140 characters = rebirth of haiku!

With facebook, tweeter,
Who has time to hand write on
Paper anymore?

Enjoying On Point
Along with the Appealing,
voice of Tom Ashbrook.

Bristol, CT

Adam Curtis
The Trap, Century of the Self,
Nightmares, all deserve study.

I enjoy Frogpond
…will have to check out tinywords

Haiku for winter birds:


passerine birds call.

along borderline fences

crow black silhouettes

——————–






sparrows’ wings glisten.

on blue juniper berries

crystalline snow mounds

© 2010

Am where to about 22°E LON 50°N LAT

something as hokku
starting to be haiku
just while at moment

Any idiot can write haiku you must stop on the seventeenth syllab.

Not my creation but it is how I remember what is haiku.
Limited space is useful in creating a self editor.
Sometimes less is really much more.

From a Tennessean trying to make the best of the snow…

Blanketed in white
Quiet time to sit and think
Snow meditation

–Virginia Roberson, Nashville

stripping for the cold
as we amass adornments
trees so unlike us

Winter Haiku

Quiet holiday,
wrapped in simple snow paper,
with neat, taped edges.

Some geeky haiku:

“Who was Captain Kirk?”
Such a question from children
I blame the parents

Hi. I’m the creator of a few pieces of software having to do with words, including http://www.wordle.net/ . I just wanted to point you to a couple of haiku-related online toys I’ve made. the first seeks unintentional haikus in tweets:

http://mrfeinberg.com/twaiku

The other allows you to find unintentional haikus in any text you happen to lay hands on:

http://mrfeinberg.com/haikufinder

I acknowledge that these toys don’t really find haikus per se, but they do find chunks of text matching certain syllabic patterns. Maybe one or two of them do make legitimate haikus!

I was reading a very depressing story in the Nation magazine by Chris Hedges about Camden NJ. He conclude the story with a Haiku by Nicholas Virgilio a Camden native.

I read it and almost couldn’t breathe. It summed up Camden’s despair in 12 words

the sack of kittens
sinking in the icy stream
increases the cold

I love this website of Unemployment Haiku’s! They come with a visual.

http://unemploymenthaikuweekly.com/

Here’s one:
You’re Wrong Loverboy
Everyone is not working
For the weekend, dude

Pure Gold!!!
~Alecia

winter zendo -
a fly is first
to awaken

snow-thatched pine -
at peace with itself
and the snow

dead hamster -
my son invents
a religion

GREAT SHOW! So glad haiku and its poets are being highlighted today. Thank you! George Dorsty

oops — I’m in Fletcher, Vermont

Clair

Here’s one of mine that was published in Frogpond XXIX:3, Fall 2006; reprinted in big sky: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2006:

he speaks of her
in the present tense
frost on the vodka bottle

And this appeared in TinyWords.com, July 26, 2007:

carp feeding—
the stars shiver
but escape

Dear Tom
My humble response to the tragedy in Tucson

Turn off noisy vacuum
Create children laughter

Blizzard kills power * Disconnected from the net * I go to Standby

(I’m from Cambridge)

Haikus are hard / And sometimes they don’t make sense / Refrigerator

crows call,
white birchbark
having fallen

Michael Nickels-Wisdom
Spring Grove, Illinois

My twitter haiku from long ago

My twitter haiku
Pee in community pool
Is this my who glue

Will from Somerville, Mass.

Here is a classic ancient Japanese Haiku:

Barn’s burnt
down…now I can
see the moon.

Massahide

And a slightly more contemporary haiku from “Haikus for Jews,” by David Bader:

Wet moss on the old
stone path- flat on my back,I
ponder whom to sue.

Cat walking on snow
Paws unused to ice
Where is bareground
All crisp white

Glen Beck, Michael Moore
with moral indignation
shut up and go home

Muhammad Ali:
No megalomaniac
He /was/ the greatest

A snow haiku I posted last night on the Boston Globe snow haiku section…which has quite a collection today.

Why the rush to clear
It’s our only chance to stare
at white winter peace

Beth, Brookline, MA

Fowl Meadow

Six blue heron mimes
compete for summer marsh frogs
True performance art

from Canton, MA

my haiku—

microphone hanging over my head,
i turn and murmur
into my sleeve.

Speaking of “found haiku”, here are some from the recent WikiLeaks:

http://haikuleaks.tetalab.org/

Eric
Somerville, MA

I did not notices/ The wind until/The water surface quivered.

Words drift down like snow
And blanket the trees with sound.
Where is the path I trod?

The short, topical haiku:

Wet snow
Shovel drive
Chiropractor

Harkness haiku

East garden snow drifts
My icy hands, your jacket-
Aeolus whispers

Don’t have the complete reference, but:

Kobayashi Issa, a great practitioner of the haiku form, approached the new year with a sense of humility and reverence:

New Year’s Day–
everything is in blossom!
I feel about average.

Great new children’s book — Guyku by Bob Raczka and Peter H. Reynolds — a year of haiku for boys, encouraging creativity and self expression through the art of haiku…check it out!

Chilled to the marrow
By winter’s icy fingers,
Pity the sparrow.

snow day, house bound, yes!
the radio is my muse
i heart tom ashbrook

I’m from Vermont… the Moonlight in VErmont mention reminded me of Vermont Arts Day at the statehouse… there was a poet running around the building, every 15 minutes, he would pop into a room or lobbys, ringing a bell and announcing “Haiku on the 15′s” and then would recite a poem.

He is the one who shared with me his trick for teaching Haiku to children… teach them the tune to Moonlight in Vermont, if your poem fits to that melody – it is in Haiku rhythm.

It is a funny coincidence and funnier yet that this was the second reference to Moonlight in Vermont and Haiku on NPR today. This morning there was an piece about Margaret Whiting (1940′s singer who recently died – she first recorded Moonlight in Vermont) and they mentioned that Moonlight in Vermont was an odd song because it didn’t rhyme and was made up of Haiku

Thanks for your variety…
-Kelly in Vermont

Need to buy new pants,
My Mom calls them dungarees,
That’s not a brand name.

I miss snow day fun
but now I just want to work
unemployment blues

I am remembering a short verse by Antonio Machado, the Spanish poet, that I believe fits the Haiku form

The eye you see
is not eye because you see it
it is eye because it sees you

It made a great impression on me as a child and whenever I hear a Haiku, it comes back to mind

sensei Belichick
affable student Rex Ryan
exam Sunday night

I am a children’s librarian at the Newton Free Library, where I do poetry writing workshops for children. One of our favorite forms is haiku! It is easy for me, so I have now stated tweeting weekly haikus on the library twitter account. You can follow me at newtonfreelib

Here is one example:

Blankets of snow cream,
Mixed with prickly icicles.
Library roof licks.

-Jean Holmblad

A Haiku dedicated to Michael Pollan who is my hero:

Won’t eat processed foods
Most of the good stuff removed
Junk goes in- NO THANKS!

