Paired Haiku Sequence Collection
By William Dennis
Paired haiku are meant to be read any way that the eye moves, from the top-left of each column or treating the whole as a single column with significant space in the center. Such a sequence may be read zig-zag, starting with the top line of either column or read straight down either left or right-hand column. Chess-knight's moves, one line across and two lines down, and visa versa, work equally well.
Shore
Distant the sea sends
Subtle bays among our piers Insisting on calm Swallows swallows On all the wires swallows Facing the wind High October tides Driven by the swelling moon To seep across the roads Ice stays soft Over salt meadows Despite the wind Gull on the catwalk Snaps back its head and mews At gray spring Tiderunners in May From breakers off the jetty Take spoons or cut bait Rooty yellow toes Anchor in the twiggy nest Aigrettes tumble down Killifish crowd And part re-animating Red crab shells White oak butts mirrored Stand silver in the back bay The bark come all off Their catwalk ran out To a fish-trap in the sound Dug every summer High tide inching up On a stalk of spinifex The bronchius snail Headlands tack Out in the channel Blocking the inlet Shield and billhook lost A partisan littoral Shelving and shelly Suddenly an air Insinuated bronze The dragonets swarm High beyond hearing Lower edge of the unseen A whirlpool of gulls In the spring bed Upstairs in the house that sways On its pilings Last thing for the day Heavy night herons stroking Past the Ferris-wheel Salty blue fruit Red cedar gathers A pungent coiffure |
Not crab not fish A hissing presence
Thrashing in the long grass Drives crabtown indoors This morning The air is empty School starts Flocks flow down the shore Darker against the spread stars Stealing night marches In frozen reeds One sparrow hopping What can he want? Hungry for something A gray-head of the first year Not crab not fish Browsing on bluepoints They flash off the drop-off To spawn in the bay Feast and cry out glad The long banquet of minnows Plumes for aethlings lost Minnows kettle And cloud re-boiling Coral and roe Salt water cedar Staying alive as pilings Schooling minnows part Riprap at low tide Tossed along the clam-shell reef By the Lenape Peering paddling The diamond-back terrapin Lines up on a meal The point wears As gulls set a clutch In the bayberry In a sandy wind The screaming riparians It gets in the eye Every stem of grass Launches its changeling at noon Humming to the sun Humping at the oars Amidst the anticyclone Engagement of fleets Sun-baked waking In the knotty-pine loft Broadside to the bay Hot-waxed and sunburned Muscle-cars and muscle-shirts Heading for the bars Hanging by clusters The butterfly migration Stopped at the bay |
Palace Kawardha
Haiku composed while staying at the former Maharaja's residence
Palace Kawardha
three colors of flower on one bush On older Bouganvillia blossom colors deepen Built into the gate one walks in by--an elephant mounting platform Country dwellings* of the Thirty-Six Houses returning to earth The former raja beckons his man --Maharaj! Dust in dry season lies before and flies after Camel ghosting down the road by night --no sound but bells First dust in the morning--each cow joins the herd Dust does not obscure* the wallpaper sex temple to these teenage girls Brick--before the rains the whole country brick except for dust And even basalt* loses its erection after all this time An old granite temple protected by high walls of recent brick Monkey troop wasting most of it in the neem tree One sparrow--who cares? though farm boys at rice harvest jump up for the flock White monkey breaking down the whole plant for one bite Hugging the toddy palm the tapper sways higher and higher Wondering whether to mend the dhal fence or beat the wandering ox Monkey with rice turns his back on a cluster of crows Hopping crows don’t beg--the monkey won’t give they do steal! Cows amble home at the hour of dust The herd boy looks ahead eagerly and cows speed up At a strange step bees that hum in the eaves all day flick their wings |
The last great palace built in the last great drought as charity Though grainy with time the man who carved love’s karma who might he fool? Lingam of schist ground down to a dull nub servicing the gods |
*Paired haiku
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My House(Paired verse, to be read any way possible: starting top right or top left column, straight across, straight down, zig-zag or chess-knight's move: one line on the first side, two lines on the diagonally down or two lines on the begining side, one line diagonal down.) |
Three yellow cups nod
Creeping along the woods edge Meet again next spring Primrose yellow hope-- Night swells in tree tops--dark trills Daffodil-dandy First month’s well-spring Voices seep through winter’s locks Recalling a pledge The pool makes no sign-- Two large bass and small sunfish Grackles stroll the edge Ferns nestle and molt In the palm of the forest And return each spring Certain fields there are Harbor a poisonous frond Swollen from a spore Low dissected shade-- White-berried in the swamp-land The hapless sumac Damp weight of sky Presses birds into trees-- Dark raisins plumping Transiting fall sky Commuter crowds change of shift --Love stirs a pinion Corn’s roots mined the field Now hard clay dry and sunken --Those children are grown Fight with the builder Wrestle over stuff of floors --Friend we disagree A shovel’s right use Is to wear out in the pit Or sooner on stone Hardwoods’ dreams of crowns Lean into the airs of all The widening roads House of ship’s bastions Lay round the pool of welcome Serene all weather Rough heart of my house-- Four-by-twelves of thick-cut oak Slow the powder-post Cartoon Saturday Girls or very young women Looking ahead Low walls pass laughter Two daughters cutting up rough Polishing young men Heaven seen on earth-- First a man and then a child Old age in glory My foot on the ground-- Stand on my shoulder to reach Your nest in the air Walls want pictures The house echoes of voices --World through the window