Haiku Calendar
January, fear
Like a preacher, elsewhered, dubbed
To a moonbeam howl
February – wolf
Lopes across rock-snarled borders
Inhuman stone tongue
March – willow-wand faith
Unbridled, even tonight
As the mouse roars by
April – shameless jig
Lime-gartered, fecund, chirping
Her spiteful green song
May – fury’s glass tooth
Scattered centuries ago
Our glittered berg-smiles
June – sun-plectrummed, still
Although we’re harrowed by cold
Its hot, blunt splinter
July, mandrelling
Us to the year’s cursed navel
We crisp and curdle
August, our world spored
To false notes and noises off
These surrogate blues
September, gold-scraped
Out of barren mines, hold me
As I sieve, tremble
October – breathless
With freedom, its wired threshold
Then simply breathless
November, end-game
We are castled, heart-cuffed to
Winter’s bitter keep
December, frost-thighed
Shaving us down to grief’s bone
Its unthawed solace
Rachel Spence has published two pamphlets Furies (2016 Templar) and Call and Response (2020, Emma Press) one collection Bird of Sorrow (2018 Templar) and a prose poem, Venice Unclocked, (Ivory Press, 2022) with photographer Giacomo Cosua.