Thursday, June 12, 2025

Reading More and Writing Better: Oz Tanka

Corner of Oz
enclosed with lush greenery
near the waterfront ...
time-wave after time-wave
takes me there through dreams


FYI: L1 alludes to the Land of OZ. And The Wizard of Oz is long considered LGBTQ, the first gay coded movie: "The struggles faced by Dorothy, Toto, and friends, especially against the Wicked Witch of the West and her flying monkeys can metaphorically mirror the difficulties of coming out. How the group of outcasts worked together likewise mirrors LGBTQ people who create new chosen families." For more, see Manish Mathur, "Talk Film Society," Nov 4 2019: Reel Pride: The Wizard Of Oz (1939)


This tanka could be read a sequel to the following:

On the Brink of Trumperica, IX

the White House
pronounces, only two sexes...
trans youth trapped
between black-and-white Kansas
and rainbow-colored Oz


Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Butterfly Dream: Zero Fighter Haiku by Fay Aoyagi

English Original

intact zero fighter
at the Smithsonian --
cherry blossom rain


Fay Aoyagi


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

在史密森尼博物館
完好無損的零式戰鬥機  --
陣陣櫻花雨

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

在史密森尼博物馆
完好无损的零式战斗机  --
阵阵樱花雨

 
Bio Sketch

Fay Aoyagi (青柳飛)was born in Tokyo and immigrated to the U.S. in 1982. She is currently a member of Haiku Society of America and Haiku Poets of Northern California. She serves as an associate editor of The Heron's Nest.  She also writes in Japanese and belongs to two Japanese haiku groups; Ten'I (天為) and "Aki"(秋), and  she is a member of Haijin Kyokai (俳人協会).

Tuesday, June 10, 2025

Butterfly Dream: Sandwich Haiku by Michael McClintock

English Original

half a sandwich
to eat slowly
again tonight

Jesus Leaving Vegas, 1976

Michael McClintock


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

今晚再一次
半個三明治
慢慢地吃

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

今晚再一次
半个三明治
慢慢地吃


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.

Monday, June 9, 2025

A Room of My Own: Red, Rolling Flames Haiku

No More Fairy Tales, XLIV

the Prairies
mountain after mountain
of red , rolling flames


FYI: This could be read as a prequel to the following:

No More Fairy Tales, VI

tongues of forest fires 
there's no Plan[et] B, the rest
blah, blah, blah ...

NeverEnding Story, November 21 2022 

CBC News, June 7: Wildfires in the Prairies affecting air quality across Canada

Parts of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador were experiencing poor air quality and reduced visibility due to the wildfires, a situation expected to continue through Sunday.

The Watchers, June 7: Toronto recorded the worst air quality in the world on Friday, June 6, 2025, as wildfire smoke blanketed the city, prompting health warnings and disrupting daily life.

And CTV News, June 6: Montreal ranks 2nd for worst air quality in the world due to wildfires


Added:

alone
perched on this rocky peak
aided by my crutch
before the misty expanse
I murmur, so, is this it?


FYI: This tanka was inspired by German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich's 1818 painting, "Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog." For more about ekphrastic tanka, see To the Lighthouse: Ekphrastic Tanka


Added:

colorful blooms 
in my neighbor's garden
For Sale tilted


Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CXCIV: "drone swarm"

smoky rubble
after smoky rubble
a swarm of drones 


Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CXCV: "dead Gazan kids"

at Begin Gate
shouldertoshoulderprotesters
hold candles
and photos of dead Gazan kids ...
these eyes once warm with hope


FYI: Begin Gate is the entrance to Hakirya, the IDFs headquarters in central Tel Aviv 

"Israel's oldest daily now sanctioned by the Israeli government (ranking 112th/180 in 2025 Reporters Without Borders index), Haaretz," June 9 2025: It Looks Like a Memorial Day Ceremony: The Israelis Protesting With Photos of Dead Gazan Children

What started out as an improvisation is now a portrait gallery installation at the weekly Saturday night protest in Tel Aviv. As more and more Israelis are standing silently holding photos, names and details of Palestinian victims of the war in Gaza, organizers are certain: 'It is trickling down to people'

And June 10: Polled by Hebrew University's aChord Center, 64 percent of Israelis believe that the local media's reporting on Gaza has been balanced and there is no need to present a broader picture regarding the situation of Gaza's civilians. 


Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CXCVI: "a sack of flour"

thousands of Gazans
pressed against one another ....
in the dusty air
one man cries, do I have to pay 
with my life for a sack of flour?


