Saturday, August 9, 2025

Poetic Musings: Kamikaze Mother Haiku by Fay Aoyagi

fireflies --
a Kamikaze mother whispers
her son's name


Fay Aoyagi

Commentary: when evaluated in the socio-cultural context of Japanese literature, the contrasts, thematic, emotional, visual and symbolic, of fireflies and the tie between a Kamikaze/suicide pilot and his mother are poignantly effective. 

And the image of a heartbroken mother in a patriarchal wartime/militarized society whispering, not crying out, her dead son's name adds extra emotional weight and psychological depth to the haiku.

Her haiku below, also included in Chrysanthemum Love, 2003, could be read as a sequel:

intact Zero fighter
at the Smithsonian --
cherry blossom rain

(FYI: The Zero fighter, the most famous symbol of Japanese air power, was repurposed for a kamikaze attack in the latter stages of World War II)


Notes:

1 "In Japan, where [fireflies] are called "hotaru," they are beloved – a metaphor for passionate love in poetry since Man'you-shu (the 8th century anthology). Their eerie lights are also thought to be the altered form of the souls of soldiers who have died in war.
-- excerpted from "Why the Firefly (Hotaru) Is Important in Japan?," ThoughtCo, Feb. 5, 2019.

2 In World War II, a Kamikaze was a Japanese aircraft loaded with explosives and making a deliberate suicidal crash on an enemy target. The Japanese people, especially Kamikaze pilots, were indoctrinated to believe in the concept of "Bushido" (the "highest honor" for a man to die for the "Emperor"). The courageous tanka poet, Yosano Akiko attacked its concept in her in/famous poem, "Kimi Shinitamou koto nakare" ("Thou Shalt Not Die"), addressed to her younger brother.

Friday, August 8, 2025

Reading More and Writing Better: Daily Banality Tanka

written in response to  Haaretz, Aug 5, 2025: Large Majority of Israeli Jews Untroubled by Reports of Famine in Gaza, Poll Finds

A vast majority of Israeli Jews – 79 percent – say they are "not so troubled" or "not troubled at all" by the reports of famine and suffering among the Palestinian population in Gaza, according to a poll released Tuesday

And in memory of the philosopher and political thinker Hannah Arendt, author of Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil 

word after word
squeezed out of the PM's mouth
in broad daylight
this daily "banality"
of dying, of death in Gaza


Note: Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil is a 1963 book by the philosopher and political thinker Hannah Arendt. Arendt, a Jew who fled Germany during Adolf Hitler's rise to power, reported on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the major organizers of the Holocaust, for The New Yorker. A revised and enlarged edition was published in 1964.

Arendt's subtitle famously introduced the phrase "the banality of evil." In part the phrase refers to Eichmann's deportment at the trial as the man displayed neither guilt for his actions nor hatred for those trying him, claiming he bore no responsibility because he was simply "doing his job." ("He did his 'duty'...; he not only obeyed 'orders,' he also obeyed the 'law.'")... 


For more about this then controversial, now classic book, see this fine essay, "Reflecting on Hannah Arendt and Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil" 

Abstract:

In this essay, we offer a modern legal reading of Hannah Arendt’s classic book, Eichmann in Jerusalem. First we provide a brief account of how Arendt came to write Eichmann in Jerusalem and explain her central arguments and observations. We then consider the contemporary relevance of Arendt’s work to us as legal academics engaged with a variety of problems arising from our times. We consider Arendt’s writing of Eichmann in Jerusalem as a study in intellectual courage and academic integrity, as an important example of accessible political theory, as challenging the academic to engage in participatory action, and as informing our thinking about judgement when we engage in criminal law reform. Finally, we consider the role of Arendt’s moral judgement for those within government today and how it defends and informs judgement of the modern bureaucrat at a time of heightened government secrecy.


And when evaluated in the context of Israel's genocidal war  in Gaza, the first daily televised genocide, my Ls 3-5 intend to transform the Arendtian concept of the "banality of evil as just doing one's job and obeying the law "behind the barbed wire/inside the camp into "the one, not a serious injustice but a normalized, everyday banality in broad daylight that loses its power to shock and inspire action or thought."


