Six Haiku Madlibs

In the dense mouth

these tepid lights – 

an artificial dust

– Lee Nao Doh and Basho

✧✧✧✧✧

No one bulge

along this mouth but I,

this dense light.

– Lee Nao Doh and Basho

✧✧✧✧✧

A dense tepid mouth...

A light bulge into the dust,

bellyache! Daffodil again.

– Lee Nao Doh and Basho

✧✧✧✧✧

Dense mouth,

the light

is tepid of dust.

– Lee Nao Doh and Buson

✧✧✧✧✧

Don't bulge, mouth

light, dust themselves,

must nip.

– Lee Nao Doh and Issa

✧✧✧✧✧

Bulge me,

as one who nips mouth

and light.

– Lee Nao Doh and Shiki

✧✧✧✧✧

Note
Once again I felt the urge to test the poetic vein of an artificial intelligence (even though of an apparently very lowly kind) in creating haiku out of a list of words I, Lee Nao Doh, had defined. The AI then mixed this input with haiku from the masters: Basho, Buson, Issa and Shiki. Rendering poetry that is partially reminiscent of slightly surreal Chinese proverbs or fortune cookie stuff.

Feel like doing the same? Click here.

An earlier attempt, from which I picked three haiku.

Yours,

Leonard B., aka Lee Nao Doh

The End Of The Rainbow - Richard & Linda Thompson

Richard and Linda Thompson, The End of the Rainbow

Written by Richard Thompson, released on I want to see the bright lights tonight in 1974.

A great song and one of my favorites, but also the mother of pessimist songs, containing upbeat lines like this:

There's nothing at the end of the rainbow.
There's nothing to grow up for anymore
Tycoons and barrow boys will rob you
And throw you on the side

The Master Poses with a Terrifying Creature

I’m happy and honored to report that my 42-word story The Master Poses with a Terrifying Creature is part of the anthology Book of 42² published in November of 2024. The anthology was compiled by B. A. Mullin and comprises 1764 ultrashort stories in 42 genres, such as Alternate Reality, Apocalyptic, Crime, Culture, Romance, Steampunk, Tragedy, Vampire and Western, to name just a few.

My story is story #6 in Chapter 5, Culture.

My biography (also 42 words long) says:

Leonard Blumfeld, a character sprung from a story by Franz Kafka, is the only contributor of the World So Wide blog and has published a book of poetry and short prose, Best of Meme (2008), and 101 (2014, haiku and fibonacci poems).

The story was inspired by the following photo by French photographer Robert Doisneau (1912-1994) from 1952:

Instant recognition

Meryl Streep with the
most outlandish hat ever
and Klaus Maria Brandauer,
white-hatted colonial style,
among black people
speaking Italian on TV 
in a Roman bar. Well,
if it ain’t Out of Africa!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2025)

Notes
Based on genuine recent experience during a walk.
Refers to the 1985 movie Out of Africa starring Meryl Streep as Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen), Klaus Maria Brandauer and Robert Redford, which won 7 (!) Academy awards. It's weathered a bit – somehow I don’t believe it would win that many awards nowadays.

The Rose of the San Joaquin

Tom Russell, The Rose of the San Joaquin

Retrieved from my CD shelf and enjoyed listening to it immensely.

Versos sencillos

Was going to listen to I want you
by Bob Dylan

Then was offered Mañana
by Sílvia Pérez Cruz

And that one’s going by my ears
right now

That’s what’s happening thanks to 
electricity, electronics and YouTube

On this fourth day of January in 2025,
a Saturday with time to spend on things

Much more pleasant than work

– Leonardo Blumfeld (© 2024)

Afterword
Guess what’s next? I want you ... so baaad.

Fence & Old & New

 

Rome - southern suburb of Fonte Laurentina

Captured with Vignette for Android on a Xiaomi Redmi 10 telephone.

Any other suggestions?

What should we name the band?

Retards?

Petards, like that old British band?

Or Leetards,

like leotards?

Raise your hands!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Notes

That came seemingly out of nowhere. I was reading poems by Kenward Elmslie which had nothing to do with music or bands, put the book down, and this minipoem arrived. As I found out slightly later, The Petards was not a British band but a German one, whose lyrics were all in English. The song Lazy Moon above is from 1967.

So one night we did that

Nico and I were walking around in the neighborhood with our cans, around midnight it must have been, looking for a good empty spot to decorate. All we had along that night was white, black, two shades of red and some weird mix of grey and blue. And this is part of what we did on the wall of an open staircase. What's it supposed to mean? Don't know. That's not the point at all. The point is that this ugly grey piece of concrete wall now looks a lot better. Don't you think?

Giacomo – Love For Ever

 

Seven years later, the tattoo was still there, while Giacomo, including her love for him, was long gone. And Jimmy, the new flame, wasn’t too keen on seeing Giacomo around whenever he looked at her arm. Would she really have to have it removed? How long was Jimmy going to last? Frankly, her belief in eternity had been shattered – a bit.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Notes
Photo art courtesy of AI but based on a true story.