January 12 morning haiku

fat snow drifts
eggs and sausage sizzle
hairless killer leers from paper

The tree outside my window
Heavy with snow
Raps at my window now

A “haiku” I wrote in Mrs. Burgett’s wonderful second grade class at Duffy Elementary School, circa 1962:

April dribbles, the bunny nibbles
And summer is somewhere hidden.

Great program. Thank you!

A bit of sychophancy……

On Point
Learning of the world
Perfect morning

From Vermont….

Years ago, my daughter, Elizabeth had to do a project for math. She had to make a cardboard construction of a polyhedron and then WRITE about it…
“How do you write about math!!! yuck”, she complaind.

She constructed a polyhedron that is one step up from a dodecahedron. I forget what it is called but the name had 5 SYLLABLES!! I forget how many sides it had… but lets say 36. So she created 36 haiku poems about it, or about making it, or how stupid it was to have to *write* about math.

Those 36 poems were her written portion of the project. She had the entire family giving her ideas. Many of them were pretty bad,but it was fun.

Kelly in Vermont

my answer for the frustrated poet:

What holds up the ice
Mothers answer falls like snow
Winter holds it up

true. one of my students’

First time in six years
Now twelve I saw my mother
Click. On facebook. Click

TOM: too modest for flattery.

WHERE can the praise go?

Into the flight of OUR minds!

Loverboy
Lovertoy
Lovercoy
Loverploy
and still she waits
Loverjoy



Massachusettes snow . . .

Homes without power? About

Seventy thousand.

      

Haiku, brief as it is in terms of words, syllables and sounds, nonetheless requires a great length of attention, a great depthl of receptivity to the both inner and outer worlds (and may demonstrate a deep connection between them). It is a requirement of both writer and reader.

While it is a good thing that those who write tweets and other instant messages may discover this mostly trivialized art, the danger is that brevity and speed will be confused with the spontaneity that attention and hard work makes possible, and thus perpetuate the trivial, clever and one-dimensional haiku one finds all too often on the net and elsewhere.

That said, the show was very enjoyable, and Tom’s enthusiasm may ripple, one hopes, to fertile shores.

Unhinged, a thought creeps
Into shape, nihilism in its wake.
Cocoon now gone, spirit free.

That’s about the fragmentary nature of haiku, whether it registers deeper resonance between inner world, outer world, or whether it catches effluvia that nonetheless matter, though perhaps as dead as a nail clipping.

Hairs on a brush, lifted prints.
Dipping into ocean swells, poets snag
At edges almost lost.

Cold Snow on windows Hearty soup cooks in crock pit Hot dinner tonight

from Dayville CT after our big snow:

finally bird song
snow just keeps on coming
silently…..

I listened on my way home. Here is what I came home to:

Head and tail
No squirrel in between
Lunch for cat

Banners flair
armor’s glare
trumpets blare
rata tat tat
neural vapor, crimson mist

She complains it’s cold
I agree; however
Who likes to sweat?

On the way home from church tonight I heard the program on Haiku. I loved the creativity of this little tool. Then it hit me. Why not write a Haiku on the key truth from my Bible study? as a pastor, it would help me focus the truths I’m trying to teach by limiting my purpose to these 17 syllables.

So here’s my first.

“Adam and Eve”

Seeing fruit reminds
That God’s instructions are clear.
Nonnegotiable.



Sparkling works of art

Floating, flying, and soaring,

Softly kiss the earth.



Was happy all day

Since On Point’s haiku program.

More “feel good” shows, please.



Snowflakes are swarming,

Hot buttered rum so warming.

Rage on, mad blizzard!



sullen hemlock
unseen snow
star crusted hedges
icicle toes

Beverly, I’ve been checking back too, thinking the haiku format encapsulates the best of how the visitors/ commenters at this forum tend to create our chorus (such as it is) ANYWAY. But it requires just enough shift that it would take a week or so, or month or so, to get properly in tune.
I nominate you first violin. You are awesome.

Sorry I’m not in haiku mode yet.
Sun too bright behind the lacy drape.
Favorite tea, Scottish; Dublin will do.

Haiku is an amazing art. So few words, yet prompting emotion in a reader.

This haiku was in response to a library janitor losing his sister, and I’d also like to dedicate this haiku, and the following haiku to those who lost loved ones in Tucson, Arizona.

harvest moon
the death of a friend’s sister
a lost jigsaw piece

Alan Summers
Asahi Shimbun (2010)

the rain
almost a friend
this funeral

Alan Summers
Azami No.28, Japan (1995)

And one more that’s lighter in its subject:

another hot day
a leaking water pipe stopped
by the jackdaw’s beak

Alan Summers
Honourable Mention,
14th Mainichi Haiku Contest (Japan 2010)

all my best,

Alan, With Words
Bradford on Avon
Wiltshire, England U.K.

Snow falls, schools close. With
Parents home, economy slows.
Government buy salt?

Maybe there needs to be more Haiku in political discourse!

TOM

NICE TO HAVE BEEN INCLUDED IN THE HAIKU SHOW

AS A THANK YOU SOME OF MY OTHER HAIKU BELOW

FEEL FREE TO E MAIL ME AT 1ELMARKO@COMCAST.NET

ED MARKOWSKI
*****************************************************

PEACE ARRIVES
BOOTS MARCH ON
WITHOUT THEIR FEET

35 YEARS OF PEACE
SUNLIGHT AND SILENCE COLLIDE
IN A DEFOLIATED JUNGLE

CONFETTI
IMPOSSIBLE PROMISES SPILL
FROM THE CANDIDATE’S MOUTH

EASTER
SUNDAY

IN
THE
SILENCE

BETWEEN
CHURCH
BELLS

A
SATURDAY
NIGHT
SPECIAL

BARKS
TWICE

REFLECTING POND FACE TO FACE WITH A BOTTOM FEEDER

MOON SHADOWS
A RABBIT POPS OUT
OF THE SNOWMAN’S TOP HAT

INFIELD GRASS THE WILD SCENT OF THE WOMAN WHO BOOED ME

FALLING STAR
A BASEBALL BAT SPLINTERS INTO
COUNTLESS PIECES

SULTRY NIGHT THE THIN WHITE STRIPES LEFT BY HER

SPAGHETTI STRAPS



Casket of Red Oak

Made by monks in Iowa.

Goodbye, Christina.

Alan Summers in England, I looked at your web site, and it strikes me that something about haiku is as natural as breathing; it cuts like a dream to the heart of the matter, and should be used more as a kind of handshake among people in the course of discussion.
So thanks for honoring our political events here, and for noticing from so far away, but I think we need these skills in advancing a “civil and honest” dialogue, however Obama phrased it, and since I know the Congress will not graduate into this mode, I resolve this year to try to condense my points here at OnPoint into a haiku as a kind of sign-off. The haiku would point to the point made, provide a separate perspective to move it into at least two dimensions, particularize it and add a sense (sight, smell, touch…); it would humanize the point, no matter how vigorously advanced.
The prize would be advancing your perspective, honing your voice, which is about as good as it gets in terms of rewards. Dare we expect Alan would notice or participate? Who knows. But everyone says that the world has to learn to think with one mind, function as a global democracy of sorts.

