Butterfly Dream: Tundra Haiku by Cor van den Heuvel

English Original

                     tundra

The Window-Washer’s Pail , 1963

Cor van den Heuvel 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

                    苔原

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

                   苔原

Bio Sketch 

Cor van den Heuvel (March 16, 1931 - September 12, 2024) authored hundreds of haiku and haibun, including one of the most controversial works of the 20th century, one-word haiku: tundra. In addition to more than a dozen collections, he edited or co-edited a number of influential anthologies, most notably three editions of The Haiku Anthology, as well as Baseball Haiku. He also won three Merit Book Awards from the Haiku Society of America, a World Haiku Achievement Award at the World Haiku Festival, and the Masaoka Shiki International Haiku Prize. 

Special Feature: Selected Poems for Reflections on No/Thanks(Giving) during Hard times [for Whatever Reason]

My Dear Friends:

Today is Thanksgiving Day in Canada (occurring on the second Monday in October and six weeks earlier than Thanksgiving Day in the USA)

Share with you a set of haiku and tanka (with which you can re-tell your stories) about the mixed emotions  toward this Thanksgiving long weekend:

a colleague wishes me

Thanksgiving cheer --

but I have

a desk full of dark

anniversaries unspoken

M. Kei

Thanksgiving drive

after the bustle

quiet fields, deep shadows

Harriet S. Bates 

thanksgiving

our latest argument

to eat in or out

the blue shrouded mountains

hold the sunset so easily

Thomas Martin

Thanksgiving dinner

between mouthfuls and refills

this hushed silence

Chen-ou Liu

thanksgiving leftovers

all the things we

didn’t say

Sondra Byrnes

One Man's Maple Moon: New Life Tanka by Marion Alice Poirier

English Original

beyond white walls --

the lady walks in sunlight

and sparrow song

gathering a few lilacs

to scent her new life

Marion Alice Poirier

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

白牆之外 --

這位女士漫步在陽光下

和麻雀的歌聲中

採集一些丁香花

添加香味到她的新生活

    

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

白墙之外 --

这位女士漫步在阳光下

和麻雀的歌声中

采集一些丁香花

添加香味到她的新生活

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.

Butterfly Dream: Work Shirt Haiku by Michael McClintock

English Original

spring dream ...

slipping my wings

into a work shirt

Touchstone Award, 2015  

Michael McClintock

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

春之夢

我的翅膀滑入

一件工作襯衫

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

春之梦

我的翅膀滑入

一件工作衬衫

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.

Special Feature: Selected Poems for Reflections on UN Commission Report on Israel's War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity

UN Press Release, Oct. 10: UN Commission finds war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israeli attacks on Gaza health facilities and treatment of detainees, hostages

GENEVA (10 October 2024) – Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system as part of a broader assault on Gaza, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel said in a new report today [the eve of Yom Kippur (lit. "Day of Atonement"), Evening of Fri, Oct 11 – Sat, Oct 12].

The Commission also investigated the treatment of Palestinian detainees in Israel and of Israeli and foreign hostages in Gaza since 7 October 2023, and concluded that Israel and Palestinian armed groups are responsible for torture and sexual and gender-based violence. 

“Israel must immediately stop its unprecedented wanton destruction of healthcare facilities in Gaza,” said Navi Pillay, Chair of the Commission. “By targeting healthcare facilities, Israel is targeting the right to health itself with significant long-term detrimental effects on the civilian population. Children in particular have borne the brunt of these attacks, suffering both directly and indirectly from the collapse of the health system.”

The report found that Israeli security forces have deliberately killed, detained and tortured medical personnel and targeted medical vehicles while tightening their siege on Gaza and restricting permits to leave the territory for medical treatment. These actions constitute the war crimes of wilful killing and mistreatment and of the destruction of protected civilian property and the crime against humanity of extermination.

