My life as a hunter and gatherer

was short-lived. I could 
not kill animals and found 
only acorns to eat.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)

Note
There are some, mostly male chauvinists, who proclaim that they were meant to be hunters (while women were meant to be gatherers, of course) and that the failure of many men in current society can be explained by the alienation that is due to them not being able to go after their hunting business. So I pictured this return to nature for myself for a second, did a mental reality check and quickly returned to contemporary amenities (for example, a computer to write and publish stuff).

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.

Monosyllabic again

Oh no! What now? So
we’re fucked? Can’t be all true, no
way, Ho Say! Right-ho.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)

Note
I seem to remember having written and posted a monosyllabic haiku (don’t remember it or what it might have been about – but I have a chronically bad memory for things I’ve written, so nothing new there). 
Well, here comes another one. It cheats a little bit, because José actually has two syllables. However, I don’t think this will upset anyone excessively. 
Anyway, the general bias goes well with this year, which might go down in history as a year that was effed up in many ways.

PS: Did research and found the other one.

The Donald Trump haiku

The mover and shaker
has moved to another golf course
to shake a few clubs.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)

Note
Doing the only thing he might be half good at. Besides spreading lies and clapping for himself, of course. The haiku is slightly overfilled, like the man himself.

The Laura Nyro haiku

I like her looks more 
than her singing and songs. 
Strange as it may seem.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)

Note
The plain truth. Someone on tumblr recently posted a song by Laura Nyro, which reminded me of the one album of hers – New York Tendaberry – I have. As a consequence, I spent about half an hour listening to Nyro on youtube, coming to the conclusion that my love for her music and style of singing has not grown during about a decade of not listening. 

The Windows update haiku

Walking around like
a tiger in a cage – Micro-
soft is updating.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)

Notes
The truth and nothing but. Well, except that I didn’t really turn into a tiger. But my anger is that of a caged big cat. It’s been going on for years – you are trying to get some work done while Microsoft nixes all your plans by doing an excruciatingly slow update it deems necessary for reasons even Microsoft probably doesn’t understand. Otherwise they would not constantly update their crap.

The in the office haiku

In my back a sound – 
if short, it’s the rolling of
a tire, if long: rain

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)

Note
It turned out to be short. Since there was no engine noise, it must have been an electric car or a hybrid in electric mode. Can such dissimilar sources cause similar sounds? But both alternatives presented themselves to me without conscious reflection as I was sitting in my office with my back to the window, not bothering to turn around to verify.

He thinks he'll keep her (haiku #2318)

Clock. Carpenter. My.
Close to midnight. YouTube playing.
He thinks he’ll keep her.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)

Note
Pieces of disjointed truth and nothing but.

The perfect life haiku

She wanted a life
as perfect as what you see
in advertising.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2020)

Note
One of the common experiences with advertising is that you don't necessarily get what was advertised when you buy the product. Advertising has that special knack of making things look better than true. And an old wisdom says that if something looks too good to be true it most likely isn't true. Like the kind of life generally portrayed by advertising. It's better to think of it as staged and paid bliss, I'd say, subtracting at least 75 percent as a reality penalty.

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 freezing December night haiku

It’s just me and the
moon now, a noncommittal
cold stare from above.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)

Note
Once in a while it hits us all – the urge to involve the moon in poetry. This is the outcome of my latest moon wax attack. Thank God it’s from above. From below would definitely be spooky. Should have worn mittens and a warm hat on that imaginary December night walk.

The looking at an old picture haiku

Was she playing a
harmonica or was that 
a fake wide moustache?

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)

Note
You know those old photos – sharp, black and white and very small. So, I am unable to tell without a magnifying glass. I remember the hike we took in the mountains of Crete way back when but have no recollection of that harmonica or moustache instant. She’s standing on rocks under an olive tree with her hand held close to her mouth. As you would to hold a moustache in place or point to it or to hold and play a harmonica. Will we ever know?

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 sowing the seeds of doubt haiku

A parked metal box, 
human talk issuing from 
it. Oh so what if.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)

Note
All based on experience from a few minutes ago. The last 4 words are doing the sowing.

The clack clack haiku

Man in his fifties,
greying, in shorts, super tanned,
chews gum open-mouthed.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)

Note
Pretty much compressed razor edge of time reporting. The tanned shorts variety of Leisure Suit Larry.

The Ice Saints Haiku

Coldest mid May in
decades, thunder rolling,
endless, endless rain

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2019)

Note
All true, nothing to add. Who are the Ice Saints?

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.