I lie face down
not in supplication
the masseuse
invites me to surrender
the arms I carried to war
Skylark, 4.2, Winter 2016
Neal Whitman
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
臉朝下躺著
我不是在懇求
女按摩師請我舉起
曾攜帶武器去打仗
的雙手
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
脸朝下躺着
我不是在恳求
女按摩师请我举起
曾携带武器去打仗
的双手
Bio Sketch
Neal Whitman lives in Pacific Grove, California, with his wife Elaine. He is the haiku editor for Pulse: Voices from the Heart of Medicine and is Vice President of the United Haiku and Tanka Society.
Neals's tanka effectively builds, poetic phrase/line by poetic phrase/line, to an unexpected yet thematically and emotionally powerful ending that reveals the theme of the psychological after effects of war.
ReplyDeleteThe shift, thematic and tonal, in L5 successfully adds emotional weight and sociopolitical significance to the tanka.