20 Haiku and Senryu
The candles glimmer,
The tables are paved with wax:
We’ll be buried soon
Where is the wildlife?
Oh I forgot – it’s London.
We are the wildlife
A stuffed fox for lunch?
But it’s just a cabinet
In a dark old pub
Skull and crossbones flag
Flapping on a narrow boat –
Backwater pirate
Deer in the clearing,
Why does your candelabrum
Cast so much strange light?
The river flowing
Through my neighbour’s back garden
Is actually mine
The pond in that lake
Can only be seen by those
Wearing blue glasses
A man with no head
Approached me this afternoon
Though it was near dark
The dream of childhood –
To be bigger than your dad,
Quicker than your mum
I used to be fat
But I got lost in a fridge,
Came back out immune
My orange juice is
A sort of microcosm –
I don’t know what of
Sunset at the ranch:
The whole sky cracks an egg,
Unboils itself
My shoes stare at me,
Reflecting my gloomy face
Like a bright idea
Thread me this needle;
My eyes see camels ok
But not other eyes
No one is as free
As the street cleaner at dawn,
Sweeping up our lives
I saw an old fox
Sniffing round your bins again –
What are you hiding?
They fired me. But why?
Perhaps I was too honest
Regarding their lies
Heat wave in London –
A naked businesswoman
Loses her job too
The ranch fences twang—
Roadrunner making music
On barbed harpsichords
A life like a dream
Ends by tumbling from a roof
Without a pillow
Andrew Pidoux is the author of Year of the Lion (Salt, 2010), and the winner of an Eric Gregory Award (1999). Recent haiku of his have appeared in Haiku Quarterly, Monkey Kettle, Noctua, Paper Wasp and Time Haiku.