Haiku 2009

The Pen and Sword

the pen mightier
a sword scratching the conscience
humanity bleeds

Child Focus

a grandchild playing
a shoe-box full of dolls talk
totally absorbed

On humour

humour: olive oil
laughter lubrication life
smoothing the journey

Easter Sunday

pure gold in blue sky
beauty of this risen day
touches all creation

ANZAC Day

ANZAC dawn bleeding
Australians remembered
today and every day

On the Budget

here, there, and every where
no ruddy economic sense mate!
taxing times tomorrow

Budget Blues
(on the biggest ever deficit of $57 billion)

bottom line bleeding
an unprecedented cut
but who has the bandage

On the Budget blowout

overnight creation
government on the never never
never is this clever

On the great cash give-away

the great cash give-away
financial anaesthetic
beware pending pain

On Mothers’ Day

a Mothers' Day remark
move that apostrophe along
and include every Mum

Day before foot surgery

tomorrow clouds the day
surgeon and toes colliding
temporary block of sun

dependent upon
the fine skills of the surgeon
faith in his fingers

Visit to Dungog

the grandfather clock
relentlessly slices the hours
with a discrete voice

Suicide Bomber

bomber paradise
fragmented into a thousand pieces
dead tickets for a life

Death

casting your shadow
with each birth a use-by stamp
mandatory attachment

Day after Easter

Christ rose yesterday
breakfast news, child brutalised
Christ went back to bed

Autumn Blurred

leprous lurgy invades
watery eyes and clog-fire breath
can't communicate

On the environment and Copenhagen

Nature self-corrects
Copenhagen is a start
Nature has no choice

Christmas

a passing rainbow
a light in the storm of life
again reigns supreme

and Christmas again

surprised awareness
underneath Christmas wrapping
again God is found

He was not superstitious

‘I am not superstitious' -
He used to tell us all the time
and he never cared about numbers
you know birthdays and all that
or writing meaning into anything that happened.

It was just a touch unfortunate
that when we walked round the ladder
he missed the paint but not the car.
And in the ambulance with the siren blaring
saying to the nurse - ‘we all have to die some day'.

But later all his family thought he was so unlucky
for it to happen on Friday the thirteenth.

Richard Scutter 13 November 2009

blessed by the ordinary

today the sirens did not wail
there was no police-knock at the door
water did not flood the home
nor rockets destroyed our neighbourhood
nor did the earth give even the slightest tremor

I guess you could say
it was just another ordinary day–
thank God

© Richard Scutter 14 August 2009