking its turn, exists the all-out effortless circle of a golden wattle. Another writer would call it startling. Soft and resolute, it lends gold now to the water. Birds step in and out of it.

Once (August)

There is a suburb called Once. There the ball flew high in daphne streets. Lights quietened homes at night. There is a school called Once, where sums added up after crossings and marginals. There the teacher, Mrs Once, writes all over the blackboard. We copied her words in Once Exercise Books (Feint Ruled). There is a radio branded Once. The songs that weaved out were magical mysteries, the news was inaccessible politicians. Prime Minister Once was variously a shunter or a shover. A birthday party in August unwrapped the present called Once, purchased at the Once Department Store in town.

Mernda (August)

At Jolimont the name merges from the dark, above the driver’s compartment. It will become commonplace after this August, orange as Dandenong and Williamstown. It’s the furthest reaches of the system now. The automated lady on platform-speakers stretches the name beyond the limits of educated Australian: M-E-R-R-R-N-D-A. I wait for my Eltham. I notice that Mernda contains dream, start imagining all the dreams that went into Mernda, another village-become-suburb of outer Melbourne. Like Hawthorn once, and Ivanhoe. It takes Google to tell me it’s local Wurundjeri for ‘earth’, the earth covered today with more and more roads and rail lines.

Brute (August)

How different is the soft tap of the vote slip in the pop-up ballot box to the brute click of the columnist’s mobile in the intended’s ear. The August coup went absurdly wrong but the brute clique got their hit. The citizens feel both intimate and powerless, informed and remote, distant from the kangaroo forum. ‘Et tu, Brute?’, the second person singular intimate and final. Yesterday they slapped him on the back who now thrust the knife. Bloodless as a cartoon, the coup delivered a million Angry emojis on Caesar and the rest, all honourable men, and a few women.

Community (August)

August 21^st, Parents’ Poetry Morning at Fitzroy Community School. William Shakespeare: “All the world’s a stage” and “Lovers and madmen have such seething brains.” Shel Silverstein: ‘Sick’. Kelly Mayo’s ‘Bumblebee’. Ogden Nash: ‘Admonitory Lines for the Birthday of an Over-energetic Contemporary’. Tulip Kilbourne: ‘Spiders’. Louise Glück: ‘Autumn’. Irene and Aubrey de Selincourt: ‘I Like to Sit by the Fire and Stare’. Walt Whitman: ‘There was a Child went forth every Day’, ‘O Captain! My Captain!’ and ‘Miracles’. Pam Ayres: ‘Oh I wish I’d looked after me teeth!’ Oliver Hereford: ‘The Crocodile’. A.A. Milne: ‘Halfway Down’. Charlotte Mitchell: ‘Just in case’.

Scaffolding (August)

One sentence from this August’s revenger’s tragedy: “Turnbull’s death warrant has been signed and the scaffolding’s been built.” Jacobean drama masterminded the storytelling technique of showing rather than telling, but Peta Credlin does both. As Reporter she imparts bad news to the Skies, though she’s also Agent. Until then, the audience were unaware of trapdoor plots. But she cannot help herself. The moment is hers. Turnbull’s Nemesis acts the part of Messenger. Gibbets advertised in London streets; good Christians witnessed public executions in real time, as in their rituals. At the theatre, they waited expectantly when Will’s jape involved scaffolds.

Party (August)

Now that, this August, its balkanisation is in full view, fresh names are offered for Robert Menzies’ inappropriately named Liberal Party. The Off-Shore Party. The Murdoch Stooges. Jaded comrades suggest Capitalist Pig-Dog Party, but that won’t translate to the electorate. The Solution Party is torpedoed by jests about The Double Dissolution Party. The Disillusion Party. Tony Abbott Team has been ditched, but Shirtfront Party is punchy. Precedents include Chipp’s Democrats and One Nation, now PHON, suggestive of phoniness, all policy dictated from Pauline Hanson’s phone. The Selfish Party. The Policy-Free Party. The Millionaires Party. All options are on the table.

Fifteen (August)

You have fifteen minutes in which to reflect on your actions. Fifteen minutes in which to fill out the form. Fifteen minutes in which to enter the bunker. Fifteen minutes at two hundred degrees. Fifteen secrets of very successful entrepreneurs. Fifteen-letter words. Fifteen Eighty-Eight the Spanish Armada. Fifteen: Taylor Swift. Fifteen minutes of fame. You have fifteen minutes to calm down. Fifteen minutes in which to chill. Fifteen minutes to forget about all of that. Fifteen minutes of breathing exercises. Fifteen words to meditate with: Blue. Harmony. Bend. Laughter. Peace. Home. August. Wonder. Sometimes. Open. Sounds. Sunday. Another. Samaritan. Healing.