A Room of My Own: Nothing New under the Stars and Stripes

Two Hundred and Sixty-Fifth Entry, Coronavirus Poetry Diary

inspired by recent news stories and headlines in the most vaccine-rich country

driving around

unmasked freedom protesters

on two sides

of a funeral home van

don't get vaccinated 

the wife dies

as the husband gets last glimpses

of their newborn ...

stony silence among five kids

of these two anti-vaxxers

1 in 500

Americans have died of Covid

in my quarantined mind

red letters of the headline

morph into waves of viruses

you, fucking Chinese

don’t fucking get me sick ...

the sultry air

explodes with cluster f-bombs

as onlookers come and go  

FYI: US hospital care rationed as 2,000 Americans die each day from COVID-19, Global News, September 22

Butterfly Dream: Night Rain Haiku by Kokuu Andy McLellan

English Original

night rain

in every puddle

a different moon

Third Place, 2018 International Kusamakura Haiku Competition

Kokuu Andy McLellan

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

夜雨

在每個水坑里

不同的月亮

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

夜雨

在每个水坑里

不同的月亮

 

 

Bio Sketch

Kokuu Andy McLellan is a haiku poet and Soto Zen novice priest living in Canterbury, UK.  He spends a lot of time drinking tea and has three children and a PhD in plant biology.

Butterfly Dream: Ex-Spouse Day Haiku by Natalia Kuznetsova

English Original

Ex-Spouse Day 

a couple of blackbirds

at the courthouse

Asahi Haikuist Network, April 20, 2018

Natalia Kuznetsova

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

前任配偶日

在法院大樓前面

的幾隻黑鳥

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

前任配偶日

在法院大楼前面

的几只黑鸟

Bio Sketch

Living in Moscow, Russia, Natalia Kuznetsova is an assistant professor of English and freelance interpreter. Before discovering the haiku world, she wrote poetry in Russian. She started writing tanka and mostly haiku in English several years ago, and participated in numerous competitions worldwide and won some awards. She now contributes regularly to World Haiku Review, Mainichi Daily, Asahi Haikuist Network, Shiki Kukai and other traditional and on-line publications. She was included on the list of "European Top 100 Most Creative Haiku Authors" from 2010 to 2013.

One Man's Maple Moon: Cooking Show Tanka by Neal Whitman

English Original

in the waiting room
a cooking show on the TV
and a fish tank  --
one guppy circling
one belly up

Neal Whitman 


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

在候診室內

觀看電視上的烹飪節目

和一個魚缸 --

一隻孔雀魚不停地兜圈子

另一隻翻肚子

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

在候诊室内

观看电视上的烹饪节目

和一个鱼缸 --

一只孔雀鱼不停地兜圈子

另一只翻肚子

Bio Sketch

Neal Whitman lives with his wife, Elaine, in Pacific Grove, California, where he is a docent at Point Pinos Lighthouse. Visitors who come there from near and far inspire him to write poetry that takes the “particular" to convey the “universal". Neal is Vice President of the United Haiku and Tanka Society.

Butterfly Dream: Army Truck Haiku by Kanchan Chatterjee

English Original

an army truck
hurries towards the border ...
spring thunderstorm

Selected Haiku, 9th Yamadera Basho Memorial English haiku Contest

Kanchan Chatterjee

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

一輛軍用卡車

朝向邊境快速地行進 ...

春季雷雨

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

一辆军用卡车

朝向边境快速地行进 ...

春季雷雨

Bio Sketch

Kanchan Chatterjee is a fifty year old government service holder in the finance department of Government of India. He writes poems, especially haiku, tanka and haibun. He has won several haiku awards and  has been published in various online and print poetry journals. His haiku appeared regularly in NHK’s program, "Haiku Masters," in Japan. He was a ‘Pushcart Award’ nominee in  2012.

Poetic Musings: Diverging Lines Tanka by Jackie Chou

strolling together

on cracked sidewalk

the diverging lines

lead us to separate paths

though we say we are one

NeverEnding Story, September 14, 2021

Jackie Chou 

Commentary: Through the use of a walking metaphor (for a slower, more contemplative way of thinking about the relationship with the speaker's loved one), Jackie's tanka effectively builds, poetic phrase (ku)/ line by poetic phrase (ku)/ line, to a thematically significant and emotionally poignant ending that reveals the theme of "dialectical tensions" (exposed by these modifiers in Ls 1,3,4,5, "together, divergent, separate, and one[ness]") in a relationship.

