Haiku by Michael Dylan Welch in USA (2)

 

On May 18,2010, I received a comment on haiku by Roberta Beary for Int’l Haiku Spring Festival from Michael Dylan Welch as follows:

 

Nice to see these translations of Roberta’s poems from the book!

Michael 

 

Since then we have been exchanging e-mails.

 

First of all, I would like to introduce Michael to you.

 

Michael Dylan Welch has written haiku since 1976. He’s a longtime vice president of the Haiku Society of America, cofounded Haiku North America in 1991 and the American Haiku Archives in 1996, and founded the Tanka Society of America in 2000. He is editor/publisher of Tundra: The Journal of the Short Poem (since 1997) and of Press Here haiku and tanka books (since 1989). He previously edited Woodnotes (1989–1997). Michael’s haiku and longer poems have appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies in fourteen languages, and he’s won first prize in the Henderson, Brady, Drevniok, and Tokutomi contests. These invited poems focus on plants and trees of the Pacific Northwest.

Individual poems first published in various haiku journals. Two of these poems (“after-dinner mints” and “bookmobile day”) were also stamped onto paper grocery bags distributed at selected Seattle grocery stores, and also part of Bob Redmond’s SLUG Food Haiku Reading that I participated in at Seattle’s Jewelbox Theatre on 24 August 2009, and also appeared in a handmade anthology of poems from this poetry event. See photos and the Seattle Times article about this reading.

 

 Now I present you Food Haiku by Michael with my Japanese translations. You will find his haiku in his website ‘GRACEGUTS’ at https://sites.google.com/site/graceguts/haiku-and-senryu/food-haiku.

 

birthday picnic— 

grandma’s throw 

half way to the toddler 

 

誕生日のピクニックで：

 

おばあちゃんよちよちの孫と投げごっこ

 

 

we walk the boardwalk hand in hand 

                sharing ice cream 

 　　headaches 

 

手を取り合って歩く遊歩道で：

 

遊歩道アイス分け合う頭痛かな

 

 

after-dinner mints 

passed around the table 

. . . slow-falling snow 

 

 夕食後の食卓で：

 

降る雪やハッカキャンデー卓まわる

 

 

busy Italian restaurant— 

happy birthday 

sung to the wrong table 

 

賑やかなイタリアレストランで：

 

斉唱やハッピーバースデー違う卓

 

express checkout 

     the fat woman counts

           the thin man’s items

 

清算所で：

 

勘定や太った女痩身に

 

 

at his favourite deli 

the bald man finds a hair 

in his soup 

 

お気に入りの調理済み食品店で：

 

禿げた人髪見つけたるスープかな

 

 

rice chaff 

whitens the scoop— 

supper alone 

 

孤食さじお米に白し夕べかな

 

 

apples picked 

and the casket chosen— 

lingering sunset 

 

りんご摘み小箱を選ぶ夕日まだ 

 

 

grocery shopping— 

pushing my car faster 

through feminine protection 

 

食料雑貨店で買い物：

 

はやばやとカートを押すや女性の区

 

 

a crab apple 

from the highest branch 

rattles down the rain spout 

 

雨どいを野生りんごが高きより

 

 

the waiter interrupts 

our argument on abortion— 

a choice of teas 

 

ウエイター中絶の論茶に変える

 

 

first day of school— 

I eat my buckwheat pancakes 

in silence 

 

初出校黙々食べるパンケーキ

 

 

bookmobile day— 

huckleberries bloom 

along the white picket fence 

 

図書館やハックルベリーの花のそば

 

 

breakfast alone 

slowly I eat 

my melancholy 

 

憂愁や朝食一人時が経つ

 

 

a table for one— 

   leaves rustle 

in the inner courtyard 

 

卓一人中庭に聞く残り音

 

 

 

a deer leaps— 

the hunter’s 

         closed eye 

 

 

跳ぶ鹿やハンター一つ目を閉じる

 

 

tarnished silver 

        the only guest 

               eats in silence 

 

銀曇るお客が一人無言食

 

 

a withered apple 

caught in an old spine rake 

. . . blossoms fall 

 

古レーキしぼむりんごや花が散る

 

 

gunshot recordings

echo over the vineyard . . .

a grackle’s stained beak

 

ブドウ園で発砲の録音声が反響する：

 

ムクドリのくちばしの色ブドウかな

 

a broken bamboo cane—

         ripe tomatoes

         glow along the ground

 

竹添え木折れて地面の熟れトマト

 

cafeteria line—

the good-looking girl

looks at my plate

 

カフェテリア列の美人が皿を見る

 

I sincerely hope that you will appreciate food haiku by Michael, and that you will try to write food haiku too.  

The next posting ‘ Haiku by Angelika Bygott in Canada’ appears on August 21.

― Hidenori  Hiruta