Although I love living in a small Norfolk village, where there are no shops or street lights, I miss the sounds, smells and sights of London and relish the opportunity of visiting my daughter, who still lives between Clapham Common and Battersea. I love the way buses pulse like blood through the veins of the city and the Underground rumbles below my feet. I hum along to the backing track of traffic and sirens. On a dark autumn evening, fixed in the halos of street lights and neon signs, I catch glimpses of passing office workers and shoppers on their way home, and homeless people in shop door-ways. There’s a sharp feeling of tension while waiting for the bus. Taxis circle like sharks. A drunk stumbles against a rubbish bin. Once the bus ride is over, there’s the long walk across the common and up a road lined tightly with parked cars and littered with take-away cartons.
bright-eyed fox appears
under city-light sulphur
leaching rust from fur
© Kim M. Russell, 2016
My response to dVerse Poets Pub Haibun Monday # 23 – contemporary cityscape
This week’s Haibun Monday prompt is brought to us by Björn, who has asked us to take it to a contemporary level, still sparse prose in the first person and present tense, but bringing in the cityscape: we should look for the bad part of town, the light worms of passing traffic, the beat from distant clubs, using a Bob Dylan quote as a springboard: ‘The land created me. I’m wild and lonesome. Even as I travel the cities, I’m more at home in the vacant lots.’ The haiku should juxtapose the prose rather than complement it.
I felt like I was there!
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🙂
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The taxis like sharks is a great image, and the tension of walking along the common… then of course that wildlife leans its shoulder against the city’s chest through that fox.
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Thanks, Bjorn!
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Great image! I love your depiction of London, which, (for me) is the city I measure all others by. It brought back so many memories of student days. Thank you!
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I don’t go back so often now – and my daughter will soon be moving to Guildford.
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Probably won’t be quite the same…
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This is so atmospheric, Kim. Great image and haiku to create a sort of oxymoron.
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Thank you , Victoria!
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The buses like blood pulsing through the veins of the city – excellent image esp. as the buses are red! The image of the fox forced into city life is incredible.
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Thanks Toni – as they say, you can take the girl out of London but you can’t take London out of the girl!
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I love this, Kim. It is evocative of so many cities I have visited. And the fox haiku is superb!
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Thank you, Jane. My daughter will be moving out of London soon, so I won’t be getting my fix . I’ll have to find an excuse to visit the few friends I have left there – most of my friends and family have moved away. People in London have become very wary of foxes – one woman went into her six year old daughter’s bedroom and found a fox licking the child’s face – it had got in through a window! They roam the streets and rummage in litter bins. Some have been known to attack cats.
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We have a resident coyote that walks the street late at night. Cats disappear, so I have a rollcall around 9pm. We also have a resident raccoon who walks from the neighborhood garden through drivaways to the kudzu behind us…9 acres of this stuff. My neighbors want to shoot the coyote, but we have taken his land…and all the others. I tell them he is a Cherokee Spirit guide and nothing good will happen to our street if he is killed. So far, he still roams the night.
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I don’t think I’ve ever seen a real coyote or a raccoon. They seem so exotic to me and yet they are probably ordinary, everyday animals where you live. Don’t let them shoot the coyote!
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I’ve never seen a coyote here, but it seems funny to me to think of a raccoon as exotic. They’re all over the place here. We even had a mother and babies living under the eave of our attic–had to call someone to trap them for us.
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I love foxes….but one licking a child’s face. LOL! Perhaps that would be the most scary thing to me. However, I have seen foxes who act like dogs or cats….beautiful animals….beautiful spirits. We need to coexist with all other species…except big spiders. I do have limits. LOL!
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With me it’s sharks and we don’t have them here!
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Hmm.. stuck in city
liFe.. i’m quiet sure
i too.. would once
again.. bEcoMe
less.. A fox
lost
from a Den of Play..
with so much less to say..
A FoRRest i live iN/as iNspiRes
so many Fox FLutes paWs
spRinGinG
noW iN fOur
SeAsonS Now
oF aS FloweRinG
CreaTivity FReED..
And A best compliment
sPeaKinG of Dance in A
Bigger City Super WaLmArt
Store noW.. pasSinG three
years now of public dance is
when the worn customer service
manager at the return place says..
everyday you come in here you BRinG
SpRinG no matter what time of year iT is..
considering i spent 66 months as a shut-in
with little to no words read or written the
first 33 months of that and stumbling like
a nursing home patient not even able to
prepare a TV
Dinner with
eYes
and ears
that wouldn’t
work.. faint at
every step in standing
hUman way.. i don’t kNow
And FeeL eXactly how i got
hEre my FriEnd but mY liFe
is both proof of MiracleS and
some hiGher poTenTial of beinG
Human that iSReAL as the 12 milLion
words and 6 thousand miles of dance
that came after that first 33 and 66 months of
null
and
void..
somenows this
is worth sharing
even if it breaks the
Speed liMits of wordS in Heaven..
iN oft cOld CitieS and homeless places of online hell..;)
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I think you have broken the speed limits of words in heaven! Thank goodness for miracles 🙂
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Amen for
iSreal
SMiLes
My friEnd.. Kim..:)
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🙂
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This is absolutely incredible, Kim. I could almost picture every detail. Love that haiku! ❤️
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Thank you Sanaa! I have to go to bed early so I’ll be back to read yours in the morning. Much love xx
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Wonderful post. I’ve only been to London once, and I was only about 10 years old (and that was a long time ago).