And it might be interesting to do a comparative reading of the following tanka:

two walking sticks

lean against

the trail head sign,

so many ways to fall

in love again

Second Place, 2017 Sanford Goldstein Tanka Contest 

Tom Clausen

A Room of My Own: Snap Pandemic Election

Two Hundred and Sixty-Third Entry, Coronavirus Poetry Diary

six feet apart

and their minds miles away 

from each other

five smiling party leaders

shout, get your shot

question after question

answered with talking points

my parrot babbles

in the unseasonal heat

we'reallthistogether 

thumbs up

from the photogenic PM

forward, for everyone --

a masked gig worker 

gives him the finger

nightly barks

penetrate the thin wall

of my room

build back better blasting

from my neighbor's tv

same old, same old?

I stare in the mirror

on election eve

wondering if I can flatten

the curve of my pot belly

campaign signs

along a winding stretch

of highway

on election night

I sink deep into the couch

FYI: Pandemic federal election campaign produces little enthusiasm for any party, The Canadian Press, September 18

A campaign that started with anger over Justin Trudeau's decision to call an election in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic is ending amid anger over conservative premiers' handling of the health crisis...

When Trudeau pulled the plug on his minority government on Aug. 15, he tried to frame the ballot question as: Who do you want to finish the fight against COVID-19 and lead the country into a robust, greener, more inclusive recovery?

"I think many of us misread what was an optimistic country in terms of where we're going, the vaccines and everything, and we just mistook what was a really grumpy, anxious, kind of tired electorate that had no real desire at all to have an election," says pollster David Coletto, chief executive at Abacus Data...

Added: Two Hundred and Sixty-Fourth Entry

wave upon wave

of new covid variants ...

my world shrinks

to the size of a friend's garage

doubling as my bedroom

Cool Announcement: TSA YouTube Video of 2021 Sanford Goldstein Tanka Contest Awards

My Dear Friends: 

The Tanka Society of America posted its multimedia presentation of 2021 Sanford Goldstein Tanka Contest Awards on its YouTube channel.

First Place

my old home sits

next to unturned soil

string beans

and silver queen corn

long for my father’s hand

Pris Campbell

        

Second Place

children locked

in steel cages

once upon a time

that happened

only in fairytales

Kathryn Stevens

    

Third Place 

kintsugi ...

the flow

of your gentle words

helps to rebuild

a better version of me

Urszula Funnell

Honorable Mentions 

no more

chilli seeds—

my children

measure my words

in scoville units

Lucky Triana

returning

with fresh soup

the waiter

thinks the fly

will be all right

Tom Bierovic

people debate

the ways I should be

allowed to exist—

a rainbow forms outside

the social construct of gender

GRIX

      

Special Commendation for Embodying Sanford-Style

birdsongs

at morning lightfall

alone

in the thatched hut

of an everyday mind

Chen-ou Liu

FYI:  Introducing something new this year, we’ve chosen to honor our contest’s namesake by selecting one tanka we felt best embodied Sanford Goldstein’s singular style... excerpted from Judges' Report where the following two tanka by Sanford Goldstein are analyzed together with mine: 

it was roosters

at morning light-fall --

how joyous

even that crack

diagonal

I too

am Bashō,

fleas

and that urine smell

in this mountain hut

and its conclusion:

The two poems reinforce each other by modeling one possible way to cope: we can attempt to attend to sounds and situations surrounding us in a Zen-like state of mu, a concept meaning “nothing,” which manifests itself as “mind-less mind.” In this hut of the centered self, one can awaken to acceptance and the accompanying peace of simply being. Taken together with its philosophical balm, we find this tanka by a poet inspired by a master-inspired-by-a-master . . . inspiring.

You can read this detailed analysis, stylistic and thematic, in the report that begins with the following tanka:

forty years have passed

and still my ear remains

a soft carpet

on which others

dance their blues

Sanford Goldstein

                

Happy Viewing and Reading

Chen-ou

One Man's Maple Moon: Colourful World Tanka by Carole MacRury

English Original

if I leave

this colorful world

before you ...

look for me in a clear rain,

in the dew on a rose

Editor's Choice, Gusts, 17, Spring/Summer 2013 

Carole MacRury 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

如果在你之前

我離開這個多彩多姿

的世界 ...

你可以在清晰的雨中，

一朵玫瑰的露珠中尋找我

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

如果在你之前

我离开这个多彩多姿

的世界 ...

