The Pan Haiku Review inaugural issue (Spring 2023)

Many thanks to editor Alan Summers for selecting two of my haiku for this issue -



                     white falling rose petals ambulance door 

                                           ```````````````

                             immortal after physical death metaverse

Prune Juice 36, March 2022

 Editor: Tia Haynes

doorways
now so narrow
middle age

Bee Jay, Australia

Failed Haiku Issue 76 April 2022

Editor: Mike Rehling




end of holidays still on holiday

first of April

a bouquet the colour

of guilt

restrictions ease

surrounding houses

creep closer

mountain retreat

I receive a postcard

of a molehill

words with friends

a triple word score

with basho

Bee Jay

https://beejay40.blogspot.com

My haiku in MahMight haiku journal

 

MahMight haiku journal

Friday, 25 June 2021

Bee Jay is breathing and Susan Burch finds a love note

 

i am the joey

breathing in my dead mother’s

pouch

Bee Jay

 

Bee Jay says:

“Sometimes a haiku can take years of thought and revisions. Sometimes one pops out seemingly fully formed. This haiku came out of me suddenly after I spent a few weeks reading experimental haiku and Japanese gendai on social media and in journals such as Heliosparrow, is/let, and Otoroshi.

I placed my fresh haiku into a workshop group to gauge responses and to see how I could improve it, but despite the sentence structure and the personification/anthropomorphism, the reaction to it was very positive, including a surprising request from Alan Summers to submit it to his new journal.”

one favourite haiku and why

I compiled a list of 30 of my fave contemporary haiku and then selected Susan Burch's haiku out of that. 

washed jeans―

his love note

still dirty

Susan Burch

Honourable Mention 4th Annual Senryu Contest, 

Sonic Boom July 2018

Bee Jay says:

“In 2014, Susan Burch was one of the first poets to write constructive comments and expert advice on my haiku and she later gave me the confidence to begin submitting my work. Her haiku and senryu often move me and this one is one of my faves. 

In this poem I see a fresh, new romance where lust and passion colours everything and even the most simple sentence contains sexual innuendo. I can imagine the kinds of words written in that note. The jeans could be hers or his but I prefer to think they’re hers. The love note is ‘still’ dirty which makes me believe she’s read it before. 

On the other hand, there is also the possibility that this is a dark poem about an illicit love affair and that she finds this dirty note in his jeans. This kind of ambiguity is one I admire in a haiku, I luv the idea that a haiku can be seen as positive in one reading and then so negative in another.”

favourite quote from Waiting for Godot

“There's no lack of void.”

Withnail and I

“Give me a Valium, I'm getting the fear.”

Alan note:

Also enjoy my own commentary, as the contest judge, on Susan Burch’s haikai verse:

“Being Human - the ordinary intensity” 

a look at senryu

https://area17.blogspot.com/2018/06/being-human-ordinary-intensity-look-at.html 

INVITATION - Rengay by Bee Jay/Sherry Grant

Invitation

too shy

to show my face

drifting leaf

full makeup on

turning the car around

road rage

swear words cut across

my apology

hard brake

the steady stare

of a startled deer

99 missed calls

birds chatter in trees

returning

the wedding dress

no refund

Bee Jay/Sherry Grant

WILD - a rengay written by Sherry Grant/Bee Jay

 
Wild

the school

partly hidden by mist

first day

still hanging on…

laughter at the park

lunch monitor

the pebble pushed

into an enemy’s pie

dancing

around the edge

friendship ring

hiding from bullies

behind the prickly pear

graduation

he plucks a wild rose

for her corsage

Bee Jay/Sherry Grant

Translation of WILD into Chinese by Sherry Grant -

狂野

作者：蜂 / 火の鳥

中文翻譯：火の鳥

上學第一天

部分校園被

濃霧籠罩

公園的笑聲

猶在耳際

午餐糾察隊

我在敵手吃的派裡

偷偷放了一顆石子

圍在邊上

跳舞

朋友圈（友誼戒指）

為了躲避惡霸

我藏在仙人掌後面

畢業典禮

他親自為她摘了朵

野玫瑰插在胸前

COLLABORATIONS - RENGAY

 
FIREFLIES' LIGHT Issue 23, June 2021

WILD

By Bee Jay (Australia) and Sherry Grant (NZ) (Op.2131)