FYI: Haaretz, June 11: 'It's a Disaster': Gazans Describe Chaos, Violence at Food Aid Distribution Sites

Sunday, June 8, 2025

One Man's Maple Moon: Spanish Afternoon Tanka by Larry Kimmel

English Original

her breast fits 
like a fruit in the curve 
of the small guitar --
and I would be her Picasso 
some Spanish afternoon 

Fire Pearls: Short Masterpieces of the Human Heart, 2006

Larry Kimmel


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

她的胸部
就像一個水果安適
在小吉他的曲線部分 ...
並且某個西班牙的下午
我會成為她的畢卡索

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

她的胸部
就像一个水果安适
在小吉他的曲线部分 ...
并且某个西班牙的下午
我会成为她的毕卡索


Bio Sketch

Larry Kimmel lives quietly in the hills of western Massachusetts.  His most recent books  are shards and dust (cherita), outer edges (tanka) and thunder and apple blossoms (haiku).

Saturday, June 7, 2025

Poetic Musings: Touch and Blush Haiku by Elmedin Kadric

at the touch
of birdsong

the first blush
of spring


Elmedin Kadric 

Commentary: Written in the style of gendai haiku with a visual emphasis on the cutting/kire through the blank line between L 2 and L3, this spring haiku effectively brings to life the multiple senses (visual: Ls 3&4; auditory: L2 and tactile: L1) through concrete and evocative imagery.

And it might be interesting to do a comparison reading, generic and thematic,  of my haiku below:

dappled sunlight
flickering flickering
of a thrush's song

tsuri-dōrō, 26, March/April 2025 

Friday, June 6, 2025

Butterfly Dream: Red Twilight Haiku by Djurdja Vukelić-Rožić

English Original

floating
in red twilight
the seagull and the sea

Azami, 38, Japan 1996

Djurdja Vukelić-Rožić 


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

漂浮
在紅色的暮色中
海鷗和大海

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

漂浮
在红色的暮色中
海鸥和大海


Bio Sketch

Djurdja Vukelic Rozic  was born on April 6, 1956, and now lives in Ivanić Grad, Croatia.  Editor in chief of bilingual haiku magazine IRIS, and deputy editor for haiku at Diogen pro cultura magazine, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She publishes humorous sketches, short stories, and poetry. For her work she received a number of awards and commendations in Croatia and abroad.

Thursday, June 5, 2025

Butterfly Dream: Reincarnation Haiku by Martha Magenta

English Original

reincarnation
each raindrop
lost at sea

Haiku Commentary, June 21 2016

Martha Magenta 


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

轉世投胎
每一滴雨
迷失在滄海

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

转世投胎
每一滴雨
迷失在沧海


Bio Sketch

Martha Magenta lived in England, UK. Her haiku and tanka has appeared in a number of journals, and anthologies. She was awarded Honourable Mentions for her haiku in The Fifth Annual Peggy Willis Lyles Haiku  Awards, 2017, and in the 71st Basho Memorial English Haiku Contest, 2017, and for her tanka in UHTS  “Fleeting Words” Tanka Contest 2017.

Wednesday, June 4, 2025

Special Feature: A Disgustingly Grim Poll and A Response Tanka Inspired by An Ezekielian Vision

"Israel's oldest daily now sanctioned by the Israeli government, Haaretz,"Analysis, June 3, 2025:  A Grim Poll Showed Most Jewish Israelis Support Expelling Gazans. It's Brutal – and It's True

A new survey showing that 82 percent of Jewish Israelis support the expulsion of Gazans was met with disbelief among those who stubbornly believe that the extremists are outliers. But these trends are as consistent as they are shocking

The survey conducted by Professor Tamir Sorek of Pennsylvania State University, published here in Haaretz together with Professor Shay Hazkani, examined what the authors called "eliminatory" attitudes among Jewish Israelis and their theological roots.

Other findings were grim: A majority of 56 percent of Jews supported the "transfer (forced expulsion) of Arab citizens of Israel to other countries." And when asked directly whether they agreed with the position that the IDF, "when conquering an enemy city, should act in a manner similar to the way the Israelites acted when they conquered Jericho under the leadership of Joshua, namely, to kill all its inhabitants?" nearly half, 47 percent, agreed.

The survey found a strong correlation between various indicators of religious identity and observance, and militant attitudes – a classic pattern in Israeli Jewish public opinion. But there was strikingly high support from secular Israelis for the expulsion questions too.

