Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts

Sunday, August 17, 2025

One Man's Maple Moon: Lover Tanka by Hortensia Anderson

English Original

by moonlight
through the screen window
my lover climbs
in the darkness
between the sheets

A Hundred Gourds, 1:1, December 2011 

Hortensia Anderson


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

月光下
穿過紗窗
在黑暗中
我的愛人爬進
兩張床單裡面

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

月光下
穿过纱窗
在黑暗中
我的爱人爬进
两张床单里面


Bio Sketch

Hortensia Anderson is the author of numerous chapbooks as well as a volume of poetry, Trust. Her work has been published in many oneline and print magazines. Her awards and other honors include: Best of 2002: Haiku in English, The Mainichi Daily News; 5th Annual Suruga Baika Winner; Honorable Mention, Mainichi Contest (2003); Tanka Splendor Awards (2003 and 2004); and Third Prize, Kusamakura (2004).

Thursday, August 7, 2025

One Man's Maple Moon: Butterfly Tanka by Michael McClintock

English Original

between sun and shade
a butterfly pauses
like none I've seen,
who ever falls in love
with someone they know?

Letters in Time, 2005

Michael McClintock


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

在陽光與陰影之間
一隻蝴蝶停歇不動
這是我從未見過的
誰會愛上
自己認識的人?

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

在阳光与阴影之间
一只蝴蝶停歇不动
这是我从未见过的
谁会爱上
自己认识的人?


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.

Friday, July 18, 2025

Butterfly Dream: In Weeds Haiku by Raymond Roseliep

English Original

in weeds where we love
sudden lantern
of a firefly   

Frogpond, 6:2, 1983

Raymond Roseliep


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

在雜草中我們相愛
突然出現一隻螢火蟲
燈籠般的亮光

Chinese Translation (Simplified) 

在杂草中我们相爱
突然出现一只萤火虫
灯笼般的亮光


Bio Sketch

Raymond Roseliep (August 11, 1917 – December 6, 1983) was a Catholic priest and a haiku poet. He has been described as "the John Donne of Western haiku." He won the Haiku Society of America Harold G. Henderson award in 1977 and 1982. Two of his better known collections of haiku are The Still Point – Haiku of Mu, 1979 and Listen to Light, 1980  

Friday, February 14, 2025

Special Feature: Selected Poems for Valentine's Day

Today is Valentine's Day, typically a day of chocolate, flowers, and "all things love." I would like to share with you the following poems to explore many/different kinds of love that cover a gamut of emotions:

valentine’s day --
a glimpse of the shop girl’s
red bra strap

Paul Hodder

as if seeing love
for the first time
you bring me
white peonies
wet with morning dew

Pamela A. Babusci

After Dusk

asleep
the firefly
is fueling

sparks
however small
light lovers

our bodies
listen
to light

Raymond Roseliep

evening 
between her breasts 
sugar to lick off 
the cocktail glass 
rim 

ai li

on her skin he writes              
invisible love letters
each word
a little warmer
than the next

Claudia Coutu Radmore

this winter night 
you inside 
all of my curves 

Inside the Mirror, 2005

Karina Young

leaving my loneliness     inside her

George Swede 

I fight the urge 
to ask them 
how to make love last 
old couple holding hands 
where the waves break 

Roberta Beary


To conclude today's Special Feature post, I would like to share with you the following Valentine's Day haiku:

those three words uttered ...
our bodies nestle, listening
to Valentine's starlight


Added: 

my affair ends
with a tired face emoji
she used to say
the power of love begins
with the silence of words

Saturday, September 28, 2024

A Room of My Own: A Fistful Tanka

a fistful
of childhood river sand
sifts back to sand ...
without my first love
Time and I become one


Added:  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


Added

between the pages
of The Art of Loving
a wrinkled note ...
this borrowed book gives me
a borrowed life from my dream


FYI: The Art of Loving, a 1956 book by psychoanalyst and social philosopher Erich Fromm, explores the meaning and practice of love, arguing that it is not a feeling but an art that requires knowledge and effort to truly thrive.


