Butterfly Dream: Mother's Day Haiku by Marion Alice Poirier

English Original

white violets

fried clams and a poem

Mother's Day

Marion Alice Poirier

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

日羅蘭

炸蛤蜊和一首詩

母親節

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

日罗兰

炸蛤蜊和一首诗

母亲节

Bio Sketch

Marion Alice Poirier is a lifetime resident of Boston, MA. She began writing haiku in 2001 and eventually began to teach haiku in workshops on Poetry Circle and Emerging Poets. She also write short poetry and have been published in on-line haiku and short poetry journals like Tinywords, Hedgerow and The Heron's Nest.

Butterfly Dream: Bread and Poems Haiku by vincent tripi

English Original

winter evening --

grandma's recipe for bread

among my poems

Global Haiku, 2000

vincent tripi 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

冬日的夜晚 --

在我的一堆詩稿中

奶奶的麵包食譜

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

冬日的夜晚 --

在我的一堆诗稿中

奶奶的面包食谱

Bio Sketch

Founder of The Haiku Circle, vincent tripi was closely associated with the spiritual movement in American Haiku. He wrote haiku for over 35 years, and published 14 books of haiku. Most of his haiku reflect a Buddhist foundation.

To the Lighthouse: Ju Roku, a Haiku/Tanka Inspired Form

Ju Roku is an invented form that Steve Wilkinson, editor of The Bamboo Hut, developed a few years ago. "It is a succinct form limited to 16 syllables or less with no restriction on subject matter or line length. The only restriction is the limited number of syllables. It can reflect the characteristics of haiku, senryu, tanka, ryuka, doditsu or aphorism." The October, 2025 issue was a special feature of Ju Roku only. Here are some fine examples: 

Selected Ju Roku:

every now and then

the road ragged mist

Bryan Rickert

his words, a storm

carried by the wind’s snarl

Marilyn  Humbert 

autumn stroll

by the river

i feel co(l)d

Pegah Rahmati Nezhad

                             kite

                        cloud

                      g

                 n

             i

                r

            t

         s

mind

Eric Sundquist

bent over

in ankle-deep water ...

a rice-planting song

no end to star(v)ing

harvest supermoon

Geethanjali Rajan

Cathedral reflections

the bells echo

across the river

Steve Wilkinson

a spiral of apple peel

(this longing)

snail track

the meander of thoughts

on life

river's edge ...

drowning the self

in myself

Chen-ou Liu

To the Lighthouse: Jisei, Japanese Death Poems

Thematically and religiously speaking, the death poem (jisei in Japanese) is a genre of poetry that has historically developed in the literary traditions of East Asian cultures, most prominently in Zen Japan as well as Chan China. It tends to offer the writer's reflection on death that is coupled with an insightful observation on life. 

In the case of Japanese literature, the death poem's structure can be in one of many forms, including the two traditional forms: haiku and tanka. Yoel Hoffmann's 1986 groundbreaking book, Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death, offers "hundreds of Japanese death poems, many with a commentary describing the circumstances of the poet's death. He explores the attitudes and customs surrounding death in historical and present-day Japan and gives examples of how these have been reflected in the nation's literature in general."

Here are some of haiku and tanka selected from his book:

In life I never was

among the well-known flowers

and yet, 

in withering

I am most certainly   

Tomoda Kinpei

And had my days been longer

still the darkness

would not leave this world --

along death’s path, among the hills

I shall behold the moon.

Oroku

Barren branches:

the autumn left behind 

a cicada’s hollow cry.

Kagai

Empty cicada shell:

as we come

we go back naked.

Fukaku

Farewell --

I pass as all things do

dew on the grass.

Banzan 

To conclude today's To the Lighthouse post, I would like to share with you two of my death tanka: 

midnight hush ...

I, a worker in words

straddle the line

between the abstract, death

and the concrete, aging body

the brick shack

with boarded windows

facing a graveyard

in gathering dusk

a torn-up chapbook: I AM

FYI: You can get a free PDF copy of the book here  and here is the link to Janine Beichman's detailed review of the book, "Yoel Hoffmann as Japanologist: Japanese Death Poems."

Poetic Musings: Sunrise & Sunset Tanka by Bhawana Rathore

a poem comes 

and sits beside me 

while I wait 

for the sun, to set 

for the sun, to rise

NeverEnding Story, November 9, 2023

Bhawana Rathore

Commentary: Enhanced by the use of syntactic parallelism, Ls 3-5 invite the reader into the "proper frame of mind" (i.e. in touch with nature) to receive the divine inspiration that the Muse imparts in Ls 1&2.