Attacks on medical facilities in Gaza, particularly those devoted to paediatric and neonatal care, have led to incalculable suffering of child patients, including newborns, the report said. In continuing these attacks, Israel has violated children’s right to life, denied children access to basic healthcare, and deliberately inflicted conditions of life resulting in the destruction of generations of Palestinian children and, potentially, the Palestinian people as a group. 

In one of the most egregious cases, the Commission investigated the killing of five-year-old Hind Rajab, along with her extended family, and the shelling of a Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulance and killing of two paramedics sent to rescue her. The Commission determined on reasonable grounds that the Israeli Army’s 162nd Division operated in the area and is responsible for killing the family of seven, shelling the ambulance and killing the two paramedics inside. This constitutes the war crimes of wilful killing and an attack against civilian objects... 

I would like to share with you some of my poems on the Israeli concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system and personnel:

between blood of birth

and blood of death

a new life

on the hospital floor ...

a Gazan mother's last look

NeverEnding Story, April 4 2024

almost, with eyes closed

to this shrapnel-filled world ...

a Gazan newborn

NeverEnding Story, August 15 2024

a cacophony

of sirens, shouting and screams ...

a girl curls up

next to the wheels of a stretcher

that holds her bloodied siblings

NeverEnding Story , January 27, 2024

hospital raid ...

a dead man watches his blood flow

into his children's blood

NeverEnding Story, February 15 2024

please bury me

with no casket, no prayers

face down, away

from this shrapnel-filled world:

the note in an aid worker's hand

NeverEnding Story, May 5 2024

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, CVII: "Yom Kippur"

Yom Kippur 

A Gazan doctor's blood flows

over dried blood on the floor

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CVIII: "Lebanon Attacks"

above

pillarsofsmoke

pillarsoffire

Beirutcondos

above

FYI: Politico, Oct. 13: 40 countries ‘strongly condemn’ Israeli attacks on UN peacekeepers

At least five members of UNIFIL peacekeeping mission have been wounded in south Lebanon in recent days.

And Democracy Now, Oct. 14: Israel Accused of Committing War Crimes by Attacking U.N. Peacekeepers in Lebanon

A Room of My Own:Path of Milton Haiku

No More Fairy Tales, XXXIV

the path of Milton ...

a bunglow tied down by straps

bolted to the ground

FYI: The New Yorker, Oct. 8: Why Hurricane Milton Is a Sign of the New Abnormal

“We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.” This assessment, co-authored by several of the world’s leading climate scientists, was published on Tuesday, in the journal BioScience. 

Milton, pretty much from its inception, has been an abnormal storm. “It is exceedingly rare for a hurricane to form in the western Gulf, track eastward, and make landfall on the Western coast of Florida,” Jonathan Lin, an atmospheric scientist at Cornell, explained to Vox. As Milton swirled over the Gulf of Mexico, it encountered water that was almost three and a half degrees hotter than usual for early October. 

The storm went from barely a hurricane to a Category 5 storm in less than twenty-four hours (FYI: CBS News, Oct. 10: Hurricane Milton makes landfall as Category 3 on Florida's west coast.) 

Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, says that he’s “not a global-warming person.” Just a few months ago, he signed a bill that erased most references to the problem from state law. 

Added: Game Show, 2024, LXVI

written in response to ABC News, Oct. 7: More than 230 people have been killed from Hurricane Helene, which unleashed devastation across Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee.

raging waters

tear through state after state

drill, baby, drill louder

FYI: KALW Public Media, Oct. 8: Donald Trump's "drill, baby, drill" policies will worsen the climate crisis. And MSNBC, August 8: Trump’s "drill baby drill" plan: The wrong answer to the right questions

Asked about his jobs plan, Donald Trump pointed to oil drilling. 

Asked about housing affordability, he again pointed to oil drilling.

