haiku

The Shambling Undead Tour…!

/ Al Lane / 8 Comments

I’ve got lots of things in the pipeline, including a couple of forthcoming podcast appearances, but I’ve also arranged to get myself out there to promote my book in the next few months… so if you are near any of these towns and cities, and fancy checking it out, then please come along! More will be announced for April and May in due course… lots of poeting miles to be clocked up this year! Hope to see you there 🙂

Copies of Haiku of the Dead can be purchased through amazon globally, including:

UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07K1Q8MKY

US – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07K1Q8MKY

the zombie cometh...

Keeping it social…

/ Al Lane / 34 Comments

Happy New Year everyone!

I’ve got some big plans for this year, and am going through some of the admin pain of putting those in motion at the moment… more details to follow when it gets more interesting! 2018 saw me publish not one but two books, headline my first poetry events, and perform at a host of wonderful events, in fields, barns, cellars, pubs and caves. Expect 2019 to have even more of this, but spreading my wings further afield from my home town of Nottingham. I don’t believe in resolutions, but if I wanted to describe my plans for 2019 in a single word, it would be…”BIGGER!”

Onwards, and hopefully upwards…

I’ve just started using the Instagram account I’ve had for a while, so thought this would be a good time to signpost to some of my social media links, for those who are interested.

You can find me all over!
https://www.facebook.com/AlistairLaneWrites/
https://twitter.com/AlistairLane
https://www.instagram.com/lane.alistair/
Or on youtube

Haiku of the Dead, the essential guide to surviving the rise of the zombies in glorious technicolor haiku with dollops of humour, is available globally from amazon – just amend the specific amazon bit of the web address in the links below if you’re not in the UK or US, or search for Alistair Lane (there’s only one of me, it seems!):
UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07K1Q8MKY
US – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07K1Q8MKY

And if you hate amazon, but are desperate to prepare yourself for Z-Day, drop me an email and I’ll arrange something for you… I’ll leave no blogger behind!

So if you had to describe your goals/plans/aims for 2019 in one word, what word would you use? Let me know below!

HOTD 2019 poster

Me, Me, Me

/ Al Lane / 51 Comments

I attended a poetry workshop on Saturday, as part of the Nottingham Poetry Festival. I’m barely home this week for going to various poetry gigs (sadly not performing, but am hoping that will come), and consider myself blessed to live in such a poetry-hungry city!

At this workshop, I wrote a number of poems that will eventually see the light of day on this blog. This was written for the opening exercise, to write a tanka to introduce ourselves. I wrote two… the second explains why!

Really a rhymer
Who then got hooked on haiku.
In recovery.
I’ve been clean for a year.
Damn! I’m back on the wagon!

I love a challenge.
Stupidly competitive.
Fitting these words in
Gives me great satisfaction,
When the syllables all fit

🙂

 

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Halloween Haiku

/ Al Lane / 21 Comments

Dark Halloween night
Ghosts and goblins roam the earth
Demanding candy

Those grinning terrors
Knock on unsuspecting doors…
TRICK OR TREAT they cry

But they don’t mean that.
Try offering them a TRICK
And see what happens!

 

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Picture credit: flickr.com/photos/partymonstrrrr/4003308412

Halloweensie Haiku

/ Al Lane / 61 Comments

I’m honestly not obsessed with spiders, but here’s another Halloween one that includes them… this one gets a little creepy. You’ve been warned! This one was written for a competition at https://susannahill.com/2016/10/27/the-6th-annual-halloweensie-writing-contest-aahhhrrrooooooooo/ using the prompts “spider”, “ghost”, and “moon”, in 100 words or fewer, for an audience of 7-12 year olds. This is aimed at the upper end of that age range, and is exactly 100 words. It’s also written in haiku…

on each Halloween
from moonlit graves they arise;
spiders creep like ghosts

silent, and stealthy
they spread to every corner;
each house in the land

hiding in shadows
laying their foul, secret plans;
fiendishly plotting

no force can resist,
no earthly power defend
against their attack

silver webs are laid
glistening in the moonlight
catching more than flies

marking territory
advertising their presence
raising flags of fright

scuttling noises
scampering and skittering
echo through each room

unexplained breezes
tickling back of your neck;
a kiss from the grave

terror breeds terror…
and that’s the only secret
of the FEAR spiders!

 

 

I’ve decided to rest my favourite “non-scary” spider pic for this one… here’s another friendly (well, not fear-inducing), if rather large, one I found recently at a visit to Rufford Park, Notts. 🙂

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Haiku – Shift

/ Al Lane / 29 Comments

For this week’s Haiku Horizons challenge, the prompt was “shift”… I thought I’d approach it in a slightly different way…

Things that you should shift:
Mindset, perspective, gear;
Your ass and do it!

This seems a fairly appropriate way to announce that I’ve signed up for NaNoWriMo – the National Novel Writing Month challenge. It runs throughout November, with the aim being to write 50,000 words for your novel over that time. Yep. Fifty thousand. That’s only about 45,000 more than I’ve ever written on any one thing, ever, in my whole life. No problem, right?

I know Meg’s in as well… anyone else dumb brave enough to join us??

 

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Picture credit: flickr.com/photos/slackpics/4261060942