Rate of Jewish Israelis Supporting Expulsion of Gaza Residents:

Secular:         70%
Traditional:     91%
Oothodox:      90%
Haredi:           97%

Rate of Jewish Israelis Supporting Expulsion of Israeli Arabs:

Secular:         38%
Traditional:     65%
Oothodox:      68%
Haredi:           91%

Rate of Jewish Israelis Believing That All RESIDENTS of a Conquered Enemy City Should Be KILLED:

Secular:         31%
Traditional:     60%
Oothodox:      59%
Haredi:           63%


I was COMPLETELY DISGUSTED by these poll results and wrote the following response tanka 

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CXC1: "Ezekielian vision"

a dream, and yet ....
in Gaza's mass graves dry bones're
reshaped into skeletons
the skeletons filled out with flesh
then they stand on their feet, alive


FYI: The title of CXCI: "Ezekielian vision" and the imagery of Ls 2-5 allude to Ezekiel's vision of dry bones (Ezekiel 37:1-14)

And Survey Researchers: 

Shay Hazkani, professor of history and Jewish studies at the University of Maryland 

And professor in the History Department of The Pennsylvania State University

Published in Haaretz, May 28 :  Yes to Transfer: 82% of Jewish Israelis Back Expelling Gazans
Twenty years ago, Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, the spiritual father of the 'hilltop youth,' sketched out his vision for destroying Israel's democratic institutions and establishing Jewish supremacy. After October 7, it seems that his vision is coming to fruition

Religious interpretations play a key role in shaping these views. Nearly half (47 percent) of respondents agreed that "when conquering an enemy city, the Israel Defense Forces should act as the Israelites did in Jericho under Joshua's command – killing all its inhabitants." Sixty-five percent said they believed in the existence of a modern-day incarnation of Amalek, the Israelite biblical enemy whom God commanded to wipe out in Deuteronomy 25:19. Among those believers, 93 percent said the commandment to erase Amalek's memory remains relevant today.

Two months ago, Supreme Court Justice David Mintz rejected a petition by the human rights group Gisha to order Israel to supply humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. Mintz, a resident of the West Bank settlement of Dolev, asserted that this was a "war of commandment" just like in the Torah. He effectively authorized the denial of food, water and medicine to 2 million Gazans. The ruling, joined by Supreme Court President Isaac Amit and Justice Noam Sohlberg, a resident of the Alon Shvut settlement, is already taking its toll...

The educational system, part of the second shell, has become a workplace where Jewish teachers promoting universal values risk dismissal (Arab teachers have long been familiar with this danger). Scholars of education point to a sharp shift in the curriculum's nationalist, ethnocentric direction since the second intifada. It has led to growing support for expulsion and extermination, especially among those who completed their education in the past 20 years.

Some 66 percent of those under age 40 support expelling Palestinian citizens of Israel, and 58 percent want to see the army follow the path laid down by biblical Joshua in Jericho. A generational gap in political positions is not an unusual phenomenon, but in Israel, it has widened greatly since 2000.

Some see the shock and anxiety that gripped the Israeli public in the wake of October 7 as the only explanation for this radicalization. But it seems the massacre only unleashed demons that had been nurtured for decades in the media and the legal and educational systems. Zionism, besides being a national movement, is also a movement of immigrant-settlers, seeking to displace the local population. Settler-immigrant societies always encounter indiscriminate violent resistance from indigenous groups. The desire for absolute and permanent security can lead to an aspiration to eliminate the resisting population. Therefore, virtually every settlement project has the potential for ethnic cleansing and genocide, as indeed happened in North America in the 17th through 19th centuries or in Namibia in the early 1900s...


Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CXCII: "a bag of flour"
written in response to Haaretz, June 1: "31 Killed, 170 Wounded in IDF Strike Near Gaza Aid Site"

a bag of flour
on the muddy roadside
just beyond reach
of an old Gazan's hand
in a pool of blood


FYI: Haaretz, June 6 2025: U.S.-backed Aid Group Halts All Distribution in Gaza


Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CXCIII: "smell of decay"
disturbed by UN News, April 23 2025Sewage, trash and disease overwhelm displaced communities in Gaza

the smell of decay
blends in with the sewage 
and piles of trash ...
swarms of rats on the march
in Gaza's smoky night

Tuesday, June 3, 2025

A Room of My Own: Eviction Notice Haiku

eviction notice
thoughts of home entangled
in a cobweb


FYI: This haiku could be read as a prequel to mine below:

eviction night
boxes of my immigrant dreams
wrapped in shadows

Autumn Moon Haiku Journal, 8:1, Autumn/Winter 2024 


Added:

sea haze 
hometown memories
I hold on to


Added: Re-Homing in the Maple Land, XL

morning dew
on the tip of a leaf ...
my lone life
in this promised land
on the edge of Time


Added: Re-Homing in the Maple Land, XLI

abruptly
the sea ends at my feet ...
this dying wave
alone at the edge
of my tenth year in exile