Thematically and philosophically speaking, this mood tanka about the "being" of a poem reminds me of the following remark:

A poem should not mean

But be

Archibald MacLeish, "Ars poetica"

And it could be read as a sequel to the following tanka:

waking half way

through the day

half the sunshine

half the pain

-- still time for a poem

Little Purple Universes, 2011

Helen Buckingham

To the Lighthouse: the Place of Politics in Poetry by Seamus Heaney

My Dear Readers and Fellow Poets:

Two days ago, CBC Radio re-aired its May 23, 2010 interview with Nobel Prize-winner Seamus Heaney on the place of politics in poetry. 

This interview was timely, sociopolitically conscious, and most importantly, relevant to "our life in this broken world."

Below is an excerpt from this interview:

Pondering Poetry:

I was first interested in poetry as 'poetry.' Early on I was familiar with recitation.

We had little concerts at home as children, where we recited poems we'd learned at school of course. Then at Christmastime and at Easter, elder friends of my father's and mother's would be in, and there would be sing-songs. As I came into adolescence I would be asked to do a recitation. I knew several, such as The Shooting of Dan McGrew, The Spell of the Yukon and The Cremation of Sam McGee, all from Robert W. Service...

I wrote some poems as every literary undergraduate does, but it wasn't until 1962, that something started in me. But it came from reading poetry by Patrick Kavanagh, an Irish poet with the same kind of background as myself, a wonderful sudden burst of energy from him; and likewise from Ted Hughes, who again touched on subjects that I thought were known only to me, such as dead pigs lying in barrows, and bulls in outhouses, and barns and so on...

Poetics & Politics:

The question of what a poet's responsibility is to address the politics in their time is one that I kept answering ad nauseum between about 1969 or 1970 and 1989. Almost everything that I've written in prose and much that's in verse is about that question. Poets of the 1930s in England especially felt that. I mean, Spender, Auden and Louis MacNeice — who's an Irish poet of course, but part of that British generation — spoke to and about the Spanish Civil War, the rise of fascism and so on.

They were lyric poets, they had private subjects. They had love, eros, sex, time, childhood and yet there was the big war and the need for commitment. Communism was flowering as an ideology. The attraction of working for the wretched of the earth was deep, moral and compelling. So what was the private lyric poet to do? Was he or she to just keep to the lyric matter of the self and beauty or was there a bigger obligation?...

Just a few minutes before Seamus Heaney  died, he sent a message, in Latin, to his wife Marie. It said simply: "Noli Timere – Don't be afraid."

In a war situation or where violence and injustice are prevalent, "poetry is called upon to be something more than a thing of beauty." 

-- Seamus Heaney, Ireland's most renowned poet since Yeats, playwright and translator who received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature

History says don’t hope

On this side of the grave.

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed for tidal wave

Of justice can rise up

And hope and history rhyme

Seamus Heaney, "The Cure at Troy"

 

I would like to conclude today's post with a "haiku called upon to be something more than a thing of beauty"

This Brave New World, CXXIX

a teen waves his bloodied keffiyeh becoming Flag

FYI: For many Palestinians, the keffiyeh symbolizes their yearning for freedom and serves a nod to their history. For some non-Palestinians, it's a show of solidarity. 

And The Guardian, Jan.9, 2023 (9 months before the Hamas attacks): Israel security minister bans Palestinian flag-flying in public: Itamar Ben-Gvir’s order follows series of punitive steps against Palestinians since Israel’s hardline government took office.

Note: For more about Seamus Heaney's view of haiku and writing of tanka, see my "Dark Wings of the Night" posts: Seamus Heaney and His View of Haiku and Tankas for Toraiwa

Added: This Brave New World, CXXX

Christmas Eve in Bethlehem

nativity scene

Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus

amid tangled rubble

the sound of church bells

fades in the gathering dark

empty Manger Square

FYI: Manger Square is a city square in the center of Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. "In 1950, Bethlehem and the surrounding villages were 86 percent Christian. But by 2016, the Christian population dipped to just 12 percent, according Bethlehem mayor Vera Baboun."

The New Yorker, Nov.1 2023: The Gaza-ification of the West Bank: As the war in Gaza escalates, so, too, has the forcible displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank. Is Israel’s approach to the two regions linked?

An interview with Hagai El-Ad, an Israeli activist and the former executive director of the nonprofit organization B’Tselem, which works on human-rights issues in the occupied territories.

 

Government of Canada, Dec. 15: 14 countries, in addition to the EU, call on Israel to take immediate and concrete steps to tackle record high settler violence in the West Bank.

And Haaretz, Dec. 24: "Christmas During Gaza War: Bethlehem Marks a Somber Holiday"

Bethlehem and the entire Holy Land are in a state of grief and deep sadness. There's no problem with attending Midnight Mass: There are no tickets, no stress and no worshippers.

To the Lighthouse: Poetry Is Not a Luxury

For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action.

