Herb Tate

Welcome! On this site are over 200 haiku, senryu and haibun (and a couple of longer poems) that people have been kind enough to publish or feature (some of which also feature in my first book ‘No Longer’ – available at Amazon). Grateful thanks to all the editors at the following on-line and print journals who have taken an interest in my work and encouraged me along the way:

Akitsu Quarterly
Asahi Haikuist Network
Autumn Moon Haiku Journal
Blithe Spirit
Bones
Cafe Haiku
cattails
Chrysanthemum
Cold Moon Journal
Contemporary Haibun Online
dadakuku
drifting sands haibun
Failed Haiku
First Frost
Five Fleas (Itchy Poetry)
Folk Ku Journal
Frogpond
Golden Haiku
Haiku Dialogue – Haiku Foundation
Haiku Foundation – Monthly Kukai
Haiku in Action – Nick Virgilio Haiku Association
Haiku Seed blog and Journal
HaikUniverse
Hedgerow
Heterodox Haiku
Horror Senryu Journal
The Heron’s Nest
Humana Obscura
kontinuum
Living Haiku Anthology
Lothlorien Poetry Journal
Modern Haiku
Nick Virgilio Haiku Association – Haiku in Action
Pan Haiku Review
Plum Tree Tavern
Poetry Pea Journal
Presence
Prune Juice
Scarlet Dragonfly
The Bamboo Hut
tiny words
tsuri-doro
ubu.
Under the Basho
Wales Haiku Journal
Whiptail

Others I have written can be found on X (formerly twitter) @HerbTate5, mostly in response to prompts on #HaikuChallenge from (previously) @baffled, @hegelincanada, (now) @Bleu_Owl and #WalesHaikuJournal from @WalesHaiku. Currently I post exclusively on Bluesky, where I am @herbtate5.bsky.social mostly in response to #DailyHaikuPrompt, #HaikuSaturday, #SenryuSunday and #WalesHaikuJournal.

Herb

morning sun
even without her
shadows on the counterpane

Hedgerow #141 (March, 2023)

mythopoeia –
the docudramatic tales
growing in telling

a foot here or there
going this way and that
the way of the cross

Heterodox Haiku, Issue 2 (March, 2023)

bruised apples
another year on
the waiting list

tsuri-doro, #14 (March / April, 2023)

teen and parent
time together
whatever

Failed Haiku, Volume 8, Issue 87 (March, 2023)

the whither
of the river
lost for a while
in the flood

Plum Tree Tavern Winter Special (February, 2023)

a rustle of leaves twitchers in the bushes bird alert

The Haiku Foundation blog
HAIKU DIALOGUE (February 22, 2023)

harvest moon
over charcoal fields
sounds from the spinney

Scarlet Dragonfly Journal (February 17, 2023)

new moon
sweetly my sweater
keeping us warm

Cold Moon Journal (February 17, 2023)

in the dead of night
an acquired taste
for the living

horror senryu journal (February 17, 2023)

swift flight correction swallow

The Haiku Foundation blog
HAIKU DIALOGUE (February 8, 2023)

burning the candle
at one end
’til both

Asahi Haikuist Network – The Asahi Shimbun (February 3, 2023)

growing apart
your initials
on our tree

Failed Haiku, Volume 8, Issue 86 (February, 2023)

midsummer moon –
grace notes in the
morning chorus

grave visit
each time further
and further away

The Poetry Pea Journal, 3:22 (January, 2023)

rushing river
smudging the definition
of a willow

Wales Haiku Journal, Winter 2022-23 (January, 2023)

mime mistake
the sounds
of regret

Five Fleas (January 26, 2023)

what might have been lost in the yellow yarrow

whiptail – journal of the single-line poem, Issue 6 (January 2023)

Pegging It

flash brrrr
boy racers’
spoke jokers

dadakuku (January 23, 2023)

summer heat
barefoot dancing
with mosquitoes

HaikuSeed blog (21/2/22) and Haiku Seed Journal, #0 (January, 2023)

Don’t Look

last cattleya petal’s
wonder watch
heartbreaker wrecked
on a daisy rock

dadakuku (January 4, 2023)

potato field
after the dust settles…
a field again

apple barrow
counting down the days
of summer

Akitsu Quarterly (Winter, 2022)

granny’s hand
in mummy’s sewing
puppet show

The Haiku Foundation blog
HAIKU DIALOGUE (December 21, 2022)

little blackbird
asleep aside the footpath home
gone before school

The Haiku Foundation blog
HAIKU DIALOGUE (December 14, 2022)

ever so slowly shaping the morning mist

Water: The British Haiku Society Members’ Anthology (December, 2022)