American tries
To write haiku but does not
Count his syllables.

It’s an easy rule.
Seventeen syllables, three
Lines, five seven five.

ELLEN DIBBLE,

Sorry! Very recently came back here to catch up, & curl up.

Then sent a reply to you, that explained all. It didn’t go through.

Last weekend, had no end of trouble, & the same thing happened moments ago. After what seems like hours of typing, things just vanish!

Will turn the phone off now. After a rest, it might be back to its old self. Me, too.

Goodnight. Sleep well, all.

  

Re the old urban myth that haiku is 17 syllables only really relates to Japanese haiku.

Japanese haiku aren’t syllables, and also their punctuation like period and comma, are used as words not symbols such as :;.,- …

So a Japanese haiku, if you took away the punctuation words, could be 14-16 Japanese sound units measured by “on” or “moji”.

Can you count the syllables in my haiku?

Here it is:
屋根裏に スズメバチの巣　丸くあり

Published by Yomiuri Shimbun Go-Shichi-Go On-Line feature Language Lab, Tokyo, Japan (2005)

Alan
Bradford on Avon
Wiltshire, England, U.K.
http://www.withwords.org.uk/results.html

Printed out wiki on waka
Also Chinese shi. Quiet bomb in sizzling brain.
Could not, could not sleep.

(So much to consider here; mystery to me why I think millennia of use of poetry in these ancient cultures was decorative, equivalent to the models on runways demonstrating modern style, interesting but not useful. And now I’m thinking it is not only useful but necessary. Thanks, Eiko, for weighing in.

Alan, too. I see where you are located, near Trowbridge, near Salisbury. Nice to have an address in proper meter.

Alan, if you mean that Japanese punctuation has separate characters, that’s one thing. I can’t read Japanese characters. If Japanese punctuation is “counted” as a “sound” (sohn, or however you say it), that’s new to me but it makes sense. I think Americans who have heard haiku recognize it by the twist that is the distinctive shift, the “punctuation” between one perspective and another. And that can’t be achieved just by counting syllables.
However, in order to achieve the condensation and the dynamic stasis of the haiku, I think that punctuation turn is needed (for the purposes I have in mind).
The idea that the reader holds the key, as you depict, targets the reader in a certain way.
My reading of the idea that the haiku’s completion requires the reading of it is not that there is secret knowledge, but rather that a haiku could be read many different ways by many different people. You don’t “blame” someone for extracting a different meaning. The kind of haiku I envision can be unwrapped like an onion, with many levels, and some invisible to some, some invisible to others.
Thus, someone who counts syllable, refers to a season, and enjoys summoning a sensory impression — that and nothing else — would be shifting to the handshake and bow (the exchange of personal regards and personal respect) whether or not any particular poetic rule was complied with.
It is interesting to me to read the history of this form. I would need to know a lot more about the way chains of such poems, with the meaning of each tagged onto the meaning of what the next person writes, for example, how that was used. It sounds like a parlor game called “Telephone” or “Telegraph” where children whisper to each other and slyly morph the message as it goes around. Or story magic where everyone adds a sentence.
The difference between the exercise in formality that haiku can display and the exercise in on-line dialogue that is beginning to go on globally is maybe not that transparent. People have tried to post haikus to OnPoint forum threads for years. Have posted. They don’t seem to shift the tone of the discussion or that sort of thing. It is my theory that the principles within the logic of the haiku can be worked into the online dialogue more invisibly. If it IS visible, it has to be clear about how it means to “turn” the discussion. It can be clear without looking like a poem, but it probably will look, in pieces, rather like a haiku poem.
If someone wanted to see that at work in this week’s Week in Review OnPoint forum, I don’t know what you’d find. I just threw myself at it. The principles of rooting in season/place/specifics, and/or humor as to human nature, that seems necessary to ongoing dialogue. The principles of punctuation, of examples of turning, shifting of perspective — I call it trope, after the Greek tropic, or turning — how can that NOT be part of a conversation. That there are many ways that can be done is rarely part of a conversation. Instead, one is more often determined to be totally unbending. However, the examples of changing angles can be insinuated into the dialogue.
That’s how I think about it. I try to find which of the people posting are using those things, and look to take advantage of those. How? Oh, if one trombone-like posting is way, way off key, one notices which one manages to turn that into a tone out of the ballet Petrouschka by Stravinsky. One can notice who plays the piccolo and how that affects the rest.
That sort of thing.

With the mind of a five year old,
“Winter holds up the ice.”,
of course!

…have been enjoying the conversation among Ellen, Alan and eiko! Ellen, you have provided the kindling for some interesting sparks catching in my mind. Allan, your posts, and eiko’s, give me much insight.

To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson (when he was asked about his skill in gardening) to describe my feeling about my own poetry: I am getting to be an old man yet still am a very young poet.

Regarding haiku: I’m a complete neophyte. I hope someday to see writing haiku as less a delightful challenge or exercise and more a preferred form of expression. In general, in my own poetry, I see any attention toward syllables that I might have as rhythm, and the sounds of the words (in terms of consonants and vowels) as melody/harmony; the meaning of the words/phrases as images/moods.

When I consider my intentions for meaning to be derived from my “long poems,” in some of my poems I very much wish to direct the reader toward my intended meaning; in others, I wish to have the reader interpret in his/her own way. I wish to present images and “music” that, while having something universal, have enough abstraction and duality of meaning to be interpreted in different ways and on different levels. The same, hopefully, is true of the songs I write.

Here’s another haiku written last month (as were my others posted here on January 12th in early morning:

ring out solstice bells,
winter’s yuletide benchmark chimes,
laments autumn’s toll

…am very curious about renga/renku

Hi, Brett. Others.
I’m thinking the haiku spirit/method that has captivated my mind, making me feel less alone in my intentions in the threads at OnPoint (pseudo renga?) is the way it proceeds opposite to the American version of “going at it.” Here we get more and more loud and pointed (more and more like Tom Friedman? more and more like some fulminating right-wing talking radio-head?), more and more sword/bullet-like, basically more oppositional and more impatient, more violent, less accommodating, less attuned to the other.
And in the last analysis, one has descended into not being able to hear the other at all, into a wall of insistence pitted with the full fury of the individual, a “voice in the wilderness,” to use a biblical phrase. If you want an example, consider the melt-down of the individual in Tucson. Schizophrenic madness.
Behold the head, of reason shorn,
How he chants. The path well-worn
To this apotheosis of our kind.

