Belated non-Valentine’s Day haiku
February 20, 2026
Unwashed boxer shorts
unfurled flags on the table
once there were roses
***
They both loved the dog
long treat filled conversations
silence when he died
***
Nineteen-fifties films
lipstick stains on his collar
Rorschach of regrets
***
PS Cottier
These weird little ones came about after a saw details of a competition being run by a well known poetry journal for haiku about not being in love, or non-Valentines Day poems. They wanted haiku written in the slightly rigid 5/7/5 form. After writing three, I saw that the contest was for those who hadn’t had more than one book published, which ruled me out.
I’m glad I didn’t see that before writing this nasty triptych, which was a lot of fun. But, as they say in the classics, read the rules!
Poem: A woman crossed the road
August 14, 2021
A woman crossed the road
when she saw my Staffy
and I wanted to call out she’s a honey!
she only bites her food, and she loves
to lie on her back, let the sun delve
into her belly, and when I watch her,
I feel happy, almost as happy as when she
sees me, and her tail wags her body,
but I could not help but feel punctured
by the woman equating this dear dog with
violence, I could not help feeling anger,
and realised she had turned one part of me
into a poor imitation of how she sees Staffies,
for I felt like chasing her, shaking the nonsense out,
out of her head, and instead I reached down,
and patted the keg of a dog that she had spurned
just because dog-she carries a sad history
written by some thoughtless people
upon her plump body and her muscled breed.
She wagged her tail, oblivious.
My lips stretched to a smile.
PS Cottier
Pretty self explanatory, that poem. We’ve been in lockdown in Canberra for a couple of days now, and walking the dog is the only exercise worth doing.
Tuesday guide to not writing haiku
March 15, 2020
Straining to create
seventeen syllable pups —
such stillborn haiku
That’s about the type of haiku where the number of syllables dictates everything. It’s a bit of an example of what to avoid, though I am rather fond of the second line.
Tuesday poem: Future lungs
December 9, 2019
Future lungs
Everyone mining air
and everyone a canary —
the future is coughing.
Invest in inhalers.
King Asthma ascends —
his sceptre
a smoke cigar.
PS Cottier
I’m sitting in Canberra at 11am, and it’s almost like twilight because of all the smoke in the air from the bushfires near Braidwood, and possibly even from down near Batemans Bay. We may be having a foretaste of the future, when even the bravest firefighters (like those we have now) won’t be able to put out the climate change induced fires.
There may be no more telling the kids to ‘leave that computer and go outside and play’, because they might find breathing a tad difficult.
Still avoidable, but only if we did something serious about tackling climate change. The Firefighters Union knows what it is talking about.
Tuesday poem: Three first world concerns
September 27, 2019
Three first world concerns
The scholastic affliction —
virus transmits an urge
to write a PhD
Paleo or vegan diet?
Debate attracts more comments
than Palestine
American spelling triumphs —
well color me cheeks,
what’s wrong with ‘u’?
PS Cottier
This one is inspired by some of the whingey conversations overheard at my local café. Hats off to the woman who was complaining about how expensive marble is in kitchen renovations, as if it was a human rights issue. The second stanza (or pseudo-haiku) is based on newspaper debates on-line.
I do feel an itch of discomfort about American spelling, so the last part is a go at myself. And the sign has no relation to the poem, I think.
PS Cottier 