Warrior Monk: 22 haiku, senryu and minipoem sequences
.
Andrew Lansdown
Picaro Press (Warners Bay), 2005
(paperback, 24 pages)
ISBN 1-920957-15-4
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Back cover blurb
Apart from considerations of whether or not the poems in this collection qualify as haiku in contemporary haiku practice, they work as poems in their own right. The language, sensibility and crafting are that of a skilled and sensitive poet imbued with the haiku spirit. Lansdown has used the formal structure in such a way that the framework is invisible—the strength is in the eloquence and elegance of the poems.
— Lyn Reeves
Three poems from Warrior Monk
Kangaroo Haiku
……….i
Out in the scrub
rising up then sinking down
kangaroo heads.
ii
First rain … an odour
of kangaroos in the hollow
between the grasstrees.
iii
Slightly more solid
than the twilight—kangaroos
crossing the firebreak.
. iv
The kangaroos—
gathering in the paddock
with the darkness.
© Andrew Lansdown
Warrior-Monk
i
A warrior-monk,
the heron stands at the brink
of the floating world.
ii
Spear at the ready
the heron warrior-monk
meditates on death.
iii
Meditation, step
the heron warrior-monk
resignation, stab.
iv
The grey heron’s koan:
the monk and the warrior,
how can they combine?
© Andrew Lansdown
Bamboo Meditations
i
Despite emptiness,
the bamboo is oblivious
to every sadness.
ii
Encapsulated
in the Buddha bamboo canes—
only emptiness.
iii
Bamboo reflections—
pondering again the canes’
hidden emptiness.
iv
Today I could teach
even the Buddha bamboo
about emptiness.
© Andrew Lansdown