Added

the tip 
of a blade of grass
at twilight
this floating world 
in a dewdrop

Saturday, September 14, 2024

Poetic Musings: Without Love Tanka by M. Kei

a migraine,
a pill,
a sweltering afternoon,
clouds without rain,
days without love 

January, A Tanka Diary, 2013

M. Kei

Commentary: This poem is a fine example of list tanka, a subgenre of list poetry. It's a deliberately organized 5-line poem containing a list of things or images that build up to describe the poem’s subject matter. 

The first four lines show the N's daily activities in the forms of illness (L1), medication (L2), and weather impact (L3) and observation (L4), and the last line reveals the N's existential state of life (L5).

Thematically or emotionally speaking, a list tanka can be divided into two contrasting parts with the last line having the most weight. A list tanka often concludes with a startling or surprising phrase or image. For more examples, see To the Lighthouse: List Tanka

Tuesday, August 27, 2024

A Room of My Own: One Hedge Away Haiku

alone by the window ...
my love, one hedge away
married


FYI: This haiku could be read as a sequel to my 2-line haiku sequence below:

Threesome

simmering heat 
every touch of her

you ask, I answer
last light of day

my body alone
night chill deepening


And my haiku below could be read as a sequel to the haiku above:

lone face in the window ...
a full moon of one love ago



Added: Game Show, 2024, LX

the what-ifs
swirling around in my  mind
smeared campaign signs


Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, XCII: "town of rubble"

silhouetted
against a town of rubble
Gazan boy with one arm


FYI: Associated Press, July 11: We have nothing': Palestinians return to utter destruction in Gaza City after Israeli withdrawal

Nearly every building was flattened to rubble for block after block, leaving giant piles of concrete and twisted rebar. Here and there, grey gutted concrete frames still stood a few stories high. The ever-present buzzing sound of Israeli military drones hung in the hot summer air as people on bicycles or horse-drawn carts made their way over dirt paths where the streets had apparently been bulldozed away.

The Wall Street Journal, March 18:Gaza Amputees Fight for Survival in Hospitals Hollowed Out by War

Doctors, running low on painkillers and antibiotics, struggle to treat thousands of Palestinians who have lost limbs


For example, in 2019, Israeli forces open-fired on Palestinian protestors resulting in 120 amputations, 20 of which were children.

To help with the amputee crisis in Gaza, the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF) has created the Gaza Amputee Project to help provide surgery, treatment, and prostheses for child amputees.


Added: This Brave New World, CXV
written in response to Democracy Now, August 29: "Gender Apartheid": Taliban Approves Law in Afghanistan Requiring Women Remain Silent in Public

Taliban bans ...
a girl in red on the rooftop
pirouetting
against the Kabul sunset 
as if there were no tomorrow


FYI: The Taliban government in Afghanistan is drawing renewed outrage over a new law banning women's voices in public, forcing them to completely cover their bodies and faces out of the home, and more. This comes after the Taliban banned women from working in most fields and ended girls' education past primary school following their takeover of the country in 2021.

Sunday, April 21, 2024

One Man's Maple Moon: Without Love Tanka by M. Kei

English Original

a migraine,
a pill,
a sweltering afternoon,
clouds without rain,
days without love 

January, A Tanka Diary, 2013

M. Kei


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

偏頭痛,
一粒藥,
一個悶熱的午後,
有雲無雨,
沒有愛的日子

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

偏头痛,
一粒药,
一个闷热的午后,
有云无雨,
没有爱的日子


Bio Sketch

M. Kei is a tall ship sailor and award-winning poet who lives on Maryland’s Eastern shore. He is the editor of Atlas Poetica: A Journal of World Tanka. His most recent collection of poetry is January, A Tanka Diary. He is also the author of the award-winning gay Age of Sail adventure novels, Pirates of the Narrow Seas. He can be followed on Twitter @kujakupoet, or visit AtlasPoetica.org.

