h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Haiku: Two Leaves

Two shrivelled dry leaves,
twisted, curled on the footpath -
like hungry bronze claws.

Chai!

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Today's Haiku:

1.

Gold moon rising full
Over the silent water –
Catches a heron.

2.

A summer cloudburst
Drumming down hard as laughter,
Umbrella thunders.

It is a cliche, but Haiku that follow the rules (nature, natural imagery, etc) really do work the best, for me at least. I like all of these, particularly the thundering umbrella.

B

Gee, Ben. thanks for that.

For some reason, at the moment, although I can feel a longer poem lurking about, waiting to emerge, most of what surfaces are these short pieces. And quite apart from the traditional approach, the structure and extreme limitation of the haiku is really stimulating, challenging and demanding, all at the same time. Walking seems to favour the kind of insights or observations that fit into the form. Or maybe it's the seaside, I don't know.

Here's two more from this morning's walk.

1.

A still grey morning,
makes yesterday's loud sunshine
seem much too noisy.

2.

Whatever distance
I cover on late-night walks,
silence is untired.

Cheers,

Chai \|/

More nice haiku, Chai. Thanks!

What's the word, if there is one, for the 'spoing' sound a metal-tipped stiletto heel makes on wet paving stones? That odd sound which probably owes much to echoes from nearby walls.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Sounds like that would be "spoing."

Chai \|/

A bunch of haiku picked up on Sandymount Strand over the last couple of mornings.

1.

Three black scallop shells -
Small vessels of perfect night
Echoing Kali.


2.

Old heron one-leg
Preening his bedraggled cloak.
Young heron watches.

3.

Out on the water,
A single plastic arm-chair
Howling at the sun.

4.

Two grey crows peck bones –
They know that they’re dinosaurs.
They see I know too.

5.

Looks like a smooth rock -
But up close the twisted beak
Tells of feathered death.

6.

Sharp wind, thin drizzle –
Clouds have fallen on the beach.
Good fishing weather.

7.

Mind chanting manis* –
The soul is free to become
The singing silence.

8.

Late low tide last night –
The sand is scuffed with harsh tracks
Of joggers and dogs.

*manis = Om Mani Pemay Hung

C \|/

These are getting deeper, Chai. I like the crows as dinousaurs one, and the dead bird.

The problem with Haiku is that it is very very easy to write a bad one, fairly easy to write a mediocre one, and very very difficult to write a good one. As a result one on a thousand of the Haiku that one reads, or indeed writes, are s**te. These, aren't.

Btw, did anyone have any comments on the 'Grace' poem? Y'all were strangely silent on the subject.

B

I like the Grace poem, Ben. I just wish there was a better word to use than *alcoholism*. I know there isn't but for some reason in my mind it jumps out, but then I suppose that's a good thing not a bad one.

*Happy to lurk and enjoy.*

where is the grace poem ben, just got new laptop so my links to yor site not added to favs yet ,and old one is sevral miles away, need stimili to write some new stuff myself,not that i'm bored or anything.

Its ok found it ,first read ,thought if i had to replace *alcoholism*. "bachernalnial fixation"
have you rejiged jigsaw,? or is my memory failing?

Some words are unavoidable. 'Addiction' would be worse. I am still not sure about 'Grace' and it is tricky because it is so starkly autobiographical.

Glad you found the site, ltp. I haven't re-jigged the Jig saw, though I found, when learning it for performance, that I preferred 'pavement' to 'ashphalt', partly because I know how to pronounce 'pavement'!

B

Hi Ben,

Thanks for kind words re haiku. These morning walks seem to stimulate them ( as I said ), and within my limits, I'm trying to adhere to the traditional conventions, that there are references to nature, that there is an element of surprise, or at least that they take some kind of twist. The one about the plastic armchair basically fails, because the causative image was really too strong for such a condensed form. When I first saw the chair out on the water in the distance, I did think it was a dog poised with its head up. Then I thought, why isn't it moving, then as I got closer, it revealed itself to be a black plastic armchair, several hundred yards out on the sand in shallow water.

Sandymount Strand is a very flat beach, so when the tide is out, the sea vanishes practically out of sight, and when the tide's in, it's right up to the road. The tide comes in at a hell of a lick, it's easy to get cut off, even if the water is not very deep.

I'm afraid the Grace poem really didn't work for me at all. I'll go back and have another go at it, and see if I can put my finger on why.

Cheers,

Chai \|/

I'd be curious to know. I have been thinking a lot about grace recently, it has been a theme for a while, but even so it was a poem that was constructed intellectually. I wonder if that's it?

B

PS - perhaps you could use the chair image elsewhere? I saw a sofa, perfectly clean and dry, in a wet back alley once. I just wanted to sit down in it and drink tea out of a bone china cup and saucer, and watch the newspapers in the puddles.

Hi Ben,

I've just been back and re-read Grace. It still doesn't work for me, to the point that I find the re-iteration of the "grace"-word almost irritating. And here's why. Read it out loud, as I have done several times. There is no connection between the line-lengths, line-breaks, and the phrasing. It reads absolutely as prose. There is only one image/metaphor, at the end of stanza 1, "turning the graceful stiletto..." Other than that, you're simply telling the story. OK, it's personal, autobiographical, and painful, but that doesn't make it a good poem. Perhaps it would benefit from a tighter, more formal structure, within which the autobiographical telling would gain impact? Just an idea. For me, it's one of those poems where there are very complex emotions needing strict structure.

Does that make sense? This is only one person's subjective response, so feel free to ignore it entirely. It's your poem, after all. But if you want genuine feedback, I think it needs an altogether tougher treatment. It is a very tough subject.

Good luck,

C \|/

You are the second person to comment that it reads like prose. I haven't read it out loud, which is unusual for me. I usually read and re-read a poem to the empty air several times before I feel it is finished.

Interesting thought - does poetry require imagery? I am not sure that it does. There are a number of different ways of making the reader work; one is to write poems which are obscured by imagery. This one may go too far the other way.

Grace IS a difficult word, mainly because it is an elusive quality, and one which is rarely noticed or commented on. I found myself disliking the word when I was coding the poem for the site.

I'll read it aloud again and again, (which is advice I give to people when there really is not anything else to say), and see what happens.

Thanks, Chai.

B

My trouble is when i am reading poetry/prose is i tend to get ahead of my eyes so i will see words or stanzas that are not there
eg even to her-(self)+face
he'd ask for a drink himself(rather than get irate)
each glass of gin +(more sin)
and suffocated by his -(marriage)+troubled strife
if that makes sense
often i will write some thing and read it back to myself with different words or miss out whole lines.


does poetry require imagery?no it should create it or evoke some emotional feeling, my tuppenceworth

Blimey, ltp.

You remind me of another poem

Yesterday upon the stair
I saw a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
How I wish he'd go away!

Not mine, alas.

B

Today's haiku:

Something fluttering -
dying on the strand? No! A
sign: "Pedestrians."

Who says haiku can't be about bathos rather than pathos?
This one took longer to knock into shape than any of the others, a 1 1/2 hour walk. Really tempted to expand the form to fit the poem, by decided in the end that brevity is all ( so the orange colour of the fluttering sign had to go, along with other observations.)