election coverage--we switch over to a murder series
--Keith Evetts (Thames Ditton, England)

* * *

Hot autumn
election campaign
in full swing
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)

* * *

fact-checking
the presidential debate
dragonfly eyes
--Archie G. Carlos (St. Louis Park, Minnesota)

* * *

election week--
parrots poop
on a scarecrow’s hat
--Shiva Bhusal (Bellevue, Washington)

* * *

election manifestos,
printed on recyclable paper--
for re-use next time...
--Alan Maley (Canterbury, England)

* * *

Gender free
Iris Festival in Taiwan
something strong
--Junko Saeki (Tokyo)

* * *

small brown apples rot
on the ground beneath the tree
the dog eats long grass
―J.D. Nelson (Lafayette, Colorado)

* * *

the professor teaches
gunfire punctuation
online from a trench
--Myron Lysenko (Woodend, Australia)

* * *

lost starfish
wandering sand stripes
down into the abyss
--Emil Karla (Paris, France)

* * *

rule britannia
umbrella drying
in the dish rack
--Jerome Berglund (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

------------------------------
FROM THE NOTEBOOK
------------------------------

Voting day
campaign calls silenced--
a shrike shrieks
--Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)

The haikuist likely heard a butcher bird impale a pond loach, or perhaps a bitter-tasting mammal, onto a barbed wire fence to store for eating after the Oct. 27 House of Representatives election. Carl Brennan penned a Halloween-themed haiku at Lake Champlain, New York.

A book of Lovecraft
beside a sea serpent’s lake
my cat preens & sharpens

Lorne Henry tried to piece together the remains of a mystery that took place last night in New South Wales, Australia.

an eggshell
too large for a wagtail
on the driveway

Samurai costumes were popular picks for Halloween parties on Oct. 31. That’s likely because of the realistic wardrobe of the Emmy-awards winning lead actors (Hiroyuki Sanada and Anna Sawai) in the first season of the television drama “Shogun” that highlighted the politics and cultural history of Japan. David Cox raised the sleeves of his happi coat at a traditional all-in-dance in Osaka.

sou-odori dance
twists and turns
of history

Stephen J. DeGuire likely wore a baseball cap and a uniform emblazoned with the number 17 while trick or treating in his Los Angeles neighborhood last night.

postseason--
GOAT going to first
fall classic

Maxianne Berger lives beside an imaginative homeowner in Outremont, Quebec.

harvest moon--
the neighbour’s lawn flamingos
in witches’ robes

Ivan Georgiev mothballed his outfit in Goettingen, Germany.

police uniform
now just a scarecrow
in the closet

Shelli Jankowski-Smith wore white in Swampscott, Massachusetts. Kanematsu celebrated reverently. Berger described a memorable moment.

in my dream last night
I was your bride again, happy
in spite of the war

* * *

Deep silence--
above huge pumpkins
the full moon

* * *

three little pumpkins
cross-legged beside Grandpa
it’s story time!

Affectionately called “babi” by his daughter, Dennis Owen Frohlich longs for a good night’s sleep in Catawissa, Pennsylvania.

who will break first:
the crying baby
or the crying babi?

At home in Osaka, Teiichi Suzuki stayed up late reading Haruki Murakami’s 2023 novel “The City and its Uncertain Walls.”

The middle of night
lost in mysterious world
reading Haruki

Last night, while sitting at a card table, Saeki listened to what her European friends were most worried about.

long nights of autumn
Uncle Sam
engrossed in Monopoly Game

Snacking on Halloween treats at his desk this morning, Mike Fainzilber got back to sorting unsolicited queries and manuscripts in Rehovot, Israel.

dried persimmons
revisiting
the slush pile

Murasaki Sagano’s blue sapphire will soon gleam again.

Dear father’s birthday
polishing a Mont Blanc pen
on Nov. 3

James Penha tried his luck at a spinning wheel and pulling on a one-armed bandit at a casino in New York City.

if slot machines don’t
have minds of their own--
whose?