Law enforcement seem to concur, this kind of melt-down is not all that exceptional. I’m thinking it may be a superhighway for Americans, paved by decades of deteriorating public discourse.
Haiku, here we come. Where meaning is only really shared when it is reached for, held, the outstretched hand of the gesture now waving hi, not waving see-my-flag-I’m-in-charge.
And where each speaker, in what I’ll call true democratic spirit, even while asserting one perspective, one experience, is opening the door for reception of the next angle, the next person’s voice.
I have an easier time thinking in terms of music jointly made, having heard orchestras and bands, observing them either improvising or recreating great music. But online, we use words.
I can’t get enough of the idea, but for me my efforts will be more toward the voices I hear online everyday than taking onboard the entire corpus of haiku poetry. It’s there as a reference point.
It is a caution that I find German music and poetry and philosophy that existed in the 19th century before the World Wars of the 20th century to be sublime, but then how ironic that a culture of war came out of that. So with Japanese haiku, I think how ironic that such collaborative sense of culture could have sprung such a warlike early 20th century. Or maybe it wasn’t so collaborative, but rather an elitist aesthetic that was not the common currency of discourse in Japan. What is it now? Actually CAN it be turned from a unicorn into a poodle, from a white tiger into a house pet. Can the American pit bull of shouting down the opponent evolve into the barbershop quartet?

Brett and Ellen,
We all share the reality of this politicized world
(I am afraid Japan is no exception… )

But we all
should be able to do something about it with our love of language.
Ellen’s line of thinking reminded me of Basho’s teaching:

Takaku kokoro o satorite, zoku ni kaeru beshi

(when you write haiku)Spirit should be held aloft, yet return to the everyday life of ordinary people)

eiko

as pollens on breeze
whimzical in the moonlight
first snow flurries

Unlike my area, heavy snowfall is covering many parts of Japan this week.

We’ve got Japanese and English haiku in this thread, and I’m thinking maybe there are haiku in dozens of other languages, each with their separate strengths. Does an English haiku writer learn Japanese in order to compete in Japanese haiku contests? And vice versa… My thinking is that no poetry translates well. If you really want the taste of it you need to know the language and live in the culture. On the other hand, the way the poem affects us can be taught, the way yoga or figure skating can be taught.
??

Alan, Eiko, Beverly, Luke, I posted a couple of haiku today in the second hour (about the Military Industrial Complex), and it seems to be “working,” so I’ll continue. I’ll use the word haiku somewhere in the post; in case someone wants to look for those, they can search that word. Maybe Beverly or others will do the same. And I guess we can find this thread here as well (to discuss how that works) by searching “haiku.”

Here, just one more:

winter encroaches.
moribund flowers divest
once burgeoning blooms

A friend of mine posted a photo of a Somerville street on Facebook during the very snow storm when this program aired, and having listened to it while driving to work at snail’s pace I came up with the following. It is on the shorter side of allowed, admittedly:

Winter feathers
Slowly swirl down
White on black

Masters, does it pass the muster with fewer syllables?

“So it takes me to a haiku-type place: stirred in imagination, and intellect, touched emotionally and sensory-wise, but gently.”

What a wonderful way to sum up the experience of reading/writing haiku.

Sorry for the double post of the same haiku but the first did not show up after sent; it hadn’t at least twenty minutes later! Not sure what ghosts are in the machine today?!?

Ellen,
This morning, when my first post didn’t show up, I wondered what had happened (it appears to have been just a glitch of some sort after all); and, as I tried to re-submit (getting the “sorry, duplicate comment” warning), I realized that the post was somewhere in the ether of transmission. I began to think it is likely this particular comment section will close down at some point. As you say, moderators can’t monitor forever…

I like the idea of building consensus being a kind of dance, and I also like the idea of building on the ideas of others being like adding to the process of building a renga/renku. I believe what is needed are working models where readers can see the process in action and say, “ah, I see what they are doing, and I want to contribute.” We benefit from modeling in learning to dance, for example (to perpetuate that metaphor). I have been thinking about how to really concretely illustrate/implement that approach without either seeming to deviate so much from what is expected in discussion forums or seeming to follow some sort of scripted foreign form. I’ve yet to conceptualize these ideas enough to to satisfy myself to say, ” “ah, I see how to best do that.”



Sheer winter magic

Unparalleled artistry

Dear old friend, Jack Frost





Crackling seen and heard,

Still thought we’d be safe. Uh-oh!

Don’t skate on thin ice.

George Swede is a talented haiku writer, mover and shaker.

Yet Boston Haiku Society leaders are upset that they were not invited to speak…

I do not belong to them but I heard that haibun and Roberta Beary were mentioned.

Here is my haibun devoted to her book:

Tenri Institute-Union Square.

A Chinese bus from Boston to New York City was hermetically sealed and efficiently heated. The hi-tech air inside was dead.
Outside crispness, sun-soaked and full of nippy negative ions, was just behind the thin pane of glass. Autumn haikus were not to be born at this moving gas chamber.
To alleviate my panic attack, I started to check out trucks, cars and SUVs on the parallel lane. Some drivers kept their windows open and some did not. I was musing about the wide range of people’s preferences, about that initial wrinkle on the homogeneity of the super dense singularity which brought us into our struggle to survive and keep hope.
Yet the jail-like ride came to its end and we found ourselves hauling our luggage on wheels along Bowery. The grand opening of a new museum was taking place behind huge windows. We paused. Invitees were receiving gifts in elegant bags. But there was no time to crush the party.
When we resumed our rush to the hotel, Shabbat was flying towards the East Village. Counting the remaining streets, I used my electric shaver on the go. In the din of the Little Italy nobody paid attention to my incongruous grooming all the way through Gramercy.

Boston apartment… / Hey, you, clothes moths, /
our woolens in freezer!

The midtown hotel room was worth the money and we opened our cans on the rickety table. After a quick dinner, we, future skeletons, found ourselves marching south on the 5th Avenue to SoHo where the Poets’ House was to be discovered on the 72 Spring Street.
We passed the gallery where books and art were served as dinners… and even noticed the plate adorned with a 5-7-5 mainstream “haiku,” we dropped by the Kimono House and we eyed the small Arch of Triumph on some square. Everything looked flimsy and temporary on that windy night on the cheaply bought island of Manhattan.
The coveted Poets’ House turned out to be just a loft-like room with a couple of computers, a water fountain and, of course, many shelved books. The Stanley Kunitz’s saying, graffitoed on the beige wall, pontificated, “Poets House, it needs to be said, is not a warehouse of past dreams but an ongoing experiment in cultural imagination.” Well, well…I say, “We are–poets included–nothing more than storehouses of memories.” And I add, “Cultural imagination? It is just an endless contest of egos in a Germanic milieu. These egos get dissolved in the hypertext. It is easy to compete with giants of academia using their templates and writing contrarian pieces.”
I quickly found the niche stacked with haiku books. Some compilations were not familiar; I grabbed the anthologies with my creations and scanned my weak triplets. I felt alienated from them already. Did I write them or the American haiku eagles carried me on their wings? Anyway, the ego of mine got jolted-exalted to the point of shame; all the same it was clear to me that nobody was eager to peruse through those boring haibun and senryu. Many poets just didn’t get it–a professionally made book does not guarantee readership or posterity. I fetched one haiku book after another but quickly returned them to shelf. I kept on my only one book–Six Directions: Haiku and Field Notes.
By Jim Kacian.
Honest, I license this guy to write haiku! Jim “is among a handful of truly excellent haiku poets in English ( Www .ijyume.com/blog2 FISH JAPAN.htm.) Somehow his poems percolated very quickly to haiku communities around the world:

the river
the river makes
of the moon

old lovers–
only her left nipple
becomes erect

The above one is from the Erotic Haiku anthology made in Japan.

