mist into rising spirits mountain no forest voices the morning's jade moss resiling footprint 's non-doing. There is (After Wang Wei)

Cold night in June, low cloud, no moon, no poems written. The trees wallow in the inkwash of leaves. The beck runs black. It's too real, this starlessness; too alike to closing your eyes and trying to remember. Hell, out there you won't see a damn thing. The dark doesn't care.

Child's shoe. Concrete dust. American accents.

the dark settles along with the cold drizzle the blackbird's silence

Old man meditates by a dirty pond... so I throw my frog at him! Anonymous, Japan c. 1685 #haiku

My other cat—the one who spends her days on the tinroof of the garage & says nothing— is dreaming of the United Nations gathering to decide the best way to help all the heartbroken humans. A German stands to say: “Let us, still inspired by Das Kapital, share not just our wealth, but our compassion.”

You've always wondered what a back-room zero-gee space village bordello was like. Well, now you know.

Played with a tunnel book again just on a whim because it’s nice just to play sometimes. ✨

See how clouds make a view.

See how trees make a view.

Jane Kenyon

abandoned glove— a field mouse renting the thumb #haiku #poetry

dock cow parsley thistle you buttercup speedwell cuckoo flower I yorkshire fog gorse sedge

grass sways

studies of leisure blossoming — man finds value in doing nothing After 'Dokolica' by Električni Orgazam (Yugoslavia, 1982) Cvetaju izučavanja dokolice čovek prihvata nove norme i vrednosti jedinke se mirno prepuštaju koriste svoje slobodno vreme #haiku

studies of leisure blossoming — man finds value in doing nothing After 'Dokolica' by Električni Orgazam (Yugoslavia, 1982) Cvetaju izučavanja dokolice čovek prihvata nove norme i vrednosti jedinke se mirno prepuštaju koriste svoje slobodno vreme #haiku

Believing itself into existence— moth.

Antarctic ponies

Early stroll. Clouds have shut the sky’s eyes. The optimism of flowers in a garden. A puddle in the shape of East Anglia. The simple design of a lolly stick. Chucked bottletops like jagged currency.

The revolution begins. Front porch. 09:30 am. Birdsong. One tree calls to another. Punctuated by cronk-cronk of a raven. I am sitting. Front porch. 09:45 am. Birdsong. I can guess a moment before it happens which tree will call to which. Cronk-cronk. Front porch. 10 am. This is prayer, by the way.

When Marx wrote about the idiocy of rural life, I assume he meant my cat.

A crow appears at dusk. A crow, not a raven. I put down my tea and my laptop and admire it for a moment. It says: "Guessin' you'd be down for a revolution if you didn't have to worry 'bout the money, huh? Fuckit! Stop working! Give away all yo' shit for free! Revolt, you fuckin' asshole!" Flies off.

The moon darkens, and the Pleiades. No stars for company. The midnight hour passes. After Sappho of Lesbos, late 7th–early 6th century BC δέδυκε μὲν ἀ σελάννα καὶ Πληΐαδες· μέσαι δὲ νύκτες, πάρα δ᾽ ἔρχετ᾽ ὤρα· ἔγω δὲ μόνα κατεύδω.

Life from a train window, a strange beauty in everything sliding away. Inside, the man on his laptop and the Chinese couple asleep and the student reading textbooks and the— tickets please— begin to drift apart the way clouds do the train has left the tracks the sky is red with so many sunsets.

#nightslikethese #mpprompt #sleepless #poetry #poetrycommunity #writingcommunity #poetryprompt @malformed-poetry.bsky.social @blueskypoetry.bsky.social

wet paper rain writes a letter #haiku #sixwords

Family stuff, ofc! I'm considering this an exercise in forward movement. The poem is about the lost sheep of the family. I'm currently visiting the house w/ the cedar chest & I'm very much at peace about it. But also, I can't ever go through this again. (Poem in Rites & Trials anthology, Dec 2025)

To that end, for the sake of moving one tiny grain of sand toward the transformation that feels like it will never arrive... I want to quietly but decidedly share the one poem I'm hesitant to share (despite recently pronouncing "there's no poem I'd hesitate to share!") Actually, there is one... 🐑

I think the hardest part of any real inner transformation is that, on a day to day level, it will often feel as if you aren't growing. Or you can't perceive it, as it's occurring at a glacial pace. This truly is the challenge - the grit in the oyster shell. To keep believing it will birth a pearl. 🦪

Happy World Swift Day! It was realising I couldn't hear them that led to me getting my ears tested and the hearing aids I celebrate in this poem, as well as the birds. of course.

When Marx wrote about the idiocy of rural life, I assume he meant my cat.

A crow appears at dusk. A crow, not a raven. I put down my tea and my laptop and admire it for a moment. It says: "Guessin' you'd be down for a revolution if you didn't have to worry 'bout the money, huh? Fuckit! Stop working! Give away all yo' shit for free! Revolt, you fuckin' asshole!" Flies off.

A poem from a past life in @saltpublishing.com's Best British Poetry 2014

I listened to the birdsong outside and I wondered if that was God. I listened to the silence in between and I wondered. Then I listened to our breathing in this room and wondered. And I listened to the space between us, between the birdsong, and between us and the birdsong. And I stopped wondering.

Cat sleeps under a tree and the dance of swifts. She wakes, opens an eye— the swifts, still dancing. My dreams always come true, cat murmurs to herself. Content with this revelation she falls back asleep, thinking: somewhere a cat must be dreaming of a cat sleeping beneath a tree.

Daisy opens. Sees sky. Closes.

Ha! God said. See things as they are? You might regret it!

In the Long Field Dark wake — helix-true furrow raw trough driven twisted open left Sharp love — rusted share wiped bright by laying bare -Jonathan Griffin

The moon darkens, and the Pleiades. No stars for company. The midnight hour passes. After Sappho of Lesbos, late 7th–early 6th century BC δέδυκε μὲν ἀ σελάννα καὶ Πληΐαδες· μέσαι δὲ νύκτες, πάρα δ᾽ ἔρχετ᾽ ὤρα· ἔγω δὲ μόνα κατεύδω.

Towards its own birth, salmon swimming upriver — man rising from the grave.

My mother's heartbeat. The sound of night rain above the northern fells and of the far church bell quietly calling out time above the quickening beck.

You can now find my book The Way of Tea, published by our small press at The Herb Farm, in The Hedgehog Bookshop, Penrith and in The Book Nook, Kirkby Stephen. You can read more about it here where you can also buy it directly from us: theherbfarm.co.uk/page/the-way...

Life from a train window, a strange beauty in everything sliding away. Inside, the man on his laptop and the Chinese couple asleep and the student reading textbooks and the— tickets please— begin to drift apart the way clouds do the train has left the tracks the sky is red with so many sunsets.

Grow apart.

a glass smashes

Heart-space. Desert nightingale. Jasmine. Despair. Stillness after rain. Moss. Night-silvered cloud cloud cloud Standing on grass. Drinking water. Breathing. Waking again the day.

Every word a wasted opportunity for silence.

Whilst I cannot bring myself to meditate, or even simply to stillness— my cat opens an eye. Closes it.

All my #bluesky #poetry from May 2026! What a busy month of scribbling! johnnorthwrites.blogspot.com/2026/06/poet...

Where? On his horse still flying with summer's swallows over fields of light. #dailyhaikuprompt swallow