Added: No More Fairy Tales, XXXV

bumpertobumper 

traffic on the 12-lane highway

as raging waters sweep

we'reallinthis

t o ge t   h  e    r   a gain

Added: Game Show, 2024, LXVI

my body, my choice 

penetrating the distant chants

of USA!

I gaze at Lady Liberty’s

forward-facing charge

Butterfly Dream: Bellflower Haiku by vincent tripi

English Original

Beside the waterfall …

opening with all its blue

the bellflower

              

Between God & the pine, 1997

vincent tripi 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

瀑布旁 ...

一朵風鈴草盛開

它所有的藍色

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

瀑布旁 ...

一朵风铃草盛开

它所有的蓝色

Bio Sketch

Founder of The Haiku Circle, vincent tripi was closely associated with the spiritual movement in American Haiku. He wrote haiku for over 35 years, and published 14 books of haiku. Most of his haiku reflect a Buddhist foundation.

Poetic Musings: CloudsofSmoke Vertical Haiku by Chen-ou Liu

above

cloudsofsmoke

cloudsofsmoke

Gaza

above

NeverEnding Story, September 16, 2024

Chen-ou Liu

Commentary: This haiku is written in a vertical format and read from bottom to top. The format itself reveals the Narrator's/observer's bottom-up perspective, grounded in harsh reality of Israel's bombing of Gaza, a devastating fact that can be inferred from the results of huge bomb blasts, "clouds of smoke above clouds of smoke."  The use  of repetition "above" twice and "cloudsofsmoke" twice, in this extremely short haiku of 5 words is visually poignant, enhancing the emotionally suggestive power of this vertical haiku about Israel's genocide in Gaza (FYI: Middle East Monitor, Oct. 8: South Africa to present new evidence of Israel's genocide in Gaza to the International Court of Justice, ICJ)

Note: This vertical haiku is the opening haiku of "Relentless," a haiku set written in vertical and traditional formats:

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, XCVIII: "cloudsofsmoke" 

Relentless 

above

cloudsofsmoke

cloudsofsmoke

Gaza

above

smoky darkness ...

scream after scream the reasons why

all blow away

NeverEnding Story, September 16, 2024

Special Feature: Selected Poems for Reflections on "CeaseFire Now" and "Saving the Children"

My Dear Friends and Readers:

I FACTS:

1 [Israel's oldest and sociopolitically progressive newspaper] Haaretz Opinion, Gideon Levy, June 9: Israel Is on the UN Blacklist of Countries That Harm Children, and Justifiably So

2 Democracy Now, September 20: U.N. Panel Accuses Israel of Unprecedented Violations of Children’s Rights in War on Palestine

A U.N. committee on Thursday [September 19] accused Israel of engaging in unprecedented violations of the Convention on the Rights of the Child over the past 11 months.

Ann Skelton, South African jurist  and Chair of UN Committee on the Rights of the Child: 

More children have died in this war than men or women. That is massive. And I think when we think about it and we know that under international humanitarian law, that Israel admits it is bound by, killing of civilian targets on this scale is unacceptable in international humanitarian law and international human rights law, as well. And children are always civilians.

3 Oxfam International, September 30: More women and children killed in Gaza by Israeli military than any other recent conflict in a single year.

Israeli explosive weapons hit civilian infrastructure in Gaza - including schools, hospitals and aid distribution points - once every three hours.

Conservative figures show that more than 6,000 women and 11,000 children were killed in Gaza by the Israeli military over the last 12 months. Data from 2004-2021 on direct conflict deaths from the Small Arms Survey, estimates that the highest number of women killed in a single year was over 2,600 in Iraq in 2016.

Records - which are not comprehensive - show that Israeli explosive weapons hit on average: 

Homes every four hours 

Tents and temporary shelters every 17 hours 

Schools and hospitals every four days 

Aid distribution points and warehouses every 15 days  

These staggering figures are both appalling and heartbreaking. Influential actors in the international community have not only failed to hold Israel to account, they are also complicit in the atrocities by continuing to unconditionally supply it with arms. It will take generations to recover from the devastating impacts of this war and there is still no ceasefire in sight. 

