i need everybody to email me their email address at haikudustin@gmail.com so i can send you the invitation to become a member at summer haiku. thanks! i'm excited, friends! also, please keep ukku spring up, i still need to copy my haiku from it.

when should i set up the summer haiku collection?

across and down
the forgotten crossword puzzle
a patch of sun

angelee

spring cleaning-
the scent of lavender
on those letters

angelee

old man sits
at the picnic table-
misspelled graffiti

trees drip drains overflow the open road

passing spring
my sneeze rearranges
the pollen

angelee

Dear Matt,and dearUKKU friends,
It was an honour to share Spring with you
through haiku...thank you.
I look forward to summer.
love and peace,
angelee

Dear All

It's now time to bring ukku spring haiku to a close. I will leave the site up for a few weeks yet for comments and reading, but the seasons move on and it will soon be time to think about summer.

Thanks to you all for taking part and sharing your spring moments. I think the site has been a remarkably civilised and creative experience and has required no moderation at all. Particular thanks to Alison for her contributions to weblog management.

As you may be aware, Dustin has volunteered to take on the summer project. I'll pass the decisions as to how and when this will take place over to him - I know we are in capable hands. Passing the shared seasonal haiku weblog over to someone else also offers the chance for all kinds of new directions and the involvement of new folks as well as old. And one is silver and the other gold, of course.

With best wishes to all,

matt

we walk hand in hand
my jacket on her shoulders
through the day's last light
lobster pots and sweet whitebait
the keepers of cormorants

Little Onion

bright birds
gather to sing
spring ukku

spring pruning
the greengage has come
into blossom

Little Onion

putting spring into my step . . .

spring chill
packed-away winter coats
brought out again


I echo David's thanks...
this was a great project
and I just wish I'd had more
time to spare!
:-)
Lary

farewell picnic --
wind blows the blossoms
off the dogwoods

p.s. Thanks Alison, Matt & Eric for bringing us
all together into this effervescent haijin community.
Thanks, too, to everyone who submitted poems and
images and comments, to make the experience so
rich for us all. To celebrate my ukku Spring haiku
experience, I just put together a sequence that you
can get online: welcoming Spring: ukku haiku (2006).

It has my complete ukku spring output (clunkers and all), and is set up to be a printable, two-sided, three-fold sequence brochure. Feel free to use it for any non-commercial purpose. [update: April 24, 2006: I have "tweaked" the sequence brochure, to fit better on the page once folded and improve the "cover page.]

just by a nose
a warm after-Easter glow...
the green between roofs

spring dusk
an old man ponders
on a pea stick

P.S. Last day for posting - I never changed the clock from Silicon Valley time, so UK folks have got until about 8am tomorrow...

dry dusty day
in my workworn hands
painted eggs

angelee

dull dusty day
in my workworn hands
a painted egg

angelee

sun-soaked earth shines back at the sky

easter monday --
a day-late basket filled
with half-priced candy

the auricula theatre
staged with pansies
dad's wheelchair

Little Onion

East[er] bank holiday-
lots of sirens up my hill
on my way down

spring showers
bring the ground alive
trees shiver

cold spring -
news of an ex's
engagement

cold spring
spots of paint
on unopened tulips

another Easter
the jacaranda fades into
a lilac sky

angelee

rising spring tide
we dine alfresco—
bountiful sea

smell of boiled eggs

while eating chocolate

hippity-hop

Alan's bubblegum haiku and Wrigley's link brought to mind this haiga made with marlene mountain some time ago now...

Haven't had any gum at all this Easter but lots of chocolate!

LO

last but one stop
she coughs into bubblegum -
i step off somewhere new

Bubblegum & other gummy Easter treats

Easter Sunday in the potting-shed cowslips

Easter Sunday —
morning sun glistens
on a new web

Easter morning -
hidden in the old grapevine
a bulbul's new nest

angelee

finally spring —
the scent of her hair

easter saturday
the year's first mowings
in a plastic bag

Little Onion

waking
to dogwood blossoms --
the boys like pink today

through binoculars
the gleam of sunlight
a greenfinch’s beak


jackinthegreen (cropped jpg image) of original art by Maureen Alderslade, artist with the Art House

Easter Breakfast

scrambled eggs & salmon -
the Cabot Tower's angel
gets a pigeon fly past


Alan, Resident haiku poet at Bristol's haiku café

Bristol's Cabot Tower, images & comments

spring journal entry—
a pubic hair
underlines the date

first dandelion
my son beats me
at swingball

Little Onion

in this light
such weightless
wings

after the rains

the magnolia's first

bloom

spits and spots of rain -
the postman brings a ticket
for a summer evening show

bitter coffee
red and white Easter lilies
nod in the breeze

angelee

Good Friday
for the apostate--
scarecrows on crosses

April showers
what new thing will grow
this year

rain
on my bald spot --
recalling dry-scalp Aprils

april showers

spring moves too fast easter so soon upon us


Note: compare the picture with this one just three weeks ago.

