‘London Haikus’ by Michael Naghten Shanks
Smells of burning birth.
London’s underground: (womblike).
Melancholy blooms.
Sunny South Bank: the
sticky consistency of
pancakes in syrup.
A young high-heeled girl
parading coquettishly
up and down King’s Cross.
A couple caress
the inside spine of a book:
How To Speak English.
Calls of the Quran
enlighten tourists buying
Chinatown’ s trinkets.
In the Tate café
overlooking the quiet
Thames: broken hearts mend.
Cockney Kaffeeklatsch.
Tables covered with Camden
coke and croissant crumbs.
Tender mornings reign
on the green of Hampstead Heath.
Look: strangers’ half-smiles.
From issue #1: autumn/winter 2015
About the Author
Michael Naghten Shanks has had poetry featured 3:AM Magazine, gorse, the Quietus, Hennessy New Irish Writing, Hotel, Southword, Prelude, Poetry Ireland Review, The Manchester Review, The Tangerine, and The Well Review. He was shortlisted for the inaugural Listowel Writers’ Week Irish Poem of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2016. Year of the Ingénue (Eyewear, 2015) is his debut poetry pamphlet. A second pamphlet, The Architecture of Red Caviar Sandwiches (If a Leaf Falls Press) was published in 2019.
