Month: October 2023

See you in December

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A Feast of the Senses – frying pakoras

This post completes the Feast of the Seasons series.

A big thank you to the excellent poets who contributed their work and to the wonderful readers of Cafe Haiku, from all over the world, who visited this journey into the world of the senses.

Haiku by Rohini Gupta

so busy
shouting on the phone
fireflies

*

after the rain
the cats resume
their howling fight

*

neighbours
frying pakoras
my smell is back

*

summer wind
the taste of pine needles
in my coffee

A Feast of the Senses – sipping nectar

Haiku by Vidya S Venkatramani

first rays
sipping nectar from ixora blooms
a sunbird

*

slipping my feet
into mother’s worn out slippers
December morning

*

muskmelon sunset
we share a bowl of fruit chaat
on the beach

*

overcast dawn
a newspaper boy’s whistle
lights up the street

A Feast of the Senses – garam masala

Haiku by Raamesh Gowri Raghavan

Sound

rainless morning
I count all the songs
from the jack-tree

the echoing silences of a house full of dog hair

Taste

between loose tea
and garam masala
the shop’s mandir

Touch

amazon parcel
my mother goes to
bubble wrap heaven

Smell

empty lift
the last person’s
insecure cologne

A Feast of the Senses – kite and palm

Haiku by Dr Brijesh Raj

A Sense of Now

The sodden grass is a trudge away from her dream and shampoo scented hair. Even the red hibiscus offered to a somnolent Sun God, is curled tight against the cool and wet.

deep breathing
a tangy bouquet of
fresh air and petrichor

Each leaf is studded with pearl-like droplets. One accidentally brushed free, shocks me to alertness.

kite and palm
deep in stillness
wuji

The outstretched coconut frond laden with a fork-tailed pariah, etches its space between dark clouds.

taichi practise
a metallic tsk tsk
from behind the foliage

crash landing
an ant tastes
morning glory

It’s been a good day’s work for the palm, waving gently against a backdrop of Rembrandt gold.

swaying with the tallest
a sunbird
listens to birdsong

A straggler crow flaps awkwardly home, followed soon after by three parakeets spearing across in a perfect diagonal. The sweet fragrance of jasmine points me back.

sepia tones
mother still kissing
baby’s hand


Teriyaki dreams

The crunch of my apple intrudes sharply on the silence of the green around. Would it taste as sweet to the cow foraging by the road?

rain spattered
the dour notes
of a myna

I listen for the coppersmith barbet’s deep chested, echoing sweetness. Instead the airways host a rhapsody of dissonance.

vegetable market
some carry their burdens
on their head

A white haired senior citizen walks briskly in a rehearsed zigzag, pouring hot tea from a flask to street vendors.

abandoned car
the layers of dust
on his birthday wish

A kitten gambols about, mapping smells, stopping in the pauses to tend to her immaculately coiffed fur. A well fed ginger watches the kitten mock menace the fruit vendor’s wiggling toes. She has no mother, he says and smiles tolerantly as she rears up on her hinds with forelimbs stretched taut.

still resonating
the heavy tap
of a striped paw

A school girl offers little containers of milk to the streeties, her car trailing alongside slowly. A good two minutes later the ginger surfaces for air, smacking its lips.

late aarti
mother side-steps
the hungry cat

What will the girl grow up to become? And the kitten?

white flowers
on the dargah steps
the ones that didn’t make it

A Feast of the Senses – feather touch

Haiku by Sandra Martyres

feather touch –
mother’s perfunctory
morning kiss

*

long after
the bitter divorce –
her perfume lingers

*

late coming –
I recall the sting
of the teacher’s cane

A Feast of the Senses – watermelon flavored

Haiku and Haiga by Mircea Moldovan, România

Everyone’s sky

The tank speeds over a rubber doll, which calls out to its mother. The soldiers in the tank listen to Alla Pugaciova and drink vodka. The stone bridge is very close now. One of them shows the others a picture of a girl with fair hair and laughs. They enter the bridge. A sea of lights and a loud crash interrupts Alla’s song.

ice cream
watermelon flavored
first date

A Feast of the Senses – lonely comfort

Haiku by Joshua Gage

the stones
of the zen garden
azalea petal

**

autumn rain
the lonely comfort
of chai

**

encouraging
the wind chimes
autumn evening