Haibun, March 2009
World Haiku Review, Volume 7, Issue 1, March 2009
Haibun March 2009
Haibun
River: 5
Every year seeps thaw. Marshes soften and swell. In the empty camp on the point, cottonwoods’ wind-borne seeds drift like snow. Once, the fine young Captains rested here. Here, poised for apotheosis, one stern Shoshone girl remembered home. It is a long time Primeau, La Juenesse, the other engages have been released. It was never a secret where their fires burned. Catching a scent of legends, archaeologists dig in the party’s trash pits to catalog cooked bones. All afternoon, earth is dappled with cloud shadows.
In the shady grove, brattle of cicadas.
Beyond,
green-gold flows of tall-grass prairie,
every fold, rimple, wave—
Jeff Streeby, USA
Everything out of shadow
“And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun”
W. B. Yeats, from The Song of Wandering Aengus.
Mammy had told her never again to leave the house at night and go walking. Mammy had said that walking in the dark was bad. So she promised never, ever again to go walking in the dark. But this night was bright, for the moon was full. So she took Dolly Limphead with her out through the back door and across the yard. At the orchard she opened the rotting wooden gate and it creaked all the way out and all the way back again. The moonlight made a gate out of shadow on the grass. The moonlight made everything out of shadow. There were shadows of trees and deep shadows of the stone walls, and a long skinny shadow of herself and even a shadow of Dolly Limphead.
“Look at your shadow, Dolly Limphead,” she said out loud, lifting Dolly Limphead up as high as she could. Across the orchard the long arm of her shadow stretched out with the shadow of Dolly Limphead in its grasp.
At her favourite apple tree the apples shone silver in the moonlight. She climbed as high as she could, holding Dolly Limphead out before her. In the highest part of the tree she looked up at the moon, its flat, tilted face still too high to touch.
In the west the mountains showed their dark pockets. Another shadow, not belonging to the mountains but moving freely across their surface, a large circle of darkness thrown from the sky, slid down into the low meadows, swept quickly into the fields and over the scattered farms.
waking from a dream
into white noise
the house less two
Totems
One of my first literary influences as a child and later as a teenager was a man called Bill Finger. Bill Finger was actually his real name and not, as one might imagine, a pseudonym. However, I didn’t discover his existence until well into my thirties. He was the co-creator of Batman along with artist Bob Kane, but Kane had taken precautions to protect sole ownership of Batman and so Finger’s involvement was largely unknown outside of the comic book industry. As well as being co-creator and writer of the Batman he also created most of the really memorable villains, including the Riddler and the Penguin. It was Finger who had the idea of setting the Batman stories in Gotham City. He also came up with the concepts of the Batmobile and the Batcave. Bill Finger’s tales were particularly distinctive for his use of oversized props, such as giant pennies, sewing machines and typewriters, and many of these objects ended up in the Batcave as mementos of the Batman’s adventures. In reality they were psychological totems inside the mind of the author and he left them discarded throughout his stories; his entire writing life was spent on work-for-hire for comic book companies and TV shows. He was never officially credited in the Batman comic books, and every single story carried the legend and by-line: “Batman created by Bob Kane”. Bob Kane probably thought that the lie would last forever, but Finger’s fingerprints are still in the Batcave even now.
Bill Finger died in 1974. I didn’t know his name until a good twenty years after his death. I only discovered him as history, but he’s one of the writers who influenced my life-long passion for story and incident. His tales of the Batman thrilled me when I was young, engendered in me the urge to become a writer myself. I say his name out loud: Bill Finger. His name becomes a prayer. In that way he will live as long as I can utter his name. Bill Finger. Sometimes a thing is lost, and then we find it. Bill Finger. Bill Finger. I pass on his name to others. Bill Finger.
winter sale
the rag doll’s thin body
of throwaways
John W. Sexton, Republic of Ireland
Just now awakened by God only knows what voice...
A darkened house in the pre-dawn; the time when the whole world is asleep and only lonely spectres roam.
It is so cold! Only a few short days ago I witnessed with my own eyes the first light of spring, struck dumb in the warm glow, sheepishly enduring the birds chiding, amused at my genuine surprise.
Was it the wind? Some say midnight lies, yet its much later now at night's darkest hour; I have no doubt of what I hear.
the north wind
howls its contempt
end of winter
Creeping through the blackness like some blind thief, I remember every stick of furniture by muscle memory, intent on stealing a glance out the window to check the thermometer's reading: 0 degrees fahrenheit.
Caught unaware, the only thing is to lean back on the kitchen table and let out an audible sigh, lost amidst the creaks and moans of a house buffeted by cold gusts of wind.
The dog, awake now, uncertain in the dark, begins to utter a low growl. I quiet her with a somnolent, "husssshhhhh..."
But wait. Another look.
New fallen snow covers every surface, hiding the accumulated dirt and grime of winter's refuse.
wind ripples
a sea of white snow
frozen waves
It shines so, luminescent, too bright a glare at this witching hour. A quick glance up reveals clear sky and twinkling stars, vapor from the chimneys rushing past, everything alight. The eaves block a better view.
Moving from room to room, checking every window, not a sound but for a chime's tones on dissonant wind. Pausing by the back door, taking one breath in... then barefoot and coatless into arctic night.
spring moon
racing through clouds
brighter than stars
William Sorlien, USA