December 25: Nativity

Nativity scene
every year we think we’ve lost
the baby

.

Nativity scene
the shepherds are guarding
flocking

.

Nativity scene
the light in the stable
burned out

.

Nativity scene
folding a crane to replace
the broken angel

.
Nativity scene
the Wise Men never let go
of their gifts

.
Nativity scene
Joseph stares out
of the window
.

Nativity scene
the animals eye the manger
hungrily

.
Nativity scene
Mary hides
from the visitors

.
Nativity scene
packing away the miracle
for next year

.

A very Merry Christmas to all my readers who are celebrating the holiday today. Thanks for all your well-wishes this season and all your support this year. Much joy to you and your families.

July 22: 1-2: The Technique of Humor

(See this post for an explanation of what’s going on here.)

Jane:

“This is the dangerous stuff … [b]ecause one has no way of judging another person’s tolerance for wisecracks, jokes, slurs, bathroom and bedroom references.… Very often the humor of a haiku comes from the honest reactions of humankind. Choose your terms carefully, add to your situation with appropriate leaps, and may the haiku gods smile on you.

dried prune faces
guests when they hear
we have only a privy”

– Jane Reichhold, Haiku Techniques

*

Me:
Hmmm … okay, here’s the thing. My sense of humor tends toward the … obscurely satirical? Wait, is that just a synonym for “not funny”? Well, you can judge for yourself.

1.

For my first effort at humor I set out to write a haiku that would encompass as many stereotypes about Japan and haiku as possible in seventeen syllables (5-7-5, of course).

origami cranes
sipping tea on Mount Fuji —
white cherry blossoms

2.
For my second effort I felt like making fun of haiku poets. Yeah, all of us, cawing away, trying to impress our significance on the world …

Basho, Issa,
and the rest of us —
a convention of crows

Had enough yet? Can’t say I blame you. But come on, are they really any worse than Jane’s privy joke?

(And don’t forget my invitation!)

June 23: 1-8: what I wrote/(in a tiny red notebook)/when I couldn’t sleep

(not a narrative)

four a.m. bitterly spitting sleep out of my mouth

the speeds of light and sound meet in the storm

dying wind
where they were left
the dolls sleep

at the end of the storm the birds begin again

the newspaper brought
by the car in the night
the crane cries

light reorganizes itself around the edges of the leaves

dawn
the cat crows
in my ear

morning juice
a green bug climbs up
the broom handle

*

You’re not going crazy. I’ve revised a bunch of these since the last time you read them.

June 7: 1 (Folding Smaller)

a season of childhood
he folds smaller
and smaller

June 5: 2 (Folded Crane)

folded crane
take pity
on its flightlessness

May 20: 1-2 (Left behind)

the crying far away
of someone left behind
sandhill cranes at dawn

faint pencil marks
in the margins
the book you left behind

I “wrote” both of these in bed this morning, in my head, while I was barely awake. I could hear the cranes, the mournful bass underlying the rest of the dawn chorus. I don’t know where the pencil marks came from, maybe a dream. After I got up and wrote them down, the two haiku seemed connected to me and I couldn’t figure out why; then I realized they both contain the phrase “left behind.” My conscious will be interrogating my subconscious about that for the rest of the day.