Rude

"My internal monologue started ..."
"Keep it internal!"

- Leonard Blumfeld ((c) 2015)

Note
Inspired by some chatty piece I encountered in a blog a minute ago. After reading the first few words and glimpsing the length of it (considerable), I knew I would have no patience for these monologic outpourings of a literary soul.

The alone at home haiku

Alone at home with
two hibernating turtles
and some silverfish.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
The truth and nothing but the naked truth. That’s all, folks, for now.

The all is well in the tv series haiku

Metal impact, tires
screeching, sirens, megaphone,
explosions and shots.

- Leonard Blumfeld ((c) 2015)

Note
This is what I heard from the living room below as an episode of Quantico or some such series was unrolling.

The situation in central Italy haiku

Wild pigs in the streets, 
trash scandal and regular 
bus service delays.

- Leonard Blumfeld ((c) 2015)

Note
Once again, nothing but the truth in a haiku. Today's newspaper, quickly perused at the breakfast bar, reported on wild pigs in the streets of Ostia. A photo graphically demonstrating the lack of garbage removal at Viale F. T. Marinetti was published in the press a few days ago. And the bus service has been sporadic, erratic or simply nonexistent. Supposedly because the bus drivers have not been paid in months.

The undulation haiku

An undulation
through the wall – sufi music
or vacuum cleaner

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
Again the truth and nothing but the truth as it happened a while ago. Considering that this musical event did not last very long and did not develop, I now suspect that it was indeed the vacuum cleaner run at low speed to pick up a specific moderate mess and not the alaap of an Indian music piece.

Work

I’ve been coming twice a week to clean this illustrious writer’s house – thirteen or even fourteen years it must be. He used to meet people, have interviews, appear on TV, particularly after the success of his one and only novel The Deserted Planet, which, as you know, also became a movie everyone went to see. That was probably about ten years ago. He had a big party to celebrate his 70th birthday – I was there to help out in the kitchen. Lots of VIPs – writers, the mayor, people from politics and cinema. His ex-wife, that well-known anchorwoman. And then a gradual decline set in, fewer people came, he stayed home most of the time. Eventually he would no longer go on his habitual hour long walks. And now, sadly, his speech is as jumbled as his thoughts. His niece is taking care of him now, is getting paid for it and in control of everything. And stingy. He’s become haggard because she skimps on his food – while treating herself to fancy meals downtown with her boyfriend. He moved in a year ago. The slick, lecherous type. Has his eyes glued to certain parts of me whenever he’s around. Once he told me, when handing me my money, “You know, Felicidad, I love Latin women. A lot. There is something so exotically sensuous and seductive about them.” I keep the job because of the old man, who mostly sits in the living room now, staring out of the window.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Written around illustrious, habitual and jumbled from 3WW.

The outside the bar on a November morning haiku

She holds her warm cup
as if it were a gift from 
the gods of autumn.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
Based on an observation from this morning. Being smokers, Mona Lisa and her Indian companion were outside and shivering while I was enjoying the warmer climate inside.

The grace haiku

Sitting in the sun,
watching the turtles play in
the warmth of the sun.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
The truth and nothing but the truth a few minutes ago when this came to me and I went upstairs to write it down. Italian sun in the middle of November...

Sweet music from next door

Her heart is full of
love and longing for someone.
Heavy metal gone.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
The truth and nothing but the truth about the teeny neighbor. May this soft phase last! It’s definitely easier on the ears.

Suzanne

Suzanne takes you down to her place by the river
– Leonard Cohen

Today, Suzanne mused again sentimentally on her blog about washing and its close relationship to loving and longing, hanging up bunches of unnatural things for drying. As if the sun would ever get to them down there by the river.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Notes
Mixed media – digestion of a poem about washing found on a blog and XOR operation with Leonard Cohen's song Suzanne. By the way, Leonard Cohen was the one who gave half of this pseudonym, the other half coming from Franz Kafka.

The Donald Trump haiku

Billions and not
a thing to sell. Billions.
No trump, none at all.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
Some people appear to have it all. Well, maybe in the bank. Other than that: nothing at all.

Final

Rose's jabs at me while we were having our weekly candlelight dinner at the Oasis, that place of Nouvelle Cuisine fine dining and excessive pricing, seemed a bit labored or even makeshift.

"There's something wrong with your jabs tonight, love," I said during a break.

She took her time chewing a morsel of boeuf whatever.

She cleared her throat; this was always a bad sign.

"My jabs, as you so conveniently call my part of our conversation, have come to an end. I'm leaving you."

"Don't tell me it's Julian Dent."

