downhill home
HAIKU & SENRYU by CHUCK BRICKLEY
downhill home
HAIKU & SENRYU by CHUCK BRICKLEY
“Chuck Brickley is a master of shokumoku, or “glimpse.” These haiku and senryu from the San Francisco Bay Area reverberate not only with the tragic stories of our time, but also with the joyful moments of our daily life. I really love them.”
“DOWNHILL HOME is nothing short of an offering, revealing how wisdom deepens when we see with our hearts and how a single moment can expand our understanding. These exquisitely crafted poems reflect what it means to care for this world and those with whom we share it. This book is amazing.”
“Vibrant and subtle, personal and universal, DOWNHILL HOME expands the canvas of Chuck Brickley’s multi-award-winning debut, EARTHSHINE. These perceptive haiku and socially conscious senryu explore the timeless themes of family, love and death against a backdrop born of mindful observation and the minutiae of the past, present and futuristic lives of ‘home’.”
“I was completely inspired & blown away by the sensitivity, craft & formal adventure of these poems.”
downhill home . . .
from rural British Columbia where my wife and I lived for most of our lives to the southwestern edge of San Francisco, our birth city.
downhill home . . .
from rural British Columbia where my wife and I lived for most of our lives to the southwestern edge of San Francisco, our birth city.
a fogbow
at the end
my hometown
downhill home . . .
from various dwellings along the banks of wild rivers
to the house where I met her family on our first date.
downhill home . . .
from various dwellings along the banks of wild rivers
to the house where I met her family on our first date.
stirring
the California bay leaf in
me
wind a kitten stalks into the unmown
downhill home . . .
from the vast wildernesses of the Pacific Northwest
to Bay Area beaches, nature preserves, and secret stairways climbing ‘halfway to the stars.’
downhill home . . .
from the vast wildernesses of the Pacific Northwest
to Bay Area beaches, nature preserves, and secret stairways climbing ‘halfway to the stars.’
rolling down
the back windows too
smell of the sea
rinsing a scallop shell in the sea Venus
the ocean down my street rising sunset
downhill home . . .
from a small town where few people live on the street
to a city where thousands do.
downhill home . . .
from a small town where few people live on the street
to a city where thousands do.
dawn a needle in the last hopscotch square
dark cumulus
pigeons settle
on a gum-speckled corner
city tents
a pit bull wags
what’s left
downhill home . . .
from an aging person long inspirited by communing with nature
to one also bearing witness to our troubled city, country, planet.
downhill home . . .
from an aging person long inspirited by communing with nature
to one also bearing witness to our troubled city, country, planet.
American Beauty
the poison he sprays
in the wind
Old Glory
waving like there’s no
half our state away
and yet the wipers swish
ash es
ash es
downhill home . . .
from hope flowering in dreams
to hope rooted in our times.
downhill home . . .
from hope flowering in dreams
to hope rooted in our times.
our embrace
the frayed white curtains
billowing inside
crisp fall air
the neighbor who never says hi
says hi
street pupusa
an old Salvadoran
closing his eyes