2021-06-17

the school

hidden inside fog

first day — bj

still hanging on…

laughter in the park— sg

beauty parade

at the beach

homing pigeons— sg

lunch monitor

a pebble pushed

into my enemy’s pie— bj

running from bullies

prickly pear bushes— bj

blue sky

all the wild lupins

after rain— sg

FAILED HAIKU 69, Sept 2021

Invitation

Bee Jay, Australia

Sherry Grant, New Zealand

too shy

to show my face

drifting leaf 

        full makeup on 

        turning the car around 

road rage

swear words cut across

my apology

        hard brake

        the steady stare

        of a startled deer

99 missed calls

birds chatter in trees

        returning

        the wedding dress

        no refund

        

邀請

作者：蜂 / 火の鳥

中文翻譯：火の鳥

害羞得

不敢露面

飄落之葉

        在濃妝豔抹後

        卻決定把車子調頭

路上怒火中燒

的司機謾罵

我連聲道歉

        緊急煞車

        受到驚嚇的野鹿

        雙眼瞪直

99條未接來電

樹上群鳥嘰嘰喳喳

        歸還那件

        結婚禮服

        可惜不能退款

                        

Wild

Bee Jay, Australia

Sherry Grant, New Zealand 

the school

partly hidden by mist

first day

        still hanging on…

        laughter at the park

                       

lunch monitor

the pebble pushed

into an enemy’s pie

                          

        dancing 

        around the edge

        friendship ring

                           

hiding from bullies

behind the prickly pear                           

        graduation

        he plucks a wild rose

        for her corsage

                           

狂野

作者：蜂 / 火の鳥

中文翻譯：火の鳥

  

上學第一天

部分校園被

濃霧籠罩 

        公園的笑聲

        猶在耳際

午餐糾察隊

我在敵手吃的派裡

偷偷放了一顆石子 

        圍在邊上 

        跳舞

        朋友圈（友誼戒指） 

為了躲避惡霸

我藏在仙人掌後面

        畢業典禮

        他親自為她摘了朵

        野玫瑰插在胸前

 

BEE JAY Short Bios

Bee Jay  born February 1982 is an emerging haiku poet, first published in the Australian journal Creatrix in September 2017.

His poems have subsequently appeared in Frogpond, Failed Haiku, Husk, Chrysanthemum, ephemerae, Under the Basho, Scryptic, Frameless Sky, Cattails, Is/let, Otoroshi, Prune Juice, Cold Moon Journal, Per Diem The Haiku Foundation, The Bamboo Hut, The Daily Haiku, MahMight, .

His haiku and senryu have also been published in the anthologies  Creatrix Anthology 3, Haiku in the Time of COVID 19, Sucking Mangoes Naked.

Bee is the administrator of the Facebook group – sharing haiku knowledge.
He lives in Kew, Melbourne, Australia.

BIO for OTOROSHI No. 1


Bee Jay is an emerging haiku poet. He was first published in the Australian haiku journal Creatrix in September 2017. His work has also appeared in Frogpond, Failed Haiku, Husk, Chrysanthemum, Under the Basho, Scryptic, Frameless Sky, Cattails, Is/let, Per Diem at The Haiku Foundation, and the anthology Haiku in the Time of COVID 19. He is the administrator of the Facebook group sharing haiku knowledge. Bee Jay lives in Melbourne, Australia.


50 word bio for Otoroshi No. 2

Australian poet BEE JAY was born in a coffin in February 1982. They were given the kiss of life when a torn piece of paper with a haiku written on it by one of the nurses, landed briefly on their lips before drifting  onto the hospital floor. Bee spent a long childhood locked in a dungeon on an island off the coast of Orfania before the Y2K bug released their shackles and opened all the doors and passageways. Bee Jay escaped into the 21st century where they have lived grimly ever after with a tree and two screaming saplings. 