Julian Dent was her posh and good looking dentist. I'd long suspected that something might be going on there.

"No. It's not."

She took a sip from her glass of Merlot and savored it.

"Someone I know?"

"Yes."

"Who?"

"Your brother."

Now that was the final jab. Like one with a knife. And it had come easily from her, sounding neither labored nor makeshift.

She rose quietly and walked out of my life.

– Leonard Blumfeld ((c) 2015)

Written around jab, labored and makeshift from 3WW.

The thanks but no thanks haiku

To Elsie and her dog Chihuauzer

Thank you for your grrrr
picture. I know you love your
dog. But I do not.

– Leonard Blumfeld ((c) 2015)

Notes
All too often dog owners are so enamored with their furry friends that they assume everyone else loves them just as much (or should). Barking, penetrating and unwelcome interest, sniffing, showing teeth, planting paws on someone's chest are just a few choice items of dog behavior not everyone appreciates.
Disclaimer: I do not know anyone named Elsie, nor do I know a dog named Chihuauzer. However, I did know someone years ago who had a mutt resulting from the union of a chihuahua and a schnauzer and proclaimed that his dog was therefore a chihuauzer.

An excerpt from an interview with Anna K., actress

“I hate smoking, especially Lucky Strikes.
And I hate kissing – or worse –, especially old lechers like [name omitted], my so-called romantic partner in my most recent film.
Ha!
Both make me vomit, and that’s not a good thing to do in front of the camera.”

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Disclaimer
Some names have been shortened or suppressed to avoid legal issues.

Witticism

Actors are supposed to act like normal people, but more often than not it's the other way round.

– Leonard Blumfeld

Throwing sand into the wind

She went to the sandy beach to throw sand into the wind.
She threw sand.
She threw more sand.
She kept throwing sand.
Into the wind, which was sometimes stronger
and sometimes milder
and sometimes blew the sand into her face.

"Why are you doing this?" a voice said.
"It's a statement."
"What kind of a statement?"
"It's a concept."
"What kind of a concept?"
"It's art."
"But there's no-one around to watch it."
"That's part of the concept."
"I see."
"Plus there's always the universe and eternity."

– Leonard Blumfeld ((c) 2015)

About A. H.

What a nasty, greasy character to have ignited this hellish chapter in the history of mankind.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Written around the words greasy, hellish and ignite from 3WW.

Note
No need to explain who this refers to. At least I should hope so.

My jewelry is missing

My jewelry is missing … he wouldn’t have sold it … or would he?

Endless GIF loop created from a scene from Lost Highway by David Lynch. Starring Patricia Arquette.

Doggone it

I've got the blues a-
gain. It is infectious, the
meanness of this world.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Notes
Not really needed. Could give you a long list of things that are wrong with this world – if you insist.

Today’s misread haiku

So it was the mush-
room’s black underpants that made
me smile and write this.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
Sometimes misreading something results in something more interesting than the intended word. Anyway, what I was supposed to read was “of the mushroom’s black underpleats” in Amy Newman’s poem Sylvia Plath Is in Paris with a Balloon on a Long String. That’s rather stating the obvious. We all know that mushrooms tend to be dark on the underside, even though it might not occur to just anyone to call that “black underpleats”. But a mushroom with black underpants – now that’s something that makes a leap as prescribed for poetry by Robert Bly.

A preposterous situation haiku

Supporting the weight
of the clouds. You’ve been doing
it for years, my girl.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
If there’s one kind of poetry I don’t like it’s the type that attempts to blow up a perfectly normal situation into something “poetic” (and subsequently usually asking rhetorical questions along the lines of “why oh why is this happening to oh so sensitive poor poor me”). Sometimes I picture these poems hitting their author in the face like a balloon burst from overinflation with all that fake meaning.

Back when we were hunters and gatherers

From the soon to be released book Diary of a turtle.

The Dr. Who haiku

Buzz. “Who is it?” “Who?”
“Doctor who? What do you want?”
“Ah, Dr. Woo! Nín hăo!”

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Notes
The fun(ny)/weird haiku keep coming.
Short as usual and mercilessly.
Again with dialog. Against the rules.
(Nín hăo = hello in Chinese.)

The spy novel haiku

Dedicated to Len Deighton

Shot in the arm vein.
“Now speak the truth.” Was this to
be the end of me?

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
This was inspired by various things I read, saw and associated this morning. Plus there are these novels in 3, 4 or 5 words going around. This one has 17, so it can be called an epic. And it can pride itself of having dialog, which is rare for a haiku.