It turned out that we were the last visitors to the Poets House at that hour and location. It closed its doors forever that very night! So, unbeknown to the whole mankind, some history was made.
On our way back north, we schlepped through the New York University compound, Greenwich Village and Chelsea. We passed the Macy’s windows and the army recruitment center at the nexus of Times Square. The Empire State Building spire glittered above the capital of the world.

moire shift / of luminous colors / the soap bubble

On the next day we walked to the Tenri Institute where haiku poets had their regional meeting. The first one to show up was Cor van den Heuvel. He brought his new book Baseball Haiku for sale. The major publisher listed it at high price.
I hooked up with Roberta Beary. (The wrong verb, pal, I just ninja-approached her.)

with me in one hand
and belt in another
my father sings lullaby

I included this comical three line memoir in my paper on humorous haiku and I was keen on reading her much trumpeted collection of haiku and senryu The Unworn Necklace.
There was still a holy Sabbath (money was not permitted) and I decided to barter her smooth slip of a book. One by one, I handed to her our own Boston Haiku Society chap book, a copy of Dasoku Magazine, Kaji Aso Studio’s glossy booklet and my Book of Haibuns. All of them combined were not enough to match her “necklace.” She did not budge.
I gave up leaving all my chips for her as a gift.
We were already on our way out, when–by sheer luck–I fetched Haiku Friends, Volume 2, published by generous Masaharu Hirata (Haru) in Japan.
An Osaka print shop did its best. The cover was glinting with a holographic design.
Roberta glanced at it and handed me her slender treasure complete with an elegant bookmark of Snapshot Press in England.
Penny Harter, Lenard D. Moore and Gabriel Rosenstock wrote their blessings on the jacket’s back adorned with a passport-size portrait of Roberta Beary who managed to get her collection professionally published in 2007.
(ISBN 978-903543-22-1.)
The Unworn Necklace was printed on recyclable natural paper made from wood grown in sustainable forests (ahhh!), pulps used in production were TCF. You know zero about TCF. All right, I disclose this abbreviation for
you right now–it means “Totally Chlorine Free.”
My goodness, Boston tap effluvium is chlorinated to the hilt but those Brits in Liverpool made a gem of a book using drinkable water.
John Barlow himself has edited its contents. One haiku is per one high grade page. (I recall how I “invented” linear haiku and squeezed forty of them on one leaf of paper complete with a copyright, some cryptic cover and calligraphy. It cost me 10 cents to produce, it was always in print and I gave hundreds of copies away. I gave one to Ms. Beary, too, with words, “It’s easy to recycle, if you don’t like it, Roberta.”)
Roberta’s book contains seventy haiku and/or senryu. The first one has a Jim Kacian’s quality to it:

the empty place
inside me
…wild lupine.

The ellipsis location (American real estate motto is “Location, location, location!”) smote me. It is not an accident, it is a trailblazing technique!
And lupine, why lupine? We are lucky to see this plant like first love only once per person, per lifetime. For me lupine flowers are blue but they may vary…
Lupine…grass of wolves…ravenous prairie…then this lupus.
I caress the suave page 16 with its

white lie
the mirror doubles
the white chrysanthemum.

What’s going on? Two mums or two-part mirror? And then–boom!–”white lie”. It’s a courtroom kigo in a lawyerly lingo. Ms. Beary “explains it to us or she gives us an explanation.” You decide. As for me, the imperial Japanese symbol flower is framed.
The following “pivot haiku” attracted my attention:

the sound of the name
I used to have
soft falling snow.

Roberta counts on lines as dividers to allow us to have a sensation; to say “I used to have soft falling snow” is so incongruous that I must acknowledge that this seemingly kakekotoba (pivot word) haiku works fine.

blackout–
my son speaks a secret
I always knew

Not bad at all, all lines are in cohesion. (The Soviet boy scouts’ camp tents after the night bugle sound, such a confidence between guys in darkness…)

snowfall
his fingers slowly
unbutton me
(p.53.)

I glance on the adjacent page and lift from it another first line “autumn breeze.”
autumn breeze / his fingers slowly / unbutton me
Brrr! I imagine goose skin on his torso, goose skin on her breasts.
But what if I attach the upper line “last train” from p.71?
last train / his fingers slowly / unbutton me
Tension, expansion and pure senryu quality ensue.
Since I am already a haiku hooligan, I want to try “laundry day” from page 29. A laughing Vitamin K is guaranteed.

laundry day / his fingers slowly / unbutton me

But humor aside, what do we get from it?
Dig the following. Roberta’s haiku may be transformed into two liners which may be conjured as three liners in their turn:

his fingers / slowly / unbutton me.

On p.34 a bit of intuition is displayed:

waiting for him,
to tell me
what I already know.

It smacks as a phrase from a romance novel. Truly, it is hard to be original in our genre. I just omitted the first line consisting of one word “heatwave” and subdivided the second line in two to present this fragment in a haiku shape and form. Let’s ponder the connection between the heatwave and the premonition of the old news. It works. The author is successfully haikufying a tiny fragment of love story.

I eye page 26 haiku and “white-out” its first line. I am left with

your hand
in my pocket.

This mini poem is catchy. What do we gain by “early spring walk” as a decapitated first line? We lose the ageku quality. (Ageku is an ending strophe of the haikai genre of renku.)
In the haiku, prior to its execution there was a word “walk”, it was good. Do we need “early spring”? Yes and no. Yes, because of the allusion to love season. No, because a hand may slide in a pocket during winter walks too. Well, the deconstruction reaches its limits.
I used the haiku on p.29 harvesting its first line “laundry day” for my above exercise. What was left after this surgery?

rain becoming snow
becoming rain

(This observation reminds me the John Stevenson’s technique to write terse haiku which are much shorter than 5-7-5 syllables.) Roberta Beary’s shortened haiku stands alone just fine.
The outstanding senryu is

family picnic
the new wife’s rump
bigger than mine.

The weakest haiku is

another summer over-
red dahlias
fill a vase.