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Butterfly Dream: Snowmelt Haiku by Elmedin Kadric

English Original

one keeps another one loving snowmelt

Frogpond, 45:1, winter 2022

Elmedin Kadric 


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

一個人讓另一個人熱戀雪在融化

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

一个人让另一个人热戀雪在融化


Bio Sketch

Elmedin Kadric was born in Novi Pazar, Serbia, but writes out of Helsingborg, Sweden. His first collection, buying time (2017), was published by Red Moon Press.

Sunday, March 3, 2024

One Man's Maple Moon: Love Tanka by Marian Olson

English Original 

irrefutable
his love
her love
the setting sun
the rising moon

A Hundred Gourds, 3:1 December 2013

Marian Olson


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

無可辯駁的
他的愛
她的愛
下山的太陽
升起的月亮

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

无可辩驳的
他的爱
她的爱
下山的太阳
升起的月亮


Bio Sketch

Marian Olson, non-fiction writer and widely published international poet, was the author of nine books of poetry, including the award winning haiku in Songs of the Chicken YardDesert HoursConsider This, andMoondance.  Published in 2017, The Other and Kaleidoscope were her first books of tanka.

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

One Man's Maple Moon: Imagination Tanka by M. Kei

English Original

no love notes
to be found
except those
that I wrote
in my imagination

M. Kei


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

沒有找到
任何愛情的便條
除了那些
曾經書寫
在我的想像中

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

没有找到
任何爱情的便条
除了那些
曾经书写
在我的想像中


Bio Sketch

M. Kei is a tall ship sailor and award-winning poet who lives on Maryland’s Eastern shore. He is the editor of Atlas Poetica: A Journal of World Tanka. His most recent collection of poetry is January, A Tanka Diary. He is also the author of the award-winning gay Age of Sail adventure novels, Pirates of the Narrow Seas. He can be followed on Twitter @kujakupoet, or visit AtlasPoetica.org.

Tuesday, January 9, 2024

A Room of My Own: Parting Words Tanka

in dim streetlight
love alone doesn't put food
on the table ...
her parting words taken
by the winter gust


Added:

in my dream
this blurry silhouette ...
waves of time
flood her footprints
in the life we had


Added: This Brave New World, CXL

phalanx after phalanx
of black-clad men in Rome
fascist salutes


FYI: NBC News, Jan.9: Outrage in Italy after hundreds give fascist salute at a rally in Rome

The rally was held in front of the former headquarters of a post-war neo-fascist party called the Italian Social Movement (MSI), which gave root to the Brothers of Italy party now led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. 

Meloni came to power in 2022 as Italy’s first female prime minister at the head of a coalition, giving the country its most right-wing government since World War II. She praised Mussolini in her youth but has since changed her stance and said there was “no space” in her party “for nostalgia for fascism, racism or antisemitism.”

Friday, December 29, 2023

One Man's Maple Moon: Love and Peace Tanka by Lorraine Pester

English Original

sketched in the air
and brought alive
with Christmas lights ...
wire line-drawings
shape love and peace

Lorraine Pester


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

素描在天空中
並且被聖誕彩燈
賦予了生命 ...
這些電線圖畫
形塑愛與和平

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

素描在天空中
并且被圣诞彩灯
赋予了生命 ...
这些电线图画
形塑爱与和平


Bio Sketch

Being curious and staying open to possibility is Lorraine Pester’s way of keeping her haikai fresh. She shies from no topic that presents itself. Her deliberate interactions with birds while dog walking is a frequent theme. She lives with her husband and  Abbey schnauzer in south Texas. 

