Winners


 
winter night
firelight draws in
the walls
 
Ernst Berry
 

 
last breath
cancer closes her life
june dawn breaks 
 
Bernie O'Reilly

and


 
hey slug,
the path has dried
of all but your trail!

Harry Bradley



Second Place



 
Standing on one leg
in the flats' playing ground
this proud grey heron
 
Gilles Fabre


 
afternoon walk
after swathes of bog cotton -
a lone foxglove
 
Maeve O'Sullivan


 
A town memorial
set among the squares of rice
the silence of stone
 
Dermot O'Brien

 
 
Denting the blue sky
the white walls
of the crematorium

Gilles Fabre


 
A turn in the wood --
And a spread of bluebells
Stops me in my tracks.

Carmel Heaney


 
cold funeral raindrops dancing along mahogany

Ernst Berry


Third Place


 
A poppy and a
mimosa seed
as neighbours.

Neville Keery


 
beneath the lamp
i wait for his shadow
to enter the street

Bernie O'Reilly


 
stalking a blossom
the kitten sniffs
buddha

Harry Bradley


 
This time of the year again ~
pinenuts fall
and I eat them

Gilles Fabre




The following haiku have also received points:



 
Hell -
Amongst people
I walk alone
 
Joe McFadden

 

 
dodging clouds
and Manhattan skyscrapers -
June blue moon
 
Maeve O'Sullivan


 

 
labyrinth walk
stinging weeds trodden safe
by previous explorers
 
Maeve O'Sullivan

 


memory unlocks
the door of houses i knew
i walk through their rooms
 
Bernie O'Reilly




SOME COMMENTS


 
Standing on one leg
in the flats' playing ground
this proud grey heron

I gave five points to no three because I liked the image the haiku created of a bird in the middle of a concrete space after the chidren have gone.


 
afternoon walk
after swathes of bog cotton -
a lone foxglove

Haiku succeeds in setting the scene, time of day/ year well without being overly direct.
Simple, evocative and refreshingly clear. Well done.


I really liked the images in this and they stayed with me.
However I'm wondering why the author chose the word "after" in the second line, when it was already used in "afternoon" line one.
Was this deliberate? I would have preferred another word like beyond or amid or whatever.
Thank you.



13.
 
last breath
cancer closes her life
june dawn breaks

I found it hard to pick out 3 . There were 4 or 5 I would like to have voted for.
Perhaps the reason I gave 5 to this one was I could identify with it, having been with my mother on her last breath and then I went out into Oct dawn!
 I love the use of the word "closes" that was the word that clinched the 5 votes.
It conjures up great images of the mouth closing ( after last breath) night closes (dawn) life ends, so final closure.
Well done!



 
A town memorial
set among the squares of rice
the silence of stone

I hesitated with 2/3 more entries. Although line 2 may look/read long, there is a perfect "unrolling" of vision, elements that bring to SILENCE
(is haiku not the poem that silently reveals the world to us?). It is also somehow international as town memorials are everywhere (for war and happy events).
Rice singles out the place but without any definitive exclusion.
This is a moment easy to notice/spot and experience, easy to read, but so rarely written.



 
Denting the blue sky
the white walls
of the crematorium

Although it was a tough decision, I awarded this haiku my gold medal for similar reasons as I've awarded other ones in the past:
simplicity, contrast and a strong vertical axis. I love the use of the verb 'denting' in line one;
also the contrast between the blue sky and the white walls; the way the walls move upwards, like the smoke from the crematorium which is also white.
There is a Mediterranean feel to this haiku, although I suppose it could be anywhere.



 
hey slug,
the path has dried
of all but your trail!

very issa-ish! - sparse, believable, bereft of [apparent] padding or artifice ... might be further improved by replacing 'of all' with a dash, 
ie  ' - but your trail' ...that would leave something for the reader; otherwise it reads on like a piece of prose.




 
cold funeral raindrops dancing along mahogany


Top vote for clarity, simplicity and brevity.




WORKSHOP



A good haiku demonstrates how thought and reflection lead to clarity, simplicity and economy of expression conveying a sense of authenticity or truth.
 I feel that quite a number of the haiku in this kukai are too long, too subjective, or too heavy with adjectives. 
Of course, in languages other than Japanese, notions of length and form tend to be more arbitrary.


 
Glad to see again
the heavily laden rain-clouds
banishing the heat

I feel haiku #1 is to wordy, might I suggest
banishing the heat
rain laden clouds



 
stalking a blossom
the kitten sniffs
buddha

this is s good - [if rather over-done] mo but  open to too many interpretations which is a plus & a minus....
it's good to have open ended [layered] presentations, but this is a wee bit too 'anywhere' ... i think the scene needs 2 b set more specifically
- ie: is it a little brass buddha on a suburban patio? ... is it beside a temple in a tropical asian rain forest?
- is it in an afghan market-place? who knows? 
 


 
A town memorial
set among the squares of rice
the silence of stone

I quite liked this one, but found in particular the 'set' at the start of the second line superfluous and would much prefer how it reads without it.
Consider paring it down? And what about a cut at end of line 2?:

town memorial
among squares of rice...
the silence of stone



 
Half moon
in blue sky
I am content


I love the image that the first two lines of this haiku presents, with the slight surprise in line 2 that it's daytime rather than night-time
when the moon is more commonly seen. For me this haiku falls down in line 3 by stating the emotion of contentment.
They say that all good literature should "show" rather than "tell", and I believe haiku is no exception.
I think that emotion in haiku should be implicit rather than explicit (there's an interesting debate brewing in the HI forum on this exact topic as a matter of fact!).
I think the haiku would be stronger by possibly mentioning a season or season word in line one or three, for example:
 
summer evening
half moon
in (a) blue sky
 
or even:
 
half moon
in a blue sky
scent of sweet pea (or whatever - it could be the sound of a particular bird)
 
Maybe the writer could go back & try to remember if there were any other sensations
during or close to that moment with the moon in the sky that could strengthen the haiku if added in




 
The fresh flowers offered
at the statue of Buddha
speech without a word


Although this has a moment and an overall quality, there are two issues: does it say/give too much?
1. statue of Buddha. It may be argued that in this context offered to Buddha (or something similar)
would probably be "understood" as to a Buddha representation.(stone Buddha?).
2. Line 3 says too much and somehow "robs" the reader of one impact. "without a word" is too descriptive.
"silent speech" would almost be better.
Another solution would be to add an element such as (for line 3) "better than a speech"...
Or take out "speech" to have either "in silence/silently" or "withoiut a word"