I would’ve dropped such a commonplace senryu–

his death notice…
the get-well card
still in my briefcase.

I saw such personal attachments before in many poetry collections by accomplished haikuists.
Roberta informs us

morning fog
my father asks me
who I am.

At first this one struck me as a somewhat contrived one. Why not to senryufy this haiku by simply stating

my father/asks me/who I am?

But recalling Roberta’s “lullaby” senryu I change my mind.
In spite of my complicated feelings towards lawyers and a steep exchange price towards ownership of this perfect bound manuscript I enjoy Roberta Beary’s book, its jacket (clothes) is done well.
Its contents is high in humor and cross-examination.
Roberta Beary can be rightfully called a haiku esquire.

Pro Se.
(A Mini Haibun for Roberta.)

An airy room in the architecturally sound building with good climate control.
“Your Honor,
I make only twenty dollars an hour. How can I afford an attorney who charges $250 an hour? How can I receive justice?”
The patient Judge repeats third time “Get a lawyer!”

a new court building–
bold statements of fairness
engraved outside only.

Zinovy Vayman

Book of Haibuns.
By Z. Vayman.
2003
Suseki Publishing.
Boston, USA.

Available by contacting susekipublishing@ yahoo.com
Tenri Institute-Union Square.

A Chinese bus from Boston to New York City was hermetically sealed and efficiently heated. The hi-tech air inside was dead.
Outside crispness, sun-soaked and full of nippy negative ions, was just behind the thin pane of glass. Autumn haikus were not to be born at this moving gas chamber.
To alleviate my panic attack, I started to check out trucks, cars and SUVs on the parallel lane. Some drivers kept their windows open and some did not. I was musing about the wide range of people’s preferences, about that initial wrinkle on the homogeneity of the super dense singularity which brought us into our struggle to survive and keep hope.
Yet the jail-like ride came to its end and we found ourselves hauling our luggage on wheels along Bowery. The grand opening of a new museum was taking place behind huge windows. We paused. Invitees were receiving gifts in elegant bags. But there was no time to crush the party.
When we resumed our rush to the hotel, Shabbat was flying towards the East Village. Counting the remaining streets, I used my electric shaver on the go. In the din of the Little Italy nobody paid attention to my incongruous grooming all the way through Gramercy.

Boston apartment… / Hey, you, clothes moths, /
our woolens in freezer!

The midtown hotel room was worth the money and we opened our cans on the rickety table. After a quick dinner, we, future skeletons, found ourselves marching south on the 5th Avenue to SoHo where the Poets’ House was to be discovered on the 72 Spring Street.
We passed the gallery where books and art were served as dinners… and even noticed the plate adorned with a 5-7-5 mainstream “haiku,” we dropped by the Kimono House and we eyed the small Arch of Triumph on some square. Everything looked flimsy and temporary on that windy night on the cheaply bought island of Manhattan.
The coveted Poets’ House turned out to be just a loft-like room with a couple of computers, a water fountain and, of course, many shelved books. The Stanley Kunitz’s saying, graffitoed on the beige wall, pontificated, “Poets House, it needs to be said, is not a warehouse of past dreams but an ongoing experiment in cultural imagination.” Well, well…I say, “We are—poets included—nothing more than storehouses of memories.” And I add, “Cultural imagination? It is just an endless contest of egos in a Germanic milieu. These egos get dissolved in the hypertext. It is easy to compete with giants of academia using their templates and writing contrarian pieces.”
I quickly found the niche stacked with haiku books. Some compilations were not familiar; I grabbed the anthologies with my creations and scanned my weak triplets. I felt alienated from them already. Did I write them or the American haiku eagles carried me on their wings? Anyway, the ego of mine got jolted-exalted to the point of shame; all the same it was clear to me that nobody was eager to peruse through those boring haibun and senryu. Many poets just didn’t get it—a professionally made book does not guarantee readership or posterity. I fetched one haiku book after another but quickly returned them to shelf. I kept on my only one book—Six Directions: Haiku and Field Notes.
By Jim Kacian.
Honest, I license this guy to write haiku! Jim “is among a handful of truly excellent haiku poets in English ( Www .ijyume.com/blog2 FISH JAPAN.htm.) Somehow his poems percolated very quickly to haiku communities around the world:

the river
the river makes
of the moon

old lovers–
only her left nipple
becomes erect.

It turned out that we were the last visitors to the Poets House at that hour and location. It closed its doors forever that very night! So, unbeknown to the whole mankind, some history was made.
On our way back north, we schlepped through the New York University compound, Greenwich Village and Chelsea. We passed the Macy’s windows and the army recruitment center at the nexus of Times Square. The Empire State Building spire glittered above the capital of the world.
moire shift / of luminous colors / the soap bubble
On the next day we walked to the Tenri Institute where haiku poets had their regional meeting. The first one to show up was Cor van den Heuvel. He brought his new book Baseball Haiku for sale. The major publisher listed it at high price.
I hooked up with Roberta Beary. (The wrong verb, pal, I just ninja-approached her.)

with me in one hand
and belt in another
my father sings lullaby

I included this comical three line memoir in my paper on humorous haiku and I was keen on reading her much trumpeted collection of haiku and senryu The Unworn Necklace.
There was still a holy Sabbath (money was not permitted) and I decided to barter her smooth slip of a book. One by one, I handed to her our own Boston Haiku Society chap book, a copy of Dasoku Magazine, Kaji Aso Studio’s glossy booklet and my Book of Haibuns. All of them combined were not enough to match her “necklace.” She did not budge.
I gave up leaving all my chips for her as a gift.
We were already on our way out, when—by sheer luck—I fetched Haiku Friends, Volume 2, published by generous Masaharu Hirata (Haru) in Japan.
An Osaka print shop did its best. The cover was glinting with a holographic design.
Roberta glanced at it and handed me her slender treasure complete with an elegant bookmark of Snapshot Press in England.
Penny Harter, Lenard D. Moore and Gabriel Rosenstock wrote their blessings on the jacket’s back adorned with a passport-size portrait of Roberta Beary who managed to get her collection professionally published in 2007.
(ISBN 978-903543-22-1.)
The Unworn Necklace was printed on recyclable natural paper made from wood grown in sustainable forests (ahhh!), pulps used in production were TCF. You know zero about TCF. All right, I disclose this abbreviation for
you right now—it means “Totally Chlorine Free.”
My goodness, Boston tap effluvium is chlorinated to the hilt but those Brits in Liverpool made a gem of a book using drinkable water.
John Barlow himself has edited its contents. One haiku is per one high grade page. (I recall how I “invented” linear haiku and squeezed forty of them on one leaf of paper complete with a copyright, some cryptic cover and calligraphy. It cost me 10 cents to produce, it was always in print and I gave hundreds of copies away. I gave one to Ms. Beary, too, with words, “It’s easy to recycle, if you don’t like it, Roberta.”)
Roberta’s book contains seventy haiku and/or senryu. The first one has a Jim Kacian’s quality to it:
the empty place
inside me
…wild lupine.

