Poetry Forum

I remember when I first caught sight of a Liverpool Ferris wheel. I noticed it from Netherfield Road in Everton. It was like Orion sinking into the Mersey, so it must have been up for a while. The news had not reached my ears at the time .

I later learned that it had been situated in Chavasse Park but was shortly dismantled, giving way to this one, on the Albert Dock, which is higher.


The Liverpool Eye
sees no further than the light
of Liverpool One.


There is still building work going on at the Merseyside docks. The newly erect aedificii have taken on the shapes of Cunard triumphs and failures, whose bows threaten to slice through the city.


Ship builders apply
their skills to architecture.
So large and so still.


They closed the pub in Queen’s Square a year or so after the signs went up outlawing the consumption of alcohol in public spaces around here. The licensee used to provide free sandwiches to the patrons on Friday nights.

Maybe their best meal of the week!


The evicted haunt
The New Penny Farthing, and
find nowhere to sleep.


‘St John’s Gardens was intended to be a place where the achievements and sacrifices of the people of Liverpool could be celebrated and memorialised’. The statues are green with age and provide lookout posts for feathered aviators.

The most popular memorial is dedicated to young victims of road traffic.


Seagulls shit on the
great and good, whilst mothers wail
the loss of children.


The Reading Room of the Central library was the first electric lighted public building in the city. But these days new technology makes its presence felt in a less beneficial manner.


The Picton Room calm
is shattered by the sound of
mobile phone chirping.


St George's Hall impresses by its imposition. It is no longer a temple of power and arrogance, and tears seem to have stained the statue of Benjamin Disraeli and the lamps of the tritons and nereids seem to have been extinguished long ago.

The four recumbent stone lions that guard against evil have failed against the onslaught of nature and are worn down by the modern world.

The Lions are blind.
They no longer see the stars
lighting up the town.

Interesting update of the form Denis. My immediate reaction was that the haiku parts were slightly editorial, and the prose sections more sparse than they need to be. I don't know if that is a deliberate inversion of traditional norms, but it gave me pause.
A good read nevertheless. Thanks for posting.

B.

Another thing Denis: the nature of the form suggests this could have been posted on the Poetry board rather than here. I've posted a haibun on the Exp board before, and I can think of at least one other who has done the same.
If you like I can move it for you --- that way it will probably receive more hits.

B.

Moving this over to the Experienced board --- this qualifies as poetry and deserves more reads.

B.

Feels unbalanced to me. I'm used to haibun having much more 'prose' and being punctuated by the haiku, whereas this is a series of linked prose/haiku sections which is not quite the same thing. The whole feels very fragmentary. I wonder if it needs more sense of progression? As it stands the paired sections could come in almost any order.

Well I like it. Rather a lot. I know very very little about the classical Haibun, but as a reading experience I thoroughly enjoyed it. Not a million miles from Terence Davies, to my mind.

An honourable but undeluded celebration of place, Denis. Good stuff.

Cheers

David

Not come across haibun before. So this was originally posted in the prose section? I found the prose sections interesting. Regrettably, I didn't find that the verses were adding much to what had been already stated with the exception of the shipbuilders. Almost forgot, I read Jefferson Carter and thought his stuff was great. I see the resemblance to his work, though not micro tonal music!