Kampuchean kids

Kampuchean kids
harvesting pastoral dreams
migrate down the road
engraved by carpet-bombing
red carpet to the country

First published in Simply Haiku, Winter 2011:

http://simplyhaiku.webs.com/

A little bit of Turkish: köy (Village) -den (suffix meaning 'from')
Doğru söyleyeni dokuz köyden kovarlar.
Speak the truth, and be dismissed from nine villages.
-ye (suffix meaning 'to')
A'dan Z'ye (lit. A from Z to)
From A to Z.

Triumphant Sun

the sun
rose triumphant
bright jealous enemy
of stars night's canopy of gods
outshone


A little bit of Turkish:  Güneş (Sun)
Güneşte yanmayan gölgenin kıymetini bilmez.
Who has never been burnt in the sun, does not know the value of shadow.

I count honeybees

I count honeybees
the curves of snails and seashells
pine cones and cacti
as numbers turn to spirals
I dervish dance the silence


First published in Simply Haiku, Winter 2011:
http://simplyhaiku.webs.com/


A little bit of Turkish: Derviş (Dervish)
Dervişin fikri neyse zikri de odur.
Whatever the dervish thinks, he mentions.
(fikir, -kri = thought, idea, opinion, mind; zikir, -kri = 1.mention; 2. devil worship ceremony).

The Lion of Safed

scent of pine
ascending mountains
forest slopes
exhale the lion's
devoted prayers


The Ari, or Lion of Safed, is considered the founder of modern Jewish Kabbalah, see:

The Tree of Life: The Palace of Adam Kadmon - Chayyim Vital's Introduction to the Kabbalah of Isaac Luria


A little bit of Turkish: Dağ (Mountain)
Dağ dağa kavuşmaz,insan insana kavuşur.
Mountain will never meet mountain, but man may meet man (again).
(So be careful how you treat each other)

Cordless

belly button grieve:
neither inny nor outy
had Adam or Eve
mother and father of all
cut here the mark of their fall


A little bit of Turkish: Göbek (Navel)
Also means center, hub, roundabout:
Ilk göbekten sola dön.
Turn left at the first belly-button roundabout.
Ilk - First; göbekten - roundabout from/at; sola - left; dön - turn

Now that is what I call a self-publishing success story!

Toyo Shibata's self-published anthology, Don't Lose Heart, sells 1.5m copies:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/26/japanese-woman-bestselling-poet-99

A little bit of Turkish: Aslan (Lion)
Her gönülde bir aslan yatar.
In every heart there lies a lion.

Baked beans made her bum go boom

Baked beans made her bum go boom
and everybody left the room
but even then the smell was bad
a stench so foul to drive you mad
so everybody left the house
mum and dad the cat a mouse
yet even still the stink was rank
and firemen came to find what stank
they feared a poison gas had leaked
and while they searched for what so reeked
evacuated all the street!


No more does she eat legume, since

baked beans made her bum go boom.

A little bit of Turkish: Koyun (Sheep)
Her koyun kendi bacagindan asilir.
Each sheep is hung by its own leg.