-- American poet Audre Lorde (1934-92), "Poetry Is Not a Luxury," 1977

My Dear Poet Friends and Reader:

I didn't sleep well last Saturday, and I got up early yesterday morning and read my emails. My friend, Mary, emailed me a pdf copy of "Poetry Is Not a Luxury" written by Audre Lorde, one of my favorite poets. 

After reading this succinct, heartfelt and provoking essay (a free, full-text version posted here), my spirit was immediately lifted up.

I would like share with you my emailed response to Audre Lorde's "view of Poetry, Not a Luxury:"

Black womanist view of poetry:

The white fathers told us, I think therefore I am; and the black mother in each of us-the poet- whispers in our dreams, I feel therefore I can be free.

And

I believe that women carry within ourselves the possibility for fusion of these two approaches as keystone for survival, and we come closest to this combination in our poetry.

In Audre Lorde's view, ‘Poetry Not a Luxury"  is both a reflection of experience and a way of experiencing the world. It reveals  how we feel about the world is as important as what the world ‘is’.

Her view of poetry reminds me of the thematic focus of “Invitation” by Mary Oliver

just to "be alive"

on this "fresh" morning [feeling about the world] 

in the broken world [what the world "is"]

And I wrote a tanka set, "Thanksgiving Emails," in response to Mary Oliver's heartfelt and reflective lines:

Subject: thanksgiving alone

To: my self [stuck in life] 

From: me

Date: November 23

at daybreak flickering birdsong

Re.: thanksgiving alone

To: my [drunken] self

From: me

Date: November 24

alive in this broken world

FYI: This is the first set of English language tanka "written in the form of an email."

And I couldn't agree with Audre Lorde's concluding remarks more:

As poets. And there are no new pains. We have felt them all already. We have hidden that fact in the same place where we have hidden our power. They lie in our dreams, and it is our dreams that point the way to freedom. They are made realizable through our poems that give us the strength and courage to see, to feel, to speak, and to dare.

...For there are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt, of examining what our ideas really mean (feel like) on Sunday morning at 7 AM [at 7:30 in Ajax]

Afterthought: 

The opening quote, "poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence," reminds me of Ishikawa Takuboku's conception of a new kind of poetry, “poems to eat” as articulated in the introduction to Sad Toys:

My mind, which was yearning after some indescribable thing from morning to night, could find an outlet to some extent only by making poems. And I had absolutely nothing except that mind… I want to say this: a very complicated process was needed to turn actual feelings into poetry… Poetry must not be what is usually called poetry. It must be an exact report, an honest diary, of the changes in a man’s emotional life. Accordingly, it must be fragmentary; it must not have organization… Each second is one which never comes back in our life. I hold it dear. I don’t want to let it pass without doing anything for it. To express that moment, tanka, which is short and takes not much time to compose, is most convenient…

And the conclusion of the opening quote, "we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action," reminds me the following remarks on poetry in times of crisis:

In a war situation or where violence and injustice are prevalent, "poetry is called upon to be something more than a thing of beauty." 

-- Seamus Heaney, an Irish poet, playwright and translator who received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. 

Poetry is insurrection, resurrection, and insubordination -- against amnesia of every sort, against every form of oppression, dispossession and indifference. And against the drowning noise of other words. 

-- Anne Michaels, Infinite Gradation

To the Lighthouse: Poetry, Something More Than a "Thing of Beauty"

When Vincent was in the eighth grade, I drove him and a friend, a girl, back from a birthday party, and, like all mothers, I eavesdropped on their conversation. They were discussing the girl’s decision not to participate in a poetry contest. She had read the previous winners, she said, and they were composed of words such as “injustice,” “inequality,” “empowerment,” “action.” “What I don’t understand,” the girl said, “is why can’t we write about flowers anymore.”

“Of course we can,” Vincent said. “But ...”

He did not finish the sentence. I wondered if he was asking: Is there still a place for Emily Dickinson these days?

-- Yiyun Li, The New Yorker, October 23, 2023: "What Gardening Offered After a Son’s Death: Deep in mourning, I thought, What if spring never returns?"

In her heart-wrenching article, Yiyun Li, a Chinese American author whose life has been shaped by tragedy, responded to her son's hesitation with a thematically significant yet often misunderstood rhetorical question --"Is there still a place for Emily Dickinson these days?" -- one that reveals a typical/high school textbook image of one of the most popularized/popular poets in USA and around the world, Emily Dickinson, a reclusive/private poet who immersed herself in the beauty of nature with simple possessions and basic needs and search for life’s true meaning to herself.