Thursday, August 31, 2023

A Room of My Own: A Trilogy

lovers’ trail
my hands remember the curves
of her womanhood

windshield wipers squeak
back and forth we bicker over
stay or go ...

night of fireflies ...
all that remains 
of our on-off love


Added

her voice
recedes into the roar
of the river --
this floating life too short
to be anything but happy


AddedRe-Homing in the Maple Land, IX

my roommate
mutters, no you or I
only we 
crowded in this basement ...
together a l o n e 


Added:

after a day
unlike all the others
a six-lane snarl-up

Sunday, July 2, 2023

One Man's Maple Moon: Tea Mug Tanka by Susan Mary Wade

English Original

every morning
he brings me tea in a mug 
only slightly chipped
everyday his love for me
something different

Frameless Sky, 15, 2022

Susan Mary Wade


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

每天早上
他給我端來一杯茶
它有一些缺口
然而每天他對我的愛
卻是有些不同

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

每天早上
他给我端来一杯茶
它有一些缺口
然而每天他对我的爱
却是有些不同


Bio Sketch

Susan Mary Wade has been published in International TankaGustsRibbons, and many other magazines over the years. Her work has been anthologized, and she has received awards in the 6th, 7th and 8th International Tanka Festival Competition in Japan.

Thursday, May 25, 2023

A Room of My Own: My Book of Love Haiku

for Tina Turner, the Queen of Rock & Roll

tell my why, tell me why ...
heartwriting my book of love 
line by line, word by word 


FYI: FYI: Tina Turner's "Why Must We Wait Until Tonight" (live at the Blockbuster Pavilion in San Bernardino, California, 1993)

...Tell me why? Baby. Why must we wait until tonight? Oh, yeah.
Tell me why? Why, when I've waited all my life?
You're touching me, I'm touching you...
Oooh, what should I do? Now tell me why, why must we wait 'till tonight?
You like to take it real slow.
Show me every little move you know.
Take a little love and watch it grow.
But I want to lay with you...darling.
Right now.
Make love all day with you baby.
And show you how...
Take my body, don't take my time.
Take your lips and make them mine...


Added: Game Show 2024, XX

Ain't No Sunshine
to Ron DeSantis whose political preoccupations are: “Disney-bashing, book banning, and policing who uses which bathroom" 

repeat after me
Make America Great again...
his baby babbling

amazing dad!
he teaches his toddler daughter 
to build the [paper] wall

2024 bid
just another Trump without
(sexual) baggage


FYI: The New Yorker, May 25: It Was More Than a #DeSaster: Ron DeSantis’s botched campaign launch suggests that he’s no Trump-killer

... when DeSantis’s official campaign launch, on Twitter, was mired with technical glitches.... both on Twitter and in a subsequent interview on Fox News, which boiled down to a lot of complaints about the ‘legacy media’ and little rationale for his candidacy.” DeSantis failed to mention Trump by name, and instead focussed on his own political preoccupations—which Glasser describes as “Disney-bashing, book banning, and policing who uses which bathroom.”


Added: This Brave New World, LXXXIII
written in response to Kissinger's Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial "Statesman"
and for Christopher Hitchens author of The Trial of Henry Kissinger that presents a series of arguments about alleged war crimes committed by his American “nemesis”.


Kissinger blows out
one hunderd birthday candles 
in the spotlight
as I imagine him being put
in the dock at The Hague

FYI: Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević.”

-- Anthony Bourdain, A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines

For more, see Democracy Now, May 24Kissinger at 100: New War Crimes Revealed in Secret Cambodia Bombing That Set Stage for Forever Wars

And Rolling Stone, Nov.29: Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America’s Ruling Class, Finally Dies

The infamy of Nixon's foreign-policy architect sits, eternally, beside that of history's worst mass murderers. A deeper shame attaches to the country that celebrates him.

BBC News, November 30Henry Kissinger: China mourns 'a most valued old friend' and Time Magazine, Nov. 30: Why China Fondly Remembers Henry Kissinger.