I’m sure there are foxes that come out at night here, and even in Philadelphia, but the only one I’ve ever seen was in her “den” by the river. We do get deer in our backyard though and wild turkeys. 🙂
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You have wild turkeys and we have Bernard Matthews – the turkey company in Norfolk, England, infamous for battery turkeys and his staff mistreating them. They make turkey nuggets amongst other things. I always liked the sound of Philadelphia.
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I got a chance to visit London last year and loved it. I really like this piece. It made me feel like I was there again.
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That makes me very happy!
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It is always a joy, an unexpected thrill to come upon bear, wolves, coyote, raccoons, deer threading the concrete canyons, and we are to blame, constructing our suburbs out into their habitats, We have green belts throughout our west coast cities, and critters thrive hiding in plain sight.
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I would love to see bears, wolves, raccoons and other animals we don’t have over here. I follow a wolf conservation page on Facebook. However, I do get to enjoy the British wildlife in our wild garden and the surrounding countryside.
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I specially admire how you painted the city life with vibrancy and energy:
I love the way buses pulse like blood through the veins of the city and the Underground rumbles below my feet. I hum along to the backing track of traffic and sirens. and:
Taxis circle like sharks. Love your share Kim ~
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Thank you, Grace!
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🙂
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Humming to the sounds of the city is something I have never imagined so I found this very intriguing. The fox was such a nice surprise at the end…adding that third dimension to your haibun. I also enjoyed learning more about the city of London. 🙂
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Thank you Mish!
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the metaphors you used are so vivid making each word felt. this is great! ❤
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Thank you!
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you’re welcome! 😀
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I love London. Your prose is spot on capturing the vitality of the City.
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Thank you, Brian!
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“buses pulse like blood through the veins of the city
Taxis circle like sharks.
A drunk stumbles against a rubbish bin.”….. and then the fox. WOW. Another great descriptive piece.
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Thank you so much!
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nice rendition of vacant lots – you’ve captured the dormouse and fox feel of Clapham away from city lights. Taxis circle like sharks…brilliant …but minicabs close in like pirrhanas
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Thank you, Laura. It can feel threatening on the Common and when the riots were going on at Clapham Junction in the summer of 2011, I was so worried. But it’s also a brilliant part of south London for restaurants, pubs and shops, cultural events and other activities. Unfortunately, Ellen and her husband will be moving to Guildford in November or December. I’ll miss visiting my old stomping ground!
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that was my first stomping ground many moon ago – needless to say it is vastly gentrified from then to now. Guildford I know well – even more foxes there!
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The strange thing is that I see more foxes in London than I do up here – and I know they exist because they raid my friend’s chicken house every so often. They don’t seem to like my garden – although I have hedgehogs, squirrels, deer, pheasants, owls and various types of mice. I do like Guildford – my best and one of my oldest friends lived there for a while before she moved to Islington and then Brighton. She’s still down in West Sussex, just further along the coast.
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your garden sounds like Eden – yes here in Central London we have foxes – soon will begin the mating season 😉
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Yes – I’ll hear them then! :And the barking muntjaks!
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Okay — I’m reading all these this morning and thinking, wow…everyone’s gone to the dark side of the city and I sure didn’t do that. And then I read your explanation below your haibun and realize I must have been in a fog when I read the prompt….did not realize that were were supposed to write about the underbelly. Ah well…….my nature is to be the pollyanna so that’s just the way it goes.
But to your haibun here — I especially love the juxtapositioning of the haiku and them mention of the “leaching rust from fur” — (wonderful photo choice) —- because, in essence, there is so much rust in the gritty part of the city. I also loved your description of the buses — Have been to London 4 times and love the city. Even in the grey of cloudy and damp days, it has a vibrancy to it. I do understand the missing it — funny — you’re trasplanted in the opposite direction from me….kindred spirits in a way — privileged to have both experiences, right?
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Thank you, Lillian. When I was writing the haibun, I wanted to get the fox in, because we see them all the time around Clapham Common and also because they remind me of autumn, with their rusty, russet colours. And you’re right, there is so much rust in the gritty part of the city. I moved from London to another city in Germany, then to the depths of the country in Ireland, back to London and then to the country again! This time, I feel like I belong here – Norfolk is so beautiful, we’re right near the coats but have the advantage of being not too far from Norwich – and yes, I do feel privileged to have had both experiences. 🙂
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I love the way you describe how London’s red buses ‘pulse like blood through the veins of the city’ and your own long walk across the common could be following a similar trail of the urban fox.
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Sometimes the fox follows me 😊🐈
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:o)
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Fantatic write!
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Thank you!
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I so enjoyed your observations, Kim…so like many other cities worldwide I suppose. I was most taken with your haiku and that photo of the fox in the urban setting. Just where does a fox live in the city? We also live where raccoons are plentiful as well as possums. The other day heading to watch Mira, I had to slow down for a baby armadillo crossing the road! I’ve seen fox in our backyard and a bobcat where Mira lives. We’re surrounded by wildlife…which I love!
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Thank you, Gayle! I think that, where my daughter lives, the foxes have dens on the common, although they have been known to make their homes in gardens. I can’t imagine seeing an armadillo crossing the road – if we had them over here there would be signs like the ones we have for frogs: armadillo crossing!
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Haha…cute about the frog signs, Kim. We have tortoise crossing signs nearby where gopher tortoises make their homes. They are a protected species here in the U.S. I’ve had to stop for them too!
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Great observations and vivid imagery! I was right there with you seeing through your lens. Awesome haiku at the end! That fox 🐺 and that haiku = spectacular!
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Thank you!
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One of my favorite sights, even in the city, it’s the occasional glimpse of wildlife. ..especially the jackrabbit that lives by our church.
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There are rabbits all around here – just not in our garden!
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The description of the buses and tubes were beautiful x
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Thank you so much for reading and commenting!
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