The intolerable is no longer a serious injustice, but the permanent state of a daily banality. Man is not himself a world other than the one in which he experiences the intolerable andvfeels himself trapped.  

Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 2: The Time-Image, pp. 169-70

"Gilles Deleuze's statement suggests that, in modern life, extreme "intolerable" events no longer stand out as exceptional injustices, but rather have become a normalized, everyday banality, losing their power to shock and inspire action or thought. This normalization implies a kind of societal exhaustion or desensitization, where suffering becomes so pervasive that it is accepted as a constant state, making even serious injustices seem mundane. "


FYI: "Israel's oldest dailyHaaretz," which was was sanctioned by the Israeli government on Nov. 24, 2024

August 7:Israeli Security Cabinet Approves Netanyahu's Gaza Takeover Plan, Ignoring IDF Warnings

The security cabinet also approved Netanyahu's plan for the IDF to take full control of Gaza City. Sources say that the evacuation of Gaza City residents to alternative areas is expected to be completed by October 7, and only afterward is the military takeover expected to begin.

And August, 7, Opinion: Israeli Leftists Say They Lost Compassion for Palestinians. But Did It Ever Exist?

The refusal to see Palestinians as human beings isn't a side effect of October 7. This phenomenon predates the latest war, the operations in Gaza, the terror attacks and the rockets. It's a fundamental element of Israel's national consciousness.


Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCXIV: "starvation death"

another day
another refugee tent
another baby 
with loose skin over bone
starves to death with eyes open

Thursday, August 7, 2025

One Man's Maple Moon: Butterfly Tanka by Michael McClintock

English Original

between sun and shade
a butterfly pauses
like none I've seen,
who ever falls in love
with someone they know?

Letters in Time, 2005

Michael McClintock


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

在陽光與陰影之間
一隻蝴蝶停歇不動
這是我從未見過的
誰會愛上
自己認識的人?

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

在阳光与阴影之间
一只蝴蝶停歇不动
这是我从未见过的
谁会爱上
自己认识的人?


Bio Sketch

Michael McClintock's lifework in haiku, tanka, and related literature spanned over four decades. His many contributions to the field included six years as president of the Tanka Society of America (2004-2010) and contributing editor, essayist, and poet for dozens of journals, anthologies, landmark collections and critical studies. McClintock lived in Clovis, California, where he worked as an independent scholar, consultant for public libraries, and poet. Meals at Midnight [tanka], Sketches from the San Joaquin [haiku] and Streetlights: Poetry of Urban Life in Modern English Tanka, were some of his recent titles.

Wednesday, August 6, 2025

Butterfly Dream: Handprint Bruise Haiku by Lorelyn De la Cruz Arevalo

English Original

a blood moon ...
the handprint bruise
on her chest

Lorelyn De la Cruz Arevalo


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

血月...
她胸口
的掌印

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

血月...
她胸口
的掌印


Bio Sketch

Lorelyn De la Cruz Arevalo is a self-published Filipino author of Twin deLights: Haikuna Matata and Hainaku! It's Pundemic! I am BalotAcovida dito. Her poetry has been published in anthologies and journals like The Haiku Foundation, PresenceMainichi, ESUJ-H, and Lothlorien Poetry Journal.

Tuesday, August 5, 2025

Butterfly Dream: Shimmering Heat Haiku by Kirsty Karkow

English Original

shimmering heat
the merry-go-round
slows to a stop

Simply Haiku, 1:2, August 2003

Kirsty Karkow


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

閃閃發光的熱浪
旋轉木馬
慢慢地停了下來

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

闪闪发光的热浪
旋转木马
慢慢地停了下来


Bio Sketch

Kirsty Karkow lived in Waldoboro, Maine, where she wrote haiku, sijo, tanka, and other short forms. Lyrical, poignant, and spare, her poetry reflected a rich and deep sense of place and spirit. Her haiku have won the Mainichi and the R.H Blyth Award and placed in other contests. And she had two best-selling books in print: water poems: haiku, tanka and sijo and shorelines: haiku, haibun and tanka , published by Black Cat Press.