5-minute aliens

Dedicated to Richard Brautigan

Watched five minutes of another Aliens invade the world movie. Actually, we’re doing such a good job of destroying the world ourselves that aliens are not needed.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
What poetic form would this be? There is such a thing as an American sentence (invented, I believe, by Allen Ginsberg in an attempt to Americanize the haiku). But this is two sentences. So it is a little more un-American than an American sentence, also in view of the fact it doesn’t pay attention to any particular number of syllables. This poem is dedicated to Richard Brautigan because he might have written a poem similar to this.

The infinite loop installation haiku

(An exercise in straining the imagination)

In the middle the
fallen lupodopteryx
right in the middle

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Notes
How much of a haiku is allowed to be outside the haiku?
There is a lot that’s outside this one.
First of all the inspiration, which was a photo of some big animal that had died in an art installation (well, admittedly I’m sure it had died before if it had ever lived).
So I placed an equally huge animal in the middle of the haiku and made extra sure that it could be identified as the centerpiece by repeating the middle part.
But now comes the other thing that’s outside the haiku: the building this installation is in. The lupodopteryx is in the center of a central room, which is blocked off for visitors by ropes strung up between the columns supporting the structure. This room is surrounded by a ring-like hallway, from which the lupodopteryx can be seen through the spaces between the columns.
Any gallery or museum dying to house this installation is most welcome to contact me.

The Sunday morning wake-up fib

Not
a
thing is
better than
waking up from the
thunderous farts of a motor-
cycle at 6 a.m. right in front of your window

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
I know, I know – today’s not Sunday. But the thunderous memories from last Sunday kept inspiring me...

Apple innovation slowing down?

Let me assure you that there’s no need to worry – there are many new, exciting and absolutely groundbreaking products in the iPipeline. Here’s a short list (in alphabetical order by product name) of what to look forward to within the near future:

• The Big iMac – an entire range of affordable products to be sold at selected so-called high-speed edibles technology distribution centers.

• The iBod – this is Apple’s answer to mankind’s body shaping needs. Everyone will have the new body they desire within weeks of purchasing this fascinating product. And Apple will know everything about every customer’s body.

• The iBot – the household and garden robot bound to relieve you of pleasant as well as unpleasant chores.

• The iCare – has nothing to do with eye care. It’s all about the people that care about Apple products.

• The iDiot – currently not under active development. A lot of these are already around, and many of them already own iProducts. However, the rounded corners and general flatness of this product have already been patented.

• The iDot – this fascinating high-tech product will go far beyond the dot on the i.

• The iDyll – name of Apple’s entry in the romantic travel market. Will be operated through a piece of software similar to iTunes unless integrated in iTunes. 

• The iGod – this product is so advanced and innovative some call it blasphemous or religious. This may not be the final product name.

• The iLiad – a product for the electronic literacy market still shrouded in mystery. Intended to beat the iSocks off Kindle and the likes. Used to be copyrighted by an entity named Homer, but copyright has expired and not been renewed.

• The iPaddy – a special green version of a known product for the Irish market. Comes with a transparent clover leaf instead of the bitten apple.

• The iSil – this product, squarely aimed at Clearasil, was intended to blast Apple into the lucrative skin care market. However, product development has been put on hold due to negative publicity for a group with a very similar name. Product will have a bright future once these difficulties have been sorted out.

• The iSis – originally intended as Apple’s response to the rapid growth sissy market, there is currently a negative trend for this name as a result of a militant group which has illegally usurped it. Product development put on hold. Product will have a bright future once these difficulties have been sorted out.

• The iSod – shares some features with the iDiot, further details not yet known.
• iStar – while everyone’s talking about cloud computing, Apple is already taking the next logical step: star computing is storage that is as remote as it gets. And no, it is not light years away!

• The iUber – not much is known about this product except that the name has already been patented. It is rumored that it is in line with the current popularity of the German prefix über (from which the two dots on the u are usually dropped because the character is not found on English keyboards), which usually designates something superior or superordinate.

Will Apple be able to deliver and sustain innovation, shareholder value and inflated product prices over the years to come despite maturing markets for its current products? Given the multitude of leading edge developments outlined above, the answer can only be a glaring YES!

– Leonard Blumfeld (©, ®, ™, ℠, etc. 2015)

The faded memory haiku

And in retrospect
even that mighty lion
seems small and mousy.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Inevitable notes
Even though I take pride in not wasting words in haiku, I left in the leading “And” – it works well as some sort of intro; try it out for yourself and remove it, and you’ll see that the poem starts too abruptly. Also, when I was writing this in my mind, I had a “somewhat” qualify the “mousy”. However, shortage of syllables available lets you have it full blast now.

