talk of war
sugar cubes dissolve
into darkness
Honorable Mention, Vanguard Haiku, World Haiku Review, April 2014
Ben Moeller-Gaa
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
談論戰爭
一顆顆方糖溶入
黯黑的咖啡之中
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
谈论战争
一颗颗方糖溶入
黯黑的咖啡之中
Bio Sketch
Ben Moeller-Gaa is a haiku poet and a contributing poetry editor to River Styx literary magazine. He is the author of two haiku chapbooks, Wasp Shadows (Folded Word 2014) and Blowing on a Hot Soup Spoon (poor metaphor design 2014). You can find more on Ben online at www.benmoellergaa.com.
L1 establishes the theme while the concluding image in Ls 2&3, especially in L3 (which is layered with multiple meanings), enhances the mood of the poem.
ReplyDeleteBen's sociopolitically conscious haiku reminds me of one stanza of Robert Bly's famous anti-Vietnam War poem, entitled "Driving Through Minnesota During the Hanoi Bombings,"
Our own gaiety
Will end up
In Asia, and you will look down in your cup
And see
Black Starfighters.
Our own cities were the ones we wanted to bomb!
(note: The fighting image of Black Starfighters reflected in the coffee cup directly and psychologically connects the war fought outside the American soil with the mind and heart of the individual reader, hinting at an unavoidable relationship between the gaiety of Americans and their capacity for destructing their own lives and those of other people)