General Common Room
August 2012
General Common Room
A new feature, a place for sharing
We have a new feature from this issue called "General Common Room", which is like a literary salon where WHR readers and guests will enjoy comparing notes, sharing the latest (or old) haiku and other works, making comments or presenting ideas etc. in a free, friendly and helpful way.
General Common Room is a cyber room which is Junior Common Room and Senior Common Room in Oxford or Cambridge tradition combined.
Therefore, haiku poets of all ages or any haiku hierarchy (if there is any such thing in this world) can freely discuss haiku topics, share or exchange their haiku works in a cosy and relaxed atmosphere.
In this issue, the following poets are christening and gracing General Common Room by their presence: Arunansu Banerjee of India with The death of Vincent Van Gogh, Moussia Fantoli of Italy with her latest work, Victor P. Gendrano, USA with a haiku sequence, Marlene Mountain of USA with her '18 recent haiku links', A moving haiku by Marie Shimane’s brother Michael Palagonia, San Diego, California before his death, John W. Sexton of Ireland with his sequences of scifaiku and Anita Virgil of USA with her haiku.
Arunansu Banerjee of India presents:
The death of Vincent Van Gogh
azure sky
an yellow house lined with
yellow roads
mirroring
his deep wound
the self-portrait
pillow dent--
the hollow of the vacant
vase
cemetery...
the afternoon blaze
on sunflowers
the café
lighting up a corner
of night
Moussia Fantoli’s latest rendering :
La luna e io
The moon and me
A haiku sequence
By Victor P. Gendrano, USA
MOVING OUT
twilight advent
eyeing the remnants
of my past life
my daughter says
it's alright to feel sad
moving out
moving in alone
in my new retirement house
chilly Santa Ana wind
half awake
I thought I smell
her fresh brewed coffee
unfamiliar room
I bumped my head
on the bedroom's door
only a cut
the paramedic says
no stitches needed
from the window
a distant shaft
of the dawn's light
A moving haiku by Marie Shimane’s brother:
My brother died of pancreatic cancer last year. He never wrote any poetry but appreciated it. When diagnosed with cancer, he penned the following as we spent a few autumn days at Lake Tahoe. Thank you, Marie Shimane
the fading autumn light
brighter by far than
the emptiness ahead
Michael Palagonia
San Diego, California
John W. Sexton of Ireland presents:
gelatinous moon
(a sequence of scifaiku)
whalefrogs mindbleat
in the seaweed densities ...
humankind long nothing
underground seas
of thought-fungus ... moles burrow
a sacrament
infected with light-years ...
pigeons transcend between strikes
of the town clock
the Lammergeyer on
the postage stamp ...
are stamps ever really still?
Amy had a door
at the junction in her head ...
come inside, she said
we entered
the gelatinous moon ...
epidermis of starlight
in our minds, then gone ...
Eternals live
before they are born
internal bruising
of the crab apples ...
the stars blet in their brightness
the dull mirror
of the scythe's blade ... the future
offers a vague present
running low on years
the time machine
came to a complete now
John W. Sexton (Ireland)
the coal smoke computer
(a sequence of scifaiku)
the melancholy pastry chef ...
four and twenty blackbirds
baked in a sigh
a hex-ray
of the witch's ladder ...
odd shadows in the rungs
spilling
his invisible soup ... made a mess
just about anywhere
I ask: need you be bitter?
the telepathic lemon
is thoughtless
which he is reversed?
who summoned who
to the mirror?
a friend request
from the meningitis
entity
we feed data to
the coal smoke computer ...
an answer lingers
we grow the suit
directly from our skins ... furred astronauts
learn to crawl
the grey clouds communicate ...
a dolphin, a nose, just clouds,
the word olm
the willmouse left
patterings of dust ... the heart
in her mind is broken
one – borrow, two – mice,
three – tar, four – ice, five – tin, six –
rust, se ven – dis trust
John W. Sexton (Ireland)
the eraser house
(a sequence of scifaiku)
a moth
caught in her hair ... systems of light
smudge the void
the fir bleeds
a resin boy ... elsewhere sunlight
loosens golden elders
drapes her long brains
down from the turret ... a man
on your mind Rapunzel
Gingerbread Hotel ...
breakfast is endless
at the concentric table
green teeth ...
with the radiopyres
a love bite is forever
safe beneath
the lizard's tongue ... death is not
the deepest sleep
in hollow Venus
tunnel fronds drip ... the sweatfrogs
speak an acid
crystal math ...
undone the sum of apart
I amber eternity
hoarded all her coughing
beneath the floorboards ...
the living-room consumed
beam from the eraser house
white-nothings the world ...
sailors walk on e
John W. Sexton (Ireland)
Anita Virgil of USA presents:
summer day
reaching up to hang pillowcases
on the clouds
folded up
in my old soft sheets
hot sunshine smell
summer breeze
the morning shadows
rearrange themselves
toweling off
my wet foot sparkles
with a thousand suns!
so hot
cat & I
share the same icecream
iced lemonade
even so, my ardor
uncooled
going barefoot
indoors, how cool
the summer floor!
hot day . . . only one frog
rippling under the pond lilies
cools me
Anita Virgil