Bio for FIREFLIES LIGHT JOURNAL (Rengay with Sherry Grant)

Australian poet  Bee Jay was  born February 1982 and is an emerging writer with poems published in eighteen journals including Creatrix, Frogpond, Failed Haiku, Under the Bash, Chrysanthemum, ephemerae, Scryptic, Frameless Sky, Cattails, Is/let, Otoroshi, Prune Juice, Cold Moon Journal, Per Diem The Haiku Foundation, The Bamboo Hut, The Daily Haiku.

Bio unpublished 

Bee Jay born 1982  is an emerging poet published in twenty journals. Somewhat of a hermit Bee enjoys lockdowns and often writes poetry  standing in the windows of his home. 

sharing haiku knowledge

 Here is the link to Bee Jay's  Facebook group - sharing haiku knowledge -

https://www.facebook.com/groups/274963279332363


Please feel free to pop your head in and take a look around.



                                          

MY HAIKU PUBLISHED IN MAGAZINES & ANTHOLOGIES 2014 - 2021

 

THE FOOTY ALMANAC 30th Sept 2014

precise

Roughhead's

smooth kick 

                           agile hawks swoop
                                          on the slow swans

goal achieved

 

 

CREATRIX 38, Sept 2017

hospital news

she deadheads

the rosebush

THE FOOTY ALMANAC 13 October 2017

making love

while the experts talk —

change of tactics

FAILED HAIKU Vol 2 #23    Nov 2017

big night out

I try to unlock my door

with her lipstick

lazy love

the movie reaches its climax

before we do

wine bar

I tell you I know little

about love

leggings

the shape of things

to come

he keeps telling me
he has nothing
to say

big lie

my twisted

logic

FAILED HAIKU Vol 2 # 24 Dec 2017

postcards

written to my mother

no name or address

rainbow

the bearded woman asks

how I voted

a postcard

from an ex

in a novel I'm re-reading

leaving me the leaves follow you

HUSK #3

poolside drinks

the overweight man goes

skinny-dipping

 

 

the doctor

finishes her double shift...

day moon

 

 

schoolyard -

trees in a gale bend

towards the gate

 

 

when I’m dead

tell them I was a leaf

on a waterfall

CREATRIX 40,  March 2018

new year

only one full bottle left

standing

scattered clouds

the scent of a rose

as it falls

EarthRise Rolling Haiku Collaborative, April 2018

street violence

the dead raven’s eye

still looking at me

old world sparrows

two homeless men reading

one Proust

half deaf

she enjoys the silence

of birdsong

CHRYSANTHEMUM #23 April 2018

tall blonde …                                         große Blondine ...

even moonlight falls                              sogar das Mondlicht verliebt sich

for her                                                    in sie

UNDER THE BASHO Modern Haiku 2018

my bad temper—

wind rips blossoms

from the tree

  

cold shoulder

frost sparkles on a blade

of grass

 

hospice

a final leaf trembles

on the oak

 

bare trees

at the orphanage

dead end road

 

a shadow

slides into shadows

sudden chill

 

he cannot recall

his mother's face

tangled seaweed

ephemerae 1, May 2018

yellow leaves a boy throws ripples into a pond

HEDGEROW #123 Spring 2018

 

a dead leaf hangs

off the indoor plant

job interview

FROGPOND Vol 41:2 Spring/Summer 2018

wild roses

she catches him kissing

her sister

SCRYPTIC  2:1 June 2018

suicide note

mist gathers around 

the street light

sleepless night

a train drags the sun

into my day

THE FOOTY ALMANAC 8th October 2018

close loss

the party next door

goes quiet

2018 CREATRIX HAIKU PRIZE

 Commended:

 hospital news

         she dead heads

              the rose bush     

                                

CATTAILS  Oct 2018

cherry slice

the waitress brings me

her cleavage

backyard pool

a confident man dives

into the conversation

HUSK #12  Nov 2018

scan results

she visits the patient

in a see-through top

drifting blossoms

she says she doesn’t know me

any more

 

thermal underwear

not enough to warm 

my heart

first anniversary

she wears my scarf

as a skirt 

a farmer gossips

about his neighbours...