The U.S. presidential elections end Nov. 5. During an intangible moment behind the wheel in the Twin Cities, did Berglund turn left on his way to the polls?

arm signal
sharing
these lanes

Patrick Sweeney suddenly swerved while driving straight down a highway in Pennsylvania with his wife: dodging a retread in the Hov-2 lane, the far-off flow of latex

Carlos canvassed his neighbors who live in a line of homes down the street: door-to-door for ceasefire signatures harvest moon

Kanematsu repeated a question that is currently on everyone’s mind.

Glare of Trump
or smile of Harris--
which will win?

Marie Derley saw light ahead in Ath, Belgium, making democracy manifest through her sense of sight. Francoise Maurice seemed to dread what’s coming to Draguignan, France.

the evening shadows
are no longer so dark--
voting results

* * *

early fall
the shadow of the scarecrow
lengthens

Fears of recession is a concern for the majority of voters in America, but a “me-cession” can make someone poll depending on their own gut feeling. That’s when personal finances perform differently than the wider economy. As an overseas student, Saeki often skipped breakfast to save money. She recalled when an acquaintance knocked at her dormitory room and greeted her by saying, “have you eaten yet?”

Taiwan moon cake…
Muriel brought me hot porridge
every Sunday

It has been a difficult year in Madurai, India, according to this haiku by Ram Chandran.

crop failure--
in the farmer’s dream
harvest moon

Ashoka Weerakkody’s haiku summarized a local rumor about the tree of lies, “a pacha tree which stood for decades in front of the central employment exchange office by the Colombo Fort Railway Station in Ceylon.” The haikuist explained that politicians stood there on wooden soap boxes shouting out promises of employment in return for votes.

jobless
under the idle tree shade
a heap of lies

Don Krieger declared his perception of the truth in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

But for wars and wealth
we in America
were never great

Yutaka Kitajima lives in the prestigious koshihikari rice-growing region of Japan, but he is upset with speculators because “even here in Joetsu, Niigata… sooner or later both old and new rice will be sold at a surprising price.” Precisely as forecast by the veteran haikuist, the newly harvested rice that finally appeared at his local supermarket cost 50 percent more than last year’s crop.

Rice sold out--
no doubt implying
dead price hikes

Despite the “rumors that rice is in short supply,” Masumi Orihara suggested that even for the last person in a long line at a supermarket in Atsugi, Kanagawa Prefecture, it was worth waiting for a delicious harvest.

the very end
of the queue for new rice--
peak of the moonrise

The following haiku provide some insight into who haikuists invite into their bedrooms, what they teach in their classrooms and how they chose a tree to sit under, drove a car, boarded a bus, or voted. Tejendra Sherchan welcomed a bird with a green back, a reddish crown, and a long bill into her home at Kathmandu, Nepal.

monsoon night
my room light draws in
a lost tailorbird

Kenlay Friesen at Hokusei Gakuen University in Sapporo penned a haiku that ends with a Japanese phrase meaning harmonious, as quoted from a haiku by Barack Obama in 2015. Admitting that it is “maybe a bit too political but then again… I couldn’t help thinking how in just a few years the relationship between America and Japan changed so much while for decades this long simmering conflict between Israel and the Palestinians never seems to get any closer to an end.” Writing from Milan, Italy, Eufemia Griffo commiserated with the former U.S. president’s haiku.

Netanyahu’s haiku
does not include
nagoyakani

* * *

peace treaties
cherry branches rise
to heaven

Irena Iris Szewczyk described a special space in Warsaw, Poland. Murasaki Sagano started to rethink about a heavenly space in Tokyo.

old oak
sprouting in its shade
the family story

* * *

This shade tree
ushered in your soul
in retrospect

Laurel leaves represent triumph and achievement for Nicoletta Ignatti in Castellana Grotte, Italy.

shooting star--
a laurel wreath
on my daughter’s head

Saeki recalled a prolonged journey from placeless place to placeless place in America.

our summer lingered to
Christmas and beyond,
via Greyhound buses

Wieslaw Karlinski followed an unbeaten path in Namyslow, Poland.

my path
rich in colors
early autumn

Enjoying falling pink hues in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture, Yutaka Kitajima said he was inspired by reading Kawai Sora’s (1649-1710) travel diary to help him get ready for the long winter ahead.

