Submissions 5 – frozen

Anyone not yet an Icebox contributor, who wishes to submit an English haiku, haiqua, senryu, tanka, or (short) haibun or renga, can do so by offering it as a comment on this page. Just type it into the reply box below and click ‘submit’. An editor might later decide to move it onto the top page.

Click on the ICEBOX top panel to return to the top page.

48 responses to “Submissions 5 – frozen”

      • Extendki, in due course I’d like to publish your haiku (inadvertently posted to Joanna’s too-long stream) to the next “Icebox inbox” posting on our top page, but with revision, if I may? A free-form haiku rather than 5-7-5 would result, though:

        midnight owl enters,
        exits a wide wheatfield –
        silent pause

        It’s good, I think? Unfortunately ‘dogiri’ is not a common expression in Japanese and certainly not in English. It won’t do. If you would prefer another word, kindly let me know.
        May I credit it to ‘Sheila Thomas’ or do you prefer just ‘extendki’?
        Thanks for your input!

    • Joanna, I have taken ‘a poppy’ (posted erroneously as a comment on your earlier posting here) for Icebox inbox 45. Next time you submit, please do so as a fresh comment on the new Submissions page, rather than as a comment on a previous submission. Another point: you can submit more than one haiku per comment, as others do. Such things make it easier for the eds. Thanks.

  2. sound of church bells
    as the train whistles by —
    wind, wind

    low sun —
    my shadow imprinted
    on the grass

    two planes flash
    in the night sky —
    two fish swimming

    traffic jam —
    on my windscreen
    rain shimmers

    late in bed
    thinking …
    unable to let go

    at the well
    between letting the stone go
    and splash

      • Gerald we published that one in Persimmon recently, so maybe another would be best? I also have sone submissions by email from a few others, but am too busy until at least Sunday to difg them out and send them. Hang on a mo… By the way, this is a page and not a post, so it may not come under the 100 days limitation thing. Try a comment on a post more than 100 days old, too. Thanks.

    • The auditory sense of the whistling train, church bells, and wind, wind felt very evocative. Haiku that employs more senses than only the visual, I find very interesting, and enjoy using that, myself.

  3. Sunset…
    The red chest sanitario of the loicas
    in the snow

    Among the cherries
    the sounds from the santuario…
    Some petals fall inglés

    Autumn dusk
    The flight of geese
    reflectad in the river

    The smell of honeysuckles…
    The night lights up
    with the first lightning bolts

    • I like the idea of the contrast between the sense images in this poem (specifically, honeysuckle/lightning bolts). If you submit this poem to the Experimental Space page, perhaps additional comments will be offered.

    • Hi Julia, you can find the Experimental page in the orange list at the top right corner of Icebox’s front page.

      It’s listed as:

      Experimental Space – English Haiku Poems 響き合いF, Kyoto

      This page is for haiku you want someone to comment on.

    • Belatedly, I decided to use the last (minus ‘the’ in last line, if you don’t object) in our summer 18 Inbox. The third ‘the’ made the rhythm awkward. Thank you

  5. owl hoots
    the night shifts
    with mice

    naming snow-
    between the violet
    and the green

    mackerel sky
    each bird twice
    as busy

    fledgling moon
    the bedroom ledge
    where stars slip

  7. Hello, I was visiting in Kyoto recently and so thrilled to find your book Persimmon and the lovely haiku inside. And very happy to find this haiku society! I am a Taiwanese American poet living in the US. I have been writing haiku for a little while now, and here are a few I’d like to submit. Thanks for your consideration…

    Fat snowflakes fill
    the air. The city begins to
    disappear, slowly.

    On a shallow stream
    a yellow leaf floating past
    old dreams grow quiet

    Water bug larger
    than my cheek—do you wish to
    join my morning wash?

    A thousand and one
    golden Buddhas, a face for
    each woman’s sorrow *

    Alive with birdsong
    a glittering cave of leaves
    Buson, rest easy

    A lonely thatched hut
    two poets shared—one leaving,
    one staying behind.

    Old pains a heart can’t
    forgive—and yet here is the
    ocean, here it is.

    Pear blossom petals
    scatter the pathway—before
    us, and behind us.

    Oh, tiny frog!—you
    dodged my careless footsteps
    in the rainy night.

    Here is loneliness—
    a dark sky of stars, each one
    bearing its own light.

    A sorrowful heart
    watches a ranunculus
    bloom, day after day.

    The scent of jasmine
    floats along the dark road—a
    languid day ending.

    Wandering at night
    I see my father’s face in
    an old cobblestone.

    The indigo sky
    darkens—old friends drink the last
    of winter’s plum wine.

    Just a little rain
    dropping, dropping on my head
    brings me some sadness.

    • Thanks for the submissions, Maria. It is good that our small vermilion book of verse, Persimmon, reached a kindred spirit.

  8. * At Sanjusangen-do temple, there are 1001 golden statues of Buddha, lined up in a way in which each one is visible, even the farthest ones back. Each face is slightly different. They say that there is a face that each visitor is looking for. I’ve noticed that all the Buddha and statues I’ve seen on the trip are male.

