Yokoburi – dVerse Haibun Monday

IMG_0063

I need windscreen wipers for my glasses and a windproof umbrella. My coat needs sleeves with elasticated cuffs to shield my wrists from the chill deluge. I need shoes that don’t let the water in, that are impervious to the puddles. I need to love the rain. I relax into the squall, lift my eyes to the skies, admire the lowering clouds, see them pregnant and heavy with fat, luscious raindrops, relax my shoulders and smile. My fellow commuters, marching head-down across London Bridge might think me mad if they took a moment to look up from their intense march towards the office, the coffee shop, the cafe, the next bus stop. But if they did take that moment to look around them, perhaps that might mean they were rejoicing in Nature in all her English summer unpredictability too?

Lifting my eyes

to the clouds over sky-line

I become raindrops.


 

This is my first attempt at dVerse Haibun Monday – and how apt! This evening the sky was cloudless as I left London, and it was beautifully warm. This morning – well, it felt like Autumn, with wind, intense rain and to top it all – yep, it was Monday. The haibun does indeed reflect what happened – I realised I was making myself tense and a little bit more than a little bit fed up with fighting the elements, so decided to go with the flow. And believe me, there was a great deal of water swirling in the air and on the pavements!

Thank you to Toni for hosting! I hope my offering is what she is looking for. I’m no expert at haibun, am a little ‘light’ on what a ‘proper’ haibun is like, but I think I’ve gone some way to achieving what has been asked for!

Yokoburi is Japanese for ‘driving rain’. Who knew there were so many words for different types of rain, as Toni kindly shares with us?

Why not join in, or if you don’t feel up to it, at least pop on over and read what others have offered up?

TJ’s Household Haiku Challenge – Dry

DSC_0033

My sandpaper throat

was only eased with liquid

gold – pure firewater.

 

For twenty five years

I have not touched a single

drop – teetotaller.


 

Here are my two entries to our favourite Francophile’s Household Haiku Challenge, where this week TJ invites us to write a haiku (or two, or three, or more) inspired by the word ‘dry’ and/or his spiky photograph – a cactus.

This is the reboot of TJ’s original theme of items from around the house. A change is as good as a rest, no?

This is a fun and short prompt – so why not take part? And in case you’re wondering – no, I’m not an alcoholic!

Interlude – A Dash of Sunny Prompt Night

IMG_1057

‘to sleep, perchance to dream’

– about all the things I want to do

‘aye, there’s the rub,

for in that sleep of death,

what dreams may come’

– after i’ve done all the things I need to do

‘but, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

it is the east and Juliet is the sun’

rays streaming down on

– the books to read

– the pen to scribe with

– the paints, the pencils

– the image I am desperate, so desperate

to magically transfer from my inner mind to paper

this is rest for me?

– the poem running round my head like a tantrum

– the story banging its fists on the back of my eyes

– the protagonist telling me I’ve got her clothes all wrong and

WTF?! that’s not the car she’d drive and

WTF?! she’d never say WTF?!

this is rest for me?

why, yes.

this is rest for me.

it feeds my soul.


 

Here’s my entry into A Dash of Sunny’s ‘On Popular Demand’ series of Prompt Nights. I’m new to Sunny’s prompts and blog, so this is my first ‘On Popular Demand’ entry!

I had real fun writing this… Picture this, it’s Saturday morning, I’m sitting on the sofa half-watching a new favourite YouTube channel by a Chilean illustrator, Frannerd, I’m in my dressing gown and slippers, sipping coffee and rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Glamour puss I am most definitely not! And here’s Sunny’s prompt which perfectly reflects my Saturday morning mindset.

Don’t get me wrong, I can sit around and do nothing – but not for too long. I have an urge to create, or read others’ creativity, watch and learn about how to be creative… You know how it goes.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my unrestful poem about rest – my kind of rest! Do head on over to Sunny’s place, have a read, be inspired, take part – you know you want to!