~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (the poetry) WORM ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 11
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Water Bearer
-------------------

Each dawn before the sun devoured the shade
and seared the arid land, a potter strode
down to the well along a dusty road
to fill a well-used water jar he'd made.

As he returned one day a stranger said,
"Your jar is fractured. Anyone can see
you waste your time and labour fruitlessly.
The water spills along the track you tread."

The potter answered, "Though it leaks it still
retains enough for me and I would not,
for all its flaws, discard my battered pot.
It has a special purpose to fulfil."

Where he had passed a radiant display
of flowers rose to greet the breaking day.

© David Anthony

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Your Nose (for Howard Curry)
------------------------------------

The blowing of your nose was a trumpet
rocking the house, resounding from cellar to attic,
reverberating on all floors. It was a strict
aquiline beak which you said was 'Roman' - at least
it would have been if you hadn't broken it
and crooked it sideways in the mending. You ate
Club biscuits in majestic bites, then hooked
the wrapper over your royal snout and snorted,
making us laugh. Prone to scorn, you sniffed
with rapid curling lip at fads and fools;
and in the final years, your grand-dad trunk
inhaled the world as fiercely, quivering over
cut glass filled with amber. Presence flared
from your nostrils; children warmed themselves
by dragon flames that lasted and lasted. Yes.

© Helena Nelson

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Celestial Navigation
----------------------------

Days adrift, waiting for the horizon,
waiting for a fix. The edge of the world
has been rubbed away by the clumsy thumb
of this depression. Isobaric whorls
weave an ancient tale of serial crimes
as the ocean takes the prints, rolled in and out
of the ink of this pitching, blackening sky.
My scattered charts have grown cataracts,
protractor and dividers have sprouted
crabby limbs and scuttle cross the cockpit sole.
My sextant wilts like a spider plant, starved
of light, starved of familiar sights.

I bailed my swollen supplies overboard:
brackish macaroni and risotto
sloshed out to sea with my spices, my herbs,
freeze-dried coffee and tea until there spread
from the stern a salty paella of
foamy food. I know I haven't drifted far
for I sometimes taste my old provisions
in the long drafts of water I drain from
my bailing bucket. Poseidon has so much
to offer, but I have no horses to drown
and I pray the ship's cat passed muster,
mewing bubbles as I held her under.

I sheeted her to the mast instead of
reefing in the mainsail and there she sways,
claws rising and falling with metronomic
precision. She is my black Polaris
round which this vessel swirls under the sightless
cloud. She hisses 'S.O.S!' in the teeth
of the storm, but the radio mike is
a showerhead that spatters white static
and I don't know which way round S.O.S goes.
I clip myself to the jackstay and curl
myself around the cable and wait for
this to pass, my spine against the mast.

© Simon Barraclough

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Falling
---------

In the library,
you fell over me.
You said, So sorry.
I said, Ouch.
Later you fell over me
on the couch.

Things were falling into place,
thigh to thigh and face to face.
Earth was falling
through the night
falling into birds and light.

As the sky unrolled
another day,
you kissed me,
then you walked away.

But walking,
I'm told,
is merely
falling
controlled.

© M.A. Griffiths

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Death's Drum
-------------------

Come with soft and sudden wings!

Do not toy with me, paw-pinned,
till you weary and despatch,
do not leave to rot slowly
into a pad and smell like an ill-kept pet,
ammoniacal stench of old piss,
and unaware, allowing days to fade
unheeded into times of lost summers.

Do not lead me
through Alzheimer's maze,
distressed by forgotten names
of children with strange faces
that startle, holding my hands
desiccated to palsied claws.
Do not leave me witless and without words.

Do not invade me with cancer
nor wither me with pain,
till left, stripped of flesh,
I melt down to a cadaver,
a skull with vague watery eyes
propped on a pillow
scarce breathing, drifting,
down a stream of morphined dreams.

Come with a swift sharp blade!

Choose a summer morning
when flowers unfold
and fledglings fly.
Take me as I smile,
an unfinished poem before me,
half-sung song ringing
truly in my ear,
pencil in my hand
and her beside me
talking quietly in the shade.

All I ask is that I know
with all-lucidity,
the incandescent moment of bewilderment,
as I dance to the drum that beats once
between being and not-being.

© Arthur Seeley

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Driftwood
-------------

At dawn they trace the tide line,
collect conch and driftwood, gather
sun-bleached bones in baskets.

Evenings, they tipple sundowners,
fancy their feet on cold grass again,
unfold tales of old postings.

Secure, they let slip secrets
of Kikuyu corpses, then recall
the sweep of Masai Mara,


Swahili songs, deep red earth.
'Lipi la kulaumiwa: what is there
to blame me for?'


This Caribbean revolution will be a small thing:
the usual storm in a teacup.
Only servants whisper and warn:

'Better stay in today, boss:
trouble's brewing.'

© Christina Fletcher

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Susumu Takiguchi writes:The World Haiku Club is pleased to announce the
official launch of its world-wide comprehensive online haiku quarterly
"World Haiku Review". We would like to invite you cordially to take a look
at it at: http://www.worldhaikureview.org

The following three poems are taken from the inaugural issue of World Haiku
Review


..these pitted stones ..aged in the sun
.. .. .. ..holes remain ..where ice is gone

© cindy tebo



.. .. .. ..hop-scotch ..in the playground
a school caretaker ..collects needles

© paul t conneally



beyond my window ..jasmine blooms
.. ..perfume drifting ..on white clouds

© debra woolard bender

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Remembering the Rules
---------------------------------

She held her teddy, which had lost its name,
Closer than a hurt, her arms crossed over her coat
To keep the warmth in. She saw the policeman's shadow
On the frosted glass, about to open the door.

