leaving the campsite
a blackbird reminds me
who lives here all year


And Japan's Hailstone Haiku Circle Icebox can be found here

old oak
enough shade shed
for the whole flock

village pitch
deer grazing all
the defensive positions

Aust 25.05.09 (for Richey James Edwards)

If this is where
you chose to end it all,
you are here still,
deep within the old red
sand and siltstone,
passed by elvers,
sewin,
salmon
that would never
think to question
if you were
4 REAL.

Thanks to all of you who supported my recent charity bike ride. The picture below was taken at Land's End last Thursday morning after a journey of around 970 cycled miles from John O'Groats.




















Normal MH service will be resumed over the coming days, but by way of a change, a scene from my travels that attempts to articulate the wonders of Western Scotland...


Ballachulish 19.05.09

Beyond the bridge
great glens hold
the mist between them
like a milk white shawl
wrapping the hurt
clung thistle-clawed
to slate waste
thin moraine
pyrite washing down
to fields of bluebells
a sheen-scented melancholia
softened by the touch
of saltwater lapping
the broken bracts of kelp
that black-backed gulls
lift and turn
lift and turn

I have set up a blog to record my cycle trip that can be found here. And thanks to those of you who have already sponsored me.

Also of note is Jim Kacian's new haiku blog, Troutswirls, the Haiku Foundation which is required reading for all those interested in haiku.

i put up
a borrowed tent
the first cuckoo

Preparation for my forthcoming cycling trip (see below) means that I will be giving blogging a miss for the remainder of May. I hope to post full details of my adventures on my return in June.

In the meantime, there will be occasional updates on my Twitter page.

And anyone wishing to sponsor me for Marie Curie Cancer Care can do so here or via the link to the right.

Thanks for your support.

it swings the crow
hung on a gibbet
spring breeze


And Dalloway's Australian Haiku is worth checking out.

Solomon's Seal
a few drops of rain
hung with the flowers

May Day
the hula hoop frames
a small girl's world

headmaster's office
a box of tissues balanced
at the desk's edge

the soft lump
in the toe of my wellington
a dead shrew

May Charity Cycle Ride

I have added a widget (see to your right) that links Morden Haiku to a page on the Just Giving charity site for a fundraising venture that I will be undertaking next month. On Saturday 16th May, I will begin a solo, unsupported cycle ride from John O'Groats (far north of Scotland) to Land's End in Cornwall (far south west of England), a journey of approximately 900 miles/1400km. I expect the ride to take approximately 2 weeks, depending on fitness, mishaps, weather and other variables.

I am doing the ride as both a personal challenge and as a way to raise money for Marie Curie Cancer Care. This charity provides free nursing services and hospice care for people suffering with cancer, a disease which has affected a number of close family members and friends in recent years. Should any visitors wish to contribute to my fundraising, it will be much appreciated. All funds donated will go to the charity and I will be covering all trip expenses from my own funds, not donations.

While I have yet to decide the extent to which I'll be blogging while I am away on the ride (a couple of weeks break from technology would not go amiss), full details and photos of my trip will appear here in June.

Thanks for your interest in this non-haiku topic and your normal poetry service will be resumed over the next few days.

Not haiku...

but not without a certain poetic quality nonetheless...