-- Sally Abi Khalil, Oxfam’s Middle East and North Africa Director, Oxfam

4 Reuters, Oct. 6: UN refugee chief says airstrikes in Lebanon have violated humanitarian law

II Biting NOT Barking Poetry 

My published poems are selected for your reflections on "CeaseFire Now" and "Saving the Children:"

In a war situation or where violence and injustice are prevalent, "poetry is called upon to be something more than a thing of beauty." 

-- Seamus Heaney

What poetry can, must, and will always do for us: it complicates us, it doesn't "soothe."

--Jorie Graham

And

Poetry acts as a witness in, to, and most importantly, through troubled times.

Chen-ou Liu, An Interview with Dimitar Anakiev, editor of Bulgarian-English Tanka Handbook 

between blood of birth

and blood of death

a new life

on the hospital floor ...

a Gazan mother's last look

NeverEnding Story, April 4 2024

written on World Children's Day

after Michael McClintock

hazy twilight ...

rain washing a mother's blood

into her children's blood

NeverEnding Story, Nov. 20, 2023

                      aid

out of reach            air            ops

                                       dr 

and a dead child’s stare

NeverEnding Story, March 5, 2024

a teen waves his bloodied keffiyeh becoming Flag

NeverEnding Story, December 23 2023

(FYI: For many Palestinians, the keffiyeh symbolizes their yearning for freedom and serves a nod to their history. For some non-Palestinians, it's a show of solidarity)

slanted moonlight

on a half-collapsed school wall

chalk poppies bloom

NeverEnding Story, August 3 2024

(FYI: "The Palestinian poppy (Anemone coronaria) is a non-official but more recognizable national symbol of Palestine. It's red, with black center and green leaves, evoking the primary colors of the Palestinian flag. And it symbolizes the relationship between Palestinians and their land, the bloodshed they have endured, as well as their resistance against Israeli occupation")

A Corner of This Broken World

After a long pause, her voice cracking on the phone, my Israeli friend tells me, "I don't know how to calm my two girls. We're near the border, and they're frightened by the piercing sound of fighter jets constantly flying over our community. Sometimes, they can hear the boom, boom, boom from a distance just minutes after fighter jets fly past our house. I can only comfort them by saying that these are good booms. I feel guilty, I... " My friend hangs up the phone.

the sunset

in a blaze of orange and red

across the sky ...

Gazan children's faces raw

with fear of the unknown

Ribbons, 20:2, Autumn/Winter 2024

it’s peaceful now

M-16 rifles are blooming, 2000-pound bombs singing, and Merkava tanks sweeping the streets.

Gaza is cleaner than ever, clean of blood-covered children. Yet, somewhere among the rubble the only moving thing is a boy’s eyes that look up to Heaven.

a mural

on the separation wall

of the West Bank:

in midair a girl grasps

a bunch of rainbow balloons

contemporary haibun online, 20:2, 2024

(for detailed analysis, see To the Lighthouse: A Rhetorical Device, Sarcasm)

To conclude today's Special Post, I would like to share with you another sarcastic tanka:

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CV: "the sounds of death"

First "thought experiment" tanka to George Berkeley's ghost

if one-ton bombs fall 

on housing blocks, but no Israeli’s there 

to hear them ...

in a mobbed pub I muse

does they make the sounds of death?

FYI: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" is George Berkeley's philosophical thought experiment that raises questions regarding observation and perception.  And this tanka could be read as a sequel to the following:

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, XVIII: "Rafah"

attacks on Rafah ... (now on both Gaza and Beirut)

will the sound of bombings 

echo, echoing

in the ears of the World

thousands of miles away

NeverEnding Story, February 12 2024

Haaretz, Oct. 3: When Doves Cry: How and Why Did 'Peace' Disappear From Israeli Popular Culture?

