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Geert Verbeke

IN MEMORIAM

Guido, a soul mate and enthusiast jazz-poet drowned yesterday. I am standing in the cool of a funeral parlour for a fond farewell. The walls of the mortuary are olive green. One oil painting shows me a daub of white colour in a crisscross of grey lines: the sea! I breathe in the perfume of the sea air. I still remember our nocturnal walks on the beach at Ostend. The canvas on the wall is an oblique stroke between two acts: life and death. In my remembrance all the corpses have jaundice and freckled faces, but you my brother are smiling.

seaward storm
a salty wind is changing
the dune crossing

Writing haiku is learning how to move to and fro in the landscapes of my mind. My haiku for you will talk about colours of the starfishes.

What is essential for my haiku? Three lines? A keyword? The haiku moment? Seventeen syllables? I hear your voice: ' a haiku must proceed from a concrete image, based on a deep emotion, in love with poetry.'

I think I will miss you badly. I feel an irresistible desire to see the rise of the full moon riding on the waves. Moon gazing? Now!

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