write haiku on fridays

Tease the bag open,
0! the aroma! Surely,
mankind’s finest hour?

The older I get,
the more I resent other
people being young.

Nutella on toast
although delicious, cannot
compete with marmite

Baldwin’s Nervous Pills!
Cures nervousness, neuralgia,
fear, dread, want of strength,

hysteria! (Free
Postage). Add to that some green
tea extract (drinking

gives you cancer), a
celebrity, some things, a
bag to hold the things,

a glossy mag to
advise which things are best, a
vote by SMS,

and a large yellow
pillowcase to wipe away
the thin, damp, dreads that

your grandmother warned
you of; the fact that being
woman is enough

to eat up
half a woman’s life.

I’ve always preferred
birdsong in the evening. The
sky like syllabub,

lawnmowers at peace,
TVs leaking blue out of
bay windows. And then,

from an unseen tree,
falls birdsong. It reminds me
of being seven,

trudging past The Big
Field home for tea, dock leaves clutched
in an alkaline

fist, birdsong drooping
like catkins. It reminds me
to look under stones.

On Good Friday, I
awoke to a bird on the
hazel tree outside.

It was a good bird,
with a little song that drew
the sun up like hands

drawing an old tin
bucket up from a well. “Well”,
I said to the bird,

“would you like some tea?”.
The bird declined. “Coffee?” No.
Birds avoid caffeine,

he informs me. It’s
bad for the wings. And with that,
he’s off, small as pearls

in gooseberry pie.

The meeting is remorseless.
It eats up time like

an elongated crocodile
“Two level”, someone says. “Four”,
someone else corrects.

“Two”. “Four”. “Two”. “Four”. “Two”.
Above, the pelican sky
widens like blue cheese.

It’s like playing chess
with hummingbirds for pieces.
Finally, two wins.

Chairs scrape in relief.
And sunlight, somewhere, pours
away forever.

What moose could refuse
the grassy symphony of
corpse-littered Sweden?

My last haiku was
not up to standard. Only
sixteen syllables.

Good bye, haiku! It’s
been fun. I may pop in now
and then, but for now,

adieu!

There’s a pubic hair
in my best cup. Is it yours,
darling, or mine?

The neighbours’ cooking
wafts out of open windows
like a patchwork mist