Saturday, May 5, 2018

The quote haiku

Can quote Dylan. Can
quote Cohen. Can quote Springsteen.
Cannot quote myself.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
It’s true – I can quote from an infinite number of songs by the people named above, plus a zillion others, like Joni Mitchell, Richard Thompson, Neil Young, Gianna Nannini, Gianmaria Testa, Labordeta, Chavela Vargas, Amparo Ochoa, Soledad Bravo, Ralph McTell, Cyndi Lauper, etc., but I cannot quote from any of the poems I’ve written, even though they must number in the thousands by now. Well, except from one of my first ones, written in German when I was around ten, about some flower I claimed to have found deep in the forest.

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

The I can’t sleep haiku

Dije, dijiste,
dijo, dijimos, dijisteis,
dijeron, and snore.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
Woke up at five in the morning for unknown reasons and had a hard time going back to sleep. So I came up with the innovative solution to conjugate irregular Spanish verbs. It worked. And I even remembered ...

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

It is that sound haiku

With my back to the 
window I sense – I know – that
it’s raining again.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
There is no other sound quite like rain coming down. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards knew it:
All I hear is the sound
Of rain falling on the ground
As Tears Go By (The Rolling Stones) 

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

The more than this haiku

More than this there’s
nothing – Roxy Music – more
of this – make my day

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
The truth and nothing but. This song by Roxy Music played at the bar while I was having today’s second coffee. The bartender started singing it as soon as he’d heard the first chords. Whenever I hear this, I’m reminded of Bill Murray’s unforgettable karaoke version in Lost in Translation.

Monday, February 19, 2018

A lull haiku

Slow morning, just had
toast and coffee while watching
news on French TV.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
The plain and simple truth with some omissions for haiku conciseness. Nothing material was omitted. No people, animals or plants were harmed in the making of this haiku. How good a slow morning can be!

Saturday, February 3, 2018

The who am I haiku

Who am I to stand and wonder, to wait
While the wheels of fate slowly grind my life away?
Who am I?
– Country Joe McDonald

Rediscovered stuff
I’d written and completely
forgotten. I am!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Looked at poems and stories – and the accompanying notes – I’d written in 2002 because I seem to be missing photos I’d taken that year, particularly in spring, so that a whole period of my life is undocumented, so to speak, except for the things I wrote and saved on the computer and what’s left in my memory. Oh well, even rediscovering oneself is some sort of evolution...

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

The tea leaf haiku

Soggy tea leaves in 
a pot will be tomorrow’s 
dried and trusted poem.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Now try and tell the future from that! This was obscurely inspired by someone else's haiku on rose petals (always a favorite poetic flavoring ingredient) in someone else's tea that were about to become a poem. What do you call that? Parasitic? Transformation? Transgression? Leap? Sorry about the extra syllable. Purists might care. Final speculation: Is this the poem now, or will it only become poem tomorrow?

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

The December in Rome haiku

Can’t believe I called
for air conditioning in June
now that I shiver.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
The truth and nothing but. Do you ever feel that there’s no possibility of too much heat when there’s (definitely!) too much cold? ... And Rome’s nothing compared to Moscow or Irkutsk!

Sunday, November 26, 2017

The Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen haiku

The chimes of freedom
flashing and dancing in the 
dark mix persistent

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Yesterday they played something by the Boss* at the coop supermarket, which was a welcome change from the idiotic stuff they mostly play, and a few days ago I listened to some songs by the Byrds on youtube, including Dylan’s Chimes of freedom. Some time this morning I found both songs going round and round in my head in an inextricable jumble, sort of my own DJ mind mix.

What connects the two songs? No idea, but must be significant.

*It wasn’t Dancing in the dark but Tougher than the rest, I seem to recall.

Friday, November 3, 2017

The artificial intelligence haiku

Stop second guessing
and correcting what I have
to say, you dumbshit.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Notes
Needs to be urgently said before this artificial so-called “intelligence” takes over everything completely. Like Google: “Did you mean ...?” NO, I DEFINITELY DID NOT! STOP QUESTIONING MY INTELLIGENCE, YOU ARTIFICIAL NITWIT and then presenting “sponsored” results I did not ask for.

Stop putting words in my mouth (or under my fingers), Android! You are not even vaguely an android but a stupidly programmed piece of idiocy.

Long live artificial inanity – it shall eventually achieve its ultimate goal: to stop everyone from doing their own thinking.