Monday, August 4, 2025

A Room of My Own: Ceasefire Talks Haiku

sliver of moon 
behind the rain clouds
ceasefire talks


Added: No More Fairy Tales, XLVI

scorching heat
blanket after blanket 
of wildfire smoke


Added:

shapeless and untimed
the fear of my refugee friend
sparked not by gunshots
but by my casual dry cough
that echoes like a crack of fire


Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCXII: "famine and war"

alive yet alone
on this fresh morning
famine and war
two oceans away
and a world apart


Note: Ls 1&2 allude to the following poem:

...
it is a serious thing

just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
I beg of you...

Mary Oliver, "Invitation," Red Bird, 2009


Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCXIII: "Christ's thorn"
written in response to Haaretz, August 4, 2025: U.S. House Speaker Says West Bank 'Rightful Property of the Jewish People' at Settler Conference

According to Marc Zell, the chairman of Republicans Overseas Israel, Johnson said that "the mountains of Judea and Samaria [West Bank, the internationally used name for Israel's Judea and Samaria Area]are the rightful property of the Jewish People" while criticizing countries calling to recognize a Palestinian state.

dew clings
to Christ's thorn leaves
                 each drop
                         a window
to the war-torn sky


FYI: "the Christ's thorn, also known as the crown of thorns, is a pretty succulent plant that can bloom almost year-round, even indoors. According to a religious legend, the crown of thorns worn by Jesus Christ at the crucifixion was made from the stems of this plant, therefore its common name...It thrives in bright light, requires minimal watering, and is highly drought-tolerant, making it easy to care for."

And +972 Magazine, August 1 2025 Newsletter: The Largest West Bank Expulsion Since 1967 Is Happening Now


Added: Trump Empire, Inc, XLIX

shimmering heat
People First spray-painted 
America First

Sunday, August 3, 2025

Butterfly Dream: Sun-Splotched Stone Haiku by Peggy Willis Lyles

English Original

sun-splotched stone --
the lizard’s dewlap
bobbles

Where Rain Would Stay , 2022

Peggy Willis Lyles


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

陽光斑駁的石頭 --
蜥蜴的垂肉
上下晃動

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

阳光斑驳的石头 --
蜥蜴的垂肉
上下晃动


Bio Sketch

Peggy Willis Lyles was born in Summerville, South Carolina, on September 17, 1939. She died in Tucker, Georgia on September 3, 2010. A former English professor, she was a leading haiku writer for over 30 years -- helping bring many readers and writers into the haiku community.

Saturday, August 2, 2025

One Man's Maple Moon: Laughter and Wit Tanka by Marian Olson

English Original 

something about him
opens the doors of my ears 
and I listen --
beyond his laughter and wit
a man who weeps

A Hundred Gourds, 1:2, March 2012

Marian Olson


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

他的性格特點
打開了我的耳朵
使我注意聆聽 --
除了他的笑聲和智慧之外
他是一個會哭的男人

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

他的性格特点
打开了我的耳朵
使我注意聆听 --
除了他的笑声和智慧之外
他是一个会哭的男人


Bio Sketch

Marian Olson, non-fiction writer and widely published international poet, was the author of nine books of poetry, including the award winning haiku in Songs of the Chicken YardDesert HoursConsider This, andMoondance.  Published in 2017, The Other and Kaleidoscope were her first books of tanka.

