Happy Friday folks!
A couple of haiku to keep me honest…
Call
Slate sea meets puce sky.
Wind-whipped elemental meld
Snatches words and warmth.
Cavern
Rock-filtered bead,
From cavern arch detaches.
Circles form, then fade.
Here are a couple of things that took my fancy this week on WordPress…
In ‘Murder on the Haiku Express‘, Bluebellina re-imagines the art-deco-killing-on-a-train via the haiku form. It’s wonderfully-worked piece that captures the romanticism and suspense of the genre and well worth a moment of your time.
Another piece which struck me as particularly poignant this week was ‘Merrybrook‘ at Fruits, Bats and Stories. The juxtaposition between Helen and Edward during their commute to work is both compelling and horrifying and a reminder that even in the supposed dawn provided by #metoo there are power differentials that are exploited. A must-read.
Photo credits and thanks go to https://www.flickr.com/photos/57114746@N00/ and https://pxhere.com/en/photo/323827.
Matthew Richardson is a writer of short stories. His work has featured in Gold Dust magazine, Literally Stories, Near to the Knuckle, McStorytellers, Penny Shorts, Soft Cartel, Whatever Keeps the Lights On, and Shooter magazine. He is an absentee member of the Glasgow Writers Group, a PhD student at the University of Dundee, a lucky husband, and a proud father.
Not necessarily in that order
Matthew Richardson 
I really like these haiku! Both also bring back good memories (writerly, in the case of the latter), so thank you! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks so much Joanna. I’ll count bringing back some good writerly memories as a win!
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Call” gives lovely coolness in this crazy heatwave… always made happier by your haikus. Excited to check out those other blogs!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Nadine. Baking over here in Scotland too! 🥵
LikeLiked by 1 person
Question about workflow/process. Do you write the haiku first then find the pictures or are your haiku ekphrastic? If ekphrastic, how do you pick the photos? Is it as simple as “I was scrolling through instagram” or is there a specific process?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I always write first, search for images afterwards. Frequently problematic though as I can only rarely find a decent representation of what I had in my head! That’s before I even get to the question of whether the image is licensed for reuse/crediting the artist etc. I haven’t had any complaints yet! 🙄
LikeLiked by 1 person
I was hoping you’d say that. I was struck by how evocative the poems were of the images and thought, “Man, that’d be something if he wrote those first and THEN found the images.” Not that it takes anything away if they were ekphrastic, but finding such perfect images after the fact is quite a feat!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Cheers Aeryk!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Brilliant reading, Matt! Great story recommendations too – will definitely check them out 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Cheers Tom. Well worth a moment of your time. 😁
LikeLiked by 1 person
So beautiful lly written Anand Bose from Kerala Anand Bose from Kerala.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks so much Anand. Very kind of you.
LikeLike