Until the 1990s, singing about peace was commonly associated with the best Israeli artists. Nowadays, though, only a few are willing to mention 'the P-word' in any artform

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cited 2 Samuel 2:26: "Shall the sword devour for ever?" Then he answered his own question: "In the Middle East, without the sword there is no forever."

And Haaretz, Oct. 10: "We Won't Be Forgiven for Weakness": Golda Meir's Warning Revealed in Declassified Yom Kippur War Tapes

Fifty one years after the Yom Kippur War, the IDF archive releases a recording of a November 1973 cabinet meeting in which there was total consensus: There is no chance for genuine peace with the Arabs

"We'll be forgiven for many things, all but one – and that's weakness. The moment we are marked as weak – it's over. This is an unforgivable sin."

These words, spoken by Prime Minister Golda Meir, were recorded at a cabinet meeting that took place 51 years ago, right after the Yom Kippur War. 

The unequivocal conclusion of the meeting was bleak: There is no chance for real peace with the Arabs.

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CVI: "one year on"

One Year On

this silent scene

spins in a mother's mind

like a kaleidoscope:

smashed blood-stained photo frames 

cover lifeless kibbutz children

shrapnel wounds

on the faces of Gazan kids

who look for mothers ...

another US-made bomb falls

to finish all that remains 

an old man

crying out, where should we go?

the Heavens blocked

by a swarm of fighter jets 

and the fire-smoke of Death

this endless loop:

October 7, October 7 ....

[and yet 

the decades before

and the day after...] bloodshedding

Poetic Musings: Smell of Gaza's Air Haiku by Chen-ou Liu

smell of Gaza's air

the ravens blizzard

to blast craters

NeverEnding Story, August 22 2024

Commentary: The noun, "blizzard," which originally means a severe snowstorm with "high winds and low visibility," is used to be an action verb to describe "cloud after cloud of black ravens" flying fast, L2,  to blast craters, L3, in war-torn Gaza that smells badly, L1, because of rotting/rotten body parts buried under rubble , scattered garbage, raw sewage ... under the scorching heat.

This denominal verb, blizzard, not only shows the FORCE and IMPACT, visual and psychological, of ravens flying fast to rotting/rotten body parts, but also sends a CHILL down the reader's spine.

In contrast with my shasei (sketch from life), more descriptive/static, haiku below:

calm between fireballs ...

moonlit ravens' kraa-kraa-kraa

darkening

NeverEnding Story, October 4 2024

-- excerpted from To the Lighthouse: Denominalization

One Man's Maple Moon: Old Age Tanka by George Swede

English Original

entering old age

I look less for truth

but find it more --

a mid-winter thaw reveals

pieces of sky

Poetry That Heals, 2018

George Swede

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

步入老年

我較少探求真相

但發現更多的真相 --

仲冬的解凍揭示了

天空的碎片

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

步入老年

我较少探求真相

但发现更多的真相 --

仲冬的解冻揭示了

天空的碎片

Bio Sketch

George Swede's most recent collections of haiku are Almost Unseen (Decatur, IL: Brooks Books, 2000), Joy In Me Still (Edmonton: Inkling Press, 2010) and micro haiku: three to nine syllables (Inspress, 2014). He is a former editor of Frogpond: Journal of the Haiku Society of America (2008-2012) and a former Honorary Curator of the American Haiku Archives (2008-2009).

A Room of My Own: Moonlit Dark Haiku

the neighbor's garden

fading into moonlit dark

a foreclosure sign

Added:

three glasses down

the lingering smell

of his apology

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CII: "between fireballs"

calm between fireballs ...

moonlit ravens' kraa-kraa-kraa

darkening

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CIII: "settler violence"

First Three-Line Visual Tanka

          under        slate-gray            skies

                                   |                          

a settler aims his gun | a boy throws his rock

                                   |

          tank track marks on the grass

FYI: The "single vertical line" has become the standard format for tanka written by the Japanese poets since the latter half of the 19th century; However, Ishikawa Takuboku, author of Poems to Eat and Romaji Diary and Sad Toys,  advocated for and started writing two or three lines, depending on the rhythm of each tanka. For more, see Hiroaki Sato, “Lineation of Tanka in English Translation,” 42 Monumenta Nipponica 3:347-56, Autumn 1987.

