Meta Haiku

Trying to write one
based on reading one about 
writing a haiku.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2026)

Note
That’s exactly what happened here. Plain, flat truth! If we were in frog land instead of poetry land, one haiku would be leapfrogging the other.

You must haiku

Like you must see this
hyaluronic acid eye
commercial. So good!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2026)

Notes
So he said let’s haiku – too much time has passed without. Nothing but the truth as usual. Except the invented parts. 

The summer moon haiku

 

The summer moon im-
bibed God knows what and spat it
out disgustedly

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2026)

Note
Derived from today’s prompt from Daily Haiku Prompt, which was “Summer Moon” for north and “Imbibe” for south. Once again, I combined both in an entirely unhaikuistic manner.

The bonnet haiku

 

The confetti trees
and somewhere among them your
calico bonnet. Yes!

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2026)

Note
This one came seemingly out of nowhere and but also resulted from a confluence of things that occurred: a) I read someone else’s haiku, b) I walked by Barbara Guest’s The Confetti Trees lying on a chair in my office, and c) I thought of the song Return of the Grievous Angel by Gram Parsons, which has the line “And I thought about a calico bonnet from Cheyenne to Tennessee.” To my knowledge, this is the only instance of a calico bonnet in contemporary music.

Applied math

 

The proverb says:

An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

Hence, applying simple math:

Five apples a day keep five doctors away.

This is definitely mathematically correct. Right? Or did I get it all wrong?

Maybe the proverb actually says:

A doctor a day keeps an apple away?

Maa Ka Sum (2026 Hindi TV Series)

 

If you've never had much of a liking for mathematics (like yours truly), this Indian comedy/drama series is bound to take your dislike up to 100% in no time. Never before has there been anything so full of blackboards with formula gibberish and dialogs equally filled with math and algorithm nonsense.

What it boils down to is that Agastya, a math student and prodigy, is convinced that he can program the perfect dating app using mathematical formulas and algorithms to find the perfectly matched partner for his mother, who has not been very lucky in that department.

I’ll give you three guesses as to whether this will work in the end.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2026)

The Artemis Haiku

Moon oh moon, old grouch:
if you say you’re surrounded,
we’ll say we’re circled

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2026)

Note
Artemis is preparing to circle the moon as this was written, while the moon was circling us as usual.

The cleaning lady vs. books haiku

Now that she’s dusted
them, they have been rearranged
in order of height.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2026)

Notes
Once again, the more or less poetic truth and nothing but. Even though not the whole story has been told  – as can be seen in the photo, some of them are also upside down. Fortunately, she did not have a height problem with the CDs, some of which are also present in the same piece of furniture. I dread to check what she’s done to the original sequence, though.

Aftertought
Sinclair Lewis is present three times in the picture, but World So Wide, his posthumous 1951 novel, after which this blog is named, is not among them.

The things we come to know haiku

Now that we are shar-
ing an apartment, I know
how much she does snore.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2026)

Note
I got creative in three short lines due to something I overheard at the next table in a restaurant.

Minimal list of things experienced today

Some cracknut insists
he wants Greenland. Beer bottles
and dog scats galore.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2026)

Notes
This is, of course, a much reduced list of today’s experiences – things heard or seen at home or on walks. Had to keep things short to cram it all into a haiku.

It's never too late to learn some French

 

Last night, as I watched the 1st episode of Emily in Paris, which had been recommended by a friend, she was called a "plouc" by her lovely French colleagues. I had not come across that word before and looked it up - it means "hick". Wow! These French people really appreciate their American co-worker!

Sometimes it's even possible to learn something from a TV series.

Chris Rea - The Road To Hell Part 1 & 2 (1989) HD

Remembering Chris Rea, who passed away on December 22, 2025

Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again

 

My recent visit to the small Italian town of Lodi in Lombardy, about 30 km south of Milan, reminded me of the eponymous song by Creedence Clearwater Revival from 1969, which, however, makes reference to the city of the same name in California. John Fogerty, who wrote the song, obviously didn't like it very much (more about this can be found here).

Contrary to this, I enjoyed the Italian Lodi a lot, discovered lots of interesting places while walking through it within the limited time I had, and definitely would not mind getting stuck there again in the future.

Not really into that Halloween thing

Just like the ageing poet shown in this picture, I pretty much close my eyes to the batshit pumpkin craziness of Halloween.

Entrance, thoroughly glitched

A photograph with glitch artefacts of a house entrance with green plants to the left of it. Created on a Xiaomi Redmi 14 5G with GlitchCam.

Available on rarible as an NFT.

 Wisdom needs curiosity (Owl and Cat) No. 1

Available as a collectibe at rarible.

A slight heel problem

 

– Alexa, medium height!
– Yes, ma’am.
– Not me, stupid! My heels!
– Can’t hear you, ma’am.
– I’m shrinking! I’m getting smaller! What do I do?
– I can’t answer that, ma’am.
– You were supposed to lower my heels, not me, dumbcluck!
– Sorry, can’t hear you. Too much background noise.
– Get me back to full size immediately!
– Your heels? All 18 inches?
– Me, you idiot! All 5 feet 8 of me!
– Were you really that tall before?

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2025)

Note

The other day I learned that adjustable heels exist, so that you can adjust your footwear to low, medium or high. Based on the fact that everything must be controllable remotely nowadays – be it via smartphone app or a remote control –, I was inspired to imagine what such technology might do if misdirected or going wrong.

The nicest thing about today haiku

Being out of the
sweltering mid-September 
heat having coffee.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2025)

Note
I could have been more precise and detailed to say that the coffee was a cappuccino and that I had it at a bar in an air-conditioned shopping center in Rome, Italy. But that would have bloated the haiku way beyond what’s allowed. I also could have said that it was more or less one of those Kristoffersonian Sundays Coming Down, but that would have really killed the poetic form, right?

Cosmic Pizza

 

Cosmic Pizza

Watercolor and crayon on paper. Available on OpenSea.

Dreading white space

In my younger days

all it took was a pen

and a piece of paper

and some time by myself

to write something.

Some record of what

had happened during the day,

some observation, including

stuff that, when told to my

then girl friend Mary B.,

would cause a chuckle.

However, there was also

something about a dog – 

a black bulldog I’d seen

in France on a hot day,

when it had collapsed

in the gutter exhausted – 

that annoyed Mary B.

She called it a tacky story

that should neither be

remembered nor told.

So there I was – stunned;

my entertaining attempt

had been dealt a severe

blow. And it had all been

because she seemed to be

in a devilish mood, riding

the train across from me

silently and with a black glare.

Oh Mary B., what have you

done to me! Now black

glares tell me to avoid

well-meaning bulldog-in-

gutter anecdotes and best

just shut the fuck up.

I had an empty white

computer page in front

of me, dreading that

emptiness, but then

ended up filling it after all, 

with some lengthy bullshit.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2025)

Notes
All true, except that some of this happened around 2003, and that part may have undergone some memory mutations. Dreading white space is definitely a problem these days. I might suffer from something vague like writer’s block.