I’m walking through Loughborough. Just the other side of the town centre, Swan Street, I meet an example of one of my favourite type of involuntary painting, a series of photographs outside a barber shop showing various styles of hair that for a small price and a pointless but enjoyable conversation about football, holidays, family you can walk out sporting with pride.

I miss these encounters having not been in a barbers for over ten years. I do not have hair down to my waist. No, ten years ago my receding hairline led me to shave my hair off and I’ve done that ever since. As a haiku poet this new state of shavedness unexpectedly gives me the reputation of being somehow more spiritual.

people ask me
questions about Zen
I pat my head

Paul Conneally
May 2019

—

Photograph: Involuntary Painting, Loughborough, Paul Conneally May 2019