I know, I know. I said I wasn’t going to do this again for a while. But I’m so used to it! I keep reading haiku I love! And then I cut and paste them to a document and then I paste them into WordPress and then I fiddle with the formatting a little and then I press “Publish” and you get to read them. It’s not really that hard. No, really! It’s not! I totally can do it… at least one more time. Right? Please?
…Thanks!
.
_________________________________________________________________________________
.
Haiku
.
brittle moonlight
self-immolations
drawn on a map
— William Sorlien, Haiku Bandit Society
.
hiding their faces well snowflakes
.
de skjuler deres ansigter godt snefuggene
— Johannes S.H. Bjerg, 2 tongues/2 tunger
.
change of seasons
I catch myself talking
to the wind
— Margaret Dornaus, Haiku-doodle
.
a break
in the clouds
how small we are
— Alegria Imperial, jornales
.
in the second-hand book shop, the purr of the three-legged cat
— Mark Holloway, Beachcombing for the Landlocked
.
千の矢の描く千の弧師走空 青柳 飛
sen no ya no egaku sen no ko shiwazu-zora
.
one thousand trajectories
of one thousand arrows—
December sky
Fay Aoyagi, Blue Willow Haiku World (her blog’s 1000th post)
.
目をつむりセーター脱げば剥製です 渡部陽子
me o tsumuri seitaa nugeba hakusei desu
.
taking off a sweater
with eyes closed
I am a stuffed specimen
— Yoko Watabe, tr. Fay Aoyagi, Blue Willow Haiku World
.
platelets—
the trip we were planning
to plan
— Roberta Beary, Tinywords
.
itallcomestogether in the darkness for the owl
— Johnny Baranski, Monostich
.
longue recherche
des lunettes pour mieux voir
le brouillard
.
a long search
for glasses, the better to see
the fog
— Vincent Hoarau, La Calebasse (dubious translation by me)
.
Haibun
she envies her her boyfriend that never fools around and her cherry-red convertible that never needs repairs and her outfits (complete with shoes and accessories) that can be had for less than ten dollars and the perpetually-shining plastic sun outside her practically-immaculate plastic house but most of all she envies her her god-damn nearly-perfect never-faltering ability-to-smile . . .
she says
“we can’t help who we love”
to no one
in particular
“all guys are assholes”
— Eric L. Houck Jr., haiku
.
Haiga
Kindly click on the links to see the haiga that are not posted here.
.
mouth of the cave
we enter as eagles
exit as sparrows
— an’ya, DailyHaiga
.
opening emergency door,
head-on spring moon
— Kikko Yokoyama, with haiga by Kuniharu Shimizu, see haiku here
.
— Aubrie Cox, Yay Words! (Click on the image [or the link to Aubrie’s blog] for a larger, more legible version)
.
_________________________________________________________________________________
.
Essayed
Chen-ou Liu posted a great essay recently on his blog Poetry in the Moment (originally published in A Hundred Gourds 1.1) about the phenomenon of “deja-ku”: “Read It Slowly, Repeatedly, and Communally.” Here’s a sample, but please go read the whole thing, it’s fascinating and there are lots of great examples.
.
Today, high poetic value placed upon originality remains ingrained in the Western literary culture. This fear of unknowingly writing similar haiku or the reluctance or disuse of allusion proves that Thomas Mallon’s remark still holds true: the poets live under the “fearful legacy of the Romantics.” Could those poets or editors who are constantly worried about “not being original or fresh” imagine that a poet deliberately using a direct quote as the first two lines of his haiku can achieve a great poem?
— Chen-ou Liu, “Read It Slowly, Repeatedly, and Communally”
.
__________________________________________________________________________________
.
Hey, thanks for indulging me. I feel better now.
.
bitter night
I keep reminding myself
I’m a poet
.
Red Dragonfly 