ears of corn

nudist beach

no label on the bottle

of sunscreen

he never looked

more healthy 

now that he's sick

dressing room

the actor turns on

a fan

clubs are trumps stupid men

 

scarred wrist

darkness at the bottom

of the cliff

UNDER THE BASHO MODERN HAIKU | Bee Jay 2018

a shadow

slides into shadows

sudden chill

he cannot recall

his mother's face

tangled seaweed

FAILED HAIKU  Vol 3 No 36  Dec 2018

thermal underwear

not enough to warm

my heart

in the river

in the rain

in love

scan results

she visits the patient

in a see-through top

she recites

my poem to stop me

coming

pub argument

the unisex toilet

out of order

empty bottle

with the poker she moves

two logs together

IS/LET Feb 2019

my father was a gun underwater weeds

the orphan's

best friends both old

scattered acorns 

HAIKU 2016: 100 NOTABLE KU from 2015 (Anthology)

(Is/let?)

the orphan's

best friends both old

scattered acorns 

CREATRIX 44 March 2019

the chick

with a broken wing

cupped palms

a huntsman

above the single bed

a cross

floating dandelion

all the locked windows

at the hospital

cracked earth

in the paddocks—

Give Way sign

lost shoe

dead end streets

all around me

CREATRIX #46  Sept 2019

first coffee

a dandelion spore lands

at my feet

worried nurses

the two broken arms

of a gurney

FRAMELESS SKY #12 July 2020

windy bus stop

forgotten if he’s coming

or going

---

 at the end of the road another road

HAIKU IN THE TIME OF COVID 19 - 2020 (Anthology)

lockdown Monday

just another sparrow

in the crew

CREATRIX ANTHOLOGY 3: 2017 - 2019

hospital news

she deadheads 

the rosebush

new year

only one full bottle

left standing

floating dandelion

all the locked windows

in the hospital

cracked earth

in the paddocks 

Give Way Sign

THE FOOTY ALMANAC Nov 2020

sexting

all of a sudden

it’s close

FAILED HAIKU Vol 6 Issue 62 JAN 2021

COVID CURFEW (sequence)

colourful masks

my neighbour brings a new

date home

midnight moon

a champagne cork comes

over the fence

vodka on the porch

I blow a smoke ring

to the moon

her drifting laugh

and the clink of flutes

perfume through the conifer

hole in the fence

they're ballroom dancing

under the clothesline

my neighbour

kissing those lipstick lips

mosquito on my neck

last smoke

I remember how my wife

used to smile at me

sirens sculling the drink the floor falling at me

brushing my teeth

a spider crawls out

of the plughole

bed

blankets

black out

PRUNE JUICE 33,  March 2021

walking home

from the pub

the moon

goes the wrong

way

spider on my wall

every day the death count

higher

lockdown the key to get out of missing you

PER DIEM THE HAIKU FOUNDATION 29th March 2021

bogong moth

the backyard daffodils

dip at dusk

CREATRIX 52 March 2021

watching

the cricket

still life

EarthRise Rolling Haiku Collaborative, April 2021

death of a friend

I swallow the orange

pips

FAILED HAIKU April 2021 Vol 6 Issue 64

THE AFFAIR

hole in her stockings

he resists the temptation

to touch it

swimming pool

her cleavage deeper

than usual

water lilies

he writes haiku

up her inner thigh

the slow way

her lips open

birdsong in rain

his hand

on her hand

over his hand

wild roses

she catches him kissing

her sister

marriage ties

blossoms break free

in the breeze

forgive me he says

I have been a prick

cactus flower

day moon

his regrets in her slippers

under the bed

empty heart

struggling to close her

suitcase

OTOROSHI Number 1, Spring 2021

incoming tide

under the driftwood

a sawn-off leg

COLD MOON  Tuesday, April 27, 2021

train timetable

she tells me her period

is late

COLD MOON April 29, 2021

six feet apart

or six feet below

distant bells

FAILED HAIKU     Vol 6 No 65      May 2021

anniversary

cross at the thought

of my ex

unsafe sex

I ride the Harley

without a helmet

cold shoulder

a sparkle on a blade

of grass

unsettled thoughts

an open window at the top

of the building

sleeping with an editor

she adjusts my position

they tell me

to stay safe...do they think

I'm dangerous

her list

of things wrong with me…

I add to it

COLD MOON JOURNAL 8th May 2021

people scatter...