"In fact, Emily Dickinson’s writing life peaked during the Civil War (perhaps half her poems were drafted in the years 1861-65), though her poetry often shows little relation to the cataclysmic event of the American nineteenth century. As was her wont, Dickinson tended to "write about the Civil War via metaphor," but she also contributed poems to a U.S. Sanitary Commission publication, her small, personal, contribution to the Union war effort." (Cecily Nelson Zander, "The Civil War in Surprising Places: Emily Dickinson’s Poetry and the Pop Culture Delights of Dickinson")

In 1863 as the Civil War raged, she wrote the following poem, one, unlike most of her poems, that directly discusses "themes of guilt, battlefield death, and the sacrifice of those who went South to fight for the Union cause during the conflict."

“It Feels A Shame To Be Alive”

It feels a shame to be Alive—

When Men so brave—are dead—

One envies the Distinguished Dust—

Permitted—such a Head—

The Stone—that tells defending Whom

This Spartan put away

What little of Him we—possessed

In Pawn for Liberty—

The price is great—Sublimely paid—

Do we deserve—a Thing—

That lives—like Dollars—must be piled

Before we may obtain?

Are we that wait—sufficient worth—

That such Enormous Pearl

As life—dissolved be—for Us—

In Battle’s—horrid Bowl?

It may be—a Renown to live—

I think the Man who die—

Those unsustained—Saviors—

Present Divinity—

Another two examples about the physical violence of war are “The name–of it–is 'Autumn'” and “My Life–A Loaded Gun.” For more, see Emily Dickinson and Violent Poetry: Women, Writing, and War

The mis/understadning of Emily Dickinson's poetry reminds me of the following penetrating remark:

People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.

-- Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird 

Back to the conversation between Yiyun Li's son, Vincent, and his classmate, about the question regarding the role/goal of writing poetry:

...What I don’t understand,” the girl said, “is why can’t we write about flowers anymore.”

“Of course we can,” Vincent said. “But ...”

In a war situation or where violence and injustice are prevalent, "poetry is called upon to be something more than a thing of beauty." 

-- Seamus Heaney, an Irish poet, playwright and translator who received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. 

For example, I wrote the following haiku in response to the siege of Gaza:

running out of water

running out of life:

Gaza in smoky darkness

NeverEnding Story, October 20, 2023

It alludes to the following "classical[nature] haiku"

lily:

out of the water …

out of itself

Selected Haiku, 1989

Nick Virgilio

(FYI: Nick Virgilio also wrote a lot of "'blood-less yet gory, i.e., less popular/less known haiku," about the Vietnam War, such as one of my favourites about the "man-nature" relationship:

deep in rank grass,

through a bullet-riddled helmet:

an unknown flower)

To conclude today's post, I would like to share with you the following tanka written in response to Associated Press, Nov. 14: "Tens of thousands of supporters of Israel rally in Washington, crying "never again"

This Brave New World, CVII

a wavy sea 

of American flags mixed

with Israeli flags ...

at the corner an old man cries

Never Again for everyone

FYI: This is the sequel to the concluding tanka below of my tanka sequence, "Covering the War," for Edward Said, author of Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World

Never Again

a promise, a slogan,

a bumper sticker ...

now a rallying cry

for more chaos and carnage

Poetic Musings: Father's Shoulders Tanka by Michael McClintock

I’ve this memory --

riding my father’s shoulders

into the ocean,

the poetry of things

before I could speak

Tanka of Michael McClintock, Pinterest, 2011

Michael McClintock

Commentary: ...Even a child that cannot yet speak, may, like the readers of this tanka, intuitively grasp the poetry of a moment in time that defines meaning, significance or beauty in a novel and profound way. William Least Heat Moon spoke of those defining times in our lives most eloquently in his book, Blue Highways. For him, the moment was sharing a piece of old-fashioned buttermilk pie with new-found friends who had taken him in for the night on his long journey across the United States. For Michael McClintock a childhood memory was poetry and it became poetry for us as well as for himself, not through the use of excessive or impressive words, but through the sharing of an image that takes us into the experience with him. Tanka is traditionally imagistic, possessing the power and magic of images that take us beneath words to the essence of experience...

-- excerpted from "A Poet's Roving Thoughts: Dreaming Room" by Rebecca Drouilhet

It might be interesting to do a thematic comparative reading of my tanka below:

For my father who was born in mainland China, lived most of his adult life in Taiwan, died on Jan. 5 2022 and was buried there

this dream loop:

riding on my shoulders

into the Taiwan Strait

Father cries out, Mama

wait for me, I'm coming home

Pages Literary Journal, September 30, 2022

One Man’s Maple Moon: Father's Shoulders Tanka by Michael McClintock

English Original

I’ve this memory --

riding my father’s shoulders

into the ocean,

the poetry of things

before I could speak

Tanka of Michael McClintock, Pinterest, 2011

Michael McClintock

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

    

我有這樣的記憶 --

騎在父親的肩膀上

走進大海，

在我學會說話之前

體驗事物的詩意

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

我有这样的记忆 --

骑在父亲的肩膀上

走进大海，

在我学会说话之前

体验事物的诗意

Bio Sketch

Michael McClintock's lifework in haiku, tanka, and related literature spans over four decades. His many contributions to the field include 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 now lives in Clovis, California, where he works 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, are some of his recent titles.

