BRUCE HODDER

When I first saw the page of small poems, my eyes focused on just one

with no shoes on,
i take my coffee
through the dewy grass,
sit down,
and breakfast like
a cow, a lamb,
like han shan.

And I liked that. By itself.

Then I saw:

“no shoes! aaawww!”
the old czech
points with pity–
poet boiling
a second cup of coffee
in the kitchen.
“you want some shoes?”

And I liked that too. Even better.

Then I read everything on the page in order. All one piece. As it should be, as it probably came to the poet in one rush. Certainly. (But I still love those shoes, all alone…Han Shan-ish…Haiku-ish.)

This is Bruce Hodder’s first trek down Basho’s Road, though he’s an old soul traveling the haiku path many a year. He’s a poet, a writer, a critic, an independent scholar…a man with a sharp eye to call things to attention. He’s a Brit, easy to find/read all over the net. He’s also in the anthology, OTHER VOICES, Cross+Roads Press. –Norbert Blei

Visiting with Friends and Strangers

by
Bruce Hodder

i.

the garden wrapped
in march fog
and presented
to my eyes this morning–
opening the curtain

ii.

crow on high aerial last night
set against
the still grey clouds–
its caws echoed
in the silence,
through my brain’s walls
and out of time.

iii.

with no shoes on,
i take my coffee
through the dewy grass,
sit down,
and breakfast like
a cow, a lamb,
like han shan.

iv.

“no shoes! aaawww!”
the old czech
points with pity–
poet boiling
a second cup of coffee
in the kitchen.
“you want some shoes?”

v.

tv piping non-stop
party hits,
or the fluted call
of pigeons
through the budding trees.

vi.

three faces at the window
as i sit down,
look up into the trees
and breathe–their broad smiles,
as if fat clowns
were tumbling off
little bikes out there.

Bruce Hodder is a British poet (Beat/Upbeat/Downbeat) with one haiku’d-eye fixed savagely on his literary countrymen, the other (the wild one) peering amusedly at the jazzy antics/riffs of scribblers (past/present) here in the colonies; writer, critic, self-critic, comtemplater, curmudgeon, blogger, roustabout, man-of-his-word firmly rooted in the ‘angry young man’ tradition of bluesy-blowzy-bloody ole England. He can be found (among other places) in the recent, much heralded anthology of contemporary writing, OTHER VOICES, Works in Progress, featuring 22 accomplished writers and artists from here, there, all over the world, available from Cross+Roads Press, PO Box 33, Ellison Bay, WI