an unexpected explosion

of sunshine

THE DAILY HAIKU  19th May 2021

wild roses

she catches him kissing

her sister

FAILED HAIKU 'Back from the Dead' Vol 6 No 66

his two cents worth

inflation has not hit

opinions yet

OTOROSHI Number 2, Summer 2021

climate change

the tree with its hands

around my throat

FIREFLIES' LIGHT Issue 23 June 2021

LOCK    (rengay Sherry Grant & Bee Jay)

new roads

to the cemetery

leaves at the entrance (BJ)

a lock of hair

still I smell her perfume (SG)

overdose

is it really her

in the eulogy (BJ)

dark clouds

gathering loneliness

I should have known (SG)

chilly wind

smoking at the crematorium (BJ)

the rain pauses —

I raise my glass

to a sinking sun (SG)

THE BAMBOO HUT Number 2, 2021

tall woman

with a long stemmed rose--

short kiss

bee in a rose--

we make love quickly

in her garden

at the exhibition

she shows me her breast

I say i like it

adultery

her husband shows me

his knife

her sly wink

the tree shakes off

another leaf

MAHMIGHT HAIKU JOURNAL 25 June 2021

i am the joey

breathing in my dead mother’s

pouch

Bee Jay

 

Bee Jay says:

“Sometimes a haiku can take years of thought and revisions. Sometimes one pops out seemingly fully formed. This haiku came out of me suddenly after I spent a few weeks reading experimental haiku and Japanese gendai on social media and in journals such as Heliosparrow, is/let, and Otoroshi.

I placed my fresh haiku into a workshop group to gauge responses and to see how I could improve it, but despite the sentence structure and the personification/anthropomorphism, the reaction to it was very positive, including a surprising request from Alan Summers to submit it to his new journal.”

one favourite haiku and why

I compiled a list of 30 of my fave contemporary haiku and then selected Susan Burch's haiku out of that. 

washed jeans―

his love note

still dirty

Susan Burch

Honourable Mention 4th Annual Senryu Contest, 

Sonic Boom July 2018

Bee Jay says:

“In 2014, Susan Burch was one of the first poets to write constructive comments and expert advice on my haiku and she later gave me the confidence to begin submitting my work. Her haiku and senryu often move me and this one is one of my faves. 

In this poem I see a fresh, new romance where lust and passion colours everything and even the most simple sentence contains sexual innuendo. I can imagine the kinds of words written in that note. The jeans could be hers or his but I prefer to think they’re hers. The love note is ‘still’ dirty which makes me believe she’s read it before. 

On the other hand, there is also the possibility that this is a dark poem about an illicit love affair and that she finds this dirty note in his jeans. This kind of ambiguity is one I admire in a haiku, I luv the idea that a haiku can be seen as positive in one reading and then so negative in another.”

favourite quote from Waiting for Godot

“There's no lack of void.”

Withnail and I

“Give me a Valium, I'm getting the fear.”

Alan note:

Also enjoy my own commentary, as the contest judge, on Susan Burch’s haikai verse:

“Being Human - the ordinary intensity” 

a look at senryu

https://area17.blogspot.com/2018/06/being-human-ordinary-intensity-look-at.html 

FAILED HAIKU Number 67,  July 2021

so wasted

but still writimng

good haiju

 

 

she steals my heart

as I stare at blossoms

petty thief

 

 

after the neighbours' complaints

our music louder

battered box torn photographs

of somebody's baby

SUCKING MANGOES NAKED (anthology)

 at the end

of the blossoms

her lingerie

drifting snow

her hand caresses the back

of his neck

endless night

can I forgive myself

for hurting you

farewell sex –

thoughts of you coming

into my life

he turns up early

to weed her herb patch

red negligee

I follow

a trail of blossoms --

her open door

kissing

beside the washed dishes

boiling kettle

kissing

on the couch

snail trail

long kiss

the smell of burning

toast

overcast

a rainbow appears

on her face

red tulips --

sunshine lingers

on her skin

she stands

beneath a waterfall

moss on rocks

sparkling eyes –

jasmine flowers flow

into the room

sudden downpour

beside the swollen river

we keep kissing

your kisses

all around my neck

your fingers