One Man's Maple Moon: Long Slender Fingers Tanka by Margaret Chula

English Original

I fell in love

with your long slender fingers
holding a book of poems
and later as they explored
the braille of my body

Always Filling Always Full, 2001

Margaret Chula 


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

我愛上了

你修長的手指

拿著一本詩集

之後它們探索我身體

彷彿細讀一本點字書

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

我爱上了

你修长的手指

拿着一本诗集

之后它们探索我身体

仿佛细读一本点字书

Bio Sketch

 

Margaret Chula has published two collections of tanka: Always Filling, Always Full and Just This. She has promoted tanka through her one-woman dramatization, “Three Women Who Loved Love”, which traveled to Krakow, New York, Boston, Portland, Ottawa, and Ogaki, Japan. And from 2011 to 2015, Maggie served as president of the Tanka Society of America.

Special Feature: Selected Poems for a National Day of Observance

Every age has its own poetry, in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry. 

-- Jean- Paul Sartre

My Dear Friends and Readers:

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring COVID-19 a global pandemic. And Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau designates March 11 a national day of observance to commemorate those who have died of Covid19.

On the day of the WHO pandemic announcement, I started a coronavirus poetry journal, and have published 188 diary entries on NeverEnding Story and more than half a hundred poems in journals, anthologies, and poetry contests, three of which received international recognition.

Pandemic: A Worldwide Community Poem, of which I am one of co-authors, was selected by Muse-Pie Press for the Pushcart Prize.

shelter in place ...

seen from the attic window

this view

of snow-capped Mt. Fuji,

the fifth corner of my world

Honorable Mention,  Fifth Mt. Fuji Tanka Awards, 2020

we'reallinthistogether

            snow

              on

            snow

  onhomelessshelter

(included in a Bulgarian language tanka handbook written by Dimitar Anakiev, along with four other tanka and one interview about my view of Japanese short form poetry)

Quiet, all alone

on the edge of this quarantined world, 120 square feet of attic space

yet again, I try

to wipe my drunken shadow

off the wall

but can't erase this shadow

of an infected mind

Eighty-Third  Entry, June 25

When I [couldn't] "erase this shadow/of an infected mind," I was reminded of Ishikawa Takuboku's following remark on "poems to eat:" 

My mind, which was yearning after some indescribable thing from morning to night, could find an outlet to some extent only by making poems. And I had absolutely nothing except that mind… I want to say this: a very complicated process was needed to turn actual feelings into poetry… Poetry must not be what is usually called poetry. It must be an exact report, an honest diary, of the changes in a man’s emotional life. Accordingly, it must be fragmentary; it must not have organization… Each second is one which never comes back in our life. I hold it dear. I don’t want to let it pass without doing anything for it. To express that moment, tanka, which is short and takes not much time to compose, is most convenient…

I was encouraged and kept writing ...

quarantining

this world of masked faces

into five lines ...

I throw a stone of words

across the river of no return

Sixty-Seventh Entry, January 3

Hopefully next year we'll will be living a "normal life," and the sixty-seventh entry will be the concluding poem of my new collection of tanka about two (?) years of living dangerously. 

Selected Poems:

dark emptiness

of tree-lined Wuhan streets

my life and dreams

shrink to the size

of a laptop screen

NeverEnding Story, February 26, 2020

coronavirus alert

this urge to touch the face

of  my shadow

First Entry, March 11, 2020

social distancing

the darkness

between winter stars

Haiku Page, 10, 2020

the world smaller

but more distant and colder ...

my gondola glides

through the Grand Canal

in a virus-free dream

Fourth Entry, March 11, 2020 

It is what it is 

"When you believe in God, he will not give you more than you can handle; when infected with doubt during a time of crisis, you should respond by seeking the right answer to your question," the pastor said in a firm, yet affectionate tone as he accompanied me to the parking lot. In the corner of my mind, God's words lingered, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

The following day, in the shadow of this one-hundred-year-old church, I pause to wonder, “Am I as strong in the eyes of God and his mighty power as a true believer?" The path to the church entrance seems long ... and narrow. The pastor starts preaching at this much-anticipated Sunday Service.

spiritual nearing

versus social distancing ...

sitting alone

on a long wooden bench

further away from myself

Fifth Entry, March 15, 2020

Relax, it all will pass ...

this infectious silence

of the American Dream Mall 

Seventh Entry, March 16, 2020

(Note: American Dream is a retail and entertainment complex in the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey, United States, that has over 450 stores and 33ooo parking spaces)

