Showing posts with label recession. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recession. Show all posts

Monday, July 14, 2025

Butterfly Dream: Ghost Town Haiku by Garry Eaton

English Original

its name painted out
the ghost town
water tower

tinywords, 16:2, December 20 2016

Garry Eaton

Chinese Translation (Traditional) 

鬼城的名字
被塗掉了
它的水塔

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

鬼城的名字
被涂掉了
它的水塔


Bio Sketch

Garry Eaton was a Canadian poet from British Columbia. He started writing haiku in 2006 and was published occasionally in the major haiku magazines. He volunteered as the digital librarian for The Haiku Foundation Digital Library.

Monday, November 21, 2022

A Room of My Own: Santa Claus Parade Tanka

in morning chill
the Santa Claus Parade kicks off
the Christmas season
around the corner lineups
crowded at a food bank


Added:

the manager's look
at these half-empty shelves ...
the food bank's doorbell rings

FYI: CBC News, Oct. 27: More Canadians are turning to food banks than ever before, new report says

The annual report from Food Banks Canada said there were nearly 1.5 million visits to food banks in March, 15 per cent more than the same month last year and 35 per cent more than in March 2019, prior to the pandemic.

Fixed-income groups like seniors and employed but low-income people such as students have been hit harder because their paycheques can't keep up with inflation, Beardsley said.

The report also said that around 500,000 food bank clients — about one-third — are children, who make up around 20 per cent of the country's total population.

"Behind each one of these numbers is a person who is struggling too much to get by" -- Kirstin Beardsley, the CEO of Food Banks Canada.


Added: written in response to Inaugural poet and activist Amanda Gorman's remark: The truth is, "one nation under guns."

At the End of the Day

Club Q mass shooting ...
the same headwind on the way
back home from a party 

neighbor's home remodelling:
the No Trespassing sign
with a rifle-scope motif

FYI: for further discussion of this senseless mass shooting, see The New Yorker, Nov. 22:  "The Meaning of the Colorado Springs Attack" by Masha Gessen

"The essential precondition for mass violence is not guns or hate but a culture of terror, a common imaginary that includes the possibility of a mass shooting. It may be most useful to think of a politics of terror. People—and states—carry out terror for the sake of terror. The senselessness is the point, even as our brains desperately seek to make logical connections and find explanations.

Tuesday, November 1, 2022

Butterfly Dream: Skull Haiku by Michael Dylan Welch

English Original

foreclosure --
the skull of something
in the crawlspace
               
The Heron's Nest, 18:2,  June 2016

Michael Dylan Welch

 
Chinese Translation (Traditional)

房屋止贖通知 ...
某種東西的頭骨
在房屋底層的爬行空間

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

房屋止赎通知 ...
某种东西的头骨
在房屋底层的爬行空间

 
Bio Sketch

Michael Dylan Welch is the founder of the Tanka Society of America (2000), and co-founder of Haiku North America conference (1991) and the American Haiku Archives (1996). In 2010 he also started National Haiku Writing Month (NaHaiWriMo), which takes place every February, with an active Facebook page. His personal website is www.graceguts.com, which features hundreds of essays, reviews, reports, and other content, including examples of his published poetry.

Tuesday, August 18, 2020

A Room of My Own: Rain-Stained Notice Tanka

Ninety-Nineth Entry, Coronavirus Poetry Diary

her eyes fixed
on the rain-stained notice
of closure ...
will the ballerina dance
in her heart again?

Added: One-Hundredth Entry:

a late night call
from his grandmother
this stormy night
splits into before
and after the outbreak

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

A Room of My Own: Lockdown Lifted Tanka

Fortieth Entry, Coronavirus Poetry Diary, written in response to Pawning During A Pandemic

lockdown lifted ...
a lineup stretches
10 blocks
from EZ Pawn
in the morning chill

Added: Forty-First Entry

death toll rising
in California sunshine
thousands flock to beaches

Note: This tanka is a sequel to the thirty-third entry:

END the LOCKDOWN ...
protesters choke the streets
with their cars
blocking ambulances
from reaching the hospital

Saturday, December 31, 2016

Butterfly Dream: Year's End Haiku by Ken Sawitri

English Original

year's end --
leaking pot patched
by its lime crust

Wednesday Haiku, 204, March 18th, 2015

Ken Sawitri


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

年終 --
用石灰屑修補
鍋子的漏洞

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

年终 --
用石灰屑修补
锅子的漏洞


Bio Sketch

Ken Sawitri completed her degree in psychology at the University of Indonesia in 1993. Her haiku won the Second Prize in the 2013 Diogen Summer Haiku Contest. She dedicated her haiku to her motherland  in Listen The Spice Whispers, Haiku from Indonesian Archipelago and recorded her journey in the haiku posted at http://thisissawitri.blogspot.com

