haiku poems

Yosa Buson

Three examples of the haiku of Yosa Buson from the late 1700s are offered here:

A summer river being crossed

how pleasing

with sandals in my hands!

Light of the moon

Moves west, flowers' shadows

Creep eastward.

In the moonlight,

The color and scent of the wisteria

Seems far away.

Kobayaski Issa

Here are three haiku from Kobayashi Issa, a haiku master poet from the late 1700s and early 1800s:

O snail

Climb Mount Fuji,

But slowly, slowly!

Trusting the Buddha, good and bad,

I bid farewell

To the departing year.

Everything I touch

with tenderness, alas,

pricks like a bramble.

Natsume Soseki

Natsume Soseki lived from 1867 - 1916.  He was a novelist and master of the haiku. Here are a couple of examples of his poems:

Over the wintry

forest, winds howl in  rage

with no leaves to blow.

The crow has flown away:

swaying in the evening sun,

a leafless tree.  

Recent Poems

Following are some recent examples of haiku poems:

In the coolness

of the empty sixth-month sky...

the cuckoo’s cry. - Masaoka Shiki

Whitecaps on the bay:

A broken signboard banging

In the April wind. - Richard Wright

Lily:

out of the water

out of itself - Nick Virgilio

ground squirrel

balancing its tomato

on the garden fence - Don Eulert

As the wind does blow

Across the trees, I see the

Buds blooming in May

I walk across sand

And find myself blistering

In the hot, hot heat

Falling to the ground,

I watch a leaf settle down

In a bed of brown.

It’s cold—and I wait

For someone to shelter me

And take me from here.

I hear crackling

Crunch, of today’s new found day

And know it won’t last

Falling to the ground,

I watch a leaf settle down

In a bed of brown.

A cricket disturbed

the sleeping child; on the porch

a man smoked and smiled.

I'm turning over

look out and give me room there

you cricket, you.