Owen Bullock
Facts and Figures
still hot at five
the leaves of newspapers
turn down the road
You call them ‘hurry cars’ – galumphing people and dogs circle us in the suburbs.
On the beach, the feathers of a dead blue penguin stir. A trawler follows us along the shore. A man with a fancy camera takes photos of waves crashing. Some of the writing in the sand is copper plate. A woman in full bridal regalia wades into the surf.
At home, familiar cows munch in the paddock next door. Sweetpeas grow up the trellis, you call them peasweets.
After dusk, the moon wobble light begins. The smell of gas; ash floats across the hedge.
picking tick beans in the rain
your suggestion
takes hold
About the writer:
Owen Bullock has published haibun in many of the world’s leading venues for the genre, including Contemporary Haibun Online, Haibun Today, Frogpond, Presence, Kokako, A Hundred Gourds and Modern Haibun and Tanka Prose. He has published four collections of haiku, most recently River’s Edge (Recent Work Press, 2016). He teaches creative writing at the University of Canberra.
Image: Hastings Point, New South Wales, Australia. Photo by Bailey Mahon on Unsplash.