你可以在清晰的雨中，

一朵玫瑰的露珠中寻找我

Bio Sketch

Carole MacRury resides in Point Roberts, Washington, a unique peninsula and border town that inspires her work.  She is the author of In the Company of Crows: Haiku and Tanka Between the Tides (Black Cat Press, 2008, 2nd Printing, 2018) and The Tang of Nasturtiums, an award-winning e-chapbook (Snapshot Press 2012).  

Butterfly Dream: Train Journey Haiku by Alan Summers

English Original

train journey

the spreadsheet

of city lights

Stardust, 22, October 2018

Alan Summers

 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

火車旅行

城市燈光看起來像是

展開的電子表格

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

火车旅行

城市灯光看起来像是

展开的电子表格

 

Bio Sketch

Alan Summers is President of the United Haiku and Tanka Society, and co-founder of Call of the Page. He enjoys watching classic episodes of Dr. Who, all over again, as his ten year old nephew has discovered them for himself. Website: www.callofthepage.org

One Man's Maple Moon: Diverging Lines Tanka by Jackie Chou

English Original

strolling together

on cracked sidewalk

the diverging lines

lead us to separate paths

though we say we are one

Jackie Chou 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

一起散步

在破裂的人行道上

這些不同的裂縫

引導我們走向分離的道路

雖然我們硬說是一體不分的

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

一起散步

在破裂的人行道上

这些不同的裂缝

引导我们走向分离的道路

虽然我们硬说是一体不分的

Bio Sketch

Jackie Chou is a poet residing in sunny Southern California.  She sometimes gets her inspirations from common city birds and flowers.  Her works have been published in Atlas Poetica, Skylark, Ribbons, the cherita journal, moonbathing, ephemerae, and others.  

Cool Announcement: A Freebie, Mouth Full of Stones by Debbie Strange

My Dear Readers:

NeverEnding Story contributor, Debbie Strange, published a collection of sociopolitically conscious  haiku, Mouth Full of Stones (Title IX Press, 2020), and she shared her fine work as a free download available at Title IX Press website.

Selected Haiku:

dry lightning

her mattress scarred

with cigarette burns

day moon

(dis)appearing

sister’s thin face

hot (fl)ashes the combustibility of womxn’s rights

cows and calves

bawling at weaning time

my breasts ache

angry words

the gossip of gulls

d r i f t i n g

street kids

shadows fold

into the night

neon lights

a cardboard roof

sags with snow

cyberbullying

the buzz of a high voltage arc

permafrost

a polar bear’s paws

sink deeper

Happy Reading

Chen-ou

A Room of My Own: Forever Wars

written for California Democratic Congressmember, Barbara Lee, who cast the sole vote after 9/11 against “Forever Wars, ” now on the need for the Afghan War Inquiry, Democracy Now Interview, September 10

rainwashed slogans

on the fortified wall

empty embassy

last Americans

a teen points his finger gun

at the moving plane 

a man shifts body bags

from shoulder to shoulder

smoky night

9/11 on TV

a veteran murmurs 

never forgive, never forget ...

FYI: Congressmember Barbara Lee closed her historic 9/11 speech with a plea for peace and diplomacy we all should remember:

"I have agonized over this vote. I came to grips with opposing this resolution during the very painful yet very beautiful memorial service. As a member of the clergy so eloquently said, 'As we act, let us not become the evil that we deplore.'"

Our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil.

George W. Bush, Ground Zero Speech

We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side,...That’s the world these folks [terrorists] operate in, and so it’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal.

Dick Cheney, NBC’s Meet the Press, two days after George W. Bush's "Ground Zero Speech"

For more about "forever wars," "Sunday Reading: Casualties of the Forever Wars," The New Yorker, September 12 and "After 9/11, the U.S. Got Almost Everything Wrong: A mission to rid the world of “terror” and “evil” led America in tragic directions," Garrett M. Graff, The Atlantic, September 8

The Global War on Terrorism yielded two crucial triumphs: The core al-Qaeda group never again attacked the American homeland, and bin Laden, its leader, was hunted down and killed in a stunningly successful secret mission a decade after the attacks. But the U.S. defined its goals far more expansively, and by almost any other measure, the War on Terror has weakened the nation — leaving Americans more afraid, less free, more morally compromised, and more alone in the world. A day that initially created an unparalleled sense of unity among Americans has become the backdrop for ever-widening political polarization...

