Monday, March 27, 2017

Haiku--By John McDonald--Scotland

bomb site
...always
the singing flies
___________

Christmas card
from the Holy Land -
they've coloured the snow red

two dead crows -
the raised chalice
of their empty nest
___________

snagged
on the barbed wire
wool and wind
___________

Aleppo flattened -
my neighbour whines
over a bee sting
___________

John McDonald is a retired stone-mason who came to haiku in the mid-nineties. He fell in love with the genre immediately. Being a writer in the Scots language this genre fitted so well with Scots: a language steeped in rural life and having a natural succinctness to it. John has his own blog in Scots, with English versions: http://zenspeug.blogspot.com  He enjoys being involved in translations, working with the very fine Irish poet Gabriel Rosenstock on various ventures, the most recent being translations into Irish and Scots of the great haiku poet Buson: Moon over Tagoto and has appeared in many anthologies.

2 comments:

  1. Five interesting Haiku John, Christmas card from the Holy
    Land freaked me out. I don't like blood red snow.
    snagged me like barbed wire, wool and wind.
    Keep em comming.
    Yancy

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dear John,
    These haiku are powerful,one and all.
    Michael

    ReplyDelete