Cry of a soldier

I cast my eyes on the soldiers, thousand stony eyes waiting for

command. Yet something’s hanging against their lips. Ask me

they’re the fathers of the fakest smiles.

Wife in hospital, a child in womb;

Mother, awaiting another feather to the crown, she had

mastered the art, losing.

And there they stand,

With dull eyes and flashing arms

Dressed in combat with naked guns.

‘Lead the war, keep thy silly emotions afar’

was the King’s ominous word last night.

silly, indeed.

Kings will die

Princes will be kings;

Soldiers will die

Their sons wearing weary life as their skin.

You see even the earth will blush in shame.

And I …and I…...

I cry the war-cry.

World Haiku Club Award

This is a new award of the World Haiku Club created in celebration of World Haiku Festival in India, to which the first award session was dedicated.

It was conducted during the three-day event at the Art of Living Ashram, Bangalore, India for the Festival’s participants to submit up to three haiku on three themes: (a) spring moon as kigo (b) ‘ananda’ (or bliss, joy) but these words must not appear in the poem and (c) totally free haiku.

The World Haiku Award is not a regular competition. It will be undertaken from time to time for suitable occasions such as future WHF meetings elsewhere in the world or other special events.

The main points are that the best ten haiku poems were selected from the haiku poems written during the three days of the Festival by participants. The deadline was lunch time on the third day. On anonymous judging by Norman Darlington, Stanford M. Forrester and Susumu Takiguchi, there was a single award-winning haiku for which 100 GBP Award was conferred at the announcement and award-receiving ceremony in the evening of the third day of the Festival. The author of the haiku is Kameshwara Rao. There were two runners-up whose authors are Rohini Gupta and Narayanan Raghunathan. Seven Honourable Mentions were also chosen. Token prizes for these best ten works were presented. In addition, ten other poems were selected for Haiku of Merit, making this year’s entire selection of twenty good haiku poems.

THE AWARD WINNING HAIKU

temple steps…

master’s shoes on the same spot

every day

by Kameshwara Rao

TWO RUNNERS-UP (In no particular order)

spring moon –

too much pain

to write

by Rohini Gupta

spring moon –

a jasmine breeze echoes

raag basant

by Narayanan Raghunathan

SEVEN HONORABLE MENTIONS

(In no particular order)

spring moon –

the sole witness

of the stolen kiss

by Quamrul Hassan

at the doorstep

the mind

along with the chappal

by Mu-Murugesh

the sheer love

of writing the blossom verse –

autumn renku

by Sprite

slow moving traffic

on my radio

vilambit-teen-taal

by Usha Kiran

Note: vilambit-teen-taal is a slow beat in Hindustani classical music)

the first rain –

someone else also

holding out her hand

by Rohini Gupta

sunrise

a heron meditates

monks pass by

by Vidur Jyoti

Fountain -

obstructing water

stone becomes song

by Raju Samal