We are surrounded by sound all our waking (and sleeping) hours, some of it pleasant (birdsong), some of it discordant (emergency sirens). These haiku seem to me to use sound in interesting and sometimes inventive ways.
cello solo the owls in my bones
Tanya McDonald
from Wishbone Moon (Jacar Press, 2018)
morning sneeze
the guitar in the corner
resonates
Dee Evetts
from Montage (The Haiku Foundation, 2010)
pissing into a steel trough the muted boom of the bar
Stuart Quine
from Stepping Stones: a way into haiku (BHS, 2007)
listen!
the skins of wild damsons
darkening in the rain
Caroline Gourlay
from Stepping Stones (BHS, 2007)
furu oto ya mimi mo su-nara ume no ame
a falling sound
that sours my ears
plum rain
Basho, tr Jane Reichhold
from Basho: The complete haiku (Kodansha, 2008)
The translator’s note for this haiku, written in 1666, is: What the Japanese call ‘ume’ is most often translated as ‘plum’ … but the fruit more closely resembles the apricot. Because the fruit ripens from mid-June to mid-July the rains of this time are called ‘ume no ame’ (‘plum rains’). Even ripe the fruit is inedible until it has been preserved in salty, sour liquid, similar to olives.
breastfeeding
the slow drip of rain
on the nursery roof
Vanessa Proctor
from Wishbone Moon
summer solstice
the measuring tape reels back
into its case
Carolyn Hall
from Montage
setsugen ya majiwarazu shite wadachiato
autumn night –
the sound of two white plates
touching
Yoshiko Yoshino, tr. unknown
through my stethoscope
the rumble
of the 8:15
Jon Iddon
from Stepping Stones
foghorns –
we lower a kayak
into the sound
Christopher Herold
from Montage
drought
my ears have lost
the creek
Sandi Pray
from Wishbone Moon
late-rising moon
each rock in the stream
has its own sound
Burnell Lippy
from Montage
breath, a collection of haiku 