The ellipsis location (American real estate motto is “Location, location, location!”) smote me. It is not an accident, it is a trailblazing technique!
And lupine, why lupine? We are lucky to see this plant like first love only once per person, per lifetime. For me lupine flowers are blue but they may vary…
Lupine…grass of wolves…ravenous prairie…then this lupus.
I caress the suave page 16 with its

white lie
the mirror doubles
the white chrysanthemum.

What’s going on? Two mums or two-part mirror? And then—boom!—”white lie”. It’s a courtroom kigo in a lawyerly lingo. Ms. Beary “explains it to us or she gives us an explanation.” You decide. As for me, the imperial Japanese symbol flower is framed.
The following “pivot haiku” attracted my attention:
the sound of the name
I used to have
soft falling snow.

Roberta counts on lines as dividers to allow us to have a sensation; to say “I used to have soft falling snow” is so incongruous that I must acknowledge that this seemingly kakekotoba (pivot word) haiku works fine.

blackout–
my son speaks a secret
I always knew

Not bad at all, all lines are in cohesion. (The Soviet boy scouts’ camp tents after the night bugle sound, such a confidence between guys in darkness…)

snowfall
his fingers slowly
unbutton me
(p.53.)

I glance on the adjacent page and lift from it another first line “autumn breeze.”
autumn breeze / his fingers slowly / unbutton me
Brrr! I imagine goose skin on his torso, goose skin on her breasts.
But what if I attach the upper line “last train” from p.71?
last train / his fingers slowly / unbutton me
Tension, expansion and pure senryu quality ensue.
Since I am already a haiku hooligan, I want to try “laundry day” from page 29. A laughing Vitamin K is guaranteed.
laundry day / his fingers slowly / unbutton me
But humor aside, what do we get from it?
Dig the following. Roberta’s haiku may be transformed into two liners which may be conjured as three liners in their turn:
his fingers / slowly / unbutton me.

On p.34 a bit of intuition is displayed:

waiting for him,
to tell me
what I already know.

It smacks as a phrase from a romance novel. Truly, it is hard to be original in our genre. I just omitted the first line consisting of one word “heatwave” and subdivided the second line in two to present this fragment in a haiku shape and form. Let’s ponder the connection between the heatwave and the premonition of the old news. It works. The author is successfully haikufying a tiny fragment of love story.

I eye page 26 haiku and “white-out” its first line. I am left with

your hand
in my pocket.

This mini poem is catchy. What do we gain by “early spring walk” as a decapitated first line? We lose the ageku quality. (Ageku is an ending strophe of the haikai genre of renku.)
In the haiku, prior to its execution there was a word “walk”, it was good. Do we need “early spring”? Yes and no. Yes, because of the allusion to love season. No, because a hand may slide in a pocket during winter walks too. Well, the deconstruction reaches its limits.
I used the haiku on p.29 harvesting its first line “laundry day” for my above exercise. What was left after this surgery?

rain becoming snow
becoming rain

(This observation reminds me the John Stevenson’s technique to write terse haiku which are much shorter than 5-7-5 syllables.) Roberta Beary’s shortened haiku stands alone just fine.
The outstanding senryu is

family picnic
the new wife’s rump
bigger than mine.

The weakest haiku is

another summer over-
red dahlias
fill a vase.

I would’ve dropped such a commonplace senryu, though–
his death notice…
the get-well card
still in my briefcase.

I saw such personal attachments before in many poetry collections by accomplished haikuists.
Roberta informs us

morning fog
my father asks me
who I am.

At first this one struck me as a somewhat contrived one. Why not to senryufy this haiku by simply stating

my father/asks me/who I am?

But recalling Roberta’s “lullaby” senryu I change my mind.
In spite of my complicated feelings towards lawyers and a steep exchange price towards ownership of this perfect bound manuscript I enjoy Roberta Beary’s book, its jacket (clothes) is done well.
Its contents is high in humor and cross-examination.
Roberta Beary can be rightfully called a haiku esquire.

Pro Se.
(A Mini Haibun for Roberta.)

An airy room in the architecturally sound building with good climate control.
“Your Honor,
I make only twenty dollars an hour. How can I afford an attorney who charges $250 an hour? How can I receive justice?”
The patient Judge repeats third time “Get a lawyer!”

a new court building–
bold statements of fairness
engraved outside only.

Zinovy Vayman

Book of Haibuns.
By Z. Vayman.
2003
Suseki Publishing.
Boston, USA.

Available by writing to

40 St Stephen St
Boston, MA 02115



Went outside to find

Round depressions in the snow

Where nine deer had slept



The call of a loon

As in the bleak midwinter

Glows a full wolf moon



Icons appear square,

Revealed only by iPhone.

I amuse myself.





Break out the popper,

It’s National Popcorn Day!

Melt lots of butter.



An old English pub

Fireplace blazing all winter

Warm and welcoming





Lock doors securely,

Beware of werewolves afoot . . .

A full moon tonight.





No one else is here,

Have the whole thing to myself . . .

Haiku monologue.



An ancient hiccup art, the haiku dart
strikes with tiny sting a seizing heart.
And in this wing, a neonate starts to sing.

To Beverly

from her dark hip the moon’s curve

ELLEN DIBBLE,
At last! Someone’s here.
It’s good to have company. Welcome back, my friend.

Thank you. Love your haiku.
Just my luck. Bursting with haiku, & nowhere to go. Hubby just came home, (it’s a good thing), so will have to wait til tomorrow to rejoin you. If I’m not here, please start without me. Stuff happens. Maybe the mania will force me to wake during the night, & I can type more haiku, in a stupor. Still have DAYS of reading, before I can catch up here. (I like to wait until I can really savor every one.)

Right now, it’s enough for me to know that this blog is still alive. Never knew haiku could be so much fun.




I just heard from Bob Woodruff on ABC News (who had the brain injury from a IED in Iraq 5 years ago), or from a doctor discussing the matter, that the brain is best activated and nourished by music because it spurs the brain to use and integrate so many different regions, rhythm, melody, harmony, lyrics, chords. So I’m thinking of a way to link haiku to music. I believe ancient Greek poetry always had the lyre involved (hence the word “lyric”?), and I thought of Lara’s song, I believe it’s called from the movie Dr. Zhivago. It goes four beats, six beats, four beats, but one can use it, except that — well, try it.
I came up with singable haiku for that melody as follows:

CRUNCHing HEAPS of SNOW (sing it clump, clump, clump)
Midst (sing that on the pause, with a slight caesura or catch after it, “cut” the “t”) CRYSTalline FLAKES in flight;
Memories in mind,

(But then if you’re singing it, you’ll need the following line as well):

Memories in mind tonight.