the sea thinking
what the sky’s thinking –
autumn breeze

alone
at the well
missing and wishing

Blithe Spirit, Volume 32, Number 4 (December, 2022)

fifty years
all it took to know my father
in my bones

Failed Haiku, Volume 7, Issue 84 (December, 2022)

mountain summit
my son sits with his father
my father sits with me

The Haiku Foundation blog
HAIKU DIALOGUE (November 30, 2022)

morning seagulls
something fishy going on
under the water

Presence (November, 2022)

evening moon
floating my boat
in the milky way

Plum Tree Tavern
Autumn Moon Festival 2022 (November, 2022)

playing soldiers
grandpa tells another story
with his eyes

The Haiku Foundation blog
HAIKU DIALOGUE (November 16, 2022)

overshadowing
bright moon
shadows

Plum Tree Tavern (November 16, 2022)

Lonely Planet 
Depending on when you choose to travel the humidity may be high and the temperature higher: you will wish to be wearing your coolest clothes and regret, if you haven’t, not packing an umbrella. 

Your destination is about fourteen kilometres north-east of the city. Just a little too far comfortably to walk, perhaps, but easily accessible by auto-rickshaw or a taxi that – more often than not – will be more than happy to wait. In this tranquil place Shakyamuni first preached the Middle Way.  

Though busy occasionally, it is seldom crowded, particularly later in the afternoon, and easy enough – if you put your mind to it – to slip the solicitations of your guide, step aside from the path, and walk alone through the stupas. 

incessant rain
I choose my shelter
under an old tree

Under the Basho (November 14, 2022)

deckchair
sitting empty
by the bandstand
in the rain

The Haiku Foundation blog
HAIKU DIALOGUE (November 9, 2022)

Straight Flush

She kept on asking me where I’d been. Just driving, I said, to clear my head, get some space, give her a break. Every day I had to make sure I got home first so I could sift through the post and stuff the letters I couldn’t let her see into the glove compartment for later. I might have burnt them, I suppose, or just torn them up and hidden them in the bottom of the bin. But it felt safer, somehow, on my way home after a session, to ram them down the bog in the public toilets. And every time I thought of coming clean I told myself I would. Tomorrow.

laying my
cards on the table –
Ace, King, Queen, Jack…Eight

Failed Haiku, Volume 7, Issue 83 (November, 2022)

a face
for every year
gone out the window

The Haiku Foundation Blog
HAIKU DIALOGUE (November 2, 2022)

halloween bell
the grimalkin
smirks

Scarlet Dragonfly Journal (October 31, 2022)

exhausted candle
another year of being
one again

The Haiku Pond (October 30, 2022)

defrosting
the wedding cake –
one hell of a year

The Poetry Pea Journal, 2:22 (October, 2022)

at the wake
father preys
on my mind

horror senryu journal (October 25, 2022)

unable to be
just white and blue –
sailboat on the sea

Scarlet Dragonfly Journal (October 9, 2022)

toad
leaf
toad

Cold Moon Journal (October 5, 2022)

summer’s end –
all along here
ivy bowed oaks

Haiku Seed Journal (October 4, 2022)

mistook a senryu
for a haiku
pandemonium flowers

Failed Haiku, Volume 7, Issue 82 (October, 2022)

working from home –
the lickspittle creeps
to a different boss

The Haiku Foundation Blog
HAIKU DIALOGUE (September 28, 2022)

mountain rain
remembered by
the sea

Stardust Haiku (September 2022)

you were meant
to sing and dance and love –
you fools

Five Fleas (September 21, 2022)

and but so
then by which why –
dragonfly

on a high mountain
looking for fish –
hooting, with laughter

Five Fleas (September 20, 2022)

as much as it saddens me sun through ice

The Heron’s Nest, Volume XXIV, Number 3 (September, 2022)

stop staring cow —
I have questions
for you too

Asahi Haikuist Network – The Asahi Shimbun (September 2, 2022)

class reunion
old school ties returning
for the funeral

Failed Haiku, Volume 7, Issue 81 (September, 2022)

raking the leaves
feeling one more falling
on his back

The Haiku Foundation Blog
HAIKU DIALOGUE (August 31, 2022)

summer dawn –
the crow rattling
an august branch

The Haiku Foundation Blog
HAIKU DIALOGUE (August 17, 2022)

To The Point

Keep it simple, he said, but in that manner he had of telling me the most straightforward things in ways that made me try extra hard not to forget. Non sunt multiplicanda entia sine necessitate. Ockham’s Razor. Entities are not to be multiplied without necessity. I have no Latin but even in English I wasn’t sure I understood what he meant. If there’s more than one solution to a problem, then pick the least complicated one. Far more times than you can imagine, things really are exactly as they seem. Believe me, you’ll see.

