Haiku by Lars Palm in Sweden

 

On February 2, we received an e-mail from Lars Palm, whose title is ‘Some haiku from Lars Palm’.

In his mail Lars Palm introduced himself to us as follows:

my name is Lars Palm & I live in Malmö, in southern Sweden where I work in health care, write (in english since spring 2005), translate, run ungovernable press publishing free pdf-books & blog at mischievoice. i have published about a dozen short books. i send a few haiku for your reading pleasure. i don’t write many of them now, but used the haiku of Buson & Issa (mostly) to learn the art of poetry.

 

This is a photo of Lars Palm taken in Barcelona (in the stands at Camp Nou) in december by Petra Palm, his lovely wife.

As he mentioned in his mail, Lars Palm lives with his wife Petra, currently in Malmö (southern Sweden). He writes, translates, runs ungovernable press – a small online publishing venture & works in health care. He found haiku early on, just as he was starting to learn the craft of poetry & quickly adopted Issa as his master of the craft. He went on to write thousands of haiku in the following years. In recent years he has found other short forms to play with besides haiku, so they are rarer in his writing now, but still a delight when a good one appears

 

First of all, we post some of his haiku with their Japanese translation by Hidenori Hiruta.

 

bus drives

faster than

the rain

雨よりもバスのスピード速しかな

Ame  yori mo  basu no supiido  hayashi  kana

 

even the dog

 stays

inside

犬さえも内に籠もれり外の空

Inu sae mo  uchi ni  komoreri  soto no sora

 

glowing orange

the moon bounces

from the sea

オレンジと海から返る月光る

Orenji to  umi kara kaeru  tsuki hikaru

 

gnats dance

the little girl

plays soccer

ハエ踊りサッカーを遊ぶ女の子
Hae odori  sakka- o asobu  onna no ko

 

swallows

swallow

stoplights

ツバメ飛びスポットライトを包み込む
Tsubame tobi  supottoraito o  tsutsumikomu

 

warm day

thinking of

other things

暖かき日の思いなり余所事や

Atatakaki  hi no omoi nari  yosogoto ya

 

Secondly, on March 19, Lars Palm kindly contributed his haiku again, saying that “ i send some more haiku, most of them are new & therefore deal with the slowly approaching spring. i hope you enjoy (at least some of) them.

 

    can’t see

those trees

slowly dressing

見えずとも木々ゆるやかによそおえり

Miezutomo  kigi yuruyaka ni  yoso oeri

 

colours

returning to faces

& cityscape

顔色に生気戻れり景観も

Kao iro ni  seiki modoreri  keikan mo

 

crossing

the courtyard

wobbling magpie

カササギや中庭よぎるゆらゆらと

Kasasagi ya  nakaniwa yogiru  yurayura to

 

flung into

nocturnal cop car

for what?

何のため夜のパトカー身を拾ふ

Nan no tame  yoru no patoka-  mi o hirou

 

lake is in

the boat which

is on land

湖は早陸上の舟にあり

Mizuumi wa  haya rikujou no  fune ni ari

 

progressively

less white &

more green

ゆるやかに白から緑色移る

Yuruyaka ni  shiro kara midori  iro utsuru

 

reclaiming

the bench

from the snow

雪消えて元の姿のベンチかな

Yuki kiete  moto no sugata no  benchi kana

 

snow going

someone

whistles

雪消えて口笛の音聞こえけり

Yuki kiete  kuchibue no oto  kikoe keri

 

spring

singing from across

the courtyard

春歌ふ中庭よぎり響きけり

Haru utau  nakaniwa yogiri  hibiki keri

 

Last of all, Lars Palm sent us another e-mail: 

 Dear Hidenori,

yes, my daily life is good. a lot of poetry, some reviewing & some translating. had our first real spring rain today, which may signal the end of the three months ice age we’ve been forced to endure. recently had a hay(na)ku sequence published as a small chapbook in a series for haiti relief. march 27 is great. i will go through my haiku tonight, after an international poetry reading i’m attending (just as audience)…

i hope you’re doing well

with best wishes,
Lars

We’re very grateful to Mr. Palm for contributing such nice haiku to our website to share with us.

We sincerely hope that you’ll appreciate and enjoy Mr. Palm’s haiku.

 

―　Hidenori Hiruta