Chinese virus ...

long wait at the iron door

of a gun store

an Asian-looking man sighs,

I just want some peace of mind

Sixteenth Entry, March 31 2020

a war of words

between the US and China ...

quarantined for weeks

my old dog and I

apart ... together

Ribbons, 16:2, Spring/Summer 2020

a tired nurse

opens the bedside window

my friend's voice

flows in with the night breeze

as his mother's eyes close 

Forty-Fourth Entry, May 2 2020

None of us want to be martyrs

hospital window

the Maple Leaf flying

at half-mast

I'm starving. Thirsty. Tired. I wore my N95 mask for ten hours straight. Careful to conserve my #PPE ..., her last tweet has gone viral. Now, this dedicated nurse, a mother of two girls, becomes a dot added to the heat map of covid-19 confirmed cases and deaths.

Haiku Canada Review, 14:2, 2020

at the briefing

the photogenic PM's mouth

opens and closes ...

a nursing home silhouetted

against the sunset sky

Fifty-Eighth Entry, May 15 2020

a food bank lineup

curls around the street corner

the silence

of my friend looking at the ground

and me staring at the sky

Sixty-Fourth Entry, May 19 2020

 

Despite Covid-19

No one could stop 90-year-old Sam from seeing his dying wife, Jo, one final time. His eyes were fixed on her pale face for hours, their fingers interlocked. The virus claimed her life one day after his visit. And a week later, Sam followed her into everlasting rest.

Surrounded by jostling reporters and photographers, Sam's eldest son tried hard to answer a reporter's question in a steady voice, Your mother is my love. I don't regret it for one second. I say . . . I say goodbye and hold her hands for one more time. These ... these are my father's last words.

another dot
added to the heat map
of covid-19 . . .
I remember last summer
the blue expanse in her eyes

I've been acquainted with this Walmart cashier for months, but I've never had a chance (or dared ) to tell her, I like you, or ask her out for coffee. The last time I saw her, she wore a face mask behind the checkout counter. After she gave me the receipt, I said to her in a loud voice, which astonished even me, many thanks for your service to our community during this difficult time.

This hard-working cashier with a sunny disposition might be my Jo, to whom I never said goodbye. Her masked smile, her eyes, and her have a nice day keep my heart from closing in this infectious world.

Ribbons, 16:3, Fall 2020

lemonade stand

the play of light and shadow

on her masked face

tinywords, 20:2, 2020

breezy sunshine

on baseball’s opening day

cutout fans

tinywords, 20:2, 2020

We're Human, All Too Human

house party 

a drunk man stumbles over

his words, just a flu

"I know many are tired of hearing me say that covid19 is not over. Sometimes I'm tired of saying it," the chief medical officer responds to a reporter's question about a possible outbreak.  "The truth is though that covid19 is still here." The graying and silver strands in his hair are more visible at today's briefing.

TV off and lights out ...

what's left of quarantine life 

this skylight

Cattails, October, 2020

                                                                                   to be continued ...

Stay safe and well

Happy Reading

Chen-ou

Cool Announcement: New Release, Wind on the Heath by Naomi Beth Wakan

My Dear Readers:

I'm happy to share with you this exciting news: NeverEnding Story contributor Naomi Beth Wakan  published a new book, Wind on the Heath, a life-spanning collection of haiku, tanka and free verse spans roughly "sixty years of inquisitive thinking and creative writing. The foundation of Wakan's work is her dedication to living an examined life, which Wakan describes in this way: 

Seeking in the darkness

a crack through

which we may glimpse reality."

The poems in Wind on the Heath allow readers to "see the flicker of light showing through the crack. This is poetry to live by."

 

Naomi Beth Wakan is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Nanaimo (2014–16) and the Federation of British Columbia Writer’s Inaugural Honorary Ambassador. She has published over fifty books. Her most recent book of essays, On the Arts, came out in 2020 (Shanti Arts). Her trilogy, The Way of Tanka, The Way of Haiku, and Poetry That Heals was published by Shanti Arts in 2019. Wakan is a member of The League of Canadian Poets, Haiku Canada, and Tanka Canada. She lives on Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada, with her husband, the sculptor Elias Wakan. For more information, read "A Poet's Roving Thoughts: An Interview with Naomi Beth Wakan by Robert Epstein"

 

Selected Haiku and Tanka:

early sunlight 
the gulls etch their shadows 
on the cliff face 

a blanket spread 
under the cherry blossoms 
teens work their iPhones 

end of summer 
pinned to the park notice-board 
a bikini top 

this morning 
an early phone call 
and my life 
commits deeper to the play 
of black words on white paper

my small voice 
struggles its way 
onto the page 
hard to hear it when each moment 

trawls with it past memories

yet one more 
self-help book ... 
another trip 
around myself, another trip 
skirting the edge   

reflections
of anchored small boats ripple
in the lake
I too feel fragmented
when I think of past ventures

we lie together 
like a knight and his lady 
in a tomb effigy ...
only the rise and fall of the covers 
shows we are still of this world 

his tragic crash
headlines for two days
then is displaced
by a campus rape
and life continues

a pile
of detective stories
by my chair
as if solving murders
can help me deal with death