stinging
and stinging again
dead nettle flower

contemporary haibun online, Issue 18.2 (August, 2022)

gibbous moon;
my turn to lie
alone with you

Failed Haiku, Volume 7, Issue 80 (August, 2022)

late evening walk
my footsteps
half the distance

Prune Juice, Issue 37 (July, 2022)

adjusting my sights
thinking of how I’ll look in
a billion years

Nick Virgilio Haiku Association
HAIKU IN ACTION (July 31, 2022)

one over the eight
ice plinking
in the plonking

The Haiku Foundation Blog
HAIKU DIALOGUE (July 27, 2022)

exactly as it should be a blob of clay
(found haiku, source: If This Isn’t Nice, What Is? by Kurt Vonnegut, Seven Stories Press, 2013.)

lead coffin
catching her
breath

last will and testament
leaving his time machine
to the grandchildren

kontinuum, vol.2, no.1 (July, 2022)

My haiku ‘defrosting’ on The Haiku Pea Podcast S5E14 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciMGMvzC7YY

The Haiku Pea Podcast (July, 2022)

god bothering the foal lying still with its mother

ubu., issue 4 (July, 2022)

trapped mosquito
when the wings wouldn’t go
back onto the fly

The Haiku Foundation Blog
HAIKU DIALOGUE (July 13, 2022)

tearing up
your letter
could be read
so many ways

Frogpond, Issue 45:2 (Spring / Summer, 2022)

waking up the leaves sweep me away

tsuri-doro, #10 (July / August, 2022)

silent workshop
grandfather still
at the lathe

Cold Moon Journal (June 28, 2022)

counting stars
and fireflies
not even close

Scarlet Dragonfly Journal (June 18, 2022)

silver fish shadowing my shadow

ice limns –
seeing the wood
in the trees

a dollar a pop
shooting the breeze
in the mountains

no haiku
on this ginko –
must be me!

The Poetry Pea Journal, 1:22 (June, 2022)

autumn leaves a message in the trees

The Heron’s Nest, Volume XXIV, Number 2 (June, 2022)

funeral procession
passing her love of lillies
on to me

The Haiku Foundation Blog
HAIKU DIALOGUE (June 1, 2022)

My haiku ‘a dollar a pop’ on The Haiku Pea Podcast S5E10 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqFN8w8qQy0

The Haiku Pea Podcast (May 2022)

Cicatrice

Is this the way that something wonderful begins – just as I always hoped it may? If not, please tell me. Just say that what happened last night won’t happen again, so I can stop wishing it might, and we can go back to the way things were. When we walked with the others in the cool of the garden, when I didn’t know you and you didn’t know me. Did we even speak, as we snaked in line, from the ceremony in the tower, through the garden of roses, along the lines of limes and honeysuckle, brushing the scent from the rosemary and parsley with our shoes as we passed? But, whatever you say, I want you to know, I can’t help thinking about it, and about you, more than ever. I will remember it, always, as being, for me, as lovely a moment as there has ever been. So, unless you tell me, and unless you say otherwise, if I get the chance, I don’t think I can stop myself from doing it again.  

dawn light
the re-appearance
of shadows

Failed Haiku, Volume 7, Issue 77 (May 2022)

ploughing the fields all afternoon untangling her hair

whiptail – journal of the single-line poem, Issue 3 (May 2022)

kite wind
teasing at the stitching
of my coat

The Haiku Foundation Blog
HAIKU DIALOGUE (April 27, 2022)

My haiku ‘ice limns’ on The Haiku Pea Podcast S5E8 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2p-gIKANMQ&t=268s

The Haiku Pea Podcast (April 2022)

sound of his car
at mid-night
driving us apart

neither here nor there
a hole in the pocket
of my favourite coat

in the reading room
whispering about
the new librarian

they are hidden
in my bookcase –
all the words I need

nun in the sun
kicking the habit
of a lifetime

Failed Haiku, Volume 7, Issue 76 (April 2022)

birds no longer
in the garden
just red berries

Haiku Seed Journal (4-8 April, 2022)

My haiku ‘silver fish’ on The Haiku Pea Podcast S5E6 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VQ6qwC34Rg

The Haiku Pea Podcast (March 2022)

putting his affairs in order:
little black book

fly strips flapping
in the summer breeze –
abandoning the crossword

planks and scaffold poles
on a flatbed truck
heading for new heights

Failed Haiku, Volume 7, Issue 75 (February 2022)

young frog
taking the place
of the water lily

HaikuSeed blog (February 2022)

house plants
dying by the window
living on the wall

HaikuSeed blog (26/2/22)

between the leaves –
the petals of a celandine
remember you

HaikUniverse (13/2/22)