(Hiroshige – Whistler – Hokusai)

Asphalt gleams with the dark of sleeked crow feathers. The curve of the pavement suggests a bridge to a far away place. Umbrella after umbrella after umbrella…

morning deluge
headlamps of cars
conjure moonlight

And there it is. The moon shines full in the sky above Kyobashi Bridge. A man navigates his rustic craft beneath with its simple cargo. He passes by the bamboo yards. No fireworks here. The lunar disc suffices.

woodblock prints
glint back from his eye
on the twilit Thames

He catches the ancient wooden structure before demolition. Old Battersea Bridge. One of his series with hints of music. His aim to convey a sense of tranquillity, harmony too. For many a night he trawls the river accompanied by the oarsmen he hired, for a touch of some elusive beauty to apply by oil on canvas in his studio back home. Nocturne in Blue and Gold. Lunar light appears as a shower of sparks that fall beyond the shadowy figures who walk above a man silhouetted, poised at the edge of his barque, the only cargo a gilded spot.. It seems the remnant is jettisoned. Into the water it pierces deep, while a fragment ricochets high in the sky where it forms a streak. There are buildings with windows lit from within which cast their light to lap at the bridge.

alchemy
in stipples of paint
birdnotes at dawn

Up there he perches on a branch of tree blossom watching a spider. The threads connect like the spokes of umbrellas. Droplets fall. One clings, suspended. A glimmer of sunrise.

Diana Webb

A daughter spies on her father and his lover. In a dense field of red dots the lover is giggling. Even now, after so many years, the daughter can recall the exact pitch of it. The laughter is constant and hungry and blood red; it bites deeply into her sleep. And when it has consumed every one of her dreams she lies sleepless. And when she can bear it no longer she paints polka dot after polka dot on the bridal veil of night.

pitch black
the hand cranked girl
comes to life

Alan Peat & Réka Nyitrai

An ekphrastic haibun based on Yayoi Kusama’s paintings ‘Dots Obsession’ (2003) and ‘Woman in the Wind’ (1977)

The bird-faced girl, when very young, was stolen by seamen. In a dress of white feathers she is pinned down on something that looks like a porcelain platter. Her captors are stood all about her, eager to hear, even from a distance, the beat of her heart. They believe that by listening to her blood pump they will remember what it was like when they too had wings.

alone in a blizzard
the penguin’s egg
cooling

Alan Peat & Réka Nyitrai

An ekphrastic haibun based on Eileen Agar’s painting ‘The Lotus Eater’ (1939)

How wildly beats the heart
So snared in hopeless cares
It tears the soul apart
How wildly beats the heart

The weight of all we bare
The brunt of every jest
The focus of our stare
The distance of that crest

Beyond the cure of all our arts
Beyond the ruse some clue
How deeply sinks the heart
The weight of all we do

Anna Cates

There in the depths of your womb, lie all the children you could have had – said the Oval Lady. They are invisible, intangible sea angels; glass squid lost in the darkening shallows. They swim in blue nightshirts with their eyes and mouths firmly closed. Sometimes when a storm breaks you can hear their fins rake across the roof tiles.

hard rain
a swollen river runs
to barren waters

An ekphrastic haibun based on Leonora Carrington’s painting ‘Green Tea’ (1942)

Alan Peat & Réka Nyitrai

feeding the tree
a thimbleful
of ashes

“What if I told you those squirrels you feed shelled walnuts to dug up and ate bits of you?”
“Hell yeah. I love those squirrels. Remember when they dragged away a pizza slice someone left in our alley? And that time they found dinner rolls in the trash? What a party.”
“Yes, I remember. They’ll eat anything.”
“Yeah. They’re great.”
“So, if they ate pieces of you, you’d be OK with it?”
“Definitely. I sometimes wish to be a squirrel.”
“Good. Because they did.”

almost hearing your drums almost

E. L. Blizzard