Seems like a repeat

Dogs barking in the back alley
for invisible reasons (as if they
ever needed any),

fan whirring, installing a semblance of cool
in here while the immense summer heat
drags on into September.

While I’m trying to keep my cool
as I’m going through rows and rows
of written materials that would most likely
not be missed had they not been written.

But that’s what ya get paid for, me boy.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Note
This should be blunt enough not to require any explanation.

Part of Weary Outpourings of a Grump Ground Down by Life and Other Things.

What is the title of this poem?

 But, more importantly, what is its content?

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Note
Inspired by a similarly titled poem by Kathryn Bevis, which has lots of detailed content, I came across at the Poetry Society UK site. I decided to not only question the title of the poem but also the content, thus taking it up one notch.

The drab streets haiku

 

Read today we should
all be grateful for any-
thing and everything

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Note
I really did read that today somewhere on the oh so social media. “Anything and everything” would include drab streets, right? Like the Roman street with its crumbling brutalist architecture eternalized in the photo above.

PS:
Anyone interested in drab street photos like the one shown here please get in touch!

Photography haiku

 

Found out this morning
I have neither spider web 
photos nor smoke pix

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2024)

Notes
I’ve been known to participate in some photography challenges where you’re invited to post a photo to match a given topic. This made me realize that I have nothing suitable for at least two topics. The above smoky picture is actually a fake – the interior of this room looks smoky but in reality the smoke was the result of a dirty window through which I shot the photo. As to spider web photos, I have nothing to show. Must try to look for webs!

Blues - a haiku

 

Irritable sky
then a classy big blues run
because of the greens

by Shinji Murakami

Note

Blame it all on the greens! An Internet-generated haiku based on personal input. The author chose to delete the poem from the site, which generated the following message:

Poor dog!

The snot catcher haiku

   

Silver horseshoe 
dangling from mademoiselle’s
dainty little nose.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2022)

Note
I occasionally wonder whether there is a practical reason for this facial jewelry...

Happy Sunday!

Some nasty little
yapper is spitting venom
outside and loves it.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2021)

Note
That too on Valentine’s day – when everything’s supposed to be lovey-dovey.

P.S:
You know me – when I come up with a title like ‘Happy Sunday’, it most likely won’t be all that happy. But there’s ‘loves’ in it after all.

LoL. – The Old Grump.

The dark day haiku

Carry a flashlight
to walk the streets of Rome – it
is that dark today.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)

Note
The truth and nothing but. The seemingly endless scorchers of summer 2020 have come to a dark and wet end for the time being.

Dunking simplified

Put the cookie in
your mouth, sip coffee, wait
until soggy, down.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)

Note
There are people with dunking problems, e.g. if the cookie disintegrates when dunked in the coffee (or tea or milk or whatever). Follow the above haiku to avoid this. Try it!

PS: I was going to write “down the hatch” instead of “down”, but that would have violated haiku rules.

The monosyllabic haiku

Oh! So, no if but 
and or what not like that true
no, no, it ain’t bro.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)

Note
The year and my blogs have gotten off to a slow start – took me until February to even think of posting something. And now it’s this mono-syllable thing that doesn’t say much, does it? Yes, I think it could be safely said that it is somewhat reticent in the meaning department.

The stopped on Via Laurentina haiku

All five fingers of
right hand on her face, middle
pushing up nose tip

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)

Note
The truth and nothing but. Observed the driver of a car in the right lane while stuck in traffic this morning.

Sunday haiku

Most haiku
fall flat
on their you know what

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)

Note
Lo! He’s broken his lasting poetic silence to come out with an underfilled haiku denigrating the genre, and that on Sunday. As to the you know what, there are two principal possibilities.

The jomo haiku

Dear John, enjoyed not
being there among dfs
slurping aperol

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)

Note
As you (all 3 of you constituting my dear audience) know, JOMO stands for “joy of missing out.” It is with that emotion that I missed out on yet another apero party organized by a well-known expat yuppy organization in yet another umpteen star hotel bar in that capital of apero parties of the land of aperol spritz. As to what “dfs” may mean, give free reign to your imagination.

The instagram profile haiku

Lives in Japan, has
Japanese name, takes pictures
of his aging cats.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)

Notes
What do you really know about your numerous social network friends (apart from the ones you actually know in person)? Sometimes just some surface facts – as in the above haiku – that don’t amount to much. They remain, in E. M. Forster’s terminology (cf. Aspects of the Novel), rather flat characters that can be (insufficiently) described by one or two or three features.

Hell hath no fury

greater than a 
next door neighbor with a 
hammer drill

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)

Note
The truth and nothing but, first hand. This man won't stop until there's a zillion holes in every wall. Here’s to William Congreve who is misquoted here.

First December 31st Haiku

It’s cleaning day, can’t
hear a thing but vacuum
cleaner howl.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
Named this “First December 31st Haiku”. Surely there’s going to be something more important today than meditating on an obnoxious vacuum cleaner. It’s a bagless one from AEG, which works fine except for the you know what. On that note: Happy New Year!

The Tom and Jerry haiku

You take the cats out
with you and shut the door. That’s
it for a long while.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
The first two lines are pretty much stolen from someone else's 14-line poem that started this way. The remaining 12 lines were full of details I didn’t quite feel like bothering with, imagining that the most exciting event had been described (that of letting the cats out), so I kind of skimmed through the rest (back asleep, rain forecast, sugar the strawberries, canceled, drift back beneath, to list a few) and then decided to name the unnamed cats Tom and Jerry to pep the whole thing up. How’s that for genesis?

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.

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!

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?