I conclude today's book promotion post with Naomi's view of reading/writing haiku and tanka:

On Reading Issa Each Morning

Every morning, 
as others open their papers 
to the sports page, or 
keep them closed on 
the grim rumors of the day, 
I receive a small, sweet message 
by e-mail; a message 
telling of simple things . . . 
midday naps, the scent of the lotus, 
deer rutting, and mountain rain, 
a sickle moon, a temple bell, 
muddy straw sandals, the beggar’s stove, 
first frost, and slush-splashed robes, 
plum blossom, Buddharupas, 
saké cups, radishes, 
garbage-removers, mosquitoes 
at the eaves, and a cottage door 
crushed by morning glories, 
tumbled down houses, and dogs 
mouthing down rice cakes. 
Only occasionally a bigger mystery 
presents itself for my morning 
consideration, such as 
a samurai’s discarded top knot. 

Writing A Tanka 

Writing a tanka
is like feeling
the breeze coming up
from the shore
on the first day of autumn.
It tells you that
the full blooming of summer
is over—
the seeds sown in spring
are now to be harvested,
and entropy moves center stage
as leaves fall and
stalks rot in the ground.
Yes, writing tanka
is like that.
Like a record of a full life
and the bittersweetness
of knowing that
it must come to an end.

Happy Reading

Chen-ou Liu

A Room of My Own: On Both Sides of the Longest Border

a tanka set written to these shameless politicians

Trump's audio

to find votes in Georgia

gets loud and louder ...

I sort through crumpled balls

of poetry in the bin

FYI: The Washington Post, Jan. 3: "I just want to find 11,780 votes:" In extraordinary hour-long call, Trump pressures Georgia secretary of state to recalculate the vote in his favor.

WE ARE ALL

inthistogether --

one by one

politicians like red bats

fly south in winter darkness

FYI: The red bat, an example of a "long distance migrant," can fly over 600 miles to its winter destination. And to the best of this covidholic's knowledge, Canada, a country with the highest rate of long term care deaths, has the most number of shameless highest-ranking politicians (Federal MPs, Senators and provincial MPPs) "caught" travelling over holidays. For more information, read Here’s A [Growing] List Of Canadian Politicians Caught Travelling Over Holidays, Huffingtonpost, "Politics," Jan. 3

Added: One Hundred Sixty-Ninth Entry, Coronavirus Poetry Diary

for covidsomnia

this cold night offers me help

unsolicited:

a talking raven and the man

in the Oval Office

Cool Announcement: Applause Please by Jack Galmitz

My Dear Friends: 

NeverEnding Story contributor, Jack Galmitz, published a collection of minimalist (haiku-like) poems, Applause Please, "rang[ing] in theme from the social to the psychological values in our lives."

 

About the Author:

 

Jack Galmitz was born in NYC in 1951. He received a Ph.D in English from the University of Buffalo.  He is an Associate of the Haiku Foundation and Contributing Editor at Roadrunner.  His most recent books are Views (Cyberwit.net,2012), a genre study of minimalist poetry, Letters (Lulu Press, 2012), yards & lots (Middle Island Press, 2012; see my in-depth review here), not-zero-sum (Impress 2015) and Takeout (Impress, 2015).  He lives in New York with his wife and stepson.
 

 Selected Poems:

Fireflies

crossing the porch

small talk

In my bureau drawer

a copy of Das Kapital

and a leather glove

A police phalanx

moves backward

a black woman

On the thruway

a black man is pulled over

a coffin is waiting

One Man's Maple Moon: Summer Moonlight Tanka by Sheila Bello

English Original

summer moonlight
slips in through the window ...
alone
I take a sip of wine
while reading Li Po's poem

Sheila Bello


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

夏天的月光
從窗戶溜滑進入 ...
獨自一人
我喝一口酒
並誦讀李白的詩

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

夏天的月光
从窗户溜滑进入 ...
独自一人
我喝一口酒
并诵读李白的


Bio Sketch

Sheila Bello writes haiku, tanka, lyric poetry, flash fiction and creative non-fiction. She lives close to the Scarborough Bluffs in Ontario, Canada. Sheila was born in Trinidad and migrated to Canada in 1972. She is inspired by nature and is an avid gardener.