... the journalist Robert Draper writes in To Start a War, his new history of the Bush administration’s lies, obfuscations, and self-delusions that led from Afghanistan into Iraq, “In the after-shocks of 9/11, a reeling America found itself steadied by blunt-talking alpha males whose unflappable, crinkly-eyed certitude seemed the only antidote to nationwide panic.”

Added: This Brave New World, XXI

the Peace Bell tolls 

in remembrance of lives lost

on September 11

the Taliban flag flutters

over the presidential palace 

Special Feature: In the Shadow of 9/11, the Lone Vote/Voice against the War on Terror

Selected Poetry for California Democratic Congressmember, Barbara Lee, who cast the sole vote after 9/11 against “Forever Wars” (Now On the Need for the Afghan War Inquiry, Democracy Now Interview, September 10)

twin towers

repeating their absence

day after day

World Haiku Review, January 2007

Bill Kenney

"I rise today, really, with a very heavy heart, one that is filled with sorrow for the families and loved ones who were killed and injured this week," intoned California Democratic Congressmember Barbara Lee, her voice trembling with emotion as she spoke from the House floor on September 14th, 2001...

in Bryant Park

2,753 empty chairs

not a breath of air

yards & lots, 2012

Jack Galmitz

An Unofficial Story

for Oskar

ink-black:

smoke trails a life

from the north tower

Another sleepless night. Winter moonlight on the empty side of her bed. From the bedside table, she picks up A Place of Remembrance: The Official Photo Book of 9/11. She stares at the book for a moment. Tears roll down her face as she rips out some of the pages. With a sigh, she puts the torn-out pages in reverse order. When she flips through them, dozens of people are flying through the windows back into the building.

Editor's Choice Haibun, Cattails, May, 2015

Chen-ou Liu

(Note: The haiku is a revised version of my vertical haiku below:

ink-dark

smoke

of

a

life

jumping

from

the

north

tower

Shot Glass,7, June 2012

"This unspeakable act on the United States has really forced me, however, to rely on my moral compass, my conscience, and my God for direction. September 11th changed the world. Our deepest fears now haunt us. Yet I am convinced that military action will not prevent further acts of international terrorism against the United States."

two light beams shining

where there were once twin towers –

my son, my daughter

Grand Prize, 15th International “Kusamakura” Haiku Competition

Jack Galmitz

Bush stood proudly

under Mission Accomplished

I recall 

that lingering smell

of my friend's patriot socks

NeverEnding Story, October 29, 2020

Chen-ou Liu 

"However difficult this vote may be, some of us must urge the use of restraint. Our country is in a state of mourning…Let's just pause, just for a minute, and think through the implications of our actions today so that this does not spiral out of control."

inspired by the 9/11  Memorial Fountain 

at the footprint

of each tower that once stood

vast emptiness

( loss and grief ) surrounded

by four walls of water

NeverEnding Story, September 12, 2016

Chen-ou Liu

Congressmember Barbara Lee closed her historic speech with a plea for peace and diplomacy we all should remember:

"I have agonized over this vote. I came to grips with opposing this resolution during the very painful yet very beautiful memorial service. As a member of the clergy so eloquently said, 'As we act, let us not become the evil that we deplore.'"

All That Remains

endless war

or full troop withdrawal?

at the airport fence

an Afghan girl stares at clouds

with darker shades of gray

last Americans

lifted off the embassy roof

in Saigon --

now some hundred Afghans

cling to a moving US plane

the face

of an Afghan girl 

who stares

into the camera

at us ... at Death

Death

a dust-faced coalman

unfolds

one body bag, then another ...

gathering dark in Kabul

NeverEnding Story, August 30, 2021

One Man's Maple Moon: Dappled Path Tanka by Marilyn Humbert

English Original

winter sun

filtered by gum-leaves

a dappled path

this journey of waiting

to join you

Ribbons, 14:3,  Fall 2018 

Marilyn Humbert

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

冬天的陽光

照射透過桉樹樹葉

形成一條斑駁小路

這段等待加入你

的旅程

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

冬天的阳光

照射透过桉树树叶

形成一条斑驳小路

这段等待加入你

的旅程

Bio Sketch

Marilyn Humbert lives in the Northern suburbs of Sydney NSW Australia. Her tanka and haiku appear in international and Australian journals, anthologies and online. Her free verse poems have been awarded prizes in competitions and some have been published.