Astride the old bridge
Watching the waters below
Pondering the day
Gentle chorus line,
Conducted by two lamp posts,
Serenades brown rocks
©Alan McKean
©Simon Footitt (painting)
Chorus Line
Category: Haiku
Sunset
Sunset,
Western trees
Submit to the night,
slowly
©Alan McKean
Lighthouse and beach
Incoming tide
White sails
Ride the stormclouds
Cosmological constants
New moon carries the
Old and tired one in her arms
On their way to Spring
Basic universe
Held together by gluons
riding the photons
multiversical
poetry transcends simple
Einstein-Rosen bridge
Universal truth
Stored in the interstices
Of current space-time
Forget rocketry
Travel at the speed of thought
Trans phasic warp speed
©Alan McKean, February 2015
Promenade
Dowdy seaside town
With its mile of tacky shops
Twixt station and beach
A bucket and spade
On a crowded Blackpool beach.
Childhood memories.
The incoming tide
Washes sandcastles away.
Buggrit! Start again.
Rock pools full of life
Await the incoming tide
To refresh that life.
The sea, a soft blue
Covers the rocks and beaches,
Until the next low tide.
Wet sand and ice cream,
Pennies in the slot machines,
Pier end performers.
Tired audience
And faded comedians.
October pier end.
©Alan McKean. January 2008
Perspective
What if
Our universe
Was someone else’s strange quark
Imagine
A galaxy
The size of a Muon
Picture
Our solar system
In a Florence flask
Consider
The Oort Cloud
Does it keep us in, or others out?
Maybe
Our reality
Is nowt long by bugger all wide
Is our existence
Just stringing us along
Or
Are we just becoming
Entangled
In the here and there?
God knows
©Alan McKean
December 2019
Quick haiku
I asked my doctor
to write an haiku for me
this is what he wrote
Sundry haiku, February 2024
Thin branch
Bird holds on
Tightly
Crescent moon
Harbour reflects
Tranquil sky
Tea shop
I stop for a cup
Of contentment
Birdsong
Banishes the silence
Of night
©Alan McKean
A clutch of haiku
Transitory moon
Travelling through shades of cloud
Carrying stories
New year
The gods roll the dice
Playfully
Impatience
A meeting of hearts
He is late
Dark nights
Cold stars
May bring snow tomorrow
haiku – 2nd January 2026
Stranger rest awhile
Enjoy our peaceful home at
Fionnphort on Mull
Uisken, Bay of Peace
Sea and rock in harmony
Tranquillity here
See the sleeping cat
Legs akimbo, claws at stretch
Do you think I’m cute?
My cat looks at five
More dimensions than I do.
Why am I not phased
Seventeen short sounds
The story covered in full
By just three short lines