The prettiest duck At the zoo an exotic I can give not treats Wedded to mountain Oak with its intimate earth --Free to remain there Mosaic faces Lost tiles move the edges --Piled little ghosts Five times my love robbed-- Take from the poor give the rich A slaver’s contempt In the glaze some craze Will work in toward the center --Character is fate Child here without hope Cold plunge into old mire --Who can’t I forgive? Milled between round stones Husk then voice then flour of bone Silky to the hand A small central clutch It may be fatal hope Embracing a point Thick on poultice leaves In the prolonged act of death Dull pain scribes bright ink Shy kind and new doors --I still practice husbandry To half-wild things That balm ground from glass Weeping would be becoming --Honoring Flaubert Coming to the point Could move closer or away --Born close to the knife Never steaming blood --Not mad not much abandoned Nor no leap-long thought She was a great aunt Her pictures hang on all the walls --Blurry memories Letter in the mail Paper-pale sky ocean ink --Scent of home and you Slow-moth memory-- Drawn back by bright attention Until ribs fall in Size and sweet temper Appetite laughing the rogue --Holding still my place And who but a wife So wield an umbrella To ward off the dew? Pepper in the sun Mother with her child at home Lettuce in the rain Learned to like sushi-- But what an education In taste and its lack Parched clay powders Oil floats in the deepest well --Thirst risks poisoning No moth-holes of peace --Ignoble friendly fire Grape-shot and rock-salt Dropped in your drawer-- All sorted and ready Unwrinkled at need The dolphin’s wife sighs That he speaks only of fish --And stays away long Goblins are only Dirty boys run out of school And we know them well This tree broke when young Twice beneath some careless shoe --Parents now long dead Where crows snapped spring growth Slip-joint youth the limber pine Sets a new leader Classic scholar-- Alive among roof and pillar Where Hansom once died Staring at my hands Seeing through days and miles --Small in the distance Where when I look there Glare in the ice some fire Stimulates blind sight Sheared by ragged jaws Cloth yards of experience --Re-mumbled later To mock at romance As better lived than written Urging tragedy |
Buds in first pink bow
Even yet beneath the snow --Birds looking north Frog-fresh...crocus-cute Chill does not bite them at all Frost-bright...bud-perfect Mating birds send up Plumes of song from the thicket Of their new-built homes Thought of water-- Is cool to sit beside when Lost in arid talk Ware the nestling fern! Whose toxic rhizomes feather On the coppice edge On bracken pasture Heifers grown soon unthrifty Showing too much eye Well watered ground-- With what pain each weed is known ...How many strange fronds Pudding earth Has a sweet soft center And a thin hard crust Crossing autumn’s palm Celebrant holiday brant --My heart stirs a wing Ten-inch high fence rows Three hundred years a farm --Haunt upon the land Bind my strength in walls Stone path sheared hedge beds all dug --And dwell in my works The worn round spade-- Two inches of sharp steel Added to the earth Rivers of commerce-- High speed asphalt tugs the trees Our gravel bay laps Bonsai of a thought... Brevity so revealing... Fruitful evasions... Unplaned oak plafond-- Hard to get such lengths now days --Moisture splits the ends Leaning back Weary of watching themselves Uncombed on the couch Youth sits in the hearth We use your five gifts daily The sparks fly upward Planet of our sin– Impatient revelation Garden of our toil Knot at graft union-- Each spring a weight of blossom Wet may snap in the wind O monkey monkey Hang no pictures in your mind --Shadows on a cave wall Not come-hitherish The cat says I’ll go thither --Just make her a lap Green moss on stone --Transplanting is possible But never the same Brown wolf spider Bears away her bead-work brood --Agile parenthood True it’s genocide --History deserves trophy dead ...Sad to be so cruel Just don’t be fooled now Cracked vessels hold plenty beans --You set them down soft Shame the constant drone Gravity alone its peer --And I the ether Flesh yearning for whips Lizard run upon a thorn --Strength seeking purchase Cats or cactus --Live on such sufferance --Approaching at risk A dark frog stares up Through a lens of still water At clouds of yellow Down plucked from my breast To make the softest warmest bed --The smell is yet strange Vitreous poultice Well the appropriate tear --Gorgon turn away No one of them well Seven ambiguous tongues --Honing poetic Brief blast black gargle --Lost to me heart never burst Veins will not congeal Aunt Fanny chose the sun Uncle Jack dries in a crypt --Find me in the shade Earthquake season now– Twenty years two continents The earth broke Hello! Elusive recall Dark cats that never stay lost --Scattering heart’s ash Keepsake of old strength Follows me on china bones --Can’t take beating now As hats were made for Sitting tears for passing time --Grasses thrive on ruins Dolls in the closet Come to life after a while --And walk off in pairs Have I sucked it all All the good from my lemon Through my candy straw? Straighten from labor Put aside tools of making --Be just once at rest Pennant snapping --A powerful old woman Braver as more rent Things land in my pool--- Follow their darkening drift Heedless of splashing Inside and outside Worlds of women lands of men --A dividing thought Of your father’s line The only surviving son This is very special* The sprouted acorn Snaps easily under foot --A son must leave home Lost in the forest Avid for the hearts of trees --Come upon gingerbread Interim housing-- Pretty with scroll-work and seals Leaves Hansel at risk A hole in my chest There it blows Winter wind Squint and turn away Search in the after-image Blinking back vision Tricky young dogs A gag too hard to swallow --Bite the belly-cord As I paused For those thoughtful few moments Snatching out my heart |
*quote: Gus Lee, author of "China Boy" on Fresh Air, National Public Radio.
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