Friday, August 1, 2025

Poetic Musings: Cloud of Ravens Haiku by Chen-ou Liu

distant gunshots
a cloud of ravens
darkens the day

Body of Evidence: A Collection of Killer Ku, 2017

Chen-ou Liu

Commentary by Shay BuchananThe imagery in this haiku is incredibly cinematic. It is a common trope in film to cut away from a death, especially via a gun with a loud shot, to a flock of birds flying away from the scene. This being ravens in this case is even more fitting. They often represent death, decay, and all things macabre. A flock of crows, of which ravens are a part of, is even called a murder, with ravens also more specifically having the collective nouns of “treachery”, “unkindness”, and “conspiracy”. So, even without saying “murder,” the author has implanted it into the minds of those who know that fact. And, finally there is the imagery of them darkening the day. A large flock of ravens may act like a black cloud, blocking out the sun as they fly away. That image paired with the gunshots of the presumed death in question give a sense of hopelessness and tragedy. It is a scene we as the reader are removed from, but one that hits us hard nonetheless.

Thursday, July 31, 2025

Butterfly Dream: Midnight Banter Haiku by Adjei Agyei-Baah

English Original

midnight banter
the drunken farmer
and a scarecrow

Scaring Crow, 2022

Adjei Agyei-Baah


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

午夜開玩笑
醉酒的農夫
和稻草人

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

午夜开玩笑
醉酒的农夫
和稻草人


Bio Sketch

Adjei Agyei-Baah (June 29, 1977 -- December 18, 2023) was the co-founder of the Africa Haiku Network and The Mamba and author of afriku: haiku and Senryui from Ghana, 2016, Finding the Other Door, 2021 and Scaring Crow, 2022. 

Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Special Feature: Selected Poems for Reflections on Israeli Human Rights Groups' Report Conclusion: Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza

(FYI: Haaretz, Aug 5, 2025: Large Majority of Israeli Jews Untroubled by Reports of Famine in Gaza, Poll Finds

A vast majority of Israeli Jews – 79 percent – say they are "not so troubled" or "not troubled at all" by the reports of famine and suffering among the Palestinian population in Gaza, according to a poll released Tuesday)


The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, B’Tselem:

July 2025 Report: Our Genocide

And Physicians for Human Rights, Israel:



"Israel's oldest dailyHaaretz," which was was sanctioned by the Israeli government on Nov. 24, 2024

Gideon Levy, Opinion, July 27, 2025: Denying Gaza's Starvation Is No Less Vile Than Denying the Holocaust


July 28, 2025: For the First Time, Israeli Human Rights Groups Say Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza, Call for International Intervention

Genocidal intent throughout': According to the reports by B'Tselem and Physicans for Human Rights – Israel, the Israeli attack on Gaza caused 'massive, indiscriminate bombardment of population centers' and the 'starvation of more than two million people as a method of warfare' against the Palestinians.

...The report concludes that the combination of the reality in Gaza and statements by senior Israeli officials led them to "the unequivocal conclusion that Israel is taking coordinated action to intentionally destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip … and committing genocide against Palestinians."

..."The evidence shows a deliberate and systematic dismantling of Gaza's health and life-sustaining systems through targeted attacks on hospitals, obstruction of medical aid and evacuations, and the killing and detention of healthcare personnel," PHRI's report says.

To date, numerous organizations and legal experts have concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Among those reaching this determination are Amnesty International, the European Center for Human Rights, the International Federation for Human Rights and Doctors Without Borders.

Human Rights Watch has also said in a report that Israel is committing crimes of extermination that may amount to genocide.

Several Israeli legal scholars and genocide researchers have also arrived at this conclusion, including Holocaust and genocide experts Daniel Blatman, Omar Bartov, Shmuel Lederman, Amos Goldberg, Raz Segal, legal scholar Itamar Raz and historians Lee Mordechai and Adam Raz, among others.