The senility or what haiku

Using words not re-
remembered to talk about con-
cepts not remembered.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Notes
What was that about again?

The sounds of silence haiku

Dedicated to Simon and Garfunkel

How many who love
the song have ever truly
listened to those sounds?

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
This alludes to the paradox of the song: the sounds of silence cannot possibly be a song – they can only be silence. Right? But then it could be said that silence is not always something desirable (like the silence of meditation, for example) but might be terrifying or threatening, as in the song, where it grows like a cancer...

The poetry as I see it haiku

Poetry's job is
not to regurgitate pop-
ular platitudes.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Notes
If poetry has a job (some might argue that it is too sacrosanct to have something so mundane, while others might say that it is permanently jobless), then it should be more meaningful than to replicate favorite platitudes and attitudes and well-trodden ways of seeing, thinking and feeling. In an age where taste seems to be dictated by the number of likes or little hearts something gets, this is all the more important to keep in mind ... lest poetry completely descend to the democracy of insipidity.

The I do not like a certain kind of insect haiku

My poor legs are shot
full of mosquito poison
and itching, itching

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
The truth and nothing but the truth. Razor-edge-of-time reporting from the Roman office work front.

The nonessential haiku

Spent about one hour

doing the nonessential

so far this morning.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Notes

Now that I've written that I'm going to do something essential and go for a walk.

The madness in the bathtub haiku

Who got her to strip

and sit in the bathtub clutch-

ing the shower head?

 

- Leonard Blumfeld ((c) 2015)

 

Note

Inspired by the above portrait of actress Saki Takaoka by Kishin Shinoyama (2013).

The free pizza online fibonacci

It’s
too
bad you
cannot get
free pizza online.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Notes

What brought this one about?

The majority of mankind is predictable, materialistic and stingy. Our billionaires are shining examples and everyone else would like to be like them. No news there. But on to the topic at hand ...

Why waste your precious money if you can get music, movies, art, novels, poetry, photos and what not for free on the Internet? Who cares about the idiots that actually create the stuff.

When, as technology and virtuality advance, pizza and other food and drinks will become available on the Internet for free, this will undoubtedly be THE BIG HIT.

What about the economy, though? After all, these are the tangible items that still turn over oodles of money. These are items even the stingiest have to pay for because there is no other choice.

Have you ever asked for a free copy of a pizza and been thrown out of the joint?

Have you ever noticed how easily people spend 25 $ or € per person at a restaurant to pay for items that cost perhaps 2 $ or € to make and/or buy, but when it comes to buying a book for 10 $ or € they grind their teeth and say they can’t afford it?

The Adolf fibonacci

That

name

never

did regain

popularity

 

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
I wrote this poem in my mind early this morning while still half asleep.
Initially it was going to be a haiku, but then the syllable count never worked out, turning the words around as I might, so it become a fib.
The poem was triggered by the 2014 Italian comedy Sapore di te watched last night, in which a girl owned a cat named Mao, which got into a fight with the neighbor's dog named Adolf. As a consequence, the respective pet owners accused each other of being fascist and communist.
When I grew up in Germany in the 1950s and 60s, there were still some Adolfs around, no doubt named after Hitler and born before May 1945. Nowadays, however, nobody in their right mind would name their kid (or pet, for that matter) Adolf. At least I would hope so.

The surgical enhancement haiku

Some Angelina
lips she has – art by same wiz
of the costly knife.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
As seen on TV last night.

How ...

How can a lopsided blemish be so erect?

– Leonard "Minimalist" Blumfeld

Packaged for 3WW, where something was to be written using blemish, erect and lopsided.

The art series production haiku

And – finally! – the
precise hammer aiming to
smash the cover glass.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
This one was inspired by a picture of an exhibition of black and white photos, with the special feature being that the glass of each and every frame had been smashed to give it ... well ... that extra evanescent touch.

The Virginia Woolf dismisses James Joyce haiku

... a dog that pisses,
a man who farts ... the topic
is monotonous.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Elucidations
Watched about one half of The Hours (2002) last night, which is about 1/3 or more about Virginia Woolf and two incarnations of Mrs Dalloway. Read up on Woolf today, including the bit about the Woolfs turning down James Joyce’s Ulysses in 1918. Apparently, it did not find favor in Mrs. Woolf’s eyes ... among the reasons for this being those outlined in the poem above.

The state of the art in subliminal advertising haiku

Oh give me one film
that does not show a bitten
apple product somewhere.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
Have you noticed how many movies show people (mostly cool, of course) with electronic products from one particular vendor nowadays? I hereby declare that particular vendor the king of subliminal advertising.