(Then sing it again)
Crunching heaps of snow
Midst crystalline flakes in flight;
Memories in mind,
Memories in mind tonight.



National Pie Day.

Whether sweet or savory,

Have a piece of pie.





Snowing for hours.

A sure cure for winter blues,

Vases of flowers.





Promises of spring,

Snowdrops, then crocus,

Poking their heads through the snow.



ALAN SUMMERS,

So many coincidences for me today. . .

Didn’t know, until Liane Hansen, (NPR), informed me early this morning, that today is National Pie Day. As soon as I found out, sent my haiku.

Friday, we received, from Netflix, the first few episodes of “Pie in the Sky”, (an English series from the 90s, that we watched when we lived in England. Are you familiar with it?) When it arrived here, we planned that we would watch it Sunday night.

It came as a complete surprise to us, but a friend of ours stopped by today, with a mincemeat pie, completely homemade! We never thought that she knew what a mince pie was, much less how to make mincemeat from scratch.

We decided to heat up a couple of wedges, to have while watching “Pie in the Sky”, & we did. It was better than Marks & Spencer’s; really delicious.

Watched “Pie in the Sky” pilot. The chef’s speciality is steak & kidney pie. When the program ended, I posted a mince pie haiku, then saw yours. Steak & mushroom pie was mentioned, which is very similar to steak & kidney, since the main ingredients, (steak, gravy, & crust), are identical.

All this on National Pie Day, which was interesting, & fun to hear about, but we didn’t think much about it.

We’ve been to Stratford, but where is Bradford-on-Avon?

Think I’ll be signing off soon, so if you happen to address something to me, & I don’t answer tonight, please don’t think me rude. I’ve never been able to read more than a few entries, (especially the political ones), at the best of times.

I’m falling farther & farther behind, trying to respond to things I HAVE been able to read, which were addressed to me weeks ago. Don’t think I’ll ever catch up, although I love this place, & come here whenever I can, if only to post a haiku or two.

Thank you for your steak & mushroom pie haiku. I enjoyed it very much, but am now craving steak & GUINESS, or even shepherd’s, pie.

Ta-ra!

Music with haiku is always a great idea, and it is nice to hear it with Japanese music, or classical music.

But would be good also is to have some modern or contemporary popular music to haiku e.g. hiphop (early connections with San Francisco and the poetry movement) or Lady Gaga would be great.

One band I really like is Sigmatropic who covered sixteen of George Seferis:
http://www.sigmatropic.gr/english/sounds.htm#audio%20samples

Full title – 16 Haiku & Other Stories. Sigmatropic, a renowned Greek artist has accomplished a truly amazing and unique project! With the help of a deliriously star-studded cast of guests he performs songs based on the haiku poetry of celebrated, Nobel Prize winning Greek author George Seferis. Features very distinctive vocal contributions from Cat Power, Laetitia Sadier (Stereolab), Mark Mulcahy, Carla Torgerson (The Walkabouts), Howe Gelb, Mark Eitzel, Lee Ranaldo, Steve Wynn and more! This is a limited edition release featuring 27 tracks including 6 extra tracks included on a bonus CD, ‘Intro’ (voice – Robert Wyatt), ‘Haiku 1′ (voice – Edith Frost), ‘Haiku 6′ (voice – Carla Torgerson), ‘Haiku 13′ (voice – Carla Torgerson), ‘This Human Body’ (voice – Howe Gelb) & ‘Dead Sea’ (original Sigmatropic version). Slipcase. Tongue Master. 2003.

Enjoy!

Alan, With Words
Bradford on Avon (near City of Bath)
Wiltshire, England, U.K.



Chicago nightmare;

Blizzard, 25-foot waves,

Damaging winds . . .





Punxsutawney Phil,

General Beauregard Lee

Predict early spring.





Still feeling his oats,

Old Man Winter is far from

Finished with us yet.



all my mistakes
each click of the pen
the robin moves

Alan Summers
Publications credits:
Earlier version Presence #24 (2004); Seven By Twenty twitter-length fiction and poetry (2011)

Alan Summers
Bradford on Avon
Wiltshire, England

sky shift
a Chinese lantern
hits the moon

Alan Summers
Publications credits:
International Haiku New Year’s Festival 2011 (Akita, Japan); a little help from my friends (Red Dragonfly ePamphlet 2011)

field of stargazers
I’m the one who waves
at the Chinese satellite

Alan Summers
Publications credits: Presence 41 (2010)

Alan Summers
Bradford on Avon
Wiltshire, England, U.K.

ALAN SUMMERS,LOVE all your haiku, by the way. (Just read the one about Chinese lanterns. Terrific!)LOVE everything about your ageless, charming country, the “green and pleasant land”.
Will keep in touch here, if only weekly, or monthly. Please don’t let this die. Good to hear from you. (Have you heard today’s “On Point”, hour two? Soul food! I could hardly stand it. My heart is still there. Nothing like down-home cooking to get your priorities in order.If you love good food, I urge you to listen to today’s soul food program. When Tom bit into that crispy, fried chicken, I thought I had died & gone to heaven.Tom Ashbrook was also loving every minute of it; the discussion, & especially the FABULOUS food he was forced to taste. We tease him about eating in front of us, etc. but his enthusiasm for the topics makes the show what it is. He more than deserves every tantilizing morsel that passes through his lips. Through him, we taste, & experience things that we would otherwise know nothing about. We count on him to relish every morsel of the foods handed to him, & describe it all to us in great detail, but he’s much too polite. We experience these things vicariously, but he’s too nice a guy to tell us how good it really is, even though we’re dying to know.

Speaking of comfort foods, I could go for a pie & a pint about now, by a roaring fire, in the “Snug”. Our winter storm warning expired about three hours ago, but it’s still snowing pretty heavily here. We have close to nine inches of new, soft snow so far today, & it’s still colder than I thought it could ever be on the Texas border. Think I heard that the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport has re-opened, at last, but roads are still very slick, since no one has sprinkled sand, salt, or anything else on the icy roads in these little towns that rarely see snow.

Sleep well. Dream of Snowdrops. I’ll dream of them also, & southern-fried chicken. Bought some for dinner tonight. Can’t hold a candle to homemade, but, at times, very welcome. Will try to rejoin within the next week or two. Looking forward to diving into your website, when there’s enough time to savour it all.



It’s been quiet here, but very busy at NaHaiWriMo, which is National Haiku Writing Month (February). Check it out on Facebook.

Here’s one that got published in Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun this month:

fresh start
all my childhood
in book covers

Alan Summers
Publications credits: Asahi Shimbun (February 2011)

all my best,

Alan
Bradford on Avon
Wiltshire, England

Robins reign
long winter past
Spring is here!

once five seven nine
is now one hundred fort
experience then express and tweet

April – Most have leaves.
Kentucky Oaks, like the race
Must Abide ’til May.

~Filly Tierney

the orange bikini
at the jersey shore
flood tide

Charlie Larsson