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

One Man's Maple Moon: Factories Tanka by Robyn Cairns

English Original

riding our bikes
alongside factories --
we watch the sun
set on rows
of broken windows

Robyn Cairns


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

沿工廠側邊
我們騎著腳踏車 --
看到夕陽
落在一排排
破裂窗口上

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

沿工厂侧边
我们骑著脚踏车 --
看到夕阳
落在一排排
破裂窗口上


Bio Sketch

Robyn Cairns is a Melbourne-based poet who shares her poetry and photography on Twitter. Robyn enjoys writing about nature and her local industrial landscape. She has a passion for photography and being outdoors. Robyn is continuously inspired by other poets on platforms, such as Twitter. She can be found @robbiepoet.

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Saturday, March 19, 2016

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

A Room of My Own: Foreclosure Haiku

green birdhouse
empty of seed ...
foreclosure sign

foreclosure sign
clanging in the wind ...
distant howls

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

One Man's Maple Moon: Storefront Tanka by Barry George

English Original

all dark
and boarded up
this year
the storefront where
the gypsy read my palm      

Gusts, 11, Spring/Summer 2010

Barry George


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

一片漆黑
曾經為我看手相的吉卜賽人
今年她的店面
窗戶和大門
全都釘上木板

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

一片漆黑
曾经为我看手相的吉卜赛人
今年她的店面
窗户和大门
全都钉上木板


Bio Sketch

Barry George’s tanka have appeared in journals including Gusts, Modern English Tanka, Chrysalis, and The Louisville Review, as well as the anthology, Streetlights. His essay, "Shiki the Tanka Poet," was published in The Writer's Chronicle. A tanka collection, The One That Flies Back, was published in 2015.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Butterfly Dream: Foreclosure Notice Haiku by Michael Dylan Welch

English Original

foreclosure notice --
an ice cream truck
comes and goes

Frogpond, 36:3, Autumn 2013

Michael Dylan Welch


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

房屋止贖通知 --
流動冰淇淋車
來了又走了

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

房屋止赎通知 --
流动冰淇淋车
来了又走了 


Bio Sketch

Michael Dylan Welch is vice president of the Haiku Society of America, founder of the Tanka Society of America (2000), and cofounder of Haiku North America conference (1991) and the American Haiku Archives (1996). In 2010 he also started National Haiku Writing Month (NaHaiWriMo), which takes place every February, with an active Facebook page. His personal website is www.graceguts.com, which features hundreds of essays, reviews, reports, and other content, including examples of his published poetry.

Saturday, April 26, 2014

One Man's Maple Moon: Food Bank Tanka by Ignatius Fay

English Original

stepmother
volunteering with the
food bank
the number of "haves"
who feign being "havenot"

Ignatius Fay


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

繼母
在食物銀行
做義工
有多少人是
"有產者"假裝是"無產"

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

继母
在食物银行
做义工
有多少人是
"有产者"假装是"无产"


Bio sketch

Ignatius Fay is a retired invertebrate paleontologist. His poems have appeared in many of the most respected online and print journals, including The Heron’s Nest, Modern Haiku, Ars Poetica, Gusts, Chrysanthemum and Eucalypt. Books: Breccia (2012), a collaboration with fellow haiku poet, Irene Golas; Points In Between (2011), an anecdotal history of his first 23 years. He is the new editor of the Haiku Society of America Bulletin. Ignatius resides in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Politics/Poetics of Re-Homing, XXVII

from my tanka
I look out the window
a swing swaying
in the back yard
of a foreclosed house

Atlas Poetica, 15, July 2013

Note:You can read its preceding tanka or the whole sequence here.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

A Room of My Own: Seven Ways of Reading A For Sale/Foreclosure Sign

foreclosure sign
in its lengthening shadow
a dollhouse

a fenced-in lot
next to the schoolyard
for sale sign swaying

foreclosure sign
the cries
of snow geese

first day of winter
a broken for sale sign
banging in the wind

Thanksgiving night
snowflakes covering
foreclosure sign

Christmas wreath
lifting in the wind
for sale sign

windows streaked
with bird droppings
foreclosure sign