Added: Trump Empire, Inc, XXXIV

in red twilight
one stray trying to outbark
the other ...
the Trump-Musk feud grows
loud, louder and dark, darker


Added: Trump Empire, Inc, XXXV
inspired by the Trump-Musk feud

unseasonal heat ...
one stray chasing the other
chasing its shadow


FYI: Sometimes it's a dog-eat-dog world and the rest of the time it's the other way around.
         -- Lawrence Block, A Dance At The Slaughterhouse

And HuffPost, June 7: Bill Maher Unveils New Trump-Musk 'Couple Name' As Their Bromance Combusts

“I mean when you think about it, the richest man in the world and the most powerful man in the world, it’s like Godzilla versus King Kong — if Godzilla was on ketamine and King Kong had a combover,” Maher joked to applause during his opening monologue.

“I mean, these guys were so close,” the comedian continued. “It was like ‘Brangelina’ or ‘Bennifer.’ No, you know that Elon and Trump, they had their own couple name — ‘Elump.’ And you know, what happened this week — this has been brewing for a while, OK people?” 

Monday, June 2, 2025

Biting NOT Barking: Dry Creekbed Haiku by Chuck Brickley

English Original

dry creekbed
the gleam of a bullet shell
the only sound
Chuck Brickley


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

乾涸的河床
一顆子彈殼的閃光
是唯一的聲音

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

干涸的河床
一颗子弹壳的闪光
是唯一的声音


Bio Sketch

A native San Franciscan, Chuck Brickley lived in rural British Columbia for 35 years. His book of haiku, earthshine, won the THF Touchstone Award for Distinguished Books 2017; the HSA Merit Book Award 2017, Honorable Mention; and the inaugural Marianne Bluger Book Award 2020, Honourable Mention. His haibun,“Is Where The Car Is," was nominated for a Pushcart Prize 2018, and another haibun, "A Banishing," received a Sonders Best Small Fiction Award nomination, 2019

Sunday, June 1, 2025

Special Feature: Selected Poems for Reflections on LGBTQ Rights in the Era of Trumpism

My Dear Friends:

Today, the first day of June, marks the beginning of the FIRST Pride Month under the Convicted Felon, Donald Trump's authoritarian rule.


the White House
pronounces, only two sexes...
trans youth trapped
between black-and-white Kansas
and rainbow-colored Oz


the echo, echoing
of rainbow stars shattering
my gay son's kaleidoscope

Chen-ou Liu


Paisley Currah, The New Yorker, May 27, 2025: Donald Trump’s War on Gender Is Also a War on Government

Amid Donald Trump’s recent attacks on transgender people, many critics of his Administration have cited the German pastor Martin Niemöller, whose 1946 poem “First They Came” describes Nazi Germany’s progressive targeting of maligned groups. Indeed, on the first day of Trump’s second term, he signed an anti-trans executive order decreeing that the federal government recognize only two sexes, male and female; since then, his Administration’s pursuit of groups that it deems enemies—immigrants, college protesters, white-shoe law firms—has progressed rapidly. But Trump’s anti-trans actions are not just opening moves in a battle against vulnerable groups. Nor are they simply fanning the flames of right-wing moral panic. The push to eradicate so-called “woke gender ideology” is also part of the assault on the government itself. The right understands this. It’s time the left did, too...


Trump Empire, Inc, XXXII
for 238 Venezuelan men who were "disappeared" into a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador known as CECOT

at the steps 
of the Statue of Liberty
each of these names
of the disappeared read out loud...
a breath, a wound, and a warning


Trump’s executive order—titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”—instead declares that sex is binary and immutable, “grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.” Female “means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.” Males belong, at conception, to the sex that produces the small one. That definition—nonsensical because there are no distinguishable reproductive cells at conception—applies to all agencies and programs of the federal government...

A deluge of policy reversals has followed. The Administration prohibited trans girls and trans women from participating in women’s sports, banned transgender people from serving in the military, reverted to putting sex at birth on federal identity documents, tried to transfer trans women to men’s prisons, and began requiring federal employees to use the bathrooms aligned with their birth sex, among other actions. “Gender” was replaced with “sex” on federal forms, and references to trans people on federal websites (including the National Park Service’s page about the Stonewall Uprising) were removed....

The assault on administrative flexibility is most visible at the National Institutes of Health, where rigid definitions actively prevent scientists and researchers from carrying out the work Congress mandated them to do... 