[decades-long
inhuman occupation compressed]
to one-day attacks
reponding with the red glow
of missiles in Gaza's night sky


this endless loop:
October 7, October 7 ....
[and yet 
the decades before
and the day after...] bloodshedding


each bombed-out house:
an album with no photos
but with people
living, wounded and dead
pressed between its pages


anything new
under Gaza's smeared sun?
smoky rubble
beyond smoky rubble, and yet
again smoky rubble



And Analysis, July 29: Famine by Design: How Israel Ignored Warnings Over Hunger and Starved Gaza

"I've worked on this issue for four decades, and since World War II there has been no case of famine as carefully planned and controlled as this one. Every stage was foreseeable," said global famine expert Alex de Waal.


a dull-eyed baby
with loose skin over bone ...
red glow of Gazan skies


                      aid
out of reach            air            ops
                                       dr 

and a dead child’s stare



+972 Magazine, July 28 2025: Israel’s aid concessions merely offer Gazans survival on a leash

To deflect international outrage, Israel’s strategy is clear: maintain enough control to kill with impunity, and enough relief to look humane while doing it.


We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

-- Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate


To conclude today's "Special Feature" post, I would like to share with you the latest entry of Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCX:
written in response to The New Yorker, July 28, 2025: Israel’s Zones of Denial
Amid national euphoria over the bombing of Iran—and the largely ignored devastation in Gaza—a question lurks: What is the country becoming?

Tel Aviv's beach party
the faint boom, boom, boom
from Gaza


FYI: Tel Aviv ranks among world's top ten beach cities (and party cities)  in  new National Geographic poll


And here are relevant excerpts and remarks taken from  The New Yorker, July 28, 2025: "Israel’s Zones of Denial:"

When we go to the beach, you can hear the booms from Gaza. When you eat a lollipop or an ice cream, you hear things being blown up... Not only is reality horrible, you also don’t know what the real story is.

Etgar Keret, Israeli writer and Tel Aviv liberal

What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians.

-- Ehud Olmert, former Israeli Prime Minister.

... the war in Gaza has produced a people “who have lost everything and feel only humiliation and abandonment—and despise hypocritical Western moralism. This will feed future militants, and how they behave will be shaped by old grievances and new technologies—which Israel masters today, but they could master, too.” In the familiar pattern, today’s resolution is tomorrow’s tinderbox.

-- Malley Agha, who was once a peace negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organization.


Haaretz, July 31: The Victim Identity Israel Built Over Generations Now Fuels Its Denial of Genocide in Gaza

Genocide does not require a single, explicit directive; rather, it's the result of a process in which rhetoric, policy, political discourse, collective dehumanization and repeated patterns of action converge into mass acts of destruction.

But the saddest chapter in Israel's increasing tendency to deny the genocide in Gaza is reserved for Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority. The historians who work there and devote days on end to investigating the events of the Holocaust are choosing to silence their mouths and pens when it comes to the horrors of Gaza. In light of the flood of statements at the beginning of the war by Israeli politicians calling for mass killings there, a group of local scholars turned to Yad Vashem chairman Dani Dayan and requested that the institution publish a public condemnation of the declarations, specifically those calling for genocide. But in January 2024 Dayan replied to Prof. Amos Goldberg, who initiated the move: "The six million Jews who were murdered in the Shoah are entitled to an institution that deals with them and with them alone. Therefore, Yad Vashem doesn't deal with genocide as such but only with its interface with the Shoah… Our area of activity is the Shoah, and only the Shoah."

The comments written by the Yad Vashem chairman are unsettling not only because of his silence, but also because his words are wrapped in a cloak of ostensible institutional integrity, while turning an arrogant back to the sense of historic responsibility that is supposed to inform the memorialization of the Holocaust. "Six million Jews are entitled to an institution that deals with them alone," writes Dayan – suggesting an exclusivity of the memory of murdered Jews as an excuse for hardheartedness, for closing one's eyes and maintaining silence in the face of ongoing war crimes and tens of thousands of slaughtered and starved people. All part of the terrible crime being perpetrated by the descendants of another genocide, the Shoah, among others.

Wasn't the murder of six million Jews also enabled due to many around the world washing away responsibility? Yad Vashem's entrenchment in the claim that their expertise are limited to the Holocaust is an act of moral bankruptcy, of disavowal of responsibility based on institutional convenience and the ideological adoption of a governmental policy responsible for horrific war crimes. It is a dire betrayal of the values of liberty, justice and the sanctity of human life, which the memory of the Holocaust is supposed to teach us.