tempus fugit ya—
spring passing and still
these frosts

weeping cherry tree
fills the breeze with petals—
soft april shower

The first game of the first season for the "ten and eleven years old" league. We're down 5-3. (Or is it 6-5?)
The sun has gone to bed, but we don't have a choice. Cool breeze from the river makes me forget that it's spring. It is April isn't it?
The other games have ended, so their lights are snuffed out. We're the only game left.
It's the bottom of the last inning- two out, two on. I'm ready to fold up my chair.
Who is this pitcher? I don't remember seeing him before. Are you sure he's eleven? He's my size!
Finally, the last out. Mothers chatter like hens, complaining that the umps weren't fair. The fathers pick up the aftermath and slowly walk to the dugout.
"Next game is Thursday at 7:30," says the coach.
Starting the car as the boy hops into the back seat. "You did a good job, son. You swung even, but you need to put a little more into it."
I whisper to my wife- "what was the score?"

wide awake
bugs chase the headlights-
going home

from the fish's mouth
the last minnow
wiggles free

a rockery wren
stakes out her territory
blue aubrietia

Little Onion

mid-April
the weight of rain
in my hair

drumming rain--
geishas dance
quickly down the path

Here's the Ukiyo-e print that Alan talks of in his last post with his 3 ladies in Bristol.

They look as though they've been caught in April weather perhaps!

Can you write a poem to go with this image? Have a go!

showery day
girls run for the shelter
of Top Shop

Little Onion

It was cold, it was wet, both rain and hail, and my three friends reminded me of:

"Three Girls in the rain" by Kuniyoshi

This photo was taken (Saturday April 8th) at Bristol's Brunel200 event to celebrate Isambard Kingdom Brunel's 200th birthday, performed by 200 saxophonists with Andy Sheppard.


muddy feet
three women
in the rain

Vicki


stormy weather
three women
having a giggle

Jeremy


chucking it down
ladies dancing
in the rain

Charlotte


These three haiku were taken from:

PARADE OF LIFE:
POEMS INSPIRED BY JAPANESE PRINTS
Selected by Paul Conneally & Alan Summers
ISBN: 09539234-2-8

Over 300 schoolchildren and other individuals wrote
more than 400 poems inspired by art at Bristol Museum &
Art Gallery's 'Parade of Life' Japanese Print Exhibition as
part of the Bristol Poetry Festival and Japan2001 Festival.

Booklaunches: Bristol, U.K. & Akita, JAPAN

***************************************
"'Parade of Life' is very impressive."
HIROAKI SANO Japanese Embassy
London, U.K.
***************************************

bent back
in april wind --
cormorant wings

Dear All

As mentioned previously, ukku spring haiku was intended as a short term project to run from February 9th to April 9th. Co-incidently, this period has been the coldest spring for a good few years here in the UK - some places in the UK have snow this morning and the some of the daffodils in my garden are yet to emerge.

Coupled with this, in my usual back-of-the-envelope planning way, I had neglected to check when Easter was when I originally set the site up. In view of this, I suggest we keep things going until the Tuesday after Easter (18th April). This will give everyone one more chance to look out for the signs of Spring over the Easter break.

The baton then passes to Dustin for the Summer project.

I hope this suggestion meets with everyone's approval,

matt

cacophony
of spring ... everything
calling out for love

palm sunday
a scattering of hailstones
in the wheelbarrow

Little Onion

first warm night..
I hear a whippoorwill
on the field

almost easter

coolness of spring rain
waiting with the bus queue
on my new cut hair

earth stretches and yawns
in the spring morning-
eggs hatch in nests

spring forest
bare branches and blossoms
that awkward time

just the one model
getting out in curlers-
Spring rain

a daffodil wind
just one magpie
in the flat field

Little Onion

trudging back inside
to fetch a snow brush --
april showers!

dogs are bothered
by the loud cricket song..
spring stays for the night

spring snow —
the poet hunkers down
at the end of the bar

hints of tulips
the dark damp earth’s
whisper of spring

Cumulus-
low, white, fluffy, heaped
the BBC tell me

out my window
I see roof tiles & smudges
and a closing sky

no telephones
a blackbird reminds me
it's spring

spring cleaning—
elementary schoolwork:
"how to write a haiku!"

chopped a neighbour's tree the cherry remains

stopped in my tracks
by a small bird's singing
this spring breeze

Little Onion

April Fool's Day-
the embers deeper
than my thoughts

Jason Sanford Brown

spring rain -
discussing our blocked sewage drain
my neigbour and I, polite....

Sangeet :)

talk of bouncing back
from adversity -
rain turns to hail

air full of the scent
of multicolor flowers-
funeral day

Spring thaw-
my neighbours
who are they I wonder?

outdoor artist-
the thick bandana pushes
his eyebrows down

animal farm-
the young ones wonder
which animal to feed first

almost two -
she chooses to feed..
the lambs

broken-down tractor
they pause for a moment
to stare...

Sangeet