Added

This Exceptionalist
on whom the musician Tom Lehrer famously remarked, “Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Kissinger blows out
one hundred birthday candles 
in the spotlight
as I imagine him being put
in the dock at The Hague

goodbye for good
the American Century 
Incarnate!
the "peace prize" winner dies
with blood on his hands

FYI: I expanded "hundred birthday candles" into a tanka set, This Exceptionalist. And The Nation, Nov.29: A People’s Obituary of Henry Kissinger: For decades, Kissinger kept the great wheel of American militarism spinning ever forward.

And The New Yorker, Nov. 30: Henry Kissinger’s Hard Compromises

In 1973, when he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his role in brokering a ceasefire with the North Vietnamese, two members of the Nobel committee resigned in protest....The musician Tom Lehrer famously remarked, “Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.” ...He was known to greet a wary dinner partner with the opening words, “I suppose you are one of those people who think I’m a war criminal.

Wednesday, December 14, 2022

One Man's Maple Moon: Elderberry Tanka by Martha Magenta

English Original

falling in love
under the stars
elderberry clusters
hang heavy
with juice

Honorable Mention, 2019 World Tanka Poetry Contest

Martha Magenta


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

在星空下
墜入愛河
一串串接骨漿果
低垂地掛在樹上
並且多汁

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

在星空下
坠入爱河
一串串接骨浆果
低垂地挂在树上
并且多汁
 
 
Bio Sketch

Martha Magenta lived in England, UK. Her haiku and tanka had 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.

Thursday, November 24, 2022

Poetic Musings: Lovers' Quarrel Senryu by Chen-ou Liu

we slip
into our mother tongues
lovers' quarrel 

Honourable Mention, 2022 Haiku Society of America Senryu Contest

Chen-ou Liu

Commentary by the judges: The word "quarrel" is well-chosen here. This seems to be a couple that is set in their ways and are repeating a familiar fight that's been had before. There may even be a comfort in this fight, a routine or known argument, that parallels the comfort of speaking in a mother tongue. There is also the idea that when tempers flare and we lose control, that we instinctively return to what is learned during developmental years, be it a common topic or a familiar language, so maybe this couple has returned to their native language mid-fight without even realizing it. “slip” and “mother tongues” were also carefully selected for this senryu, as the senryu could lean towards a make-up kiss after a fight. Regardless, this is a great observation of human behavior.


FYI: My senryu below could be read as a response to the judges' comment: "the senryu could lean towards a make-up kiss after a fight."

lovers' quarrel ...
her black cat and my pitbull
eyeball to eyeball

Failed Haiku, 2:22, October 2017

Sunday, August 7, 2022

A Room of My Own: déjà vu in "love"

predawn hush ...
at the back of my mind
her words linger,
I love you, but cannot live
with the ghosts of your past

alone
I take a sleeping pill
with whiskey …
in broad daylight
the darkness grows heavy

at long last
I take down her photo
a nail hole
in the bedroom wall
and in my heart

two silhouettes
embracing at the window --
I wonder
what sweet words she whispers
in her new lover's ear

the glow
of her Capri cigarette
this sultry night
like a moth my heart
flutters around her lips

Note: I expanded my "predawn hush" tanka into a tanka sequence, déjà vu in "love."


Added:

defeated
by her demand for more space
I sleep soundly
curled into summer stickiness
on our red leather sofa

Thursday, March 31, 2022

One Man's Maple Moon: Sharing Love Tanka by H. Gene Murtha

English Original

sharing love
with another child
I count
the different shapes
of each snowflake


H. Gene Murtha 


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

和另一個孩子
分享愛
我計數
每一片雪花
不同的形狀

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

和另一个孩子
分享爱
我计数
每一片雪花
不同的形状


Bio Sketch

H. Gene Murtha, a naturalist and poet, sponsored and judged the first haiku contest for the inner city children of Camden, NJ., for the Virgilio Group, of which he was a lifetime member. He was widely published for his work in haikai literature from the USA to Japan.