For the past three generations Israel has been constructing an identity of victimhood, ranging from acts perpetrated during the Holocaust to those of Hamas on October 7. It denies its own crimes and is therefore living in a permanently distorted reality. Any attempt to speak about Israel's crimes against the Palestinians is seen as a threat not only to the image of the nation but to its very survival. The defensive narrative has become foundational to Israel's national identity, and any criticism of this narrative is met with the kind of institutional and public violence we are witnessing today

And Haaretz, July 31:  Americans Should Ask Not Only What War Has Done to Gaza, but Also What It's Done to Israel

Israeli TV debates have shown just how far the local media is willing to go to look away from Gaza. Since the war began, Israeli audiences have largely been shielded from the reality of Gaza's devastation. It's not just censorship – it's that most Israelis would rather not know. 

Tuesday, July 29, 2025

A Room of My Own: Prayers in the Smoky Air Tanka

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCVII: "prayers in the smoky air"

her prayers 
hanging in the smoky air ...
a bent woman
holds the Gazan night sky
on her bony shoulders


Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCVIII: "if only just a nightmare"

Gazan night sky
a ghastly shade of red ...
a white-haired man
murmurs, if only this were 
just a nightmare


Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCIX: "blood-stained bird cage"

smoky ruins ...
a blood-stained bird cage
with the door open


Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCX: "a headless doll"

smoky skies
between two skeletal houses
a headless doll

Monday, July 28, 2025

Butterfly Dream: White Cat Haiku by Jack Galmitz

English Original

the white cat a shadow of night 

A Hundred Gourds, 1:2, March 2012

Jack Galmitz 

 
Chinese Translation (Traditional)

白貓夜之影

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

白猫夜之影


Bio Sketch 
 
Jack Galmitz was born in NYC in 1951. He received a Ph.D in English from the University of Buffalo.  He is an Associate of the Haiku Foundation and Contributing Editor at Roadrunner.  His most recent books are Views (Cyberwit.net, 2012),  Letters (Lulu Press, 2012), yards & lots (Middle Island Press, 2012), not-zero-sum (Impress 2015) and Takeout (Impress, 2015).  He lives in New York with his wife and stepson.

Sunday, July 27, 2025

Butterfly Dream: Drift of Smoke Haiku by Marion Alice Poirier

English Original

burning love letters
with the last fallen leaves ...
a drift of smoke

Marion Alice Poirier


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

隨著最後幾片落葉
一起焚燒的情書 ...
一縷煙霧
    
Chinese Translation (Simplified)

随着最后几片落叶
一起焚烧的情书 ...
一缕烟雾


Bio Sketch

Marion Alice Poirier is a lifetime resident of Boston, MA. She began writing haiku in 2001 and eventually began to teach haiku in workshops on Poetry Circle and Emerging Poets. She also write short poetry and have been published in on-line haiku and short poetry journals like Tinywords, Hedgerow and The Heron's Nest.

Saturday, July 26, 2025

One Man's Maple Moon: Zigzag Path Tanka by Kirsty Karkow

English Original

the zigzag path
of indecision ...
squirrel tracks
across light snow
leading nowhere

A Hundred Gourds, 1:2, March 2012

Kirsty Karkow


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

猶豫不決
像似之字形的路徑
松鼠足跡
穿越過薄雪
通向無處可去之路

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

犹豫不决
像似之字形的路径
松鼠足迹
穿越过薄雪
通向无处可去之路


Bio Sketch

Kirsty Karkow lived in Waldoboro, Maine, where she wrote haiku, sijo, tanka, and other short forms. Lyrical, poignant, and spare, her poetry reflected a rich and deep sense of place and spirit. Her haiku have won the Mainichi and the R.H Blyth Award and placed in other contests. And she had two best-selling books in print: water poems: haiku, tanka and sijo and shorelines: haiku, haibun and tanka , published by Black Cat Press.