Bush clover…
bohemian lives
expiring

Jessica Allyson will solemnly mark Remembrance Day on Nov. 11 in Ottawa, Ontario. Pinning a red artificial flower in his buttonhole, Marsa, Malta, Francis Attard remarked how “Europe plays with the ultimate in warfare and political intrigues,” yet “countless lives have been lost and it’s of no one’s concern.” Lori Kiefer will remember in London.

poppies
underscore the silence...
remember

* * *

poppies worn
ghost tales of the fallen
wars rage

* * *

a long sip of
rose petal tea…
Remembrance Day

The next two weeks will likely go by slowly for Satyanarayana Chittaluri in Nakreakal, India.

longing for
the completeness of you
half moon

Saeki marked the Shinto belief that every October all Japan’s deities make a pilgrimage to a shrine in Izumo, Japan.

millions taken, but
few return
the godless month

Writing from Oslo, Norway, Nuri Rosegg imagined a comet traveling too close to the sun.

Icarus was wrong
about feathers and wax…
dust and gas

To get in the right moment to compose a haiku, we have to ask ourselves these three questions: “What am I doing right now, what am I feeling right now, and what are my senses telling me right now?” The answers can help haikuists relate to the present moment. For example, when Berglund went to get his bones, muscles and joints realigned, he paused in the street for a moment to look at how the union, the blue field with white stars, on an American flag was displayed.

draped flag
in chiropractic window
turned around

After a heavy rain in Kathmandu, Tejendra Sherchan unfurled the triangular-shaped national flag of Nepal--the world’s only non-rectangular flag.

unfolding
a new banana tree leaf
my kingdom’s flag

* * *

monsoon over
the river leaves behind
all the pebbles

Karlinski’s tears smudged ink. Melissa Dennison penned haiku all night long in Bradford, England. Shishkova sang.

cranes fly
over this letter to mother
doctors without borders

* * *

curling persimmon peel
and an inkdrop
near my bed

* * *

autumn sun
a senior woman
sings karaoke

Xenia Tran noted the perseverance of vine tendrils climbing towards the sunlight in Nairn, Scotland.

weaving through
a large clump of plastic
two morning glories

Looking toward Japan from a high floor in an ocean-side building on a cold day in Busan, Korea, David Cox could see a distant island. Kanematsu watched an ominous moonrise behind a huge spherical liquid gas tank.

Tsushima…
given time many things
emerge from the fog

* * *

The full moon
far beyond the globe
liquid gas

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear Nov. 15 and 29. Readers are invited to send haiku related to either what they are doing right now, or what they are feeling right now, on a postcard to David McMurray at the International University of Kagoshima, Sakanoue 8-34-1, Kagoshima, 891-0197, Japan, or by e-mail to (mcmurray@fka.att.ne.jp).

* * *

David McMurray has been writing the Asahi Haikuist Network column since April 1995, first for the Asahi Evening News. He is on the editorial board of the Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, columnist for the Haiku International Association, and is editor of Teaching Assistance, a column in The Language Teacher of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT).

McMurray is professor of intercultural studies at The International University of Kagoshima where he lectures on international haiku. At the Graduate School he supervises students who research haiku. He is a correspondent school teacher of Haiku in English for the Asahi Culture Center in Tokyo.

McMurray judges haiku contests organized by The International University of Kagoshima, Ito En Oi Ocha, Asahi Culture Center, Matsuyama City, Polish Haiku Association, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Seinan Jo Gakuin University, and Only One Tree.

McMurray’s award-winning books include: “Teaching and Learning Haiku in English” (2022); “Only One Tree Haiku, Music & Metaphor” (2015); “Canada Project Collected Essays & Poems” Vols. 1-8 (2013); and “Haiku in English as a Japanese Language” (2003).