All night it had been busy. First the social worker
Then the psychiatrist. She decided to stop her screaming
When the second policeman came. Earlier she packed,
But had to leave her case by her bed, with the knife.

She could not answer their questions. Why do you do this?
Don't you know it upsets us? Where will you go?
You can't stay here like this. Can you remember
The other lady called Mummy, the other house?

She shook her head. She began to remember the rules:
"Come in and sit down here, and take your coat off;
Be nice to my new friend. He'll tell you secrets.
His name's a secret, too, but he's got sweets."

Now, would you like something to drink? She looked right through them.
She remembered that question from somewhere without a clock.
All strangers now, she realised, knew the rules.
Someone would use her name. That's how it started.

© Martyn Halsall

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Sleeping Roses
---------------------

His orders are to fill the house with roses.

He cuts them as they sleep -
that way they will not know he approaches
with scissors. His wife laughs.
"Bit of a shock even so -
waking up with your neck sliced through!"

The old man cradles the roses,
wet from rain. Blood boils in his arms
as he carries them through the night.

© Jennifer Copley

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Ich Liebe Dich
--------------------

ich liebe dich

my uncle stopped his lady
in the middle of Melbourne
turned her around
till they were standing
with their faces close
and held her

he just said it
in a quiet voice and with a soft look
so she knew he meant it
and there was a smile
creasing the corners of her eyes
while they went a little bit shiny
and moist

standing there for a couple of moments
I tried to make myself
and the rest of the street invisible
but I don't think it really mattered much
to them

© Frank Faust

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The Display Cabinet
----------------------------

Today we opened her cabinet
christened the fine china
resurrected memories

Dad filled the Wedgwood
he couldn't drink from it
he knew it was her favourite

Her cousin chose the cake stand
she'd had her eye on it for years
her sons are antique dealers

Mum decorated the plates
a doily and fancy sandwiches
she wanted a good send-off for Nan

I wanted them to put everything back

© Lynn Owen

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Old Age is...
(... a flight of small cheeping birds...
a shrill piping of plenty. Wm. Carlos Williams)
---------------------------------------------------------------

a seat by the window, peering over
the sill onto frozen streets;

nodding by the fire, drone of the TV,
interred in wall to wall carpet;

ten bluebottles hatched behind the rubbish
and bombarding them with 'RAID';

district nurses calling only me luvvie,
whipping off bandages to show
the ooze of a leg grown old..

Here the birds never pipe of plenty
and couldn't care less for mortal dress,
their cardigans smeared with mashed potato;

they do smile slowly now and then,
laugh hysterically at an old joke,
or open their eyes like a child,

stunned by his mother's voice.


© Christine Bousefield

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Traces
----------

tears on rice paper
where you wept

folded in my hand
a quiet note

© Joe Warner

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Words about Mother
----------------------------

There are many rooms in her house.
Some of them contain men who can fly.
She phones them from the kitchen on a mobile;
she asks, "Do you want a cup of tea?"

She whisks things in a bowl, spins all her clothes,
presses buttons discriminately.
She takes flowers to the church and disappears;
sometimes we have lost her for days.

She creates a story from coloured crosses,
constructs soft cushions during eclipses,
bakes spells in the oven. Her chocolate cake
transforms the eater into a sponge.

Foreign professors visit the house
(we think they came down the secret stairs).
Someone has given her postcards and poems
and filled the freezer with blackberries.

There are words on the fridge that may not be hers.

© Helena Nelson

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tetractys: dogged
------------------------

you
and I
twenty years
finding the light
in the tangled night of our desire

© Lucy Aron

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Looking Out To Sea
----------------------------

Past the lines of rush hour faces
And the sneer of tattooed walls
Past the weight of concrete silence
And screaming headlines in cafe stalls
And the dusty roar of break-neck streets
And the polythene packaging of pre-digested meat
In McDonalds super duper let’s join BUPA and eat plastic
Polystyrene coated labels
Smeared on vinyl scented tables
Past Mc big one
Mc fast one
Mc screw the world one
Mc mega triple decker chicken tikka fattened till I can’t get any bigger
one
With Mc mayonnaise and Mc coleslaw
Bigger than the hole in the ozone Mc bse burger one
Past hyper mega plastic stores of
The real thing
The real real real thing
Yes it’s the real holier than holy kids go free for coca cola thing
Past homeless streets
And helpless dreams
Of finding the jackpot
Where nothing means
The way it’s all meant to sound
In Orange, Cellnet, and Vodafone town
Past desktop, laptop, full stop lives
Past digital meals and ready cooked wives
With cd need and dvds
And voicemail, email and junkmail greed
And voice activated silent pleas
On beer can streets
And crisp packet fields
Past wide screen entertainment deals
And reassuringly expensive bottled dreams
Of alluringly naked midnight screams
Past the shops piled high
With more to buy
Past the non stop lights
And the neon sky
And the roar
Of endless night and
All the darkness
Is
The sea….
Water lapping
On a kelp lined shore
Rock and sky
The cry of gulls where
Cormorants skim
The dry silence of pebbles
And gusts of campion, sea thrift and heather
The long call of buzzard
Curlew
Oystercatcher
And the sea stretches out
To
Long
Blue
Distance.

© Adrian Tissier

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Compiling Editor: John Carley
Associate Editors: Christina Fletcher, Trevor James
Editorial Support: Terrie Relf
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We gratefully acknowledge the support of:
North West Arts Board & Mid Pennine Arts

Celebrating Year of the Artist, 2000 ~ 2001

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