Andrew Lansdown: Five Poems
On the Composition of Haiku
i
The haiku master—
labouring past the moment
to seize the moment.
ii
Counting syllables—
the ancient haijin did not
count it beneath them.
iii
Attempting to touch
in seventeen syllables
a small thing as such.
Andrew Lansdown
Ukiyo-e Kawaii
Plainly sparrows will
fluff up for warmth while perching at
nightfall or snowfall—
but who can explain the plumpness
of the ones winging
among stylised bamboos in those
woodblocks by the ancient masters?
Andrew Lansdown
Miscellaneous Thoughts on Poetry
1
On Poetry and Photography
Poems, like photographs,
can check the covetousness
that attractive things
engender in human hearts—
the craving to catch and keep.
2
On Imagist Poetry
Precise imagery,
plausible and original,
is strangely moving:
who can define or dare dismiss
the emotion of exquisite?
3
On Japanese Poetry
Hard to tell, at times,
if the loneliness imbuing
old Japanese poems
arises from the loss of love
or, inversely, the love of loss.
Andrew Lansdown
Cane
Well, for the blind,
bamboo, the colour green just
doesn’t feel white!
Andrew Lansdown
Kyoto Maple Conceits
Pretending menace
while riding the current down
the disused canal—
a fleet of little fireboats
set adrift by the maples.
ii
With pinking scissors
and crimson dye, maples make
pretty autumn kites—
but they are mostly flightless,
being bobtailed and stringless.
iii
Maple hatcheries
are releasing the first of
their coral starfish:
see them afloat or sunken
in stream, pond and stone basin.
iv
Around Kyoto’s
Buddhist temples the maples
are imitating
protesting Tibetan monks
with acts of self-immolation.
v
Possibly they feel
they are embodiments of
Jizo Bosatsu—
that may be why the maples
adorn themselves with red bibs.
vi
A geisha going
among the blushing maples:
they curtsy to her
and cast as she approaches
ruby pendants and brooches.
vii
An eruption
of maples on the summit …
and later on
molten lava flowing down
where the stream used to plummet.
viii
They didn’t aspire
to be autumn’s deputies,
and yet the maples
are reluctant to surrender
their rusty stars to winter.
Andrew Lansdown
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