Florence Vilén         Vol. 2, No. 1 - Spring 2001

CURRENT ISSUE Haiku Harvest Vol.2, No.1 Spring 2001     These poems are Copyright © 2001 by Florence Vilén. E-Mail: florence.vilen@spray.se		love-lies-bleeding -- even the flowers       know about people             Camellia bushes red and white in the glasshouse,       icy slush outside       Raking and scything to keep the old meadow fit still for flowers       Carefully weeding       around wild strawberries             woodland garden             A movement behind the winter trees:       our neighbour       The leaves have fallen - so many houses all of a sudden           War of the Roses, spilt blood and corpse pallor       dyeing their petals           God's finger showing - lilies, to you, or lightning?           Unmown for weeks the lawn weaves a tapestry       millefleurs with verdures     Watching the ceiling of the Sistine chapel in a hand mirror     A towel of snow on the leaning bronze back of Rodin's Thinker           Holidays lawn left to its own devices:       a floral carpet     Their dying done, young soldiers are feeding the fields of poppies     Mouth and foot disease: the peaceful countryside stinks of Treblinka     Brief-case in one hand, shopping bag in the other, not trendy but true     What an ugly face I was handed out for use today!     Too much of a muchness - Valentine hearts           Drinking the moonshine - highly unpoetical       this illicit brew           Milk gone sour - our dreams       of happiness     A team of strong men kicking a ball that never harmed them     On the unmade bed       displaying all his fur             a cat asleep     After the bustle       of the garden show flowers             put on their silence     Ripening cherries,       who is the first to take them,             a hand or a beak?     Snow into slush; huge magnolia buds; who's the April Fool?     golf course -- driven by extreme means to ultimate green     Shedding its leaves; shedding all worries, too? I wonder who cannot           Autumn evening, in every lit window       a life behind it     A tangle of thorns - last June they were fragrant, a joy of old roses     About the Poet -- Florence Vilén lives in Sweden and works in adult education, teaching and writing. She has been interested in Japanese haiku since she first came across Henderson's Introduction and, later, Blyth's four volumes on haiku, but her interest in modern Western haiku is more recent. She reads several languages and is interested in the differences in the national styles of haiku. Her first haiku to be printed was under a pen name in the British journal still and she is eager to continue. Copyright © 2001 by Denis M. Garrison.