Special Feature: Coronavirus Poetry Diary, First Month

Diary Entry Zero (of "killing the poet softly" on paper), written in response to Yehuda Amichai's claim:

I've often said that all poetry is political. This is because real poems deal with a human response to reality and politics is part of reality, history in the making.

politically
di-vi-si-ve ...
the Siren sings
to my shadow in a mirror
made of covid19 poetry

Added: Twenty-Seventh Entry, Easter Sunday Service

sunlight
through stained glass windows ...
tomorrow
will worry about itself
echoing in an empty church

FYI: Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:34

Twenty-Eighth Entry, Easter Monday

the priest recites
Therefore do not worry
about tomorrow...
photos of the congregation
attached to wooden benches


My Dear Friends:

Today marks the end of the first  month of the WHO pandemic announcement. Share with you a set of selected poems published during the first month of this coronavirus pandemic:

dark emptiness
of tree-lined Wuhan streets
my life and dreams
shrink to the size
of a laptop screen

shelves wiped clean
of hand sanitizers --
I have a footshake
with my new neighbor
behind his mask

Reality Show Host

just like the flu ...
all eyes on the last pack
of toilet paper

social distancing ...
further and further away
from the President

Relax, it all will pass ...
this infectious silence
of the American Dream Mall 

we're doing great ...
in my virus-free dream
the White House locked down

Note: American Dream is a retail and entertainment complex in the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford,New Jersey, United States, that has over 450 stores and 33ooo parking spaces.

It is what it is

"When you believe in God, he will not give you more than you can handle; when infected with doubt during a time of crisis, you should respond by seeking the right answer to your question," the pastor said in a firm, yet affectionate tone as he accompanied me to the parking lot. In the corner of my mind, God's words lingered, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

The following day, in the shadow of this one-hundred-year-old church, I pause to wonder, “Am I as strong in the eyes of God and his mighty power as a true believer?" The path to the church entrance seems long ... and narrow. The pastor starts preaching at this much-anticipated Sunday Service.

spiritual nearing
versus social distancing ...
sitting alone
on a long wooden bench
further away from myself

for Rick Grimes who cries out in a storm, "Rest in peace. Now get up. and go to war," The Walking Dead, Season 5

Chinese virus ...
in my infectious dream
the White House
toppled by the army
of the walking dead

the world smaller
but more distant and colder ...
my gondola glides
through the Grand Canal
in a virus-free dream

the cathedral
silhouetted against gray sky
an old man
reads through ten full pages
of obituaries

moonlight
floods empty alleys ...
one Italian
singing to another
on Juliet balconies 

100 more
coronavirus deaths --

the lineup curls
around the parking lot
of a gun megastore

refrigerated trucks

outside a hospital

an old man

under the shadowy gaze

of the Empire State Building

balcony workout

a side-glance at the ring of bruises

on my neighbor's neck 

Good Friday night

punctuated by sirens --

in my dream

a man on the road to Damascus 

wears the crown of thorns

morning chill
the sound of an empty
St. Peter's Square

One Man's Maple Moon: Last Day of the Year Tanka by Sonam Chhoki

English Original

last day of the year
poems I could have written ...
a bulbul follows
drifting leaves
to the stone cairn

Skylark, 1, 2013

Sonam Chhoki


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

一年的最後一天
我本來可以寫詩 ...
一隻夜鶯尾隨
漂流的葉子
來到紀念石碑之處

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

一年的最后一天
我本来可以写诗 ...
一只夜莺尾随
漂流的叶子
来到纪念石碑之处


Bio Sketch

Sonam Chhoki finds the Japanese short form poetry resonates with her Tibetan Buddhist upbringing.  She is inspired by her father, Sonam Gyamtsho, the architect of Bhutan's non-monastic modern education and by her mother, Chhoden Jangmu, who taught her: “Being a girl doesn’t mean you can’t do anything.” She is the principal editor, and co-editor of haibun for the United Haiku and Tanka Society journal, cattails.

One Man's Maple Moon: Numbers and Poetry Tanka by Marian Olson

English Original

in a world
that baffles us both
we travel side by side
he with his numbers
I with my poetry

The Right Touch of Sun, 2017

Marian Olson


Chinese Translation (Traditional)

住在一個讓我們倆人
都感到困惑的世界裡
我們肩並肩遊歷
他解讀他的數字
我吟詠我的詩歌

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

住在一个让我们俩人
都感到困惑的世界里
我们肩并肩游历
他解读他的数字
我吟咏我的诗歌


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 Yard, Desert Hours, Consider This, and Moondance.  Published in 2017, The Other and Kaleidoscope were her first books of tanka.

A Room of My Own: Browning Edges Haiku

browning edges
of my poetry manuscript
autumn deepens

Note: This haiku is a sequel to the following poem:

one coffee ring
joins another ...
returned manuscript

Revision, A Hundred Gourds, 5:1, December 2015

Chen-ou Liu