The jury was announced haiku

It is composed of
members with a proven track
record of bad taste.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Inevitable note
One's good taste is the next one's bad taste.
And the notion of good taste changes with time, that's for sure.
For example, in the second half of the 19th century it was considered good taste to paint stuff derived from biblical and other mythical sources, all loaded with heavy symbolism and executed in a realistic manner. This also gave painters an excuse to paint busty nudes in an otherwise puritanical environment.
Most of the resulting art is considered bad taste nowadays.
Just to elaborate on the fickleness of taste.
On the other hand, it could be said that the state of current taste is that everything goes.
But beware: not just anywhere.
It's like an American highschool with its cliques: the expensive ones, the trashy ones, the weird ones, the geeky ones, the minimal ones, etc. You must to remember in which corner to sit and which lines not to cross.

The MLA comma correctness haiku

Dedicated to the moronic inventors of the comma, and rule

, and, or, and, and, or,
, and, with, with, out, and, or, and
, so, what, and, the, eff

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Un Rothko

Tu es rouge,
même noire parfois,
grise très souvent.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

The NaPoWriMo prompt at Poetry Super Highway for today, April 18, was:

Write a Rothko.
1. A Rothko (poem) can only be written while standing in front of a Rothko (painting).
2. A Rothko is three lines, three words per line.
3. Three of these nine words must be colors, and their position in the poem must be a tic-tac-toe.
4. Like all rules of poetry, break at your own risk.

For some strange reason, it instantly occurred to me to write this in French. Rule no. 1 was violated because I had no Rothko around to stand in front of. (The one we keep on the floor next to the bed is currently at the cleaner's.) But I pictured myself in front of one.

The ivory tower haiku

No complaints about
this abode. Comes with Buddhist
emptiness. That’s good.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
Inspired by an incredibly poetry-informed and informative quote from German magazine Der Spiegel, which might read like this in translation: “Those who write poetry do not always sit in their ivory tower, but sometimes simply in their own garden or at a table.”

Apple joins the luxury fashion item market

As revealed today, you can now buy an Apple Watch for as much as $ 16,000 or so. Pure umpteen karat gold or whatnot.

This might make it the world's most expensive stopwatch or gadget to keep track of your heartbeat. Not to mention that 50 millisecond time accuracy – anywhere in the world!

But I'm sure this is just the beginning of Apple's entry in the high-end fashion market.

I bet the iBag or iPurse is just around the corner. With fingerprint user identification, theft GPS and artificial intelligence content management system.

Can't wait to gift one to someone who doesn't have any other needs.

– Leonard Blumfeld

The if I could haiku

If I could, I would
turn the I.S. destroyers
of Nimrod to stone.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

The Islamic State has been destroying more than 3000 year old Assyrian monuments in Iraq. The intolerance and bigoted narrow-mindedness of these self-righteous, self-appointed guardians of inhuman faith is unsurpassed.

The concrete haiku

This one is very
concrete – deals only with stones,
rocks, flint and pebbles.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
The counterweight to the recently composed abstract haiku.

The abstract haiku

Shake and melt and shade
do not I repeat do not
(mis)represent me.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
The battle between abstract and representational rages mostly in the art field, but here it is extended to poetry and, in particular, the haiku.

The budding rock'n roller haiku

If it's not base strum-
ming next wall, then it is wild
warbling or whooping.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Note
Once again a truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth razor-edge-of-time haiku. Next wall is the equivalent of next door except closer. Bless your emerging career, Oriane. It would be nice if it took you somewhere else.

The working day haiku

Working away, cold
feet, cold day, February,
no wild conclusions.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Notes
I needed one more syllable for the last line, so introduced “wild”. But actually there were neither wild nor tame conclusions. So far. Oh, and there's an internal rhyme here, which is frowned upon by haiku purists.

The GMP haiku

You can’t just write it
from scratch. First buy patented
seeds from Monsanto.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Notes
GMP stands for Genetically Modified Poetry.

The waiting for Godot haiku

I’ve been waiting, I’ve
been waiting, I am waiting,
oh yeah oh yeah ...

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Inevitable note
A slightly underfilled haiku celebrating Beckett and the Rolling Stones. Sparked by a still picture from a performance of Waiting for Godot someone posted this morning. Never saw the play performed, but read it (all of it!). Always thought some brevity might have done it a lot of good.

Just read that it’s been voted "the most significant English language play of the 20th century" (according to Wikipedia). The competition must have been really insignificant.