    • interesting gender transference between the two images in poem #4.

      I like the idea of lightness, or simplicity in poem #1. “Fat” and “slowly” might be too much / too heavy?

  11. Hope this isnt too long for haibun in the submissions..

    Offerings

    The trolls at Fowlmere live under the bridges, sometimes under the boardwalks that meander through the marshy reed beds. They live in the damp, dark, shady places, loathing the sunlight and will eat you if you don’t answer their questions correctly or give them the gifts that they ask for. Fortunately, there are many opportunities to appease them in order to cross their bridges to safety. They ask us what our favourite colours are ( which we have rehearsed well beforehand ) sometimes they ask for leaves or berries, sticks, songs, poems or numbers. They are as fickle as the wind and the rain.

    dragonflys
    circling the gunnera
    two feet wide

    At the old watercress beds the pump galoops water and our dresses are wet to the knees. The trolls won’t eat the spicy bitter watercress but we like it with our apples and crackers. The chalkbed stream water is so clear and transparent that Ophelia floats by on luminous weeds as we throw blackberries on her and the silky, seed expanded heads of reeds.

    dried up reed beds
    from the hide
    Florence blows shut
    the windows

    We are becoming familiar with the different families of trolls. Some are nicer than others, can even be experienced as kind, as we try to understand their natures. Still, we are left alone to climb trees and make dens.

    from the bridge
    half a yellow leaf
    floats by

    • Thank you for this nice evocation of childhood, Nicole. I have used it in our ‘inbox – 43’. I made a few editorial tweaks, mainly to avoid repetition, but if there are any to which you object just tell me as a reply to this. I can always take away your reply as soon as I’ve made any further changes. It’s charming and very British, although trolls are somehow Scandinavian. I wonder where your childhood was spent – Hampshire? Please enter a haibun or two in next year’s Genjuan Contest – details here https://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/genjuan/

      • Hi Tito,
        Thank you for moving my haibun to inbox. Editorial tweaks fine and welcome.
        I spent my childhood in the mountains of the Peak District, so consider myself an exile! Fowlmere is an RSPB wetland bird reserve near to Cambridge UK, where I and my 4 year old granddaughter create the memories of our future. Those pesky trolls followed the migratory paths of Scandanavian birds, so useful for them to have so many dank wet boardwalks and bridges to hide under! Usually we have to outwit them to cross the bridge but I think next time we should take the upper hand and ask them for their immigration papers…
        Will look into the Genjuan Contest thank you.

      • Hello Nicole, Loved this exploration – with your grandchild,
        I take it? Probably any immigration papers trolls have would be wet and smelly, no?

  14. Grand mother

    falling
    whilst looking at a blind man
    I see her frailty

    hand outstretched
    from cotton mill to butchers shop
    I drink from grandma’s cup

    The Golden Shot
    staying at grandma’s
    I eat a sugar coated orange

    Senyru I think?

    Thankyou

  16. ‘between letting the stone go/ and the splash’ (diarmuidfitzgerald)
    I particularly like this haiku at the well – probably it is a short time between drop and splash, yet that liminal space/ time seems infinite…and then the splash

  17. decision the glorious crab leaf

    Japan rent
    buffalo curtain
    feather cocktail

    scullery mafia
    kaleidoscope compass
    topiary dowry

    centenary walk the sheep rune habit

    happiness dowry falcon the loss

    binocular drown the rattle coast
    workshop the prune salt dribble
    camp rollercoaster the boat narcotic
    power elevator ballroom the pain
    loss sanitation the flood shrapnel

    tomb the sacrament deer hollow

    fumigate cage the signature octopus

    franchise dustbin
    ambulance homework
    football carpet

    power flood
    bullet mosque
    casual lift

    tambourine the old knight chickrn

      • Joanna,
        Thanks for submitting this haiku. In order to post it in our next inbox posting, I wish to make it ‘redcurrant’ (one word) and amend ‘sheets’ to ‘shoots’ (because it’s slippery). Would that be alright?

        • Hi Tito, It’s fine with me to have ‘redcurrant’ as one word, and to use
          ‘shoots’ instead of ‘sheets’. “Sheets’ is actually the correct word for when a fruit jelly is done, it ‘sheets’ from the spoon. But, as I said,
          it’s okay to use ‘shoots’ as I understand what you mean. Many thanks for the input, Joanna

  18. Hello Gill-san, It was nice to meet you in Ueno after so many years.
    I couldn’t stay on for a chat after the reading session so let me submit my haiku composed on the performance of that night.
    jingling cry for peace
    a poet’s soul flickers
    the spring lights
    I’ll visit this page from time to time and hope to get poetic stimulation.
    in haiku friendship, Mami Orihara

    • Hi, Masumi. Although I’m not quite clear of your meaning, I like your submission and decided to include this haiku in the Icebox inbox posting at the top page. Thanks, and also for that helpful review of Inupiat Lessons! Please stay in touch by posting here again or drop in on one of our events (advertised on our Events page).

  20. Please submit haiku as fresh new comments (up to 8 of your haiku in one comment is OK) but NOT as replies to existing comments! Thanks for your cooperation.