Spring 2015 Showcase

Peacock. MT

What a crazy, upside-down world it is. I am watching a late spring here in Scotland – it’s already April and yet we still have snowdrops while the crocuses are fading and the daffodils only just opening. I have been outside in t-shirt and jeans one day, only to struggle, shivering, in a horizontal blizzard the next. Meanwhile all of you out there are trying to make sense of your own local weather. And for half of you it’s autumn! So I am sitting here wondering whether it might be a good idea to mix up the seasons in this Showcase. Maybe. I haven’t decided. You’ll find out by scrolling down. Yes, the zen space really is that spontaneous a place!

I still have some new names for you – I’m conscious of that – and of course I am always on the lookout for fresh talent, people who can handle something surprising in a few words; but also this time there will probably be some familiar contributors too. Our resident artist Marie Taylor has produced more mandalas, so I think it’s time we saw more of them. Also we have, as an added visual treat, something by Richard Vallance. Richard is fast becoming a world expert on Mycenaean Linear B script, a system of writing in an early variety of Greek that has its origins three-and-a-half millennia ago. His little gift to us is a four-line fragment by Sappho in Greek, Linear B, Arcado-Cypriot Linear C, English, and French. Because I do not have a keyboard that handles Linear B and Linear C, I have left it as he sent it to me, superimposed on Elihu Vedder’s Pleiades.

Once again someone has asked me if it is likely that I will publish some of my own work here. I’m shaking my head. Although many of you know the story behind why I started the zen space – for those of you who don’t, it was after the editor of a haibun magazine had wanted me to tinker with some (immediately written) words in something I had submitted, and had admitted he had no idea that haibun’s and haiku’s origins were deep in Zen, and had then simply rejected my submission out-of-hand – this isn’t a showcase for my words, but for yours.

Enjoy this season’s.

Marie Marshall
editor
the zen space

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Tyler Pruett

where the
sill rots away
wild violets

first school night
slow thunder
shakes the pens

marigolds
perpetual happiness
requires change

slow
the turtle
hurricane

what did she
dream before
conception

__________

This is my blood. MT

Rachel Sutcliffe

grief
despite it
winter becomes spring

spring
the sound of rain
greeting leaves

start of spring
I dust off
my to do list

daybreak
through the open window
Sunday silence

spring sunshine
the garden of remembrance
full of life

forest spring
walking deeper
into birdsong

spring morning
the old cat chases sparrows
in her sleep

__________

Violet. MT

Michael Scott

fresh breeze at dusk
lapping the water hole’s edge
small waves   big cats

swollen mosquito
reluctant blood donor
itches to kill

blind street musician
cane stuck in a grating
begs for help

pen spun again
pupil wills it to stop
pointing at him

__________

Ernesto P Santiago

first calm…
hanging in our home
a sea onion

reminiscing
about painful birth-
16 years old 
womb of a mother
molded me to live

why make me
mad with desire
yellow dust

turban and beard
perfect reflection
of who I am-
a restless pilgrim
with sons to prove it

howsoever
white snow appears-
this child in me!

after the storm surge-
wondering where to go
a morning sunlight
over the unknown that
sublimated my worth

__________

Richard Vallance

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Ray Sharp

apple blossom days
a second snowy season
white petals falling

caw, crow, black angel,
flap your two wings, life and death,
you need both to fly

just another day —
chickadees at the feeder
filling their gullets

when you were a bird
and my arms were open wide —
branches of a tree

bike wheels are spinning
spoke prayers into the sky
whipping up praise clouds

__________

 

Ben Moeller-Gaa

while debating religion
mom adds salt
to the stew

turtledoves–
every word of the song
but the title

sleepless night…
taking in the volume
of the bookshelf

moonless night…
i no longer remember
her face

my god
against your god
on the bookshelf

nothing left to say…
the glacier
retreating ­­­­

__________

Spring blossom. MT

Paresh Tiwari

a lone fish
eddying the lake…
not a sound

night stroll
the crunch of gravel
follows me

not a ripple —
only silence answers
my silence

mountain lay-by
the call of a blackbird
carries me onward

end of road –
the scent of a wild flower
unveils the path

hazy predawn…
the silver chirps of
a nameless bird

this world
of a single breath…
dandelion

__________

Marleen Hulst

late breakfast
forgotten
who had to forgive who

at the zoo
on his aloha shirt
a butterfly

guided tour
children gather
around a stray dog

birthday party
the new neighbor
shows his tattoo

wedding party
granddad’s corsage
is upside down

blossoming cherry trees
I ask the waiter
for a window table

credits:

late breakfast – Blithe Spirit 2012

guided tour – Haibun Today 2010

birthday party – Tinywords 2010

blossoming cherry trees – Caribbean Kigo Kukai 2012

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Cherry blossom. MT

Bouwe Brouwer

counting
the holes in the ceiling –
dental chair

the toddler discovers
in the shade on the lawn
the pigeon on the roof

raking the zen garden i feel out of place

__________

A reminder that A Hundred Gourds 4:2 is now on line, and features an interview with Michael Dylan Welch.

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The next Showcase at the zen space will be Summer 2015 which will be released, subject to karma, on 1^st July 2015.

Please note that the copyright of all written work and images used in this Showcase and elsewhere in the zen space is held by the creating author/artist, even when not explicitly stated, and may not be used elsewhere without permission.

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Rose. MT