By mid-May, the N.I.H. had cancelled more than six hundred million dollars in research grants related to transgender health. Even grants that included small numbers of transgender patients were affected. Jason Flatt, a researcher at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, lost funding for a study that would have analyzed the medical records of two hundred thousand people in the course of ten years to understand more about dementia. “Of those two hundred thousand, only four thousand were L.G.B.T., but that was enough to have the award cancelled,” he said. “Basically, they’re saying all my grants are cancelled because they also include trans people.”...

Scientists and researchers understand that sex is a multidimensional category; in their research, they choose whichever dimension of sex and gender—chromosomes, reproductive organs, genital phenotype, hormones, or psychological or social factors—best suits their purpose. The diktat defining sex obliterates the nuanced, purpose-driven tools that allow agencies to support this work effectively...

Trump’s order is like a tornado, crashing unpredictably into departments, reports, standards, forms—and now scientific practice. The goal appears to be not just making villains out of gender and sexual minorities but, by dismantling the health, safety, and welfare infrastructure of the administrative apparatus, targeting the same women that Trump’s “Defending Women” purports to protect...


And The Guardian, May 31: Four queer business owners on Pride under Trump: ‘Our joy is resistance’

don't say gay bill ...
behind thunderclouds
the sun coming out

Chen-ou Liu


black and white
paintings on the pot
the transgender
searches the streak of colors
to fill the gap of the emptiness

Pravat Kumar Padhy


people debate
the ways I should be
allowed to exist --
a rainbow forms outside
the social construct of gender

GRIX


Pride Parade --
searching the colours
inside me

Kishor Matte


summer twilight
at the Stonewall Inn
he slides his hand
over the man beside him
murmuring, "for real this time?"

Chen-ou Liu


To conclude today's post, I would like to share with you my response tanka:

Trump Empire, Inc, XXXIII

the Convicted Felon
alone at a White House window ...
from down the street
across the country, around the world
protesters dressed in rainbows


FYI: Ls 3&4 allude to the commencement speech by Harvard president Alan Garber, who has remained defiant as President Trump demands changes at the school:

Members of the Class of 2025 from down the street, across the country, and around the world.
Around the world, just as it should be.


And “First They Came,” 1946, written by the German pastor Martin Niemöller, whose 1946 poem

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Saturday, May 31, 2025

One Man's Maple Moon: Chick-A-Dee-Dee Tanka by Kozue Uzawa

English Original

a chickadee
singing chick-a-dee-dee
I take it easy
this tiring summer---
I skip my tap lessons

Gusts, 34, Fall/winter 2021

Kozue Uzawa

 
Chinese Translation (Traditional)

一隻山雀
快樂地不停歌唱
這個疲憊的夏天
我打算放鬆一下 --
逃掉了踢踏舞課

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

一只山雀
快乐地不停歌唱
这个疲惫的夏天
我打算放松一下 --
逃掉了踢踏舞课
 
 
Bio Sketch

Kozue Uzawa is a retired university professor. She works as editor of the English tanka journal GUSTS. She composes tanka both in Japanese and English. She also translates Japanese tanka into English and co-published Ferris Wheel: 101 Modern and Contemporary Tanka (Boston: Cheng & Tsui, 2006), and Kaleidoscope: Selected Tanka of Shuji Terayama (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 2008). Ferris Wheel received the 2007 Donald Keene Translation Award for Japanese Literature from Columbia University.

Friday, May 30, 2025

Butterfly Dream: Taste Haiku by Agus Maulana Sunjaya

English Original

first snowfall
the taste
of your last kiss

Stardust Haiku, 50, 2021

Agus Maulana Sunjaya


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

第一場雪
你的最後之吻
的滋味

Chinese Translation (Simplified) 

第一场雪
你的最后之吻
的滋味


Bio Sketch

Agus Maulana Sunjaya is a physics and mathematics teacher. He resides in Tangerang, westward to the capital of Indonesia. His works have been published in many online/print journals and have won several awards in international haiku contests. Gardening and practicing Aikido are his ways to spend leisure days.

Thursday, May 29, 2025

Butterfly Dream: Fullness Haiku by Elizabeth Searle Lamb

English Original

across the black sky
the constellations dimming:
the moon, its fullness

Across the Windharp, 1999

Elizabeth Searle Lamb


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

穿過黑色的天空
一座又一座的星座變暗:
月亮, 最圓的時刻

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

穿过黑色的天空
一座又一座的星座变暗:
月亮, 最圆的时刻


Bio Sketch

Elizabeth Searle Lamb (January 22, 1917 – February 16, 2005) was an American poet, a major voice in the world of English-language haiku. She won more than 150 awards in the haiku field and her work was translated into many languages. She served as president of the Haiku Society of America in 1971,  and she was involved in the establishment of the American Haiku Archives (AHA) and was its first Honorary Curator (1996–1998).