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CIV: "scream after scream"

a scythe of lightning 

in Beirut's smoky orange sky

scream after scream cut off

FYI: Reuters, Oct. 6: UN refugee chief says airstrikes in Lebanon have violated humanitarian law

Butterfly Dream: Boulder Haiku by Angelee Deodhar

English Original

water worn boulder

so smooth now

against callused feet

Cafe Haiku, November 19 2020

Angelee Deodhar

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

流水磨損過的巨石

長繭的腳靠著它

現在是很平穩

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

流水磨损过的巨石

长茧的脚靠着它

现在是很平稳

 

 

Bio Sketch

Angelee Deodhar of Chandigarh (India) was an eye surgeon by profession as well as a haiku poet, translator, and artist. Her haiku/haiga has been published internationally. She didn't have her own website.To promote haiku in India, she has translated six books of haiku from English to Hindi.

Biting NOT Barking: Arabian Sea Haiku by Isabella Mori

English Original

the soft curl

of  the Arabian Sea ...

an aircraft carrier

Isabella Mori

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

柔軟捲曲

的阿拉伯海浪 ...

一艘航空母艦

Chinese Translation (Simplified) 

柔软卷曲

的阿拉伯海浪 ...

一艘航空母舰

Bio Sketch

Isabella Mori lives on the unceded, traditional, ancestral lands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh, is the founder of Muriel’s Journey Poetry Prize, and the author of three books of and about poetry, including Not So Pretty Haiku. They write pretty much everything that’s not nailed down.

Hot News: New Milestone, 2.05 M Pageviews and Call for Submissions

My Dear Friends:

NeverEnding Story reached a new milestone this morning: 2. 05 M pageveiws.

I am grateful to everyone who has been a part of this poetry journey. And NeverEnding Story now seeks the haiku and tanka that can bite and bite hard. 

The accepted haiku and tanka will be translated into Chinese and posted on NeverEnding Story and X. And you are welcome to follow me on X at @ericcoliu (9 following, 4,784 followers).

In a war situation or where violence and injustice are prevalent, "poetry is called upon to be something more than a thing of beauty." 

-- Seamus Heaney

And

What poetry can, must, and will always do for us: it complicates us, it doesn't "soothe."

-- Jorie Graham

For example, my latest entry of Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CI: "Hezbollah" 

the shards

of a US-made bomb 

glistening  

the skeletal remains 

of Beirut apartments

FYI: The Times of Israel, September 29: Israel confirms bunker-buster bombs used in attack on Nasrallah

Wikipedia Entry Bunker Buster: A bunker buster is a type of munition that is designed to penetrate hardened targets or targets buried deep underground, such as military bunkers.

More recently, the US has developed the 30,000 lb (14,000 kg) GBU-57, which was designed to penetrate up to 200 feet of reinforced concrete.

NBC News, September 30: Lebanese worry nowhere is safe amid widespread Israeli bombing

Democracy Now, September 30: Israeli Assassination of Hezbollah Chief Hassan Nasrallah “Shocked All of Lebanon.

I mean, Lebanon has one of the most, if not the highest percentage refugee population in the world. Now a million people are displaced. Many are trying to go into Syria right now.

And this is a sequel to the following: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, C: "Hezbollah" 

pillars of fire 

and cloud after cloud of smoke ...

the minutes

unrolling Hezbollah news

and news spreading fake news

NeverEnding Story, September 28 2024

Look